A Place of Hiding

Le Gallez slammed the door shut behind him. But not before he snapped, “Sodding little cripple,” as a parting remark. Virtually all the dealers in antiques on Guernsey were in St. Peter Port, Deborah found. As one might expect, they were in the oldest part of the town, not far from the harbour. Rather than visit them all, however, she suggested to Cherokee that they begin on the phone. So they retraced their steps down to the market and from there they crossed over to the Town Church. To one side of it stood the public telephone they needed, and while Cherokee waited and watched her earnestly, Deborah fed coins into the phone and rang up the antiques shops till she was able to isolate those that offered militaria. It seemed logical to begin there, broadening the investigation if they found it necessary.

As things turned out, only two shops in the town had military items among their merchandise. Both of them were in Mill Street, a cobbled pedestrian walkway snaking from the meat market up a hillside, wisely closed to traffic. Not, Deborah thought as they found it, that a car could have possibly passed along the street without running the risk of scraping the buildings on either side. It reminded her of the Shambles in York: slightly wider, but just as redolent of a past in which horse-drawn carts would have lurched along, acting the part of transport. Small shops along Mill Street reflected a simpler period, defined by spare decoration and no-nonsense windows and doors. They were housed in buildings that might easily have served as homes, with three trim floors, dormer windows, and chimney pots lined up like waiting schoolboys on their roofs.

There were few people about in the area, which was some distance from the main shopping and banking precincts of the High Street and its extension, Le Pollet. Indeed, it seemed to Deborah as she and Cherokee looked for the first name and address which she’d scribbled upon the back of a blank cheque, that even the most optimistic of retailers stood a good chance of failure if he opened a shop here. Many of the buildings were vacant, with to let or for sale signs in their windows. When they located the first of the two shops they were seeking, its front window was hung with a droopy going-out-of-business banner that looked as if it had been passed round from shop owner to shop owner for quite some time. John Steven Mitchell Antiques offered little in the way of military memorabilia. Perhaps owing to its imminent closure, the shop contained only a single display case whose contents had a military origin. These comprised mainly medals, although three dress daggers, five pistols, and two Wehrmacht hats accompanied them. While Deborah found this a disappointing show, she decided that since everything in the case was German in origin, matters might actually be more hopeful than they appeared. She and Cherokee were bent over the case, studying its merchandise, when the shop owner—presumably John Steven Mitchell himself—joined them. They’d apparently interrupted his washing up after a meal, if his stained apron and damp hands were any indication. He offered his help pleasantly enough as he wiped his hands on an unappealingly dingy dishcloth. Deborah brought forth the ring that she and Simon had found on the beach, careful not to touch it herself and asking John Steven Mitchell not to touch it either. Did he recognise this ring? she asked him. Could he tell them anything about it?

Mitchell fetched a pair of spectacles from the top of a till and bent over the ring where Deborah had placed it on the case of military items. He took up a magnifying glass as well, and he studied the inscription on the forehead of the skull.

“Western bulwark,” he murmured. “Thirty-nine, forty.” He paused as if considering his own words. “That’s the translation of die Festung imWesten. And the year...Actually, it suggests a memento of some sort of defensive construction. But it could be a metaphorical reference to the assault on Denmark. On the other hand, the skull and crossed bones were specific to the Waffen-SS, so there’s that connection as well.”

“But it’s not something from the Occupation?” Deborah asked.

“It would have been left then, when the Germans surrendered to the Allies. But it wouldn’t have been directly connected to the Occupation. The dates aren’t right for that. And the term die Festung im Westen doesn’t have any meaning here.”

“Why’s that?” Cherokee had kept his eyes on the ring while Mitchell was examining it, but he raised them now.

“Because of the implication,” Mitchell answered. “They built tunnels, of course. Fortifications, gun emplacements, observation towers, hospitals, the lot. Even a railway. But not an actual bulwark. And even if they had done, this is commemorating something from a year before the Occupation began.” He bent to it a second time with his magnifying glass. “I’ve never actually seen anything like it. Are you considering selling?”