Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody

dismounted quickly and gracefully. Before her riding boots touched the flags, a groom appeared to take charge of the chestnut bay mare. She patted the horse’s neck and spoke briefly to the groom before turning towards the house. Her dark bobbed hair gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. She seemed to glide up the steps to the house in such a slow deliberate way that I expected her to leave an impression on the air after she sailed through it.
    Slowly, I changed from my motoring outfit into an afternoon dress. It occurred to me that Mrs Braithwaite looked like the kind of woman who could browbeat the entire West Riding police force and hire a small army of private detectives. The task ahead seemed suddenly more daunting. If no one else had traced Joshua Braithwaite, what on earth made me think I would?
    Tabitha tapped on the door. ‘Are you ready to come and meet Mother? It won’t take her long to change out of her riding togs. I’ve told her you’re here.’
    Tabitha now wore an exotic Chinese silk smoking suit decorated with bridges, nightingales and bashful lovers. A long ivory cigarette holder peeped from the top pocket.
    I sat down on the window seat. ‘Just one more thing, Tabitha. You and your mother know everyone. All the questions I’m going to ask, she probably already has. From my brief glimpse of the way your mother dismounts, I’d say she’s a very capable woman.’
    Tabitha joined me on the window seat. ‘You can’t tell aperson’s character from the way she rides a horse.’
    ‘Perhaps not.’ I said.
    Tabitha picked up the shawl. She shook it out – a swirling intricate pattern in the most exquisite shading, from lightest violet to darkest purple, with a delicate fringe.
    ‘This is Silesian Merino, it’s the finest wool in the world. The bulk of German sheep are merino crossed with native breeds, but the Silesian is highly prized. This shawl was a gift from Mr von Hofmann, a chemist who had his own dyeing company. Before the war, he and his family were our regular visitors. We used to go to concerts together. There’s an area in Bradford, off Leeds Road, called Little Germany. That’s where Germans had their warehouses and offices.’ She folded the shawl carefully. ‘Some people said Dad was too close to the German merchants, and especially too close to Mr von Hofmann. But they were friends. That’s all. When they all had to leave, go back to Germany, there was cruel talk. People said we were German sympathisers. Uncle Neville wasn’t included in the lies, but Dad was. I think all that talk, all those feelings might have got in the way of finding out the truth when Dad went missing. People were so fierce at that time. One old lady in Bingley dared not take her dachshund for a walk because it was a German dog. There were nasty scenes in Keighley, German shops burned.’
    ‘Do you believe someone might have harmed your father because of his friendship with von Hofmann?’
    She screwed up her face in a look of horror and froze in the act of producing a packet of cigarettes from one of her many pockets. ‘That never even crossed my mind.’
    ‘It’s unlikely,’ I said quickly, ‘but I’m trying to look at the possibilities.’
    Unlikely because, why would someone with a powerful grudge wait two years to act on that grudge?
    She inserted a cigarette into the ivory holder. ‘All thatstuff about our being Germany sympathisers had evaporated by then. It was only ever tittle-tattle. The von Hofmanns left. We all plunged headlong into the war effort. Edmund enlisted the minute he was old enough. I’d signed on for the VAD. No one could say we’re not patriotic. We were producing army khaki in the mill, weavers working all hours.’ She lit her cigarette. ‘But this just goes to show that you can ask hard questions. I can’t. And even if I could, people wouldn’t tell me the truth. They’d talk behind our backs, but not to my face. And it’s all too personal to go to some anonymous