she stepped through the glass door with the word ‘BAR’ engraved on it.
The bartender was drying a glass and nodded to her as she approached him. ‘Can I help you, love?’ he asked in a dry monotone.
‘Uh, a gin and tonic,’ she replied, not wishing to give away her real reason for being there. Walking into a rural pub and announcing you want to talk about the Nazis wasn’t exactly an easy conversation starter.
She peered down the row of men who were hugging the bar. Woollen skullcaps and thick jumpers, plus thick knee-length boots, hinted at their likely occupation in the fishing business.
When the bartender arrived back with her drink, she drew her head closer and asked him quietly, ‘Is there somebody here called Barney?’
He nodded to the end of the bar where a short man was nursing half a pint of ale and chatting to the person next to him. Feeling on her back foot as the only woman in the place, Sophie grabbed her drink and took her courage in her hands. She moved to the end of the bar where Barney had just said something raucous, and three of the men next to him burst out laughing.
She waited till the laughter died down before she smiled graciously, and asked, ‘Excuse me, are you Barney?’
He swivelled on his stool and looked her up and down. ‘Who’s asking?’ he snapped, his eyes full of suspicion.
She imagined she looked extremely out of place, with her south-eastern accent and designer clothes that would’ve been very common on the London streets but felt unusual here.
‘My name’s Sophie.’ She hesitated from telling him her last name. She was beginning to realise that it was possible that some people here might remember the negative connection to her family, and if Vivienne had indeed assaulted this man’s grandfather, it might not be in her best interests to let on right away who she was. ‘Someone from the museum told me I could find you here. I have an interest in a story that you may know about.’
‘Story?’ he asked as the other lads looked on. She could tell by their animated nudging and nodding that it wasn’t very often a young woman approached Barney in the bar. ‘Why don’t you pull up a stool? I’ve got thousands. Which one would you like?’
She did as he urged, awkwardly perching on the edge of the bar stool as she took a sip of her drink. She decided to tell him a white lie. ‘I’m down from London doing research on the work of the fishermen during World War Two.’
He sat back on his stool and eyed her with interest. ‘Research?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind of research?’ he asked warily.
‘I’ve been doing some work at the Imperial War Museum. A lot of photographs have turned up from World War Two and we were just interested in how the fishermen in this area contributed to the war effort.’ Her declaration came out in a jumble of words and she knew her face flushed. Nevertheless, he seemed to buy her lie.
‘Well, we were a big part of the war effort. My grandfather, John, used to sail his boat over to the north of France, taking all manner of people. He was even in the D-Day landings. He saw some stuff all right.’
‘Tell me about him,’ she encouraged.
His face lit up. She’d obviously struck on the tale that he invariably wanted to tell, because he settled into a comfortable storytelling rhythm. He reaffirmed what the museum owner had told her, about the way the boats were used to mingle with the French fishing boats. But then he brought up the story involving Vivienne.
‘What can you tell me about that?’ she enquired. ‘It sounds terrifying.’
‘It was terrifying for my grandad, John. He had to have three stitches in his head, and he always had vertigo after that. That Nazi hit him so hard, cracked his skull good, he did, struck him from behind. Didn’t get a chance even to defend himself. Fortunately, once he came round he had the whereabouts to get himself back to England, but he was very nearly caught.’
‘The Nazi was alone?’ she enquired carefully.
‘No, he went with a local girl. She turned up on the beach with him. My great-grandfather had previously taken her over before, for SOE was what was rumoured. It’s a spy network, you know, spies that went in from London and such. That’s what my grandfather did, he said, though no one told him what the people