The Old Vengeful (27 page)

“Yes … well—“ He pushed the second book back in its slot “—another time, maybe …” He selected another book.

“Yes—“ She mustn’t sound too eager—not even when her instinct was to grasp that offer before it could blow away. “Another time, of course.” But her desperation increased as she felt
another time, maybe
already receding into forgettable platitude.

He looked up from his book. “But when David arrives maybe we can pack Aske back home … David is a different kettle of fish—he’s even trickier, but he’s family, in a way.” He grinned at her, half shyly. “And… with David we wouldn’t have to—“ he caught the next word before it could escape as one of the doors rattled and opened.

Aske’s head came through the opening, followed by Aske himself. “Pooh!” He sniffed the air critically.

Now she’d never know what
we wouldn
’
t have to
…
what? thought Elizabeth, swearing silent words she’d never spoken aloud. Explain? Worry about? Pretend? Sleep in separate rooms? It wasn’t fair to blame Aske, but the not-knowing was painful.

“Where the hell have you been?” snapped Paul, as though he too had left out some unspoken oaths.

“I’m not late—it isn’t eleven yet,” protested Aske, looking from one to the other of them. “And, anyway … apart from tucking the car out of sight … I’ve been looking around, just in case. Watching your back, in fact.”

“Hmmm …” Paul controlled the worst in himself. “Well?”

“We seem to have slipped our followers, at least for the time being. And no one’s going to steal our baggage, that’s for sure.” Aske smiled at Elizabeth.

“Why not?” asked Paul.

“Because it’s parked behind a police car. Of which there are three in this vicinity. Perhaps they’re expecting a smash-and-grab … Plain clothes, of course. But I can always smell a copper, they have an air of bored possession all of their own … But they’ll serve to inhibit the opposition, if they do find the car.”

Paul regarded him with distaste. “You still don’t believe it could have been the French behind us?”

“More than ever, old boy.” Aske cocked an ear at faint sounds coming from behind the other door. “If this stake-out is for us, then they already knew we were coming here, so there’d be no point in following us. Whereas those fellows who followed us so enthusiastically didn’t know where—“ this time it was the click of the door handle which cut him off finally.

The gaunt woman who had shown them into the ante-room reappeared, opened her mouth to address Paul, but then saw Aske.

“M’sieur—?” She looked from Aske to Paul.

“M’sieur is my …” Paul strangled on the admission “… my colleague.”

From the frigidity of their own welcome Elizabeth had already decided that the gaunt woman was the sort of secretary who regarded all strangers as intruders on her employer’s privacy, and Humphrey Aske’s standard nervous smile had no melting effect on her suspicious expression. But she held the door open for them nevertheless.

Elizabeth led the way, only to find herself in another ante-room, identically book-lined, but with a table and chairs. On the far side of the table, framed in another doorway, stood a small plump man, almost a miniature man, whose high bald head rose out of puffs of white hair above his ears.

“Professor Belperron—it’s very good of you to give us your time,” said Paul deferentially.

“Dr Mitchell?” The Professor glanced down at the card Paul had given to the secretary.

“Yes. And this is Miss Elizabeth Loftus, daughter of the late Commander Loftus VC … and … Mr Humphrey Aske, of London University.”

The little man acknowledged them one by one. “Come this way, please.”

The study was twice the size of the ante-rooms, and had twice as many books, together with all the paraphernalia of learning overflowing an immense desk on to the floor: papers and periodicals and books full of marking slips and box-files—Father’s desk, in the high days of his writing, had been not unlike this, though on a much smaller scale. Behind the desk there was a high-backed chair, and in front of it were three ordinary chairs like those in the second ante-room, set precisely in a semi-circle as though waiting for them.

The little man walked round the desk, stepped on something which increased his height by several inches, and climbed into his chair. Although she couldn’t see them, Elizabeth imagined his little legs swinging in mid-air.

He indicated the three chairs. “Please …”

They sat down.

“The King’s College, Oxford.” He put Paul’s card on his blotter. “I knew the late Master.”

“Sir Geoffrey Hobson?”

“It was during the war, in Normandy in 1944.” The little man picked out one of several pairs of spectacles from a small tray on his desk. “He was in command of an armoured regiment.” He peered at Elizabeth through the spectacles, then selected another pair. “Tilly-le-Bocage was the place, and he was
Colonel
Hobson then.” The second pair seemed to suit him better. “But it is Colonel Suchet in whom we arc interested now.”

“Yes.” Paul leaned forward. “Perhaps I should explain—“

“Please! The circumstances have been explained to me: there is a book almost completed, but now there is fresh material—yes? And it is this material which has led you to Jean-Baptiste Suchet?”

“Yes.” Paul sat back. “Or, to be more exact, our material concerns a party of British PoW escapers. Suchet interrogated them before they escaped, and he was still chasing them two months later, so it seems.”

Aske stirred. “Which would make him either a superior variety of policeman or an intelligence officer of some sort, we think.”

“No.” The Professor shook his head. “At least, not in the Abwehr or Gestapo sense … He was a gallant soldier—indeed, he was an escaped prisoner himself, and a most daring one. Twice he escaped, once from Chel-ten-ham, but unsuccessfully—“

“Cheltenham?” Paul looked at Aske.

“He broke his parole, that means,” murmured Aske. “French officer prisoners were always paroled.” He gazed intently at the Professor. “And the second time?”

“From Portsmouth—“

“The hulks!” Aske nodded. “That’s where they sent the bad boys … and the hulks were no joke. I’ll bet he didn’t love the British after that.”

“That is true.” The professor returned this intelligence with interest. “It was a terrible punishment—some might say inhumane.”

“No worse than the
souterrains
in the French fortresses. In fact, better a ship on the Portsmouth mudflats than below ground at Bitche or Sarrelibre,” said Aske coolly. “Some might say that, Professor.”

Men
! thought Elizabeth critically, as she felt the temperature drop: unless she came between these unlikely adversaries they would be into the ancient Anglo-French argument next, as to which nation was the more wicked.

“If Colonel Suchet had a score to settle—“ she tried to include both of them, and Paul too, in her silly question “—could that be why he wanted so badly to recapture them. Professor?”

“Ah …” The Professor turned politely towards her “… no, Mademoiselle … That is to say, whatever Colonel Suchet may have felt personally, he was far too busy to pursue them for personal reasons. He had other duties, you see.”

“What other duties?” asked Aske.

“You are a student of this period? An expert?” The little man studied Aske intently.

“A student,” admitted Aske cautiously.

“Of naval history.” For once Paul came to Aske’s rescue. “British naval history.”

Professor Belperron almost smiled. “Then you will perhaps be acquainted with the name
de la Rousselière
?”

“No.” Aske had guessed he was about to be put in his place, but had evidently decided to cut his losses quickly. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“I’m surprised.” Surprised and gratified. “
Berthois de la Rousselière, chef de bataillon du corps de Génie
—major, Royal Engineers, as Colonel Hobson would have translated it.” The Professor cocked his head at Aske inquiringly, with false innocence. “Or perhaps Lieutenant Robert Hamilton?” He smiled. “Captain Hamilton, as he became?”

“Naval history is Mr Aske’s field, Professor,” said Paul.

“Oh, but Robert Hamilton was a naval officer, Dr Mitchell,” said the Professor, his good humour thoroughly restored. “He was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy of His Britannic Majesty King George III … and then a captain in the Royal Navy of His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVI—he was doubly a naval officer … But, to be fair, perhaps a little before … before your period, Mr Aske? And yours, Dr Mitchell?”

But neither of them were falling for anything this time, observed Elizabeth: each face bore the same expression of obsequious interest of students at the feet of the master, even if those little feet might be swinging in mid-air.

But that was not necessarily appropriate to the daughter of Commander Loftus VC, she decided: heroes’ daughters could take narrower attitudes.

“He was a traitor, you mean?”

“A traitor? Ah …” He gazed at her, then raised his favourite hand expressively, to indicate a finer balance. “In those days loyalties were not so simply defined. He was a Scotsman, and the English—the
English
—they did not appreciate his excellence as a navigator and a map-maker—they did not promote him … So he promoted himself into another king’s more grateful service, to make maps, not of Cherbourg and Brest, but of the Medway and Portsmouth.”

“That still sounds like treason,” said Elizabeth.

“Perhaps. But the frontiers of treason are rarely so clearly defined.” He smiled at her. “I remember Portsmouth in 1944, Mademoiselle. I was in a tank landing-craft of His Britannic Majesty King George VI, waiting to invade France, and not far from the mud-bank on which Jean-Baptiste Suchet was held captive in one of Mr Aske’s hulks … And I remember thinking, as I looked up towards the forts on the hills above—the forts which the Lord Palmerston built to protect the naval base from his French enemies in the reign of Queen Victoria … I remember thinking that if I fell into the hands of my own countrymen in France … that I had already been sentenced to death
in absentia
by the Vichy Government.” He spread both hands. “Traitor—renegade—patriot… we take the side that we must take, and do what we must do, which seems best to us. And it is the winning and the losing which decides what we were.”

“Yes—very true. And most interesting,” said Aske. “But if Hamilton served King Louis XVI, what has he got to do with Major de la Rousselière and Colonel Suchet, who served Napoleon Bonaparte?”

“Major de la Rousselière served the King, Mr Aske, not the Emperor. And the King invested him with the Cross of St Louis for his distinguished and daring services—in 1779.” The Professor sat back and regarded them benignly.

“What services?”

“He was a spy, Mr Aske, who specialised in British naval bases. And in 1779, having closely examined all the dispositions of your defences in and around Portsmouth, and working also with the detailed maps supplied by Captain Hamilton, he drew up a blue-print for the seizure of the Isle of Wight, Gosport and Portsmouth in that order. All of which were then to be turned into a ‘French Gibraltar’ thereafter.”

“Huh!” snorted Aske.

“Oh … do not be too contemptuous of the might-have-been, Mr Aske.” The Professor shook his head, still good-humoured. “The planning was sound—the troops were available … General de Vaux and the Marquis de Rochambeau were to command them … and you must remember that your army was then busily engaged in losing the war in America, against General Washington, at the time… It is true that circumstances changed, to render the Franco-Spanish naval squadrons helpless at the crucial time … But the plan was sound —the same strategic concept as that the French and the British applied seventy years later, when they set out to take the Crimea and Sebastopol from the Russians, in fact.” He smiled. “And all this is a matter of record, in the archives of the English section in the Ministries of Marine and War here in Paris. It is well-known, even.”

One of the great
might-have-beens
, thought Elizabeth. History was about what happened, and its whole weight endowed the facts after the event with inevitability. But, against all that, there had been so many close-run things—all the useless but tantalising historical cul-de-sacs down which her pupils too often strayed when they were dissatisfied with the facts—“
But if Henry of Navarre had not been assassinated, Miss Loftus
…
” or “
If Mary Tudor had executed Elizabeth
—“

Professor Belperron leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his blotter, hands clasped. “What is
not
well-known—what has never been remarked on until now, except in mere footnotes, because it was overtaken by greater events, and bore no fruit … is what Colonel Suchet was doing in 1812, my friends.”

Now he was not addressing them, but the students of some future class in the ante-room with the table and the chairs: this, translated through what Bertrand Bourienne had said to Paul on the phone, was what must be “interesting” about Colonel Jean-Baptiste Suchet.

“It comes down, Mr Aske—“ the Professor focussed on Humphrey Aske as his main target “—to a question I had never thought to ask myself before, of 1812 … Which is:
after Russia, what next
?”

“The same question Hitler must have asked himself in 1941,” said Aske, nodding to Elizabeth and Paul in turn.

“Good. Exactly that—
good
!” From
main target
Aske was transformed into
most promising student
. “As with Hitler, so with the Emperor: after the defeat of Russia—the reckoning with England, Mr Aske.”

Elizabeth shivered. Suddenly the Professor wasn’t a little mannikin swinging his legs under his desk, or even a brave Resistance fighter swinging the same little legs on a landing-craft in Portsmouth Harbour in 1944, before D-Day. He was the old hereditary enemy of all those battles, from Hastings in 1066 through Tinchebrai and Bouvines and Agincourt, and Fontenay and Blenheim and Saratoga, and Trafalgar and Salamanca and Waterloo—of all those trumpet-calls and drum-beats which had summoned the two neighbours to waste their genius killing each other in fools’ quarrels over the centuries.