by Gary Newman
‘Thanks for calling, Mr Rolvenden.’
I put the phone away, relief struggling with elation within me. I could easily have blown the whole thing. Now just what had Reet to say to this mysterious Frenchman next morning around eleven? Curiouser and curiouser: I had to check this man out, and I’d certainly be coming back to Southwold in the morning. This ‘Mr Rolvenden’ would be keeping the appointment, too, but I’d see that no one knew anything about it . . . Now for West Mersea and my lunch date with Leah: I’d have a lot to talk to her about.
A couple of hours later in the little fish restaurant, I was bringing Leah up to date with the burglary at the lighthouse the previous night, along with the Southwold developments, as we downed our oysters-with-Tabasco.
‘It’s Joe Cool, all right,’ Leah said. ‘The guy in the dark glasses at the auction – your ex-wife was there, too, didn’t you say? There’s something going on between them . . .’
‘You’re surely not suggesting Reet had anything to do with the burglary at my place?’
‘No, but it looks as if the same man did your lighthouse over – his description fits that of the skinny bloke you say’s been stalking you lately.’
‘Mmm . . .’ I murmured. ‘And of everything portable in the house, he only took the Odette Pidgeon letter: he left the rest of my grandfather’s things. I wonder if it’s connected to whatever it is he’s after – the real prize, I mean?’
‘The lost Rawbeck painting?’ Leah suggested. ‘The Ruffian on the Stair?’
‘I don’t see why not; after all, that’s what Brogan’s after. He told Frank Hague as much the other week. Why not a French antique dealer, too?’
‘Like a pack of vultures . . .’
‘And if a legitimate dealer like Brogan’s willing to try to break into my shed at dead of night . . .’
‘Then,’ Leah began, ‘this Joe Cool, or Monsieur – whats-isname?’
‘Ramier,’ I prompted.
‘Well,’ she went on, ‘no reason why this Monsieur Ramier should stick at a little burglary to get what he wants. This is red hot, Seb, and I don’t mean the Tabasco! Will you be sussing out this date your wife’s got with Ramier tomorrow?’
‘You bet I am!’
‘Watch your step, then,’ Leah said darkly.
Ten-thirty next morning, Monday, found me in Southwold, strolling Byronically along the pebble beach in front of the Low Light Inn. I was dressed in a naff raincoat and tweed cap I’d bought in an Oxfam shop, and the addition of a pair of dark glasses, I hoped, would enhance my disguise. I pretended, with a sparse handful of other passing gawpers and dog-walkers, to take an interest in the occasional sea traffic, while keeping a weather eye on the front of the inn where I knew my ex-wife had business to do with the tall man who seemed to have been following me around lately.
One good sign: Monsieur Ramier’s – if that was his name – Renault was still parked in front of the inn, so my failure to pass on the landlady’s message to Reet that he might be late for their date looked irrelevant now. Unless, of course, the lady had rung her since, to check on whether ‘her son’ had passed on the message . . . But no reason why she should have, and, in any case, eleven o’clock should see the thing resolved, one way or another.
I spotted a container ship on the horizon, and levelled my field-glasses at it: it was like a great blue shoebox, floating on its side. I then paused awhile to consider the ranks of rainbow-hued beach huts with their wacky names: Hickey Doola, Kate ’n’ Sidney, Fernando’s Hideaway . . . I recalled that in summer they had a sort of Tea Cult here on the beach, everyone plying everyone else with pots of tea, like some tribal bonding ceremony.
You’d need something stronger than tea, though, I thought, to counter the effects of this whipping wind, as, with watering eyes behind the dark glasses, I turned my head slightly and took a sly dekko through the glasses at the front of the Low Light Inn. Yes – Reet’s Land Rover! She was getting out, striding purposefully – her face looked set and angry – up to the front door of the inn. Dared I walk right up to the esplanade, and sit on one of the benches with my back to the hostelry? I’d brought a shaving mirror along to act as periscope . . .
I crunched up the pebble strand to the low brick wall that edged the road, took a last look out to sea, then clambered up, and so on to a bench to read my paper. I sat like that for about ten minutes, when, through my little square of shaving mirror, I caught the reverse image of Reet as she appeared at the door of the inn again. She was leaving the place in a tearing hurry, her face red with fury – it went with her once-red hair! – and positively flung herself into the Land Rover and roared off in the direction of the Holt. The rendezvous with Monsieur Ramier had evidently not gone well . . .
Phew! I hadn’t seen her in such a state since we’d been together, but Reet’s temper was the feature that really let her down, and Paul had inherited it from her, along with the carrot-coloured hair. I went over a hundred-and-one speculations as to why she’d been so angry with her vis-à-vis, then the man himself emerged from the inn.
It was Joe Cool, all right – the tall, thin man I’d noticed at the auction – even down to the dark glasses. He’d a car jacket flung over his dark suit, and his lean, pale face was set in a sort of determined scowl. If I was going to keep tabs on him, though, I’d better look slippy, because he was even at that moment bundling his holdall into the boot of his Renault.
I got up from the bench, and, with my back still to the forecourt of the inn, slowly folded my paper round the shaving mirror and slid both into the side pocket of my nondescript raincoat. Then, nonchalantly slipping one hand into the other pocket, where the little pair of field-glasses lay, I crossed the road well ahead of the inn, and began to saunter the hundred paces or so to my car. I smiled as, halfway along my route, my attention was drawn to a creaking and jingling of horse harness from the road. It was one of Southwold’s carefully preserved bits of character: Prince and Sovereign patiently plodding in front of their dray, on the way back to the brewery after delivering the morning’s brew. The wind suddenly veered offshore, and I caught the aroma of malt from the brewery, mingled with the smoky tang of the fish-drying sheds. As the dray jingled slowly by, I reflected with satisfaction that Joe Cool in his Renault would have to hang on a bit to let the dray-horses get clear.
He didn’t wait long, though, for moments later, the Renault zipped by me in the road. I pulled the silly glasses off and stuffed them into my pocket as I dashed for my car. I soon got in and set off on the road: if this Ramier was going anywhere, he’d be making for the A12. I threaded my way carefully through the narrow streets of the Lilliputian resort, and my luck was in: at the end of the feeder road, I spotted the Renault with its French number plate as it pulled out of a thin queue of vehicles that had been waiting in front of me to join the arterial road.
By the time I’d got into the stream on the main road, Ramier’s car was almost lost to sight ahead of me. I accelerated, discreetly overtaking the competition, till he was visible ahead of me, and from then on it was a clear run down behind him in the direction of Wivenhoe: could he be making for the little haven? Perhaps he was on his way to visit my lighthouse on the headland?
But no: he shot past the opening to the minor road that led to my place, and drove straight on in the direction of the marina, with its tinny-rattling masts and chi-chi waterside conversions. I immediately thought of Pat Hague and the Hagues’ boathouse here, where Pat seemed to spend most of her spare time these days. My suspicions hardened as the Renault slowed abruptly and drove into the marina car park.
I didn’t want to seem as if I was driving up his back, so did a lap of the marina, after which, just as I was returning to drive into the car park, I saw the tall man in the car jacket and dark glasses scanning the buildings along the water’s edge. By now I was sure he was making for the Hagues’ weekend retreat, and such was my confidence in this hunch that I decided to give him five minutes before going off in pursuit. I found a parki
ng space, parked my car, and strolled up to the machine to get a sticker, before walking casually down to the Hagues’ boathouse.
There, on the decking at the back of the low, blue-and-white painted building – the side facing the water of the creek – I found the tall man trying the door handle. I walked softly up, then, leaving a fair distance between him and me – you never knew – glanced briefly from behind him down at his formally shod feet. Size tens, at least. His hair was stiff and fairish, done in a sort of overgrown crewcut which veered to one side, like that of Tintin in the cartoons.
‘I don’t think anyone’s in,’ I remarked quietly from behind the man.
He swung round and took me in through the glasses for a moment.
‘Evidently,’ was his calm reply in slightly accented English. ‘Perhaps you know where I may find Mrs Hague?’
I had the feeling that this was one of the turning points of my life.
‘I can’t help you there,’ I said. ‘By the way, I’m Sebastian Rolvenden.’
The man drew himself up straight from the door handle, and, taking off the dark glasses – his eyes were a warm, reddish-brown – smiled rather deliberately and held out a long, thin hand to be shaken.
‘My name is Paul Ramier – it would be nice if we could talk somewhere.’
Which we did, over a smart-sandwich lunch in the cafeteria of a nearby swish yachting-gear emporium.
‘I have a small hotel in Berneval, on the coast of Normandy – perhaps you know it?’
I shook my head, and Pat’s caller went on between sips from his Stella.
‘This is my spring holiday, but I am also looking for my roots.’
‘And they spread as far as Suffolk?’ I asked, biting a wodge off my salami baguette.
‘Let me start from the beginning.’
‘Be my guest . . .’
‘My great-grandmother killed my great-grandfather, Mr Rolvenden . . .’
I paused in mid-chomp and stared into the narrow brown eyes, set above the high cheekbones of my interlocutor.
‘In 1909,’ he went on undramatically. ‘A crime passionnel, you understand . . .’
I nodded in what I hoped was an understanding fashion.
‘When there is no entente between a couple, and there is poverty . . .’
‘What happened to your great-grandmother?’ I asked.
‘Two years in prison, and there was a little boy of two years – my grandfather. My great-grandfather’s parents took care of him while his mother was in prison.’
‘And the Rolvenden connection?’
‘By 1921 my great-grandmother had become alienated from all the rest of the family, and was desperate. She took my grandfather – he was then thirteen years – to Jersey, because she knew an English priest there from her earlier days in Paris. The priest was very kind, and he found a place for them to live, and helped my grandfather find his first job in a tomato house. That good priest was your grandfather, Mr Rolvenden, and he has a very honoured place in the hearts of my family. But if you will permit me, Mr Rolvenden, your grandfather lived so long ago, yet you are of an âge mûr only – not yet old . . .’
‘My father –’ I explained, ‘your “good Jersey priest’s” son – was born in 1900, and didn’t get married till he was forty-three, and I wasn’t born till nine years later, in 1952, two years after my grandfather died.’
‘Ah, I see – it explains itself.’
‘And did your great-grandmother and her son settle down in Jersey?’ I asked.
‘My grandfather was called back to France in 1925 for his military service, and he called my great-grandmother back there two years later, after he had finished his service. By then he worked on les chantiers . . .’
‘Building sites?’
‘Correct – building sites, assembling fairs and circuses in summer, then on farms during the harvest. He was a strong man, not afraid of work. He married my grandmother in 1930, and my father was born soon after. My great-grandmother died in 1933. The war came, and in 1940 my grandfather’s year was called. After the débâcle, his regiment was embarked from Dunkirk to England, then, after the regiment had been regrouped under de Gaulle, it was Madagascar, the Near East – tous azimuts – all the quarters of the compass . . .’
‘Did your grandfather look up my grandfather after the war?’ I asked.
Ramier spread his arms. ‘That is what I would very much like to know. After the war, my grandfather returned to France, but my grandmother had grown independent, and no longer wanted him. My father by then was fifteen years old, and hardly knew his father. There was disagreement, my grandfather started to drink, and finally, in 1947, he left the house and joined the Merchant Marine in Cherbourg under a false name, so the company could not take from his salary to send to his wife.’
‘How did she find out about this?’
‘Because from time to time my grandfather sent cards to Bernard Marti, an old army comrade in Cherbourg, who was still friendly with the family. When she discovered where my grandfather was, my grandmother could have taken him to court for her support and my father’s, but she was a hardworking woman, and did not choose to do this, especially after my father began to work, too.’
‘What happened to this, er . . . old army comrade of your grandfather’s who blew the whistle on him?’
‘Bernard Marti? He is alive today at over ninety years. He lives in Dieppe with his daughter.’
‘And your grandmother and father would have been in Berneval at this time?’
‘Yes, my grandmother had gone there during the war to work as a housekeeper, and later with my father opened the family hotel. They were the most industrious people.’
‘And you’re now carrying on the business there.’
‘That is correct.’
‘So your grandfather – the one who knew my grandfather in Jersey and joined the Merchant Navy – simply disappeared after the war?’
‘As I have said, he used false papers to avoid paying my mother her cotisation from his salary, and since then we hear nothing of him.’
‘And you’ve nothing left of him – photographs, letters – anything?’
A smile creased the long, pale face, as Ramier reached into his inside pocket and drew out a picture postcard, encased in a polythene wallet.
‘Monsieur Marti, my grandfather’s ex-comrade in Dieppe, was kind enough to give me this.’
I took the proffered card, in its protective wallet, and looked at the picture. A blurred colour representation of Piccadilly Circus, with 1950s cars in evidence. On the message side was Monsieur Marti’s name and French address under a threepenny stamp with the head of a youthful Queen on it, and the cancellation date 8th August 1955. The message read only: Cher Bernard – Tu te souviens?Philippe. What was Philippe asking Bernard to remember, though?
‘The date over the stamp’s the tenth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe,’ I commented. ‘VE Day. Maybe your grandfather and his ex-comrade took part in the Victory Parade and celebrations in London in 1945, and that’s what he’s asking Marti if he remembers?’
‘C’est ça!’ my companion agreed.
I had a mental picture of a couple of sharp-featured French likely lads, surrounded by raving peroxide-blonde girls with Betty Grable hairdos and wearing pillar-box red lipstick. Quite a few jars sunk, no doubt, and quite a bit of grass flattened . . .
‘Since then,’ Ramier was going on, ‘nothing . . .’
One thing was sure, I reflected: Philippe couldn’t have looked up my grandfather on his nostalgic trip to England in 1955, since he’d died five years before.
‘Wars unsettle people,’ I remarked, handing the postcard back to Ramier. ‘Maybe your grandfather emigrated – Canada? Australia?’
‘In spite of all, I am sure the point of departure is here in England. I typed in your grandfather’s name on the Internet, and there is a village called Rolvenden in the county of Kent. Also your name came up – you are an author – two authors tog
ether, in the county of Suffolk with your wife!’
‘Not two any more . . .’
Ramier made a sympathetic grimace.
‘Evidently,’ he went on. ‘I searched in the telephone book for the Holt, which you describe in your book, and found your name in the list. I called the number, and Mrs Rolvenden answered, and she offered to come and talk to me in my hotel. Perhaps you are wondering why I came to Mrs Hague’s house?’
I was, rather, but just let this smooth character go on.
‘On Friday I attended the saleroom at Walberswick because I saw previously on a website that a print I was interested in was to be offered there. Mrs Hague bought it, and I understand her husband is an antiquaire here.’
I nodded.
‘Is the print connected with your search for your, er . . . roots, Monsieur Ramier?’
‘Yes, it is connected indirectly with my great-grandmother.’
‘Ah, yes – the lady who, er, committed the crime pas-sionnel in 1909 . . .’
‘Yes, she was English.’
‘Oh? Might I ask her name?’
‘But of course, it is a charming and musical name: Bugle. Carrie Bugle.’
Chapter Fourteen
I sat back in a sort of awe, which, judging by the narrow, complacent smile on Ramier’s face, had not been unexpected by him. The last thing recorded of Carrie in Grandfather’s notebook had been her declaration that she was pregnant by him, and his consequent ‘arrangements’ for that eventuality.
‘Was there any knowledge in your family,’ I asked the Frenchman, ‘of your great-grandmother’s having a child before she met your great-grandfather in 1907?’
Ramier spread his hands.
‘If so, it has not come down to my generation.’
My mind went back to Leah’s speculation that I might have a whole brood of French cousins. And now I’d just learned that, not only had Carrie Bugle had a child by my grandfather, but she’d later married a Frenchman, had a son by him, then killed her husband in the course of a domestic . . .
‘Do you know what part of England your great-grandmother came from?’
