Aleida mustered a smile, joined her aunt, and set down her suitcase.
“I’m so happy to see—” Tante Margriet’s face fell. “Are you all right, Schatje?”
No amount of rouge or lipstick could bring color to her face. “I’m fine, Tante. I’m glad I could visit for Easter. How are you?”
“We’re well.” Tante Margriet gestured to a table on the lawn. “I have tea. We saved our ration for your visit. We can watch the ducklings on the pond.”
“Thank you.” Aleida took a seat and smoothed the skirt of her dove-gray suit. The lawn sloped in emerald tones toward the deep green pond, ringed by trees bearing the grassy green leaves of spring.
Tante Margriet wore a tweed suit and matching hat and a look of concern. “Any progress finding Theo?”
Aleida couldn’t speak. Every Friday, her attempts to follow Mr. Randolph from Trafalgar Square Station had been foiled. Once she’d had ARP duty, once she’d needed to work late, and twice Mr. Randolph hadn’t come—or she’d missed him.
Yesterday, though, she’d found him on the platform for the Bakerloo Line. As the train approached, she’d moved into position to board the car behind his. But then he’d turned. He’d spotted her. Had he recognized her? Even with the veil and scarf? Or did the veil and scarf only make her look suspicious?
With her heart pummeling her rib cage, she’d slipped behind a pillar—and fled.
Aleida’s face crumpled. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You dear girl.” Tante Margriet gripped Aleida’s clenched hands, then gasped and stared. “What happened to your hand?”
The knuckles on her left hand flamed red. From frenzied tapping. She could no longer stop herself. And the pain of tapping raw flesh felt right somehow.
“Did it happen on ARP duty?” Tante Margriet frowned and inspected her hand. “Such dangerous and rough work. I thought you’d had fewer air raids recently. Oh dear. I’ll have Mrs. Swinton bring some salve.”
“Thank you.” Aleida tugged her hands free and wrapped them around a teacup.
Her aunt’s blue eyes swam with worry. “Any news on that young lady you worked with? I haven’t read anything in the papers.”
A month had passed with no answers, adding to the heaviness of the gray. “I talked to the police. They were very kind and very concerned about the marks on Nilima’s neck. They did investigate, but she had no enemies, not a single suspect. She hadn’t been robbed or—or violated. They simply can’t imagine why someone would kill her.”
Tante Margriet clucked her tongue. “How odd. And how dreadful.”
“It is.” Aleida had returned to the Sharma home and told Mrs. Sharma what the police had said. Mrs. Sharma already knew, and she discounted the whole investigation. She knew her daughter had been murdered, and she believed she’d been killed due to the color of her skin.
Suspicion lurked around the edges of Aleida’s mind. Nilima was a foreigner. Jouveau was a foreigner who spoke up for his fellow refugees. Elliott Hastings had been devoted to improving the lot of refugees. Was that enough to connect the murders? Louisa doubted it, and Aleida hadn’t voiced her flimsy theory to the police.
“Aleida?” Tante Margriet laid a hand on Aleida’s forearm. “I’m worried about you. I’ve never seen you so—”
“I’m fine. I’llbefine.” She took a nourishing sip of hot tea. “Staying at Bentley Hall will be good for me. So many happy memories.”
Tante Margriet nodded toward the pond, dotted with white ducks and brown ducklings. “I can still see you and Gerrit and Cilla building a dam in that pond.”
The two cousins closest to Aleida in age, and a genuine smile bent Aleida’s mouth for the first time in weeks. “That would have been Gerrit’s idea.”
“Already a civil engineer, that boy, with you and Cilla his ready accomplices.” Her aunt chuckled.
“I worry about them, living under the Nazis. I can’t even imagine what they’re enduring.”
“Hush.” Tante Margriet topped off her tea. “Every day I pray for my parents, my three brothers, and my nieces and nephews over there. However, this weekend I mean to cheer you up. So, no more of that. Only happy talk.”
“I’m always happy here.” Aleida forced her face to relax.
“Not always,” Tante Margriet said with a chuckle.
Aleida shrugged. “We cousins did have our squabbles, as children do. My squabbles were mostly with my sisters.”
Tante Margriet’s forehead furrowed. “I do wish those two—”
