was as exciting as it got. Of course, we still got plenty of local gossip from town.’
‘Like what?’
‘Blackout violations, bossy Home Guards, and one of the ARP slipping it to someone else’s wife. That one ended in a big showdown. The whole town came out for it. We had the occasional house fire, shortages, a row about the POW camp being too close, a missing person.’
‘Who went missing?’
‘A young lad called Nat Bunting. Bit of a local character.’
‘What happened?’
‘Don’t know. He simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Never seen again. He wasn’t quite all there, if you know what I mean, but he was always going on about joining up, doing his bit. Maybe he did join up and went off to war, got killed. He could have got lost in a cave or fallen down a pothole. Anything. Or maybe he just moved on. He didn’t have any family as far as anyone knew. I only remember him because he used to come by the farm sometimes and my father would give him a few scraps of food. I’d talk to him sometimes. He was about my age, mentally, when I was about six or seven.’
‘But Grace missed all this?’
‘From what I could gather. I didn’t know her then.’ He paused. ‘They called her a cradle-snatcher, but she wouldn’t snatch as young as an eight- or nine-year-old boy.’ He smiled to himself then turned to me again and sighed. ‘No, Grace didn’t talk about the war. Look, I’m still rather tired. As I said, I have no objection to carrying on this conversation, but perhaps we could eat dinner together this evening?’
‘I’d like that,’ I said.
‘Where are you staying?’
I told him.
‘Then let’s meet at Le Dome. It’s right on the corner of the Boulevard Montparnasse and Rue Delambre, just down the street from your hotel. You can’t miss it. Marcel will find us a quiet corner. Mention my name. Don’t worry, I’ll be there. Say eight o’clock?’
I knocked back the rest of my Armagnac and stood up. ‘Eight o’clock it is,’ I said. ‘Don’t get up. Please. I’ll find my own way out.’
He nodded, and I walked down the hall to the front door, then down the stairs and out into the street.
I must confess that I had a brief nap myself when I got back to my hotel. I’m not seventy-eight, but the years are definitely catching up with me. Or perhaps it was the wine and the Armagnac. Gone were my days of two- martini-and-a-bottle-of-wine lunches followed by late nights in smoky bars lingering over the fifth single malt Scotch. The bars aren’t even smoky any more.
Just before eight, feeling a little refreshed, I set off down the Boulevard Raspail towards the bright lights of Montparnasse, past a couple of cafes and a fitness centre, where dedicated members were still running the treadmills and riding the exercise bikes, pouring sweat. I felt guilty. I hadn’t had a good workout in ages. But not that guilty. When I reached the broad, busy intersection, I spotted Le Dome easily on the corner just to my left.
I could see the waiter sizing me up with a surly, truculent expression on his face as I walked in and deciding at which of the Siberian tables he should seat me. As Sam Porter had told me to, I mentioned his name, and suddenly it was all smiles and ‘ Oui, oui, monsieur. Suivez-moi. ’
It was a large split-level restaurant which gave the impression of being divided into several distinct areas. No doubt the waiter knew the pecking order. I took in the thirties art deco ambience as I followed him up the stairs and around a corner by the bar. It was all fabric-covered light fixtures, paintings on the walls, shiny brass rails, mirrors, plush red velvet banquettes and polished wood. Probably the kind of place Hemingway or Scott and Zelda used to eat when they were flush. Same waiters, too.
To my surprise, Sam was waiting in a little alcove, quite sheltered from the rest of the restaurant, reading a Special Suspense series thriller. You could probably seat about six people at the table, at a pinch, but tonight there were only the two of us, and it seemed roomy enough. Impressionist landscapes in gilt frames hung on the walls.
Sam put his book down and half stood to shake my hand before I sat. Tonight he was wearing a white linen jacket, mauve shirt and a tie that looked as if it had been painted by Jackson Pollock. He had a glass of milky liquid beside him. Pernod, Ricard or some such aperitif, I guessed. I declined his offer of the same.
He helped me with the menu and I settled on langoustines to start, followed by sole meuniere. Sam went for oysters and sea bream. ‘The bouillabaisse is magnificent here,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid my appetite doesn’t quite stretch that far these days. It’s very filling.’ He studied the wine list and settled on a bottle of Sancerre to start. When we got our ordering out of the way – accomplished by Sam in what sounded to me like perfect French – he raised his glass and said, ‘ Salut. You’ve given me a lot to think about, my musical friend. I looked you up on the Internet. Quite the career. I must say, I’m impressed. I’ve even seen some of your films.’
‘So that’s why you wanted to leave our talk until later? So you could check me out?’
He inclined his head slightly. ‘Partly,’ he said. ‘Trust doesn’t always come so easily when you’ve lived as long as I have and experienced some of the things I’ve known happen. But your sudden and dramatic appearance at my door did rather take me by surprise, and it did kick me back through the years with astonishing speed. I needed a little time to collect my thoughts, too, and to focus. Sure you won’t have an aperitif?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Thanks. To be honest, I’ve always hated the smell and taste of aniseed since my schooldays. I think I nearly choked on an aniseed ball one day.’
Sam chuckled. ‘Good Lord, aniseed balls. I’d forgotten all about them. Gobstoppers, too, that changed colour as you sucked them, and knobbly liquorice sticks like bits of wood that you chewed.’
‘Probably all disappeared now,’ I said. ‘Are these paintings genuine?’ I asked, nodding towards the walls.
‘Most of them. They’re not forgeries, if that’s what you mean, though they’re often “in the style of”. Pupils’ work. That sort of thing.’ He shrugged. ‘One or two are quite valuable. Most aren’t.’
‘It’s a beautiful restaurant,’ I said.
‘Indeed. A bit of old Paris. And just wait till you taste the sole. C’est magnifique. Anyway, I’m sure there must be lots of questions you want to ask me, so do go ahead. What is it you want to know?’
I hadn’t really sketched out an approach, unsure as to what Sam would either remember or would wish to talk about. Instead, I had envisaged a free-ranging conversation in as relaxed a tone as possible. I certainly didn’t want to appear to be interrogating him in any way.
‘Were you ever inside Kilnsgate?’
‘On occasion,’ Sam said, with a sly smile. ‘We had to be very careful, of course, very discreet. We hardly ever exchanged notes or letters, for example, and if we did we were careful to destroy them. “Eat this message”. That was our joke. Each time we met we would arrange a different time and place for our next meeting, with a back-up plan in case one of us couldn’t make it. And I only ever gave her one present – a silver cigarette case that used to belong to my grandmother. She took it, said she would manage to keep it somehow, but not to buy her anything else. It all sounds a bit cloak-and-dagger now, I suppose, but we felt it necessary at the time. Ernest did go out of town on occasion, sometimes overnight, or even for longer. Naturally, if Randolph was away at school and Hetty wasn’t due, we’d take advantage of that if we could. I’d hide my bicycle in the garden shed at the back. I don’t need to tell you how out of the way Kilnsgate House is, so I’m sure you know it wasn’t very difficult to be discreet there. Most of the time we were making do with barns, haystacks, fields, whatever. It was all right in summer, but when autumn came, then winter… well, you can imagine.
‘We loved the east coast most of all in late summer and early autumn: Staithes, Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, though we didn’t have occasion to go there very often. We did have some of our most wonderful days there, though, just walking on the clifftop paths, eating fish and chips from newspaper. So many memories. It wasn’t all mad passionate sex, you know. We spent hours just talking about art and music or walking along quietly, just happy in each other’s company, hand in hand. Some days I’d paint and Grace would sit or lie on the grass watching me, dozing off, dreaming. We thought we’d gone far enough afield that day we spent at the guest house in Leyburn to get out of the rain in November, but that damn Bible-thumping old bitch remembered us.’
‘It’s true, then? Is that how the investigation got started?’
‘Yes. If it hadn’t been for her… who knows?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘One stupid mistake. Ernest was away in Salisbury at some medical institute or other for a few days, and Randolph was at boarding school. We were out
