The Sea Garden (30 page)

Landing on flat ground by the cliffs at the Domaine de Fayols, he ran to the lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper Rousset was astonished to see him but agreed to what Xavier asked. He would disable the beam on the night of August the fourteenth—and claim there was a mechanical fault.

It was highly dangerous for Xavier to be on the ground. He ran back to the plane and took off as quickly as possible from a field on the cliff where the wind lifted the wings. The takeoff was risky, but he made it. Then the German guns opened. The plane was hit but flew on. Halfway to Marseille, it began its final descent into the sea.

“There are a few notes at the end,” said Anna. “ ‘Are there any records in London regarding that night? Any records at all of Xavier? Why has the wreck of the plane never been found before now on the seabed? (This must be G's big discovery . . .)' Are you all right, Mrs. Corbin? This obviously means something to you.”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask what that is?”

Iris pulled herself together. “Is it possible that this has a bearing on . . . what happened to Ellie?”

“I honestly don't know.”

“Can we verify this story—can it be true? Where would Ellie have found this account?”

 

I
ris? What on earth are you doing?”

Iris, on her knees in front of the old travelling trunk in her bedroom, started at Marion's admonishment but was relieved to see her. She wasn't entirely sure she would be able to get up again. The lid of the trunk was open. Piles of photograph albums and papers were banked around her.

“I'm looking for something.”

“I can see that,” said Marion, indulgently. She was a big woman, tall and strong; she nearly filled the doorway. “You said you were having a rest once your visitor had gone.”

“It must be here . . .”

“What? What are you after? If you tell me, perhaps I could help.”

Iris raised her head, straightening painfully. “You can help me up, in a minute.”

Marion nodded. They had come to an understanding, many years ago. Marion never mentioned age or its limitations.

It had been so long since Iris had last seen what she was searching for. Could it somehow have disappeared? How could it not be there? But it was. Among the most private papers, letters, and mementos was the file marked with his name and enclosing the pitifully few photographs. The papers too sensitive to have a place in the bulging filing cabinet she kept in her, admittedly, rather untidy study downstairs. The cabinet had been exclusively her domain for decades, ever since Miles passed away, but even so she had these items under separate guard. This trunk, leather-bound, scuffed, and dented, was the cradle of her older, frailer possessions.

Iris reached farther into the trunk, finally exhuming a small parcel of tissue paper. She peeled back the crackling layers. Inside was a glass bottle, five inches tall. The perfume it had once held was nothing more than a brown stain on the base. She fumbled with the stopper, twisting it off with some effort; it seemed to have stuck. Or was it the shaking in her fingers? She put her nose to the lip of the glass and inhaled. She sat and waited for a moment, concentrating before she took another breath. But it was no good. The scent had finally evaporated. There had been times when she had seemed able to catch a remnant of it, but now nothing came. If she smelled anything, it was the dust and cold hard glass of the present.

Downstairs, in Ellie's notebook, lay what might be the final chapter of the story, and yet it was impossible. How could Ellie have heard it, or stumbled across it? She knew she should contact Suzie, but she felt too exhausted. If Nancy had still been alive, she could have picked up the phone right then. She missed her, too.

 

A
week later the telephone rang. It was around the time Suzie or Betsy usually called, and Iris picked up the phone in full expectation that it was one of her daughters.

“Mrs. Corbin, this is Anna Lester.”

“Anna.”

“Look, I know we agreed you would call me when you were ready, but something has happened. Trust me, you will want to know about this. Laurent de Fayols has told the police that he has some more information, but he wants to meet you first.”

11

Le Train Bleu

Paris, September 2013

N
aturally, Suzie and Betsy had counselled against travelling, ridiculously overprotective as they were. Betsy, in particular. Slighter, blonder, more cerebral than her sister, she was her father's daughter: risk-averse to a fault. Iris had rather enjoyed the heated exchange that ensued, in which her daughters' opinion that she was too old to charge off to Paris had been countered by Anna Lester's reassurances that she would send a car to bring her up to London and remain at her side every minute of the firstclass rail journey on the Eurostar. A five-star hotel would be booked for the night, and the meeting over lunch would take place the next day. Even Marion had been drawn into the argument, finally asserting that Iris really was not your average ninety-one-year-old lady, had never been average at any age, and still had plenty of the old get-up-and-go.

Whatever anyone else thought, it was immaterial. Iris was resolute. If Laurent de Fayols had asked to see her, with Anna there as part of the deal, nothing was going to stop her from granting his request that she join them.

“Why can't he come to London?” asked Suzie.

“I don't know. We didn't ask.”

“I want to come with you. I should be there.”

Iris put her hand on her daughter's shoulder, almost the same height as her own. The calm determination on Suzie's face reminded her of Xavier every time she saw that expression. “I know. I did ask, but he specifically said he wanted to speak to me alone—if I could do it without Anna, I would.”

“It's very odd.”

“It will be fine. You want me to find out what he has to say, don't you?”

 

T
he high-speed train across northern France seemed to fly over fields stretched wide and flat under white skies. It was midmorning, and the carriage was quiet except for a middle-aged couple at the other end and a group of businessmen intent on their own discussion, conducted over four open computers. Even so, they kept their voices down.

“Has he intimated anything about what he has to tell us?” asked Iris.

“No. I got the impression he was not going to say anything until you were there.”

“I see.”

“The police have spoken to him several times, which is as you would expect. He was the reason Ellie went to the island, and she . . . her body . . . was found quite close to his estate. He didn't want to speak to me when I was there, but I left my card in case he changed his mind.”

Iris put her chin on one hand. “You asked when you came to see me whether the message and the story in Ellie's notebook could be connected to her death. It seems incredible that it could be.”

“But not impossible?”

She had decided that there was no point in obfuscating any longer. “If it is, then it is a long and complex story, and one that—I have to warn you—I have never managed to unravel myself. Frankly, I had come to terms with not knowing.”

“Either Laurent de Fayols has something to confess—or he too needs to understand something that only you can explain.”

“We'll find out soon enough. It's a question of trust, Miss Lester, isn't it?”

“Please call me Anna. So . . . if this story goes back to the war, it must include your days with SOE. There is currently a great deal of interest in those operations. More and more information is becoming available—”

“With every obituary published in the newspapers.”

“Also being released from archive files.”

“This story may not
be
in the archive files, despite the notes that indicate Ellie's intention to try to find some corroboration there,” said Iris. “It may involve the unthinkable, perhaps for me, perhaps even for you.”

“I don't understand.”

“How cynical are you, Anna?”

“Not much surprises me.”

“About people, their passions and self-interest, about political movements and government agencies?”

“Very cynical.”

“Good.” Iris reached out and picked up the recording device. “Condition one. I may be old, but I am still wary. Please turn this off. Now put it where I can see that the red light has gone. You may make notes, of course. Condition two is that you publish nothing without my approval. Is that agreed?”

“That's exactly how I would want to do it.”

“All right. Now I will do everything I can to help you.”

“The story about Xavier in Ellie's notes,” said Anna. “Am I right in thinking that this must refer to Xavier Descours?”

“I think you must be.”

“You knew him, I take it?”

“Yes,” said Iris. “I knew him. Clearly, you are familiar with Xavier Descours from the many accounts of the SOE in France. Some of those accounts are admirably perceptive; others bear no relation to reality. There again, elements of them seemed like complete fantasy, until I found out later they were true.” She smiled. “I was in love with him—but even at the time I only knew a part of him. I accepted that. It was necessary to what we were doing that only certain aspects of one's life were known. But later on, of course, the deceptions and disguises we had used made it doubly hard to discover the truth.”

Anna nodded, made some rapid notes.

“After the war, Xavier did not turn up in Paris with the other agents who survived. Neither did he surface in the south. It had to be assumed that he had either been captured or killed. I did my best to trace him, without success.”

“Surely others were searching for him too?”

“If they were, they kept me in the dark. But you're right, other people were looking for him, and I should imagine some were mightily relieved when he would not be found.”

“Explain exactly who you mean.”

Iris sighed. “The intelligence services, all of them: British, French, and what remained of the German. I'm not sure how much you know about the wider picture of the intelligence services, the petty internecine spats between them, what was really going on.”

Anna nodded. “I've read enough to know that SOE was considered a liability by other services, SIS and MI6. There was little sharing of information. It was possible they were undermined from within the establishment.”

“We all deal in lies—that is the only truth.” That was what he had told her. Perhaps the time had come to put it all on the record.

“I think now,” said Iris carefully, “that Xavier was not only working for SOE as air movements officer—but that he was working for the British Secret Intelligence Service, and that his real boss was there. I once ran into him unexpectedly, at a Tangmere fog party over at Bignor. He pretended we had never met, and I couldn't understand at the time. But it was clear he knew Bignor Manor and the Bertrams well. The Bertrams were MI6, not SOE.”

She cleared her throat.

“This sounds outrageous, but it is just possible that the whole of F Section was being used as a blind while the real intelligence work went on at SIS or MI6—and that the decision to sacrifice the Paris agents and the Prosper network was made at the highest level.”

Anna stopped writing. “I've heard that theory, of course, but consigned it to the conspiracy file.”

“I said, ‘just possible.' SIS ran a network of deniable agents—expatriate businessmen, mostly, who had been operating on the Continent for years before the war. Xavier's profile—the wireless component company, the international contacts—it all fits much better with SIS than SOE.”

“Where does that leave you?”

“A very good question,” said Iris. “If it's true, then he was probably using me to keep tabs on what was going on inside SOE.”

It was not a happy thought, and the first time she had ever admitted it to anyone but Nancy.

“Don't imagine I was completely naive,” said Iris. “I was young, but I had become involved in matters of national security—I was pragmatic. I thought his interest in me was probably motivated by some . . . favour I could do for him. Either that or the simple fact that it was easier for him to be with me than to find another woman who might complicate further an already complex life. Apart from everything else, he was a married man.”

“But you did try to find out the truth about him, after the war.”

“The powers that were didn't take me seriously,” said Iris. “Miss Acton thought that because I was in love with him, my judgement was impaired. Why was it so hard for them to accept that I needed to know the end of the story, precisely because I had been in love with him? I wanted to know the truth, not to bend it, as those who were covering their backs were doing. And I had to be so careful, not only out of consideration for Miles, but for Xavier's wife as well. He would never have wanted me to upset her, nor would I have wanted to. That would have been cruel, and I never intended to be unkind. I was very lonely, for a long time.”

 

L
aurent de Fayols was waiting for them at Le Train Bleu. How had he known it was one restaurant in Paris that always reminded her of the war and its networks? Above the jostling concourse of the Gare de Lyon, it was a time capsule, pure belle epoque: all gilded mirrors, brass fittings, and white linen, a vast cathedral to the glories of rail travel and dining a hundred years ago; above were the wall and ceiling paintings of Mediterranean destinations depicted in sun-drenched, flower-strewn whimsy: Toulon, Marseille, Nice, Montpellier, Perpignan, Cassis, Hyères.

Iris thought of all those meetings with Mavis Acton and their French contacts after the war, the leads that seemed to promise solutions, then went nowhere. All those names, all those places.

Laurent was a dapper little man, dressed in a dark suit and tie; his hair was suspiciously brown for a man in his sixties, and the tan could not disguise the shadows under his eyes. A bottle of white burgundy was cooling in a silver bucket on the table.

Introductions over (gracious but awkward), orders efficiently taken (memorized, not written down, by the waiter), Laurent de Fayols seemed nervous as he turned his attention fully to Iris. “I understand you knew Xavier Descours, madame?”

“I did.”

“How much did you know about his background?” It could have sounded like a brutal question, but his voice was low and sympathetic.

Iris attempted a wry laugh. “Only what he told me—what he told any of us. That he ran a company making radio and electric components.”

“That's true,” said Laurent. “It was in Toulon. He made a lot of money out of it before the war. He was known as the Engineer by the Resistance in the south, even though that was not quite right. As for the rest, it seems he did an admirable job of covering his tracks.” He turned to Iris. “Did you ever know his real name?” he asked gently.

“I did not. If he had been recruited by F Section, I would have known, but not otherwise. We never asked. You have to understand—”

“You could never have asked. I do understand.”

There was a long pause.

“His name was Gabriel de Fayols.”

Iris brought her hand up to her face.

“He was the son of the doctor on Porquerolles. My father's cousin.”

The island boyhood, the deep blue waters he had described to her. It was all falling into place.

“Gabriel?” Anna pulled out a pencil sketch from inside her notepad. “Is this him?”

Laurent narrowed his eyes, too vain perhaps to find his reading glasses. Iris took the paper from him.

“That's Xavier . . . as I knew him,” said Iris, her glasses already in place. She traced his lovely face with a finger that, like her unreliable legs, no longer seemed to belong to her but to the elderly stranger who had usurped her body. “Where did you get this?” she asked the journalist, irritated that this was the first time she was seeing it.

“It's a photocopy,” said Anna. “The original is in Ellie's notebook. Didn't you see it?”

Iris had not.

“The sketch was in there,” said Anna. “In the blank pages at the back, as if she opened the book at random and made the drawing. She wrote the name Gabriel underneath and dated it June the seventh.”

“I don't understand.”

Anna was sharp, you had to credit her. “It implies that Ellie found out about Xavier—and exactly who he was—only three days before . . . she was found dead. The last day she was seen alive, the seventh of June,” she said, turning to Laurent. “Remind me where Ellie was that day—in the garden on your estate?”

“No, she wasn't there—that is, not during the day. She came to the domaine in the early evening.”

“So how did she find out about Xavier?” cut in Iris.

Laurent looked distinctly uncomfortable. For the first time the suave exterior cracked. “It must have been from my mother. I believe you knew her too, a long time ago, Mrs. Corbin.”

The waiter brought tiny rounds of foie gras with quince jelly and thin curls of toast. Iris was not sure she would be able to eat any of it.

“Your mother? Who is your mother, Monsieur?”

“
Was
my mother—” He checked himself. “I regret to say she died two weeks ago.”

 

N
one of them seemed able to eat. Anna seemed flushed with excitement at the unravelling tale, though perhaps it was the wine; Iris was uneasy, sensing that more was about to be revealed. Anna had brought her notepad to the dining table, a lack of manners that Iris overlooked in the interests of accuracy. Her mind seemed incapable of concentration, sliding dangerously between the present and past fears.

Laurent de Fayols was intent on establishing certain events.

“Mrs. Corbin, I understand that you worked for SOE during the war,” he said. “And that a woman called Mavis Acton was ruthlessly protective of the young women sent secretly to France.”

“Many people admired her,” said Iris, gauging from his tone that he was not one of them.