Four

 

‘Don’t go away,’ Woodyatt said. ‘Don’t get a transfer anywhere while I’m gone.’

Nicole laughed and he went on. ‘I’ve got to ask a few questions,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’ He hoped it would be all and that, after the questions, he could call on the Military Police and the whole thing would be over. ‘This girl you turned up did know Montrouge.’

They closed the shutters of the flat. Nicole made coffee and they drank it as they listened to the news. All was still quiet, though there were nervous reports of patrol activity, and east of Metz a German aeroplane had been shot down. But nothing more. All things considered, it seemed a funny war.

The following morning, Woodyatt set off for Amiens, driving across the battlefields of the First War. They bore the scars of that conflict and he saw areas that were still mutilated by trenches and shell holes, and marked with occasional memorials to the fallen. He reached Amiens during the afternoon. It was as full of troops as everywhere else and the feeling of urgency was as clear there as it had been in Metz. Picardy farmers and businessmen mixed with trim-legged shop girls and here and there you could see the red, white and black crest of the province.

Dreuil was a small place, typical of the Somme country, with a row of small houses running along the main street. But, unlike many of the Somme villages, it had some pretensions to attractiveness. There were trees and a glimpse of the river not far from the road. To the East it was possible to see the towering spire of Amiens Cathedral. He found the house without any trouble. It was small and neat, set away by forty metres of meadow from the other houses. There was a small front garden and a white door. His knock went unanswered and he assumed that Dominique Sardier had not yet returned from work. At the next house along, a woman appeared with a child hanging on to her leg. ‘She’s not here,’ she said. ‘She’s visiting relations. In Paris.’

‘What relations?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Some uncle, I think. She’ll be back on Saturday.’

Woodyatt was back in Metz the following day. When he walked into the library Nicole’s face lit up and that night they ate at a little restaurant near her flat. She seemed sad and he probed until he got the reason. She was worried by the war and what it would bring when it came.

‘I just want to be married and have children,’ she said. ‘I just want to grow old in peace.’

The three days before he had to return to Amiens passed in an atmosphere almost of domesticity. Nicole was happy but underlying her happiness there was always an element of worry because the news from Norway had grown worse.

‘Perhaps the war won’t come after all,’ she said. ‘Perhaps the politicians are right and if we don’t look for it, it will go away.

When he returned to Amiens, he waited until early evening before calling at the house in the Rue de Paris. This time he found Dominique Sardier at home. He was surprised at her appearance. He had expected someone drab and uninteresting but she seemed brisk and alert. She was tall, in her middle twenties, not pretty in the way Nicole was pretty, but with thick chestnut hair, tremendous green eyes and an excellent figure. She was puzzled by his arrival but she let him into the house. It was neatly furnished with the usual uncomfortable French chairs and an old painting or two that didn’t seem worth much. But the curtains were bright and there was a small crucifix over an old roll-top desk against the wall.

‘Montrouge?’ she said as he framed his question. ‘Yes, of course, I know Monsieur Montrouge. Why do you want to know?’

Woodyatt had his answer ready. ‘We believe Monsieur Montrouge worked for the allies between 1914 and 1918,’ he said. ‘We think he might be of help again.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘How do you know?’

‘He’s my uncle.’

‘Your uncle?’ She seemed to be a real find.

‘Well, not exactly. A sort of uncle. My grandfather, Josephe Sardier, from Metz, married a Marie-Adelaide Weil, from Amiens. His sister, Charlotte, married a Georges Picard who came from Alsace, so that their daughter, Jeanne, and my father, also Josephe, were cousins.’

He encouraged her to talk about her family.

‘My father was born in 1880,’ she explained. ‘I was born in 1914 just before he vanished in the great mobilisation. He was killed in 1916 at Verdun. My mother died in 1936.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s a long time ago. His cousin, Jeanne, was a little older. She was born in 1870. She married Monsieur Montrouge in 1911. I don’t think it was a love match. She spoke German because many people in Alsace and Lorraine speak German and eventually she went to work in Germany. Monsieur Montrouge was also working there. She died last year. I seem now to be his only relative. When you have nobody, even a relative by marriage is worth having.’

She was an unusual young woman. She had a dazzling smile but at times her face became stiff and serious so that he wasn’t sure what to make of her.

‘Why did they leave Germany?’ Woodyatt knew the answer but he wanted to hear this woman’s version. She studied him carefully before replying.

‘She came some time before him,’ she said. ‘At the time the Nazis were beating up the Jews and her father was a Jew, so she probably felt it wise. I believe she and my mother were very good friends when they were young and they were always visiting each other.’

‘Did they go on visiting after your aunt went to live in Germany?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t think so. But my aunt was an odd character. Intellectual. Full of strange modern ideas. Perhaps that’s why she left him. He told me it was just incompatibility. They lived in Dresden and you had to go to Berlin and then south. It was a long way.’

‘What about in 1914?’ he asked. ‘What happened then? Your father went into the army. What about Monsieur Montrouge?’

She was uncertain. ‘I don’t think he served in the army at all,’ she said. ‘He was trapped in Germany by the outbreak of the war, he said, and spent the whole of it in a German camp of some sort.’

‘But after the war he remained in Germany.’ Woodyatt affected bewilderment. ‘I’d have thought he would have wanted to return to France.’

‘He got a job with the Occupying Forces.’

‘Doing what?’

‘He was some sort of teacher of languages. In 1918 in France jobs were hard to get.’

Woodyatt pulled a face. ‘They were harder to get in Germany. The Deutsche Mark was devalued until you had to take a barrow-load of banknotes to buy a kilo of butter.’

‘He must have been paid from France.’ She smiled, confident of her theory. ‘Or, perhaps, even in American dollars. Then he would have been well off.’ She studied Woodyatt, her eyes steady on his and he noticed again how beautiful they were. ‘You seem very interested in my uncle. Why?’

Woodyatt gestured. ‘We have a feeling he was a British agent prior to 1914. Perhaps that’s why he ended up a prisoner.’ It was a good answer and seemed to satisfy her.

‘Perhaps so,’ she agreed. ‘After the war I think he worked for a while as a correspondent for a Paris newspaper. With a special interest in what the Germans were up to. Because they were certainly getting round the Versailles agreement they made in 1919, weren’t they? If he were some sort of agent, it would explain a lot.’

‘Did you ever meet him at that time?’

‘Not until he left Germany. Besides, at that time, life was wonderful.’ For a moment her face was transformed by the memory of happiness, and it seemed to glow. ‘Though, of course,’ she went on, ‘always there was the threat of Germany. It put a blight on all those years.’

Woodyatt remembered it only too well, the feeling that sooner or later somebody was going to have to face up to the bullies of Europe and that it might be painful.

‘He was in difficulties with money at first,’ she went on. ‘Later he was able to get money from investments he’d made in Switzerland. He became quite comfortably off. But about that time my aunt died. She went quite quickly.’

‘And Monsieur Montrouge? Where is he now?’

She was about to answer but then she stopped dead. ‘Why?’ she asked again. ‘Why are you so very interested?’

Woodyatt gestured. ‘There may be rewards for him. I don’t know.’ The lies came easily. But he wasn’t sure they satisfied her. ‘All I know is that I was asked to find him. My job’s Intelligence.’

‘Why would Intelligence be interested?’

‘I think they feel that, after his long stay in Germany, he might be able to help. I need to talk to him.’

‘Unfortunately, you can’t. He decided to go to Paris. He said he’d grown up there and wanted to return.’

Woodyatt paused, his mind working. ‘What sort of man is he?’ he asked. ‘It’s important that I know. I have to be certain I have the right man.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t know really what he’s like. I’ve not known him long and he’s – a little secretive.’

She still seemed suspicious of him and he decided a little flattery might help. ‘Mademoiselle Sardier,’ he said. ‘I’m staying at the Hôtel Central near the Place Gambetta. It has an excellent restaurant. I wonder if I can ask you to have dinner with me this evening. We can continue our talk there.’

She seemed startled and he suspected she hadn’t been asked out for a long time.

‘I have a car,’ he persisted. ‘May I call for you around seven o’clock?’

She studied him quietly then she smiled. It was dazzling. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you,’ she said. ‘It could be very interesting.’

 

She had obviously put on her best outfit – a green affair that matched her eyes – and she looked unexpectedly stunning. She had swept her hair above her head so that it showed the long column of her neck and the shape of her shoulders. He was startled at the difference in her.

‘Mademoiselle Sardier,’ he said. ‘You look quite splendid.’

He handed her a bouquet of red roses he had bought near the station a few minutes before. At the time he had thought they were going to be wasted on her. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Her eyes sparkled as she took them from him and arranged them in a vase. Against the late sunshine, they were the colour of blood.

They drove to the hotel in the warm evening sunshine. Half of Amiens seemed to be out on the streets, British and French soldiers walking with girls, men strolling with their wives, studying the menus outside the restaurants, taking their apéritifs on the café terraces.

The landlord and the head waiter at the hotel, both of whom obviously knew Dominique Sardier, registered the same surprise that Woodyatt had shown. And he noticed as they entered the dining room that several heads turned. She was impressive: straight, tall, her excellent features topped by the mass of chestnut hair. As Woodyatt held her chair for her, he received a magnificent smile.

‘Mademoiselle Sardier,’ he said again. ‘You really are very beautiful. And I’m not the only man here who’s noticed it.’

She was clearly pleased at the compliment and he wondered why no one had remarked on her beauty before tonight.

She seemed to guess his thoughts. ‘I am in my Sunday best,’ she explained. ‘Normally I wear simpler clothes. I am a teacher, and teachers are expected to be anonymous. I soon discovered that a teacher who wears pretty clothes and a pretty hair style attracts attention from the fathers of the children she instructs and that is something the mothers don’t like. Teachers are expected to be taken seriously.’

They ate canard à la Rouennaise with chablis, followed by coffee and brandy, and Woodyatt found he was enjoying what he had regarded as a duty. It seemed to be time to get down to business.

‘Mademoiselle Sardier–’ he began.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that after a meal like that we ought to address each other by our Christian names. What is yours?’

‘James.’

She was silent, her head on one side, as if she were trying it for size. ‘That is a good name,’ she announced. ‘Dignified. Strong. You had kings called James.’

Woodyatt smiled. ‘Not very good ones.’ He paused. ‘Dominique, I want to know more about Georges Montrouge.’

She made a slight movement of annoyance. ‘Why are you so interested in him? I’m very protective towards him.’

His quarry was very lucky, Woodyatt thought. ‘If he was a British agent,’ he said, ‘he was a brave man and we want to get him to safety. Why are you so concerned for him?’

‘He’s all I have in the world.’

‘I’d like his address.’

She smiled. ‘Not yet, James Woodyatt. He is my only relative and sometimes in such circumstances one is very much aware there’s nobody else who cares whether one lives or dies.’

He studied her for a moment, puzzled. ‘Why haven’t you married?’ he asked.

She gave a small wry smile. ‘He got away,’ she said bluntly.

‘There was someone?’

‘Oh yes.’ She spoke lightly but he suspected it was her way of hiding an old wound. ‘He was a doctor. I was training to be a nurse. He had a wife in the South somewhere. We became lovers. His name was Maillardrois. Etienne Maillardrois. And I was inexperienced enough in those days to think him wonderful. But he wasn’t really. He was not a very skilful lover and often left me frustrated and angry. I called him Monsieur Maladroit.’

She drew a deep breath, surprisingly willing to discuss her life. ‘It was a poor sort of affair but it went on and on because I was too immature to know how to end it. Then my mother fell ill and I had to look after her. It changed everything.’

‘Did he ask you to marry him?’

‘He was always careful not to. Doctors know enough not to take on someone who will be a burden. Perhaps he wanted me – I don’t know – but he didn’t want my mother, too. I gave up nursing so I could spend more time with her. I became a teacher. Are you married?’

‘I was. It didn’t work out.’

‘What happened? You’ve got my story out of me. I’m entitled to hear yours.’

He laughed. ‘When the war came, she decided she preferred navy blue to army khaki.’

‘Do you have relations?’

‘I have a brother and two sisters. All married. All with children. And plenty of cousins.’

‘How lucky you are! Yet you want to take away from me the only relation I’ve got.’

‘No.’ Woodyatt knew he was lying. ‘But I must find him.’ The time seemed to have come to be honest at last. ‘I have a confession to make, Dominique,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m afraid that what I’ve been telling you hasn’t been entirely the truth.’

She studied him coolly. ‘Somehow,’ she admitted, ‘I never thought it was. So what is the truth?’

‘I have good reason to believe that this man who’s become your uncle by marriage isn’t whom you think he is.’

She raised her eyebrows. She didn’t seem startled, but he could see she was growing angry. ‘So, if he isn’t Georges Montrouge, who is he?’

‘There is a very strong possibility that he isn’t even a Frenchman.’

She gave a twisted smile. ‘You’re making it very difficult. Let’s start by being honest. If he isn’t a Frenchman, what is he?’

‘A German.’

‘No!’

Woodyatt put his hand out but she withdrew hers sharply, her eyes bright with rage.

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Rubbish! It’s not possible.’

‘It’s very possible. I think he went in Germany by the name of Georg von Rothügel. I don’t know how good your German is–’

‘My German is excellent!’

‘Then translate von Rothügel. Compare it with Montrouge.’

Her eyes were glowing with a green fire and her anger gave her an additional unexpected beauty. ‘This is ridiculous!’

‘Is it? I have also reason to believe that before he became German, he was an Englishman. By the name of Redmond.’

‘I don’t believe it! Why would an Englishman become a German. And then why should this German become a Frenchman?’

‘He was a British soldier,’ he went on. ‘Sir George Redmond. Think of it, Dominique. George Redmond. Georg von Rothügel. Georges Montrouge. In 1904 he found himself in trouble and chose to disappear. We think the Germans had been watching him for years.’

‘It’s not possible.’

‘It’s very possible. The life in Germany you know so little about. The money he put into Swiss banks. He is believed to have given away Allied secrets before the last war and helped to train the Germans for this one.’

‘Monsieur Montrouge is an honourable man!’

‘Is he? He tricked his English wife into accepting the body of another man as his. He married Jeanne Picard while that first wife was still alive.’

‘You have no proof of this.’

‘We have all the proof in the world.’ Again he tried to lay his hand on hers and again she snatched it away. ‘Believe me. I don’t give a damn what he’s done. I just want to get him to safety, before the Germans find him and liquidate him.’

She gave a soft snort of contempt, her eyes alive with rage. ‘It’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard! You brought me here under false pretences!’

‘Until a few moments ago I was finding it a most enjoyable experience. I’m sorry it had to go sour. But believe me, I need to find this Georges Montrouge. To get him out of France.’

‘You seem to think the Germans are going to fight their way across France as they did in 1914.’

‘I hope to God they don’t. But, whether they do or not, there are always German agents to take care of him.’

She pushed her chair back and he was aware of heads turning as her voice rose. ‘First of all,’ she said. ‘I think your story is the figment of a wild imagination and, secondly, even if it’s true, I think you want to put him in prison. In the Tower of London perhaps.’

‘They don’t put people in the Tower any more. It’s too easy to escape.’

‘Captain Woodyatt–’

‘I thought it was to be James.’

‘I think “Captain Woodyatt” is better under the circumstances. I begin even to believe that you aren’t who you say you are.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for the meal. And for the roses. It was most kind of you. It’s a pity I have to suspect it was all for a purpose. Please don’t rise. I’ll see myself home.’