“But who was Erich?”

“Have you heard of Cultybraggan?”

Carmen shook her head.

“It was the wartime internment camp. In Perthshire. Comrie. Where my mother’s from.”

Carmen thought of the beautiful, sophisticated woman in the photographs from a few weeks ago.

“She volunteered nursing services during the war . . .” He shrugged. “I suppose . . . it’s hardly fair to think your mother has to be a saint . . .”

“So, hang on . . .”

“I don’t know anything about him,” said Mr. McCredie stiffly, “except he was a German. My dad was a German POW.”

Carmen’s heart overflowed with pity. “And you knew?”

“Oh, my relatives had a lot to say about it. The McCredie side were quite a loud and vocal people.”

“From when you were small?”

“There were always whispers. The boys at school got a hold of it. Christ.”

“My God,” said Carmen. “That’s . . . that’s . . .”

“It was a boarding school.”

“In Edinburgh?”

“Yes.”

“Your parents, who lived in Edinburgh, sent you to boarding school in Edinburgh?”

“I think . . . I think there was a limit as to how long my father could have me around. I didn’t get a lot less blond.”

Carmen leaned over and patted him on the sleeve. “Oh God, that must have been so hard.”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you . . . why didn’t you move? Get away?”

“To do what? Stupid, useless bloody son of a . . .” He couldn’t even say it. “My mother never got over it. The shame. Everyone knew. Everyone. Bad blood. That’s what they said.”

Carmen remembered Bronagh mentioning it. Goodness. Everyone did know. This was why. This was why he hid himself away.

“I don’t understand. Why did you stay in the city?”

“It’s still my city. I love it,” said Mr. McCredie defiantly. “My entire family had been stupid bloody explorers. I wasn’t going to do that just to impress my father. Who, by the way, could never have been impressed with anything I ever did.”

“And . . . Erich?”

He shrugged. “I don’t . . . I don’t care. I don’t even know his surname.”

Suddenly Carmen thought of something. “I . . . You know the people who came into the shop? The German people?”

He looked at her. “I don’t want to see them.”

“But . . . they said they have letters. They have something! You have to see it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. This whole thing—it ruined my life. My entire life.”

Carmen thought of the confused little boy, sent off to a cold dorm while his parents were only down the road. “But they seem so nice . . . It was a long time ago, Mr. McCredie. Everyone would understand. Things are . . . things are so different.”

“Not if he was tossing your grandparents onto trains, it isn’t.”

“Do you know what he did?”

He shook his head. “No, but I can have a reasonable belief it was nothing good.”