cupboard as a punishment for fighting and I got so hysterical that they had to get my mother. I thought I’d grown out of it, but obviously I haven’t.”
“I can see we’ll have to make sure you have a couple of brandies before we make the return trip,” Watkins said, “or maybe champagne. Let’s hope it’s a victory celebration, eh?”
Evan nodded. The clammy nausea was retreating as good fresh air blew into his face from the open window. He felt ashamed of himself for betraying a weakness. He was glad it was Watkins who had seen and not Bronwen—or P.C. Glynis.
“Now I really wish we’d brought young Glynis along,” Watkins said, making Evan wonder if he had been reading his thoughts. “Look at these signs—they’re all in bloody French!”
“Don’t worry about it, Sarge.” Evan felt fully recovered and ready for anything. “You’re dealing with an expert here. I did the navigating when I came over here with the rugby team.”
“Hmm.” Watkins nodded, impressed.
“Actually I was the only one who wasn’t pissed out of his mind and who could still focus on the road signs,” Evan admitted. “We had an awful lot of victory celebrations during that trip. Ah, here we are.” A bank of road signs appeared from the mist. “We need the Dieppe road, I think.”
Fields of stubble lined the road with the dark shapes of hay rolls looking like large reclining beasts. A distant line of poplar trees appeared like eerie sentinels. Now and then they passed a few sorry sunflowers, left to die at the edge of what must have been an impressive field of gold. They saw no sign of houses until they left the main road and followed the signs to St. Valéry. They began to pass isolated farmhouses, then cottages with slatted shutters over their windows—the first indication that they were in France.
By the time they drove through the narrow cobbled streets of St. Valéry and came out to the sea front, the mist was rising, giving glimpses of a blue sky above.
“It doesn’t look very foreign, does it?” Watkins commented. And indeed it could have been a replica of one of the towns on the English side of the Channel, except for the shutters on the windows, the striped umbrellas at the corner café, and a peeling advertisement for Dubonnet painted on a building wall.
“Hôtel de Ville,” Watkins commented, pointing at a red brick building set back from the street. “That looks quite posh if we have to stay here the night.”
Evan smiled. “That’s the town hall, Sarge.”
“Bloody silly name. What call it a hotel then? Why don’t you park over there and we’ll start at the hôtel de ville. That’s where we’d expect to find records, wouldn’t we?”
Between Evan’s rusty French and a young male clerk with a smattering of English they established that there were no Bouchards currently living in the town. Back records indicated that an elder Monsieur Bouchard had died eight years previously. His wife had followed him the next year.
“His occupation is listed as fisherman, monsieur,” the clerk said. “You could ask down at the harbor. Someone there might know what has become of their children.”
“There was a son,” Evan said. “His name was Jean. He was lost at sea five years ago. Have you no record of that?”
“Hélas, no, monsieur. If he was no longer living in the community, how should we know of this?” the man demanded with a sad shrug of the shoulders. “I show no Jean Bouchard registered here. I can only conclude he did not live here. I am sorry.”
“Oh well, down to the docks,” Watkins said. “How do you think your French will stand up to talking to fisherman?”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Evan said.
They left the car in the central Place de la République and walked down a narrow cobbled alleyway back to the seafront. The town might have looked like its English counterpart, but now that they were out of the car, their nostrils were assailed by distinctly non-British smells. Newly baking bread competed with roasting coffee. From an open kitchen window came the heady smell of garlic. And as they came out of the alley the salty, seaweedy tang of the Channel came to greet them, tinged with a slight fishiness.
A distinctly French voice was singing on somebody’s radio. The barrow at the waterfront was selling crêpes instead of candy floss.
At one end of the promenade, brightly painted fishing boats were bobbing behind a sturdy concrete harbor wall.