‘So I simply walked up to him and asked him if he’d missed his train yesterday.’
‘Ooh! And what did he say?’
‘Well, he had the grace to look embarrassed, and then he said—’
‘I said I’d been spinning you a yarn.’ Krider walked up to the table. ‘If I may, I’d like to tell you all about it.’
‘Mr Cummings has told me a bit,’ said Alan, ‘but we’ve not had a chance to tell Dorothy the story.’
‘And it would be refreshing to hear a true one,’ I said tartly. ‘I’ve been hearing far too much fiction of late.’
Krider bowed his head. ‘Yes, I deserve that, and I’m sorry. When you’ve heard my explanation, I hope you’ll forgive me.
‘I really do have a wife and family back home, Mrs Martin.’ His accent had become much less Midwestern, I noticed, and his manner more cosmopolitan. ‘Both my children are daughters, however, and both are married with children. And my trip here has nothing to do with either of them. Nor am I a research worker.’
‘I did manage to figure that out,’ I said. ‘Really, Mr Krider, I’ll give you points for thinking on your feet and making up a glib story as you go along, but essentially you’re almost as bad a liar as Peter.’
‘And that makes my real reason for being here all the more embarrassing. Someone once wrote a book called Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, about writing fiction.’
‘Lawrence Block,’ I murmured. ‘Great book.’
‘And you see, I’m here because – well, to tell the truth, I’m trying to write a novel. Set at Mont-Saint-Michel.’
It was a good thing I’d swallowed my last sip of coffee. ‘So you came here to gather material. That makes you a researcher, after all.’
‘Oh! I suppose it does.’
‘One thing you didn’t tell me, sir,’ said Peter, polite but still dubious about trusting this man, ‘is why you felt you had to lie to us about knowing French.’
‘Sheer stupidity! I thought if I claimed not to know much of the language, no one could possibly suspect me of … er … casing the joint, so to speak. And I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing, in case I write a terrible book and make a damned fool of myself.’
‘And why choose Mont-Saint-Michel, of all places?’ I wasn’t going to let him off easy. I don’t like being lied to. ‘Do you know the place well?’ Perhaps he’d lied about that, too, at least by implication.
‘Never been here before in my life. But I read a book, oh, years ago, when I was in school, called Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres. Written by a guy named Henry Adams. You probably never heard of it—’
‘I read it, too. Years ago, as you say. A remarkable book.’ Alan cleared his throat. ‘Regarded as a classic, Mr Krider. I take it you enjoyed it?’
‘I fell in love,’ the man said simply. ‘I had to come and see for myself, but things kept happening to keep me away. Then last winter I had a heart attack. A mild one, and my own fault; my wife told me the snow was too deep and heavy to shovel, but I had to prove I could do it. Well, I couldn’t, and it was a wake-up call for me. I decided if I was ever going to see those two places with my own eyes, I’d better do it quick.’
‘Your wife didn’t mind?’ I had another of those stabs of memory, Frank in the ambulance, lights flashing, siren wailing …
‘She wanted to come with me, to make sure I didn’t go and do something stupid, but Amy, our youngest, is expecting twins in a couple of weeks, and Madge just didn’t think she could leave her. So I came, and the first thing they do is close the place!’
I was beginning to believe him. That last bit of frustration sounded genuine. ‘I believe they’re re-opening the Abbey today, isn’t that right, Peter?’
‘Yes, and I’d better get over there, if you’ll all excuse me. You could come with me, sir, if you like. I can leave my bike here and take the shuttle. I’m a guide, and I could slip you into a group to make sure you see everything.’
‘That would be very kind, young man. Thank you for your generosity, and again, I apologize for my stupid charade yesterday.’
‘Well!’ I said when we had watched them out the door. ‘What did you think of that?’
‘I think,’ said Alan with a grimace, ‘that it will be a dreadful book, if it ever gets written. I also think I need a little exercise. I’ve been sitting far too much these past couple of days, but I still can’t walk very far. Would there by chance be a swimming pool in the vicinity? And no, I don’t propose to swim in the bay.’
‘I’m certainly glad to hear it. And I agree with your prediction about Krider’s book. If the man can’t even tell a convincing lie, how on earth can he string together enough to make a novel? Maybe it’ll be one of those stream-of-consciousness things.’
‘Those went out of fashion decades ago, surely. It’s certain to be autobiographical. All first novels are. But you’re ignoring my plea for a swimming pool.’
‘You were the one who booked this hotel, and I’m sure you looked up every single one in the area. But I very much doubt there’s a public pool closer than Avranches, if there. If we go to the Mont, you’ll get all the exercise you could possibly want, and more.’
‘Ah, well. I’ll go back to the room and do the sitting calisthenics the physio taught me. Boring, but they get things moving. And after that … my love, I think you’ve been fretting about all this too long. This was to be a holiday, after all. Now that we have a car, why don’t we do a bit of exploring? You’ve seen only Bayeux and the Mont, and there’s a great deal more to Basse-Normandie.’
‘Hmm. I admit I’ve wanted to see some of the D-Day landing beaches. Are they nearby?’
‘Not far. I’m guessing you want to see Omaha Beach, since it was the one where Americans were most involved.’
I shuddered. ‘No. I’ve read too much about that bloodbath. I don’t want to see the place where so many young Americans died. Maybe I don’t want to see the beaches at all, come to think of it. It was a horrible war.’
‘Think of it this way, love.’ He took my hand. ‘All war is horrible, but in that one we were fighting a madman. Hitler had to be stopped, and it was the courage and sacrifice of your young men, and ours, and the Canadians and the Australians and the Poles and all the rest, who stopped him. We owe them all an unpayable debt, but we can keep their memory alive.’
‘And burying my head in the sand isn’t the way to do that, is it? All right, then. But not Omaha Beach.’
‘What I had in mind was Gold Beach. That’s at Arromanches, which is just outside Bayeux. I understand they have a fine museum about the landings. I thought we could take that in, then have ourselves some lunch, and perhaps visit Gilly’s exhibit, if it wouldn’t bore you to tears.’
‘Idiot! You know I can look at her work forever. All right, then, it’s a plan. As soon as you’ve finished tying yourself into knots.’
TWELVE
The sun was shining. The air was fresh, with a gentle breeze that brought with it scents of the sea. I was with my beloved husband again, and he was coping quite well with driving, since his left foot wasn’t involved. I resolved firmly to forget all about medieval monasteries and missing manuscripts and enjoy myself.
Somewhat to my surprise, I succeeded. The little town of Arromanches was charming, although very touristy, as one might expect. The Landing Museum (Musée du Débarquement, French even I could decipher) was unexpectedly fascinating. There was a short movie about the landing, screened at intervals with the soundtrack in various languages so I didn’t have to struggle with French, and I learned a lot. I had read at some point about the artificial harbours constructed for the war effort, but I remembered few details. They were Churchill’s idea, I learned, the solution to a basic problem involved in a military operation.
The thing was, the big equipment needed by the Allies – trucks, tanks, big guns, tons of supplies – required big ships, and they in turn required deep harbours. The only ports with such facilities were, as one might expect, hea
vily defended by the Germans. The problem was that the only way to capture these ports was with the equipment that couldn’t be landed until the German defences were disabled.
So they built artificial harbours – called, for some reason, Mulberries – at the landing beaches. First, old ships were sunk to create breakwaters and enclose the harbours. Then sections of pier were shipped across the Channel and assembled on the spot, stretching far out into the Channel to deep water. Of course it was more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it. There were to be two, one at Omaha Beach and one at Gold Beach. They were both almost finished when a terrible storm struck Normandy, the worst in over forty years. The gale-force winds and high seas destroyed the Mulberry at Omaha Beach, but the one at Gold Beach, though damaged, was repaired and used for the next ten months, and greatly aided the liberation of Normandy.
Alan and I went back into the sunshine, blinking, and walked (slowly, because of his ankle) to a vantage point where we could see out into the peaceful Channel. After more than seventy years, bits of the Mulberry were still visible. Several of the caissons that had supported the pier were there, and far out, nearly on the horizon, I imagined I could see part of one of the scuttled ships.
And down below us on the sandy beach, children played, running and shouting, oblivious to the reminders of war, fear and death and destruction.
‘That’s the way it should be, isn’t it, Alan? They’re – what – four or five generations removed from the war?’
‘About that. I was only a few weeks’ old on D-Day.’
‘And I wasn’t born yet. Your parents – was your father in the war?’
‘Not in this stage of it. He was injured in the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940.’ Alan settled himself on a bench to rest his ankle in its awkward boot, and felt for the pipe his doctor had forbidden some years before. ‘Drat. I keep forgetting. One needs a pipe to tell a story.’
‘Yes, but go on without it. Your father was in the Navy?’
‘No. He planned to enlist, but my brother was a tiny baby and he wanted to give my mother a little time to recover from the birth before he signed up. He was a fisherman, you remember.’
‘Yes, out of Newlyn.’
‘Yes. How much do you know about the Dunkirk operation?’
‘Not much, except that thousands of British troops had to turn tail and run back to England when the Germans got too close.’
‘Actually, it wasn’t quite like that. The evacuation had been planned for some time, when it became evident that Hitler was going to take the Low Countries and France. We hadn’t the military strength to prevent that, so we had begun to gather ships and boats to take our men back to England.’
‘“He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day”,’ I quoted flippantly.
‘Exactly. It’s often said sneeringly, and fighting against overwhelming odds seems heroic, but in this case the decision was the right one. Germany had been building up its military strength for years; we had not, and we were ill-prepared to defend our interests. Our forces would have been slaughtered had we not evacuated, and Germany might well have won the war!’
Alan is rarely combative, but his voice had risen and his ‘Chief Constable’ manner was in evidence. I put my hand on his. ‘You’re preaching to the choir, my dear. You don’t have to convince me; I agree.’
‘Yes. Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In the event, Hitler moved faster than we anticipated, and we were nearly cut off. The powers asked every craft that could carry even a few men to come to Dunkirk, and my father took his fishing boat.
‘It was an amazing sight, he used to tell me. Thousands of “Little Ships”, as they came to be called, converged on the beaches of France. Literally on the beaches; in most cases there were no landing facilities at all. The RAF provided air cover, and though there was still great danger, it worked out remarkably well. In the end over 330,000 troops were saved, not only British, but French and Belgian as well.
‘But in the mass confusion, accidents were bound to happen. In the pitch dark, my father caught his foot in a coiled hawser and went sprawling. He didn’t notice the pain, he said, until they were about halfway home. Then it began to be so bad he could hardly steer the boat. He had a boatload of foot-soldiers, no sailors, but one chap knew his way around a boat, so he took over, and another bloke gave Dad a flask of whisky for the pain. He said he didn’t know another thing until he woke up in hospital with a raging headache and a cast on his leg. He’d broken most of the bones in his right foot, and they told him they could patch him up, after a fashion, but he’d never be fit for active duty.’
‘And he was a fisherman. Not exactly a sedentary occupation.’
‘He managed. Managed very well, in fact. We weren’t rich, but we never went hungry. My brother helped him as soon as he was old enough, and they wanted me to work with them, but my heart was set on a police career. I’ve felt a bit guilty about that from time to time.’
I squeezed his hand, and we sat in silence, watching the waves come in, listening to the cries of the children and the gulls, sounding much the same.
‘Your father would have loved this, Alan. This is what everyone fought for. Peace, in the real meaning of the word. Sunshine and families picnicking on a beach. We’re so lucky, all of us, to have had those brave men – yes, including your father – who made it possible.’
I don’t know how long we would have sat there, wrapped in peace and memories, if my insides had not rumbled irritably. ‘Alan, I’m hungry. I didn’t know it until this minute. And this bench is getting awfully hard.’
‘And I’m getting stiff. I was back in the past, and forgot how old and creaky I am. Did I lose my cane somewhere?’
‘No, here it is. Where shall we go for lunch?’
‘Bayeux, I think. It’s quite near, and I suspect the food here would be somewhat overpriced.’
I looked at the tour buses lined up along the street and agreed.
We were lucky enough to find a pleasant-looking restaurant in Bayeux, with parking almost in front of it, and ordered a substantial meal. While I was digging into a wonderful plate of foie gras, my unruly thoughts returned to my nagging questions about all the peculiar things that had been happening, and even came up with a new one.
‘Alan, it just occurred to me. Was Mont-Saint-Michel involved in the war at all? Maybe part of the “Atlantic Wall”?’
‘I confess I don’t know, specifically. I would assume that it was occupied by the Germans. All of France was occupied territory, and Mont-Saint-Michel, as a fortified island, might have seemed especially attractive to the Germans. Why?’
‘That German woman. Assuming she is German, which I guess we still don’t know for sure. Suppose she was out there digging on the sands for something lost during the war, or buried, or …’ I ran down at the sight of Alan’s face. He was trying not to laugh at me
‘My dearest love, you told me about Peter’s Viking gold speculation, and your response. The same objection about the tides applies.’
‘Well, but it’s only been seventy-some years since the Germans left, if you’re right and they were there at all. It’s not quite the same as a thousand or so.’
‘Two high tides, two low tides every day for seventy years. You do the math.’
‘Yes, but consider.’ I wasn’t going to give up my idea without a fight. ‘It’s a well-known fact that the Nazis looted art treasures all over Europe, and nobody knows for sure where a lot of it went. Now just suppose for a moment that some of it was hidden in the catacombs, or whatever you want to call them – the nether regions of the Abbey.’
‘Not impossible,’ said Alan, who likes to indulge me when he can.
‘And suppose further that some of those ancient storerooms collapsed over the years. In fact, parts of the Abbey have done just that from time to time.’
‘Go ahead.’ This time his doubt was clearly evident.
‘All right, but just listen before you decide I’ve los
t my marbles. The point is, I don’t know how far down the earliest bits of the Abbey go, nor how high the water table is. It seems to me just within the bounds of possibility that the sea could occasionally, over the years, have made its way into the lowest cellars, or catacombs, or whatever they are. And if it did, it could have carried off who knows what when it receded. Wait!’ His expression was growing more and more doubtful. ‘I’m not asking you to accept that such a thing ever happened. Nor am I saying that I think it’s true. But a person from outside the area, a person with a compelling reason to recover something she believed had been in the Abbey, might well have accepted a story like that. It’s amazing what you can believe if you want to. Don’t you think?’
The waitress came just then to whisk away my empty plate – I’d eaten a huge serving of pâté without even noticing, which was a crime against the palate – and substitute a galette that looked and smelled heavenly. Alan waited until she had gone and then said, ‘You know, you might just have something there.’
My mouth was full, but I raised my glass in silent salute.
‘However.’
I swallowed. ‘I knew there had to be a catch. Heaven forfend my theory would meet with unqualified approval.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic; it doesn’t suit you. There’s nothing wrong with your theory, per se. It’s so far-fetched as to be absurd, but as you say, someone in the grip of a monomania might think it made perfect sense. No, the trouble is that it doesn’t fit in anywhere with all the other incidents. Peter and the manuscripts. The disappearance of his friend. The chap in the undercroft. Krider and his proposed novel.’
I took another bite; the food was too good to let it sit getting cold. ‘All right. I accept that. There’s no neat pattern. But is there a reason why there has to be?’
The Missing Masterpiece Page 9
