The identity card itself was then subjected to deliberate aging. Cards carried by serving officers showed the normal wear of daily use: slightly creased edges, a faded photograph, the worn look of a document carried in a wallet through months of field service. A brand-new card on the body would look wrong. Montagu and Cholmondeley rubbed the card against clothing to age it artificially. Cholmondeley wore the uniform for a period to give it the look of regular use.
To explain away any residual impression that the card looked newer than expected, they constructed a small explanatory detail in the documents: a reference to the fact that Martin had recently had to replace his identity card after losing the previous one. Administrative carelessness of this kind was entirely plausible for an officer in wartime and served to explain any apparent incongruity.
The third problem was clothing. Martin needed to be in the correct uniform for a Royal Marines officer in the field. The uniform had to fit. It had to be the right issue for the rank and period. It had to show the right insignia.
The uniform was obtained and fitted to Michael’s body. The cold storage conditions had been maintained at approximately 4 degrees Celsius from the time of death, which preserved the body’s dimensions well enough for clothing to be fitted correctly.
The choice of Royal Marines as Martin’s service branch was itself deliberate. A check of service records revealed that multiple real British officers named William Martin served in the Royal Marines around this time. Any German attempt to verify the name through neutral intermediaries or other intelligence channels would produce enough ambiguity, multiple real William Martins of similar rank in a single service branch, to be inconclusive. Naval Intelligence Division, which Montagu controlled, was the natural point of contact for any such inquiry, which meant that any inquiry would arrive on his desk.