Elizabeth Edmondson - The Frozen Lake - A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets

She suggested a film.

‘There’s the new Cary Grant at the Odeon. With Bettina Brand. Queues round the block, I should think.’

‘Never mind,’ Cecy said. ‘Let’s brave the queue, and go.’

It was a good programme, with a cartoon before the Pathé News and the main feature. They found the cartoon very funny, although the light-hearted mood was rather dispelled by the grainy news pictures of a rally in Berlin.

‘Good marchers, you’ve got to say that for them,’ said a woman in the row behind.

‘Some of that discipline would do all the layabouts in this country a bit of good.’

‘That Hitler’s barking: shouting and yelling and shooting his arm into the air all the time. And his moustache, did you ever see anything so silly?’

‘He makes my flesh creep, him and those others going about in uniforms all the time.’

‘Sssh.’

The scenes of Herr Hitler addressing a rally gave way to ranks of German beauties, bursting with health at a Strength Through Joy camp, waving scarves in synchronised patterns, and then to a shot of members of Hitler Youth relaxing with outsize tankards of beer on benches at a heavily timbered country inn, with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop.

‘At last,’ Cecy said, settling herself more comfortably in her seat as the strains of organ music faded away, and the curtains swished open again to show MGM’s roaring lion.

Late to bed, and cursed with wakefulness, Alix finally fell into a restless sleep in the early hours of the morning. As a result, she overslept and only just got to her office on time, signing her name in the book at one minute to nine. The man on duty at the reception desk scowled at her, he’d hoped to catch her out for once. ‘Thank you, Mr Milsom,’ she said brightly. Avoiding the minute and ancient lift in the centre of the stairwell, she started up the three flights of stairs to her office in the copywriting department.

Although office was a generous word for a cubby-hole carved out of a box room, with barely enough room for a small desk, a chair and a wobbly bookshelf containing out of date directories (cunningly dumped there by other members of staff), a thesaurus (essential, always tracked down and recovered within a short time of it being purloined from the shelf), a dictionary (1912 edition, the more modern one having been borrowed by the copy department and never returned), an aged copy of Gray’s Anatomy (invaluable for pharmaceutical clients and for the dull but profitable remedies-for-all-ailments products), last year’s Wisden (a mystery, that one), dictionaries of quotations and proverbs (almost as closely guarded as the Roget) and several discarded trashy novels, borrowed by members of the typing pool on dull days and kept there as being the only available shelf space.

A brisk morning’s work with the EasiTums account – For the liverish feeling that takes the zest out of life – saw her desk clear of immediate tasks, and at ten to one, she was in the telephone box on the corner of the street.

She’d try Edwin at his studio number first, she might be lucky and she’d rather telephone him there than risk ringing Wyncrag. She picked up the receiver, dialled the operator, and asked for a long distance number. There was a long pause, clicking sounds, the operator told her to put in her coins, and she was through.

Her twin’s voice came down the line, blessedly familiar. ‘Alix?’

‘Oh, Edwin, yes, it’s me. Look, I wonder …’ Now she didn’t really know what to say. ‘Is it true, is the lake freezing?’

‘Coming along nicely. Give it a few more days of this frost and we’ll be skating on it. They all swear there’s no sign of the weather changing. Come up, do, or can’t you bear to drag yourself away from the bright lights of London?’

‘If only you knew. I was thinking of it, but Grandmama …’

‘She’ll be pleased.’

‘It’s been more than three years.’

‘No time at all, and besides, it is your home. Come up as soon as you can get away. Don’t bring the man in your life with you, however.’

‘There isn’t one.’

The silence at the other end spoke volumes. ‘Edwin? Are you still there?’

‘Let me know what train, so that you can be met, Lexy,’ he said.

His use of her nursery name from long ago made her blink. ‘I’d better telephone Grandmama.’

‘I’ll tell her. I’ll say I rang you and persuaded you to come north. And I’ll look out your skates for you, take them to the blacksmith if the blades need sharpening.’

The operator cut in, her voice indifferent. ‘Your three minutes are up, caller.’

Saul Richardson looked down from the tall window. Beneath him, the traffic in Whitehall buzzed to and fro, the cars and taxis so many black beetles, the red livery of the double-decker buses a flash of brightness in the rainy gloom. A troop of Horseguards trotted past, hooves ringing on the Tarmac, the riders’ uniforms and the gleam of their breastplates adding another dash of colour to the scene. Black horses shook heads and manes, snatched at bridles, eager to get back to their stalls, out of the sleeting rain.

He turned and looked in the other direction, out over Parliament Square. Westminster Abbey and squat St Margaret’s, both blackened by soot, looked ancient, cold and unwelcoming. The great Gothic edifice of the Houses of Parliament did nothing to enliven the scene. A solitary constable in a cape stood on duty at the gates to the House of Commons. No flag fluttered above St Stephen’s Tower; the House had risen for the Christmas break, and MPs were away in constituencies, gadding abroad on fact-finding or government missions, or packing for holidays in warmer climes. Only MPs like Saul, a junior member of His Majesty’s Government, were still in town, serving king and country.

The door opened and a young man, smooth as to clothes, hair and expression, came into the room.

‘The morning newspapers, sir. I’ve marked one or two items for you to look at.’

‘Thank you, Charles,’ Saul said, still gazing out of the window.

Charles coughed, Saul looked around at him. ‘What is it?’

‘The lakes are freezing, so it says in The Times .’

‘The lakes? Which lakes? What are you talking about? Canada? The United States?’

‘Your lake, sir. I thought you would be interested.’

‘My lake?’

‘In Westmoreland.’

‘I’ll have a look at the papers in a minute.’

‘These letters are for you to attend to.’

‘Leave them on the desk.’

‘Will there be anything else?’

‘No, no … Why?’

‘Because if you don’t need me for a while, I’ll go to Downing Street and collect those papers from the Cabinet Office.’

‘Can’t they send a messenger? Oh, very well.’ Saul waited for the door to shut completely, and then bounded to his desk and took up the newspaper. Ignoring trouble in Turkey – dammit, there was always trouble in Turkey – alarming news in from the Far East and the tense situation in Spain, Charles, impudent young ass, had folded the newspaper back to an aerial photograph of snow-covered fells towering over that oh-so-familiar sheet of water, gleaming in icy splendour.

Saul read the caption and the piece that accompanied the photograph. Then he threw the paper down on the desk and went back to the window, his arms folded. He had the odd sensation of being two men, one clad in the black jacket and grey striped trousers of the official world, pale faced, not a sleek hair out of place; the other existing three hundred miles away, wearing tweeds, brown boots and skates on his feet, hair ruffled by the wind, cheeks glowing from the cold.