The Best of Our Spies (52 page)

If anything, the sleet was heavier now and he drove round what he took was the town centre in an attempt to find somewhere to stay. He stopped at a small police station, where the desk sergeant insisted on seeing some form of identification. Satisfied was not the quite word to describe his reaction, implying as it would some evidence of a positive attitude. But he did at least scrawl down the name of a hotel with the most basic of directions.

The hotel was approached down a narrow side street which was only just wide enough for the car to pass. At the end, the road widened into a small square, which had probably been a coaching stop. Any thoughts of a comfortable room and a roaring fire were soon disabused.

The owner wanted to know why Owen was up here. ‘Having a few days break’ sounded unconvincing enough to him when he said it, so he had no idea what it sounded like to someone else. The owner was a tall man who had to constantly stoop to avoid hitting his head on the broad beams in the low ceilings. He seemed to be oblivious of the fact he needed to wipe his nose. There was no evidence of a roaring fire, just a faint smell of gas and boiled vegetables. It was a good two minutes before the owner informed him that they were full. All twelve rooms. He helpfully informed Owen that it was the time of year. Quite why he could not have told him as soon as he came in, he was not sure. Or even invested in a ‘
no rooms
’ sign. But he was partially relieved. He was feeling miserable enough without risking either his dinner or breakfast being served by a man who needed to wipe his nose.

The owner did at least give him details of a nearby pub which ominously ‘always’ had vacant rooms. It was only round the corner. You can leave your car here. ‘Please tell them Clifford sent you. Remember, Clifford.’

He never bothered to tell them Clifford sent him. If the hotel was strange, the pub was downright peculiar. Owen was wearing civilian clothes, but had he walked into the pub wearing a Waffen SS uniform the reaction could not have been any less friendly. He had barely stepped inside the door, clutching his small overnight bag, when the whole pub fell silent. In itself, that was not too difficult, there were no more than twelve locals in there. But all of them stopped talking and drinking and stared at him.

With the whole of the pub intently listening in, he asked whether there was a spare room, was informed that there was and then gave his details. He had to spell Owen twice and Quinn three times and eventually offered to fill in the registration details himself. Otherwise, he risked checking out before he had checked in.

The room itself was basic, but not as dirty as he feared. It was lit by a single, low-voltage light-bulb with no shade and had a single bed that seemed to rise in the middle and a wardrobe that only had three legs but somehow stayed upright as the back was balanced optimistically on the skirting board. Most of the room was covered with a large rug, but around the sides were just bare floorboards. The curtains closed with some difficulty, but even when they did, there was little to prevent a vicious draught.

He lay down on the bed and was just thinking how tired he was after all of the driving when he must have drifted off to sleep. He was awoken by a gentle knocking on the door. When he opened it, a girl who could have been no more than sixteen carried in a tray, which she placed on the small dressing table by the window. He had paid for dinner, bed and breakfast but was nonetheless surprised to find a plate of stew and some grey bread being deposited in his room at six in the evening.

He needed little incentive to be up early in the morning to start his search for Archibald. He had two full days, maybe part of Saturday if he really needed it. He spent the whole day driving around the villages between Boston and the sea. Not just the villages: if he passed through hamlets and even isolated farmhouses, they too were scrutinised.

By mid-morning, the foul weather of the previous day had been replaced by some quite pleasant sunshine and he began to revise his opinion that this was the bleakest place he had ever visited. True, there was an ever present biting wind, but the isolation of the countryside did have a certain attraction to it. The sky seemed to go on forever and you did not need actually to see the sea, or even hear it or smell it to be ever aware of its enormous and constant presence.

‘Not quite the end of the world,’ he thought, ‘but you can certainly see it from here.’

He subjected every village to a mental checklist. Was there a village green? A telephone box? A war memorial? Most of them had village greens of sorts and telephone boxes. Only three in the whole day had war memorials and none of those had a telephone box near it. From what he could recollect, he was certain of two things: that the location was between Boston and the sea and there was a war memorial with a telephone box next to it. On the village green.

In one village, he did make further enquiries. The village had a green and war memorial. The war memorial was near the village green, but across the road from it. Further down the road was a telephone box.

He had prepared a line of enquiry during the long journey up. My father served in the Navy in the Great War under a Captain John Archibald. Told me he’s retired to these parts. Married, possibly living just outside the village. Much shaking of heads in the village shop, where the combined age of the shopkeeper and her two customers must have been well in excess of two hundred years.

By late afternoon he realised he had driven in pitch darkness for the past hour and his chances of spotting a village, let alone a telephone box had diminished. He headed back to Boston and this time when he entered the pub, one or two of the regulars even carried on speaking.

The next morning he decided to head up the coast road in the direction of Skegness. He had looked carefully at the map the night before: he had visited all the villages in a corridor directly between Boston and the sea. South of The Haven, it was the more The Wash than the sea, so north seemed a better bet.

The weather was somewhere between the sleet of the first day and the previous day’s sun. It was grey, but the wind was not as biting as the previous day and for the best part it was dry. He had not been driving long when he came to a road that he knew from the map led to a cluster of three villages, so he came off the main Skegness road and headed in that direction. The complete absence of road signs had probably added hours to his search: he was constantly having to refer to his map, checking the tell-tale stumps by the road that indicated a road sign had once been there.

The first thing he saw in the first village he came to was a village green, with a war memorial very definitely on it.
Next to a telephone box.

He pulled the car up outside the church, just as the priest was unlocking the large wooden doors. He followed him in.

‘My father served in the Navy in the Great War under a Captain John Archibald. Told me he’s retired to these parts. Married, possibly living just outside the village.’

The priest shook his head.

‘Is your father close to him?’

‘Not terribly, they were in the Battle of Jutland together and he has always talked fondly .. .I just happened to be in the area you see, thought I’d look him up.’

‘He’s not in a good way, I’m afraid. Very ill. He is at home and I visit most days. Iris takes good care of him. They are a bit isolated, you would have passed their lane as you drove into the village without spotting it. I’m sure he would be happy to have a visitor. Here,’ he guided Owen out of the church, ‘let me show you how to get there.’

The sound of the car coming down the lane must have alerted Mrs Archibald, because when he parked up in the drive of their very pretty cottage she had come out to see who it was. The location was certainly isolated; the lane petered out just past the cottage and there were no other houses or buildings in sight.

She was wiping her hands on her apron, looking at him quizzically, as if she was not sure whether she could remember him.

‘Good morning, Mrs Archibald. I am not sure if you remember me. I am Owen Quinn. Lieutenant-Commander Quinn. I am – was – a colleague of your husband’s.’

‘Yes, I remember. What a surprise, you ought to have let us know you were coming up. Do come in. You know he is ill, don’t you? He is actually quite comfortable today, so you are lucky. The doctor was here earlier. Let me see if he’s awake now and I’ll see if he wants any visitors. Please do sit down.’

He was in a large lounge that opened from the hall. The room was replete with sofas and armchairs and a large piano, on top of which was a display of framed photographs.

He was about to walk over to the window to admire the view from the large picture window when Mrs Archibald returned.

‘John was surprised you’d come, but he will see you. I cannot let you stay long. It doesn’t take much to get him tired and in any case the district nurse is due here at twelve.’

She led him into a large downstairs bedroom. Captain John Archibald was propped up by a number of pillows in a large bed, next to which an array of tablet bottles and medicine lay on a small table, along with a jug of water and a half-full glass. His appearance was transformed. He looked gaunt, he had clearly lost a lot of weight and his skin was drawn tightly over quite visible bones. He appeared to move with some difficulty, but did hold out his arm when Owen came in for him to shake his hand.

‘Owen Quinn. Owen Quinn.’ There was a long pause after Captain Archibald repeated his name.

‘Good chap. I always wondered whether you would find me. Rather glad you did. Thought you’d come looking. We underestimated you, I think. How are you?’

‘I am all right, sir. I am sorry that you aren’t.’

‘So am I. Damned thing started a couple of years ago. Doctors thought they had it under control, but it turned out to be something nastier than they suspected. Thank you, Iris, I’ll be all right, dear.’ Mrs Archibald left the room.

‘I’ve not got terribly long, Owen. I’m glad I’ve had Christmas here and if I can hack it through to the spring I may get a bit longer than the doctors said I would, but I know it is not too long. Tell me, why did you come here?’

‘I heard you were unwell, sir, and I thought....’

‘Now come on, Owen. You and I know each other well enough. If you are honest with me, I can be honest with you. Tell me the truth. You’re not going to be allowed to stay terribly long, you know. Iris will have you out in half an hour. She seems to have this rule, thirty minutes per visitor. Go on.’

‘You obviously know the full story about my wife, sir. I have not come here to discuss the whys and wherefores of what happened. I have come to ask for your help. I need to find her and I need to know if you can help me in any way.’

‘I’ve thought about this. Why do you want to find her, Owen? What good can it do?’

‘Because I need to know why she did it, sir. I loved her with all my heart and I need to know whether she ever had any feelings for me. Edgar keeps saying that I should just get on with the rest of my life, move forward. Maybe I should, but until I’ve seen her, I am not sure that I am going to be able to do that.’

‘Owen, I am sorry about what happened. I did have reservations about the whole operation. In the end, the deception was so successful that perhaps anything we did to bring it about was justified, but from a personal point of view, the way we treated you, I’m not so sure. But I cannot see what useful purpose can be gained from finding her. Edgar and his lot are ruthless. He’s always been determined that the truth about her should never get out. They won’t want her put on trial, either here or in France. On the other hand, if you actually find her then they’re not going to let her go. There will have to be some kind of justice. She is a Nazi spy, after all. But you have to think carefully about this, do you want to see her strung up from a tree in some isolated wood?’

‘But do you have any clue who she really is?’

Archibald shook his head. He started to cough and pointed to his water for Quinn to pass it to him. Mrs Archibald half opened the door.

‘I am all right, Iris. Don’t worry.’

‘There is another reason, sir. Why I want to find her.’

‘And what is that?’

Owen hesitated. He had decided not to utter a word about this to anyone in England, but he was prepared to risk doing so now.

‘She went to our GP in April, sir, not too long before she left for France. She was two months pregnant. She would have had the baby by now. My child. I have a right to know. I must see my child.’

Archibald sank back into his pillows, his eyes filling with tears and his head moving slowly from side to side.

‘I can see why you’re so keen to find her.’

‘No one else knows, sir, apart from her GP and he has no idea what Nathalie has been up to. And now you, of course.’

‘We lost our only son in Normandy, you know. William. He was a second lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys. Fourth Armoured Brigade. Killed on the tenth of June somewhere near Bayeaux. Iris wept the night we heard and has not mentioned his name since. Lord knows how she will cope when I’m gone. God Almighty, this war... what has it done to all of us.’

Archibald slumped back in his pillows and closed his eyes, silent for a few moments while Owen wondered whether he’d fallen asleep. The door opened and Mrs Archibald’s head popped through.

‘John?’

‘I’m all right, dear, just a few minutes. Pass me that notebook, Owen.’

There was a small notebook on the bedside table. Archibald leafed through it and eventually found what he was looking for.

‘Here we are. Come here.’

Owen moved closer to the bed as Archibald dropped his voice and gripped his visitor’s arm.

‘Edgar came to see me in November. Never really liked the man. He warned me that you may try to find me to see if I could help you find your wife. He wanted to know if I had any idea about who she really is. He insisted that if you came here I was to call him. I told Edgar that I had no clue about who your wife really was or where she was from. That was more his side of things. Annoyed him a bit, told him he should have found out more himself. Every week or so one of his chums pops by. Just happens to be in the area, they say. Checking to see how I am. But they always ask me two things: have I heard from you and have I thought of anything that could help them identify who Nathalie really is.