He looked on the back of the photograph. Nothing written there. He put the photo down and picked up the second sheet of letter-paper. It had the same neat handwriting as the envelope. It was addressed care of a hotel in Brighton and dated 25th February 1915. He read it slowly.
Dear Mrs Watts,
I understand that you have by now received news from the War Office of the sad death of your husband, Robert Edward Watts. (We knew him as ‘Ted’.) I was with him when he died. He and I were firm friends. He was a fine man who spoke of you and your children in loving terms every day. I have some few small items of his possessions and a note he wrote to you the night before his death that I hope you may allow me to bring to you. I am spending some days leave in Brighton. Perhaps you would be good enough to let me know if a visit would be welcome.
I am most sorry for your loss. My best wishes to you and your children.
He looked at the photograph of his grandparents in the album again. He ran his hand through his shock of blond hair. His father had been blond in his young days. Watts couldn’t see any family resemblance between himself and the man in the photo, although he thought there was something of his father in the woman’s features.
He picked up his father’s birth certificate. Robert had his occupation listed as ‘Soldier’. Jenny was listed as ‘Teacher’. The birth was registered at Haywards Heath, Sussex.
Watts looked at the date on the birth certificate and frowned.
He had always believed, as the obituaries had stated, that his father had been born on 27th November 1913. The birth certificate had a different date. 27th November 1915.
He pondered this, then walked over to his father’s bookshelves. He double-checked the date of the Battle of Mons.
He returned to his seat. Robert Watts last saw his wife at the start of August 1914. He was dead by 23rd August 1914. His son, Donald Watts, aka Victor Tempest, was born in November of the following year.
Some fifteen months after Robert had died.
Watts steepled his hands under his chin. Looked down at the photo of his grandmother. He could see how it might have happened. It was almost a cliche. The grieving widow. The wounded soldier who had fought alongside her beloved husband delivering his final note to her. Misplaced emotions. A sense of gratitude. Sorrow. Loneliness.
In those days she would need to hide the fact of a child conceived after the death of her husband. Especially if she was to get help from her father.
Did his own father, Donald aka Victor Tempest, know? Perhaps Jenny confessed it to him, her son, when he was grown-up. Perhaps he figured out from his birth certificate that his father couldn’t be his father.
But did he know everything?
Watts looked again at the photo of the four men. Only one of them had a blond moustache and blond hair. The tallest of them. He looked straight into the camera and Watts could see his father in the cold eyes and pursed lips.
He picked up the letter and looked at the name carefully printed out below the indecipherable signature. It was a name he now knew. The name of his true grandfather.
Eric Knowles.