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V on Schneider had left for Paris and Armand breathed a sigh of relief at the station.

On the drive back to the Legion, he kept turning over the details of his night at the chateau.

The sense that all wasn’t quite what it seemed hit him again after his visit to the turret.

The housekeeper racing around outside at night, the young couple who had arrived at the chateau out of the blue in wartime, and the mysterious key.

What were they up to?

Armand turned over the events in his mind as he drove, and his thoughts predictably circled back to Michel Dubois.

Much to his disappointment, he had only seen him briefly that morning.

His French was exquisite, and he was Luc’s relative from Brittany, so why did he have the nagging feeling he was missing something?

His preoccupation with Michel Dubois had become an obsession, and he had meant to begin surveillance of the couple, but unfortunately was too busy with official duties to follow them. Now he would begin in earnest. Even if the couple were innocent, the housekeeper was definitely up to no good.

He eased the vehicle into the Legion car park and patted his pocket for the key he had stolen from the turret room.

Stolen was such an ugly word, he reasoned.

Confiscated was more fitting. It was, after all, his duty to be vigilant in all matters concerning potential enemies of the state, and he took the commitment seriously.

Armand raised his head as he walked as if marching in an imaginary honours’ parade, where he would be commended for his service. As he turned the corner and approached the door, he saw a woman hovering outside.

She rushed forward at the sight of him. ‘Good morning, Monsieur Abadie, I have important information for you.’

‘You bother me on a Sunday? It must be urgent,’ he said, huffing.

Armand had fallen into the habit of coming into his office on Sundays because he had the place to himself.

The others were with their families and not being a family man and not having close friends, he found Sundays dull.

Instead of sitting at home alone, he would come in and study his suspect notebook and check out the informer notes he had collated during the week.

Now this woman had interrupted his reflection time, and it irritated him.

‘Forgive the intrusion, I would not have come if it wasn’t important,’ she said, touching the brim of her hat with a nervous gesture.

‘Very well, you’d better come in,’ Armand said, and she followed him inside. It was a sultry morning and his office was humid.

‘Take a seat, madame.’ Armand waved at the chair on the other side of his desk.

He extracted his notebook, and with the solemnity of a detective, he opened it and located the page marked with the informant’s name.

‘Here you are. Last time we spoke, you agreed to bring me information about anyone suspicious frequenting your shop in the village.’

The woman nodded.

‘What do you wish to tell me?’ Armand waited, his pen poised, hoping it was something worthwhile and not the usual dreary nonsense people came to him with, hoping in exchange to get preferential treatment and extra rations.

‘It’s about the man you asked me to keep an eye out for.’

Armand’s head snapped up. Now she had his full attention. ‘Go on,’ he said, his tone commanding.

‘I knew I’d seen him before and was trying to think where I recognised him from,’ said the woman slowly, relishing the telling of her tale.

Armand clicked his tongued. ‘Yes, and presumably now you know?’

She raised her face to the ceiling as she spoke, as though acting out the revelation. ‘It came to me in the middle of the night.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Armand. ‘I don’t have all day, madame, please get to the point.’

The woman’s lips pursed, and lines of annoyance creased her brow.

‘Well, you see, the man is the spitting image of Monsieur Saint-Clair’s nephew, who used to spend summers at the chateau.

It must be at least twenty years since I saw him last. He and his brother used to buy sweets in our shop.

Well, it was my father’s shop then, God rest his soul.

Anyway, a few days ago, he came in for cigarettes.

It took me ages to place him, but I’d know his eyes anywhere.

They’re so dark, they’re almost black. He’s grown into such a handsome man.

Mind you, they were good-looking boys then too.

Us village girls used to trail about after them.

Quite a stir they caused, but they kept themselves to themselves.

You know what those posh types are like. ’

Armand sighed. The woman was determined to draw the story out.

‘I fail to see why this concerns me. A handsome boy with dark eyes visited every summer aeons ago, so presumably dark eyes run in the family. But the man I want information about isn’t Monsieur Saint-Clair’s nephew. He’s a distant relative from St. Malo.’

‘I haven’t got to the best bit yet,’ the woman said, clutching her handbag and staring at him with her chin thrust out. ‘What do I get when I tell you what you want to know?’

These informants were all the same. All they cared about were their own selfish desires. Armand couldn’t resist taunting her. ‘But madame, is being of service to France and a thank you from the government not enough to satisfy you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, monsieur. A thank you, whilst pleasant, won’t put food in my belly.’

‘Very well, so it’s food you want?’

‘Triple rations and increased supplies for my shop,’ she said, a cunning expression on her face, as though she knew she’d got him.

Armand reined his irritation in, eager to hear what information she had about Luc’s relative she deemed so important that he would reward her so generously.

‘Done. As long as the information pertains to the man in question and is not just village gossip from when you were a girl. There is, after all, nothing sinister in Luc Saint-Clair having hosted his nephews for the summer.’

‘I haven’t made myself clear,’ she said, her eyes gleaming.

‘Now is your moment, madame. Please reveal what you know and let us both get on with our day.’

‘A glass of something strong might help me recall the details in sharper focus,’ she said.

Armand groaned, before turning to a tray on the sideboard where he kept a bottle of brandy. He poured the amber liquid into two glasses and passed one to the informant.

She drained it in one shot and resumed talking.

‘The boys were Monsieur Luc’s sister’s sons.

To my knowledge, the family would travel from England every summer to stay at the chateau.

She and her husband had emigrated there, you see, and the boys were born in London and grew up there.

’ Now the woman leaned back in the chair, looking pleased with herself.

‘I still don’t see how this applies to the distant relative and his wife. Are you saying he is directly related to the English boys?’

The woman licked her lips and pushed her glass forward on the desk for a top up. When Armand followed her cue, she took a sip and then paused dramatically.

‘What I’m saying is he is not a distant relative from St. Malo. He is Monsieur Luc’s nephew.’

Armand blinked as his thoughts whirled and the significance of this detail shifted his chess pieces around the board until he could see how he would move to a checkmate. ‘If this is true, it changes everything, madame.’

‘It’s true,’ she said, sounding smug. ‘The father had some kind of factory in London, but I remember hearing he died quite young. There was gossip in the village, and if my memory serves me correctly, that’s around the time when they stopped visiting.’

Armand slugged down the rest of his brandy, his heart beating fast with the thrill of victory in his sights. Finally, his initiative would pay off handsomely.

‘And you are quite certain this man, Michel Dubois, is Luc’s nephew?’

‘I am. As I said, it’s those eyes. I would know them anywhere.’

‘Then, madame, we have British spies lording it up at the chateau, right under our noses!’

Now the woman looked jubilant. ‘I’m happy I could be of service. Is there anything else you would like me to do?’

Armand thought for a minute. Von Schneider was well on his way to Paris by now. The commissaire would spend the day with his family. Soon Armand’s delusions of grandeur gripped him as he imagined the glory of orchestrating this great arrest himself.

He could imagine the newspaper headlines now: British spies captured single handedly by Armand Abadie, a distinguished war veteran.

There was a glow in his chest as he fantasised about the promotion and recognition that would surely be his. He would be a hero in France, and everyone would know his name.

He pictured the mortification on the commissaire and the Gestapo officer’s faces when they learnt they had been so easily fooled by British spies.

The commissaire had dinner with the couple twice and presumably didn’t suspect a thing!

What an embarrassment for the Vichy police.

And the Gestapo, the infamous political police force whose speciality it was to spot signs of opposition and resistance to Nazi rule.

A beatific smile spread across Armand’s face as he contemplated the extent of his superiors’ failure.

If he pulled off the capture of the British spies, this would be proof for all to see that he deserved a promotion to the top of the Legion.

Once there, it was just a few stepping stones to being recognised by the Reich.

‘Monsieur,’ the woman interrupted his thoughts, snapping him back to reality. ‘What would you have me do next?’

Armand lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Nothing. Don’t tell anyone what you told me. And I mean anyone. This must remain a secret just between you and me, or we will lose the element of surprise. You have done well and will be rewarded appropriately. Thank you, madame.’

The woman insisted on his authorising her reward on the spot, and he did so quickly to get rid of her. Once she had left, he put his feet up on the desk, poured himself another large brandy, and began planning exactly how he would capture the British spies in action.