“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Remember that Harry had gone to some pains to tell Hofer who he was, and that meant something concrete to the Gestapo. They had him on file, had been after him for a long time. Remember, they only just failed to get their hands on him after that business at Lyons when he shot Kaufmann.”
“So Rommel was believed?”
“Oh, I don’t think Himmler was too happy, but the Ftthrer seemed satisfied enough. They drew a veil over the whole thing. Hardly wanted it on the front page of national newspapers at that stage in the war. The same thing applied with our people, but for different reasons.”
“No publicity?”
“That’s right.”
“In the circumstances,” I said, “the accidental shot that killed Heini Baum was really rather convenient. He could have been a problem.”
“Too convenient,” Sarah said flatly. “As Harry once said to me, Dougal Munro hated loose ends. Not that it gave anyone any problems. With D Day coming, Eisenhower was only too delighted to have got Kelso back in one piece, and our own Intelligence people didn’t want to make things difficult for Rommel and the other generals who were plotting against Hitler.”
“And they almost succeeded,” I said.
“Yes, the bomb plot in July, later that year. Hitler was injured but survived.”
“And the conspirators?”
“Count von Stauffenberg and many others were executed, some of them in the most horrible of circumstances.”
“And Rommel?”
“Three days before the attempt on Hitler’s life, Rommel’s car was machine-gunned by low-flying Allied planes. He was terribly wounded. Although he was involved with the plot it kept him out of things in any practical sense.”
“But they caught up with him?”
“In time. Someone broke under Gestapo torture and implicated him. However, Hitler didn’t want the scandal of having Germany’s greatest war hero in the dock. He was given the chance of taking his own lift. on the promise that his family wouldn’t be molested.”
I nodded. “And what happened to Hofer?”
“He was killed in heavy fighting near Caen not long after D Day.”
“And Hugh Kelso?”
“He wasn’t supposed to return to active duty. That leg never fully recovered, but they needed his engineering expertise for the Rhine crossings in March forty-five. He was killed in an explosion while supervising work on the damaged bridge at Remagen. A booby trap.”
I got up and walked to the window and stared out at the rain, thinking about it all. “Amazing,” I said. “And the most extraordinary thing is that it never came out, the whole story.”
“There was a special reason for that,” she said. “The Jersey connection. This island was liberated on the ninth of May, nineteen forty-five. The fortieth anniversary in a couple of months’ time. It’s always been an important occasion here, Liberation Day.”
“I can imagine.”
“But after the war, it was a difficult time. Accusations and counteraccusations about those who were supposed to have consorted with the enemy. The Gestapo had actually hunted down some of the people who had sent them anonymous letters denouncing friends and neighbors. Those names were on file. Anyway, there was a government committee appointed to investigate.”
“And what did it find?”
“I don’t know. It was put on hold with a special one-hundred-year security classification. You can’t read that report until the year twenty forty-five.”
I went back and sat down again. “What happened to Helen de Ville, Gallagher and Guido?”
“Nothing. They didn’t come under any kind of suspicion. Guido was taken prisoner at the end of the war, but Dougal Munro secured his release almost at once. Helen’s husband, Ralph, returned in bad shape. He’d been wounded in the desert campaign. He never really recovered and died three years after the war.”
“Did she and Gallagher marry?”
“No. It sounds silly, but I think they’d known each other too long. She died of lung cancer ten years ago. He followed her within a matter of months. He was eighty-three and still one hell of a man. I was with him at the end.”
“I was wondering,” I said, “About de Ville Place and Sep-tembertide. Would it be possible to take a look?”