I didn’t know then that I was about to make a lifechanging discovery and thoughts of fraud, corruption and murder were definitely not on the agenda.

I pottered around in the garden for a couple of hours until it was time to organise myself for my evening out. I was actually rather intrigued by the idea of getting to know M. Collard a bit better and decided that Fernie Castle deserved a relatively smart Bob Bruce. So I dug out a notworn-very-often pair of smart cotton trousers and ran an iron over a shirt. I slipped on my old blazer and set off in anticipation of an interesting evening.

The Fernie Castle Hotel is only about two miles out of the village and is a comfortably elegant place. Previously home to a wealthy family whose name I couldn’t remember, it had been bought by a brewery and turned into a first- class hotel. They had got their strategy right because the central part of Fife (the Howe) doesn’t lack money. It is very rich arable land and there are a large number of well-to-do farmers. There are also the country estates of many who had made their piles of money in the second half of the nineteenth century from coal, jute, linoleum and the financial markets of Edinburgh.

M. Collard was waiting for me in the reception area of the hotel. Deep blue carpet on a stone-flagged floor, granite walls and a couple of suits of armour on guard. We greeted each other with another handshake and he suggested we repair to the bar for a pre-dinner drink.

Ensconced at a table in the corner of the dimly lit bar I watched him go up and order the drinks. He was obviously perfectly at ease in his surroundings. The girl behind the bar seemed impressed by the Gallic charm and he came back shortly with a pair of inviting glasses of a nice, deep amber liquid that was not unknown to me.

“Alors, M. Collard, comment allez-vous ce soir?” I asked him, with, what I hoped, was a reasonable imitation of a French accent.

“Verry weel, tank you verree mooch!” he replied with a grin.

We clinked glasses and quietly appreciated the first sip of what he informed me was a fifteen-year-old Glenmore.

He sat back and looked at me for a few seconds, as if trying to weigh me up. I had nothing to worry about so I just left him to it.

He then proceeded to explain to me that he had already been twice to Scotland but had only toured the west and the north – the Highlands and the Islands. This was the first time he had visited Fife and he loved it. Not so rough and barren – more akin to his Normandy. He had been to the charming fishing villages along the coast. He had visited the ancient Palace of Falkland and climbed the hill behind the village. It had been a clear day and he had seen the two Forth bridges in the far distance. From the top of the East Lomond you can see practically all of the county, or Kingdom to give it its proper name. He was planning a trip to St Andrews the next day.

I fully agreed with his comments on the beauty of the area. I had been raised in the village of Falkland and the whole area was home to me. That’s why I had moved back here two years ago.

“Robert – may I call you Robert?” he asked, “Shall we go and see what the chef has to offer this evening?”

“Certainly. But if you don’t mind, I prefer Bob,” I replied. “As you can imagine, with a name like mine, I suffered a lot of teasing when I was young and decided Bob was better.”

“OK, Bob, let’s go and eat.” I had my father to thank for the Robert. When my mother had questioned his choice, apparently his reply had been “If he gets hassle at school it’ll be good for him”. It certainly got me into a good few fights in my early years but, with hindsight, I now felt that Dad hadn’t got it far wrong.

Once we were seated and had perused the menu we decided that a local fish dish to start with and a good Aberdeen Angus steak would be perfect for both of us. The Château Maucaillou was ordered and once uncorked was put reverently on the side table to be served with our steak.

Still very curious about this unexpected visit and invitation, I broached the subject that I had been pondering over that afternoon.

“So, Pierre, what’s the particular reason for this trip and how come you knocked on my door this afternoon?”

“Research into family history,” he replied. “Let me guess. One of your ancestors was an officer in Napoleon’s army, like MacDonald?”

“No. Not so far back as that. In fact my father was Scottish.”

“With a name like Collard?” “No. That’s my mother’s name.” He saw I was intrigued and he then went on to explain. “There are quite a few of us in France of our generation who were brought up not knowing who their fathers were. It’s not surprising when you think about it. At the end of the war there were thousands of British, American and Canadian soldiers, young and away from home, and French girls are quite attractive. Many of the girls married and went back home with their soldier husbands. Some didn’t. My mother was one that didn’t and I was born and brought up not knowing who my father was – although I had a rough idea.”

The fish arrived and we both seized our utensils and got stuck in. I was intrigued, being a bit of a history buff.

“Go on,” I said. “Well, to cut a long story short, I am sixty-nine years old. I was born in 1944. I wasn’t the only boy in the village not to have a father. Some had been killed, some had gone home. When I was old enough to ask, my mother explained to me that my father had ‘gone away’. It was only later, when I was about ten, that I wanted to know more. She then told me that my father had been a young Scottish officer. He had been dropped into occupied France to liaise with the Resistance in preparation for the Normandy Landings. My mother was also in the Resistance and they had become firm friends. I suppose it is practically impossible for us to imagine the stress that these young men and women were under. It was only after he left that my mother discovered that she was pregnant. I was born and she raised me on her own. She never married and she kept a photograph of him beside her bed until she died about fifteen years ago.”

Pierre finished off his fish and sat back with a satisfied look on his face – a handsome firm-featured face, slightly tanned. His brown eyes turned on me as if hoping that I was interested.

I was. “So you’ve decided to trace back your roots?” “That’s about it,” he replied. “How far have you got? Is there any way I can help?” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. He carefully extracted two photographs, lent forward and placed them on the table in front of me.

Chapter 2

I set down my wine glass and picked them up. They were slightly faded and crinkled at the edges and he had clearly kept them in his wallet for years.

One was a formal studio photograph of a young soldier in officer’s uniform; the other had been taken outside and was of the same man, not in uniform this time, standing beside an attractive brunette, his arm around her shoulders. They were both smiling at the camera.

“This is your father and that’s your mother?” He nodded. “And you said that you’ve come over here to find out what happened to him?”

He nodded again. “But, in fact, you do know what became of him,” I said. “I know now – but I only discovered about a year ago. I had obviously wondered all my life and when I retired I decided to try to track him down.”

I sat back in my chair and looked at him closely. He said nothing but was watching me attentively.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” I shot at him. “Absolutely not. These two photographs sat on my mother’s bedside table for about forty years. As I said, she only discovered she was pregnant after he had had to leave to go back to Britain. She hadn’t expected to hear from him again because she knew he had a fiancée back in Scotland. They had both known that their relationship would be temporary. There was a war on and at that time nobody knew how it was going to turn out. Bearing in mind that they lived constantly under the threat of arrest, or worse, they lived out their romance knowing that it would be short lived. He never knew of my existence.”