Tug of War (12 page)

Chapter Ten

‘A wart on the backside, was it, then?’ Dorcas enquired without emphasis. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what makes Dominique so distinctive?’

She’d waited until her lemonade and Joe’s black coffee had been served in the cool interior of the tea shop they’d used the previous day before she referred to their interview.
A pair of elegant old ladies nursing matching apricot poodles were taking a very long time choosing the brand of tea they would have served in china cups. They spent even longer deciding which
cakes their sculptured pets would prefer but at last, their order given, changed and given again, they settled to look around and smile indulgently at the kind uncle entertaining his niece at the
next table. A civilized scene until Dorcas struck up. Joe wondered if they spoke English.

He breathed deeply. Would he ever become accustomed to this wild girl’s free way of speaking, her irreverence bordering on rudeness? He blamed Orlando. His loose life and the dubious
characters he chose to associate with had had a devastating and probably irreparable effect on a child who lurked behind sofas, listening, understanding and copying speech and manners that ought
never to have been exhibited in her vicinity.

‘No? Well then – a birthmark in an intimate place? A dislocated penis perhaps?’ she said, her voice rising. ‘There’s a boy in our village whose father has trouble
with his tyres and his tubes . . .’

He had learned the wisdom of cutting her off the moment she called in evidence ‘a boy from the village’. More of them than he privately thought possible had uncles who’d passed
through Port Said and sisters who’d worked in armaments factories. All had returned only too willing to share their worldly knowledge. And, at the end of the chain of information apparently,
was Dorcas.

‘One more attention-grabbing word and my lips are sealed for ever in the matter of Dominique’s distinction,’ he growled. He waited for and accepted her silence with a nod, then
went on: ‘Let us say . . . front elevation, left of centre, port-wine stain, so slight and so centrally placed as to escape the examination accorded by the medical establishment.’

‘Interesting! We shall have to return to the doctor and ask him to look again. I say, Joe, this seems to me like proof positive that he’s who she says he is.’

‘Well, thinking ahead – as I’ve been taught! – I rang the good doctor when I slipped back to the hotel just now. While you were buying postcards.’ To his chagrin,
Joe couldn’t hide his pleasure at scoring a point over Dorcas. ‘I asked him to supply further and better particulars regarding Thibaud’s nether regions. We’re in luck.
It’s the day for the patient’s weekly bath and delousing and Varimont agreed to bring forward Thibaud’s time and instruct the orderlies who officiate at these ablutions.
He’s intending to supervise the operation himself and record anything interesting. I’m to ring him for a report this afternoon.’

‘So, we should know very soon that Thibaud is French and we can carry on with our journey?’

‘I rather think we’re committed to spending a day or so with the Houdart family,’ said Joe. ‘It’s all fixed. I telephoned to say we’d arrive the day after
tomorrow for the weekend. And besides – it would be a shame to pass up the chance of wearing your blue dress.’

‘You’ve made your mind up to see
each
of these claimants, haven’t you? You’re ignoring what the Inspector had to say. And what you said yourself –
“I’m only here to establish whether he’s English or not” – that was just so much blather. You can’t resist a puzzle, that’s what. And you can’t bear
to leave the solving of it to anyone else.’

‘I honestly don’t believe that there is any way of establishing that he’s English,’ said Joe patiently. ‘But, on the other hand, there may be a way of proving
decisively that he is a Frenchman which fills our aims just as neatly. And that’s what I’m going to attempt to do. Yes, I’m going to take a look at the other claimants, hear their
stories . . . I thought Thibaud was probably a fine man and I would like to see his problems resolved. And
I
don’t fall victim to the first romantic tale I’m told. Now, when
you’ve finished that . . . I’m off to see the widow Langlois. She claims that Thibaud is really her son, Albert. She lives in a small village a few miles away from here. Martigny. Do
you want to come?’

‘The natives don’t seem particularly friendly,’ she said.

‘If you’d had your village destroyed and the land laid waste by several warring armies swarming all over it you’d learn to take a long careful look at foreigners motoring
through. And here we are. Martigny,’ he said, parking in the market square and looking around. ‘The new Martigny. Bit hit and miss. But it’s an attempt. They’ve got their
priorities right, you see – the café, the inn, the
boulangerie
, the school and the
mairie . .
. pretty bell tower . . . And the place we’ve come to visit is there
on the corner opposite the
boulangerie –
the grocer’s shop.’

‘
Le Familistère
,’ Dorcas read out. ‘
Succursale no. 732. Guy Langlois, Patron.
Were you prepared for a
patron?
I thought we were coming to see a
woman?’

‘We are. Yes. The claim was made by a mother. Well, let’s go and see if she’s at home.’

A bell clanged over the door as they entered and two customers turned from the counter to stare at them. Joe doffed his hat and gave the usual polite French greeting. There wasn’t much to
delight the eye in this dim and cluttered space. The staples of existence were on display in packets, tins and jars, their dull ranks enlivened by a smoked ham and a saucisson or two suspended from
the ceiling. Joe guessed that the women of the village did their shopping for fresh food in the weekly market, the token line-up of wooden boxes of faded apples, wrinkled oranges and time-expired
lettuce offering little temptation. When the ladies had finally snapped their purses shut, picked up their shopping bags and left, the elderly man behind the counter turned his attention to them,
an ingratiating smile vying with curiosity to enliven his heavy features.

Joe introduced himself, watching the smile flicker and die as he proceeded. He handed over his letter of introduction and his Metropolitan Police warrant card and waited while both were
inspected with the greatest care.

‘So, you’ve come out all the way from Reims to see my wife? Why was this necessary? She gave her statement some weeks ago and she has nothing further to add. We await the
Department’s final decision on the affair. And it is a civil, not a police matter anyway.’

‘Your son’s identity, sir -’ Joe began and recoiled before the interruption.

‘
Not
my son, if you don’t mind! My wife Henriette’s son – and the man in question is most likely not even that,’ he said darkly. ‘It’s nothing
but a mare’s nest. A waste of everyone’s time. The lad’s dead and gone . . . years ago . . . and I for one do not want the whole sorry business raked up again.’

Joe let the man’s explosion of bad humour roll away before replying mildly. He decided to borrow the ingratiating smile as window-dressing for his explanation: an international angle to
the case had developed and, in confidential tones, he spoke of the involvement of the recently formed international police force with its headquarters in Lyon. Monsieur Langlois must be aware of
Interpol? Even if he wasn’t, Monsieur Langlois could not help but be impressed by the respect in Joe’s voice as he mentioned it. And Scotland Yard’s assistance had been sought by
this august body in an attempt to resolve the question of the unknown soldier’s possibly
English
nationality. This appeared to be not an unwelcome proposition to Langlois and he was
just sufficiently impressed to fling up the hinged section of the counter which allowed access to the rear of the shop.

‘Oh? Well, in that case, you’d better come through then.’

He pulled back a curtain yelling, ‘Julie! Come and mind the shop!’ and a young girl slipped by them to take up her place by the till.

They followed their guide through into a storage area full of tins, boxes and flour-sacks and at the far end of this a woman in a high-necked blouse and copious cambric pinafore was sitting at a
table weighing out kilos of sugar. She turned to look at them, incurious and unsmiling.

Joe thought that the woman he now greeted as Madame Langlois was all that was conjured up by the word ‘drab’. Her clothing was outdated and faded, her face was square, coarse and
expressionless. Her dark hair, beginning to streak with grey, was divided precisely down the centre of her head by a parting through which the scalp gleamed like candle-wax.

‘A policeman to see you, Henriette,’ her husband announced and then, smirking: ‘It seems this loony of yours is actually an Englishman who took the wrong turning in the war.
What a fuss about nothing! Well . . . things to do . . . busy man . . . I’ve wasted time enough on this silly business . . . I’m off to do my deliveries. I’ll leave you,
Commander, to spell it out to her. My advice: be firm and speak slowly. Be prepared to repeat everything. Don’t fall for her nonsense.’

He bustled off leaving them facing a woman no longer expressionless. The stony features, released from their rigidity by his departure, registered a hatred of such a startling intensity that Joe
rocked back on his heels. She collected herself and, slowly assimilating the news so callously delivered, shook her head from side to side like a puzzled ox.

‘Is this true, sir, what he says?’

Her bosom began to heave, she sniffled and rubbed a hand over her dusty face.

Alarmed by this show of emotion, Joe thrust his handkerchief at her and hurried to contradict the information fired at her by Langlois.

‘So the truth of it is that nothing is yet decided? And you have seen my son? Yesterday? Tell me how he was. Are they treating him well? I should like to visit him but Guy will not spare
me.’ She brightened and began to take off her pinafore and smooth her hair. ‘I should like to hear what you made of him. Albert. He’s called Albert. Will you come through to the
parlour and I’ll ask my daughter to prepare us some coffee. Does the young lady drink coffee? Or would you prefer a glass of milk, mademoiselle, and some bread and chocolate?’

He had never had a more receptive audience, Joe thought as he sipped his coffee and accounted for his presence in her pin-neat parlour. He launched into a cheerful account of his meeting with
the patient and told the story of Dorcas and the pink biscuit.

Once again the tears threatened to flow.

‘Albert loved those biscuits!’ she said. ‘He wasn’t allowed to have them from the shop, of course, but I used sometimes when he was little to sneak a broken one for him
when Guy was looking the other way.’

‘Madame,’ said Joe tentatively, ‘I can’t help noticing that the patient whom you declare to be your son does not resemble you or your husband.’

‘He is not Guy’s son,’ she said. ‘It’s no secret. Albert is illegitimate.’

She cast a wary glance at Dorcas and Joe reassured her: ‘My niece is au fait with the details of the case and is older than she looks. Quite the woman of the world, in fact.’

She nodded and stumbled on. ‘You will have passed on the road in the neighbouring village an inn. The Croix d’Argent. A staging post between Reims and Paris. I was an orphan of the
village and sent to work there on my fifteenth birthday. In 1889.’ She paused, choosing her words. ‘I knew nothing of the world . . .’

Joe sighed. He could guess the whole sorry tale.

‘I was six months pregnant before anyone – before I myself – realized what was happening. They threw me out into the street. I was taken up by Langlois. You will have noticed
that he is an ugly man with the manners of a boar. He had had no success in finding a wife. He married me and I have been his slave ever since. He disliked Albert. He wanted sons of his own. Fate
decided that I should produce daughter after daughter for him and after each girl his anger would increase. “What kind of a woman are you? You can produce a son for a stranger and only girls
for your husband?” He was never kind to Albert. And poor Albert! If only he’d looked like me! But the boy was born the spitting image of his father.’

‘You know his father’s identity?’

‘No. I only know that he was like no man that I had ever seen before. A beautiful man. Tall, fair, blue-eyed like Albert and – a German.’

She grasped Joe’s arm. ‘Sir, I have never disclosed as much to Langlois.’

‘I understand. Be reassured, madame – your information is for my ears alone. It must have taken some courage to defy opposition and start on your identification?’

‘I could not have done it without the support of the schoolmaster,’ she said. ‘It was he who came to us last spring, waving a newspaper. Monsieur Barbier had taught my Albert.
He liked him and took a special interest in him because he was a clever boy and he pitied him in his situation with his stepfather. He showed us the photograph and assured us that it was Albert. He
never forgets any of his pupils, Commander. And I recognized my son, of course. M. Barbier is not impressed by my husband and, in the way of bullies, Langlois defers to a stronger man. He allowed
me, grudgingly, to go to Reims with Barbier to see my son. It was the schoolmaster who wrote out my official claim form for me. He always knows what to say.’

‘Can you tell me what evidence you submitted apart from the visual identification?’

‘Photographs.’

She went to a sewing table and automatically looked about her, although they were unobserved, before taking from the bottom three creased photographs and a bundle of letters.