The Return of Captain John Emmett

He had a sense that he was almost on to something when the sight of what he guessed were the closed gates of Holmwood distracted him. A large iron bel pul was set in the wal beside a smal nameplate. He couldn't see Cyril Trusty's promised spikes but he noticed that the smal upper windows, at least, were barred like a prison. The rooms up there must be dark, he thought. The building he was approaching was tal and square, its roof shalow and, unusualy for the area, he noted, of slate rather than Cotswold stone. That added to its slightly sombre appearance but the man who opened one gate a minute or so later had a perfectly pleasant expression on his face.

'Mr Bartram?'

He stood back to let Laurence through. Inside, an oval of grass was studded with a few falen crab apples. A cream Bentley was puled up by steps to the front door. It was one of the few cars Laurence could recognise. He thought of Charles, who was able to identify anything on wheels at any distance and by any visible part.

Charles would love this car. Perhaps one of the eminent parents was visiting a son?

'Could you come this way, sir?'

A graveled drive wound away behind a shrubbery but they were heading to a pilared porch on the left.

'Sorry.' Laurence caught up. 'Just admiring the motor car.'

'Mr George's car,' said his guide. 'He's a great man for cars. Dr Chilvers now, he stil takes the trap if it's fine, but Mr George loves a beautiful bit of machinery.'

They came into a half-paneled hal. Stained glass in the door filtered a wash of colour on to the stone floor but the space was mostly lit by a skylight three storeys above. The building was absolutely quiet, smeling of beeswax and, faintly, of cooking. It took Laurence back instantly to his prep school. Wide stairs curved up to a landing while several doors led off the hal. The man knocked at the nearest one and opened it without waiting for a response. The room he entered was a large, book-lined study, a room to receive guests rather than treat patients.

Dr Chilvers looked more the rural doctor than hospital physician. Dressed in a shapeless country suit, he was a spare man in his sixties, his hair sandy grey and wavy above a pale, almost waxy face. As he stepped forward his eyes held Laurence's. His handshake was firm. The doctor's demeanour was presumably intended to put Laurence at ease but, perhaps because he was here under false pretences, Laurence felt decidedly on edge.

'Come in, come in.'

Chilvers indicated an upright leather chair, then sat down himself behind a wide and tidy desk.

'You came up last night? Stayed at the Regent? It's comfortable enough and the owner is a good man. Used to work for us, in fact, but took on the hotel when his late father became il.'

'Actualy, I'm at the Bul.'

Chilvers looked surprised. 'The Bul?' he said, as if, although he recaled it, it was an effort to remember where it was. 'Wel, there's not much alternative, when the Regent is ful, I suppose. We do have a couple of guest rooms here but we tend to keep them for family. Of patients, that is. Especialy ladies traveling alone or where a visit seems likely to be distressing.'

Laurence nodded.

'Did you come by train?' Chilvers asked.

'No. I motored down with a friend.'

'Quite so. Quite so.'

Again Laurence had the feeling that it would have been better to have conformed to expectations.

'You're here about your brother,' Dr Chilvers said in a slightly brisker tone of voice. He put on his spectacles and puled over a sheaf of paper from the right-hand side of his desk. The first page was blank.

'I should tel you at the outset that at present we have no room at al. We take a maximum of eight patients. This permits us to give highly specialised care, adapted—I think I may say with confidence, very finely adapted—to individual patients' needs. However, I would anticipate a vacancy, possibly two, in the very near future. One patient returning home. Very much improved. The other into longer-term convalescent care. We could be looking at—' He reached for a large morocco leather diary, opened it, leafed through a few pages. 'Certainly before New Year. Late December, I would imagine. Would that be suitable?'

Chilvers evidently mistook for something else Laurence's look of alarm at the conversation's swift and specific direction, because he continued, 'Of course we haven't discussed your brother or what we could do to assist his condition, but I feel it is important not to hold out any false hopes for an immediate solution.' His eyes met Laurence's. 'Families come to me, some accustomed through rank or wealth to resolving a problem with some immediacy. But in these cases a swift and satisfactory outcome is not always possible. Despair is not susceptible to the usual processes of society. It is not just those who enter here but their families who may find their circumstances have very much changed. We help them al adapt.'

Chilvers had made this speech before, Laurence was sure. He nodded again, then he found himself saying aloud what he was thinking. 'It sometimes feels as if the fixed points have moved. It's as if we can't be sure how things might fit together any more.'

He spoke quite urgently and stopped, suddenly embarrassed, but Chilvers did not seem to find it odd.

'I think the essential aspects of human nature remain unchanged,' the doctor responded. 'Love, fear, jealousy, indolence, opportunism, hope—even nobility of spirit—but the relationship of one to another may have altered; some aspects may have moved to the fore, others have receded. Of course for every man whose response is to tread carefuly, recalculating those fixed points,' he paused and looked at Laurence, 'others abandon it al and live lives of remarkable recklessness.

'It seems to me,' he continued, 'that one might argue that man has evolved to be a warrior; indeed, few generations have escaped that role. Of course, I was not there,' he gave a respectful nod to Laurence, 'but I judge, from speaking at length to many of the recent war's more invisibly injured, that what was hard for them was a lack of clarity—in orders, aims, even as to whether engagements had been won or lost, and the constant anticipation of random catastrophe. The realisation that the traditional skils of the top-class fighting man—strength, courage, dexterity with his weapon and so on—might not be rewarded, not even by a heroic death, but rather, that a man's fate depended almost entirely on the inequities of fortune. It exploded profound understandings of what it meant to be a soldier.'

Laurence stared out of the window where crimson Virginia creeper blocked a ful view of what was obviously a lawn beyond. After a matter of probably a few seconds but which felt like several minutes, Chilvers seemed to throw him a lifeline:

'Have you read your Homer?'

'At school.' However, he'd known men who had their Homer with them on the battlefield. He'd heard less talk of Homer's inspirational qualities as the war ground on.

' The Iliad gives us an impeccable account of battlefield injuries. No machine-guns, no tanks, no aeroplanes, but the injuries themselves—those ancient and terrible descriptions—and their prognoses, are absolutely accurate. Injuries to the brain, piercing wounds to the liver, known even then to doom the afflicted. But what does Homer not show us?' Laurence knew no answer was expected and Chilvers moved on without pausing for one: 'The casualties die swiftly, if dramaticaly, and at the end of each day the living usualy retrieve their dead, then get back to a campfire and their comrades. No mention of mutilation or lifelong physical disability there.

No shel-shock.'

Laurence finaly found his voice. 'There wasn't much mention of al that in The Times, either.'

Chilvers gave a dry laugh, dispersing the intensity. 'True, but then The Times was for fathers and commanders of earlier wars: the mouthpiece and the vindication of the establishment. The Times was information, The Iliad a celebration. The Iliad was a romance stiffened by historical fact. The Times was fact with fiction as emolient.

'You'd be surprised at how many men I see, men who thought war would be something like Troy. Not the regulars, of course; they were emotionaly better suited to the stresses of conflict, and not so much the conscripted, who were either resigned or resentful. But in the volunteer there is shock, bewilderment, even a sense of betrayal. They couldn't compare their war to the Zulu wars, not that half-naked men with spears didn't have a trick or two to teach them. The Boer War was fought against God-fearing farmers, not a proper army, and, anyway, we won. Their grandfathers could have told them a thing or two about conditions in the Crimea, but many of those old combatants were never able to speak of it at al. So these young men go off with a few weeks of basic training, and three thousand years of Homer in their pockets and, more dangerously, in their heads and, in every sense of the phrase, they come to grief. When they get home, reeling with Homer's deceptions, the Times readers at the breakfast table tel them they've got it al wrong.'

Al those barely contained arguments he'd had with Louise and her parents, Laurence thought, with him trying to control a degree of anger and exhaustion which they didn't deserve. They had no idea. Any of them.

'In this war,' Chilvers said, 'men weren't fighting for the King or for Britain and certainly not for "little Belgium", but for apple blossom in a Kentish orchard or the smel of caulking ships on the Tyne, or the comradeship of a Rhondda pithead. Men find it easier to risk their lives for provincial loyalties.'

'Or because they have no option,' Laurence said. It was odd, though not unpleasant, to find himself on the receiving end of a wel-honed lecture, but he could hear a note of bitterness in his own voice. 'And they returned to find that the things they thought they were fighting for suddenly seemed hopelessly sentimental and irrelevant.'

Chilvers made no reply and Laurence continued, brusquely, 'I didn't join myself until late 1915, when I could see conscription was imminent.' He felt ashamed for lying unnecessarily.

He failed to say that the circumstances which led him to do so began when when, after a single, clumsy sexual encounter—his first—which he thought Louise had found distasteful and which she certainly tried her hardest to avoid ever afterwards, she had become pregnant. Perhaps it had damaged their relationship more than it had their prospects. They were engaged at the time and he was working for her father. He could not tel Louise, much less her furious mother, how much he had wanted her: the curve of her lip, the fine bones of her ankles in white stockings, the womanly smel of the back of her neck, under the weight of her pinned-up hair, so different from the flowery perfume she wore or the hot linen scent of her dress. Feeling her under him, as he pressed deep inside her, he had felt complete. Neither Louise's obvious discomfort, nor even his own dawning shame could diminish the deep joy of it. As a result, they simply brought forward their marriage, but she miscarried soon afterwards. Having married her, he swiftly felt an appaling need to escape.

For the first months he was amused, watching her set up the smal but handsome house bought with her family funds. As the countries of Europe issued ultimatums and mobilised their armies, he looked on as she chose curtains and furniture with her mother, selected a housemaid or a lapdog, played the piano and invited her friends round. Al the while he had a sense of his life becoming immeasurably smaler. He knew his own horizons were not vast when he met Louise and he disliked himself for being unable to enjoy her complete happiness in making them both a home. She was not even particularly demanding; there was simply an implicit invitation for him to admire her domestic skils. He had acquiesced in everything.

His first positive, independent action in marriage had been to lie to her and tel her he had received his papers. They had been married just eighteen months. She never knew that he had volunteered.

So he had gone and, despite the news coming in from the front, he sat on the train to Dover almost exhilarated at the opportunity of war. Al that folowed had seemed entirely merited by this first act of treachery.

'You were working until then?' Chilvers asked, breaking into his daydream.

'In my father-in-law's business. My wife is dead,' Laurence added quickly to cut off any possible question.

'I am sorry,' Chilvers said, and paused.

After some seconds he spoke again.

'But we must speak of your brother.' He took out his pen and wrote down the details of the fictional Robert's name, date of birth. 'You said in your recent letter that he had been in a sanatorium in Switzerland and that his own doctor has died, so I assume you have no access to his records? Never mind, sometimes it is easier to come to these cases without preconceptions. I am sure we can track them down if we need them, but military medical records are, I have found, lamentably inadequate.'

Laurence felt a lessening of tension. One major hurdle had been cleared easily.

'Regiment?'

It had taken Charles and Laurence some time over the previous week to place Robert in a suitable regiment. 'Instant pitfal, this,' Charles had said. 'You can count on someone's cousin having been in the same outfit, however obscure it might be, and that same cousin being clapped up in Holmwood. You know how it is with cousins?'

Laurence had no cousins but through Charles had observed their mysterious degree of social penetration.

And for God's sake keep him out of the Artists' Rifles; being mad is practicaly a prerequisite for joining.'

In the end Charles had suggested an empire regiment. 'That's where a lot of oddbals ended up.' They had debated the merits of the Canadian and South African Expeditionary Forces.

'Anyway, Chilvers was far too old for service, even as a medic,' Laurence had said, 'and his son was never a soldier, and Holmwood's a tiny place, and it's not as if the existing patients have a committee of acceptance. It's not White's, Charles.'

He was finding that dissembling was moving from a necessity to something approaching a game with someone to share it with. Charles had given him a long, appraising look.

'Queen Victoria's Own Madras Sappers and Miners,' Laurence now said confidently to Chilvers.

'Do you have a connection with India?'

'Yes,' said Laurence. At least my sister— our sister—lives out there with her family.' It was strange to be teling the truth, briefly.

'And you have other siblings?'

'No.'

'Parents?'

'Both dead.'

Chilvers wrote carefuly, his expression attentive. Laurence tried to ignore a pang of guilt.

'Your brother is unmarried?'

'Yes.'

'This must be quite a burden for you,' Chilvers observed matter-of-factly. 'The sole responsibility for an invalid is never easy.'

'I have an aunt,' Laurence said. He needed the aunt to provide a place where Robert was currently domiciled.

'Any ilnesses before the war?' he asked.

'We both survived diphtheria as children,' Laurence said, letting the imaginary brother share his infections. 'Otherwise just childhood diseases.' He was becoming more relaxed, soothed by the anodyne questions.

'Any sign of previous mental instability? In your brother's case or with any other family member?'

Laurence was briefly surprised; it was not as if shel-shock was hereditary.

'No.'

They went on to discuss Robert's general background and then his present condition and treatment, al mapped out for Laurence by Eleanor Bolitho. Laurence had learned it by heart and hoped it didn't sound too pat.

'I should warn you,' said the doctor, 'not to expect miracles and not to be disappointed if there are setbacks. What we sometimes see is that when a patient is taken out of his usual environment to this place where there are few expectations of him, least of al to be the man he once was, and with our regime, good food, plenty of rest and encouragement to move beyond his war experiences, he visibly improves, sometimes quite fast. Splendid for his loved ones, of course. But sometimes the cost of dismantling the habits he may have assembled to help him bear the unbearable—abandoning him unarmed, as it were, to confront his memories—may leave him vulnerable. We've had men who arrive here refusing to sleep, or who never speak. We have men who compulsively folow exact and occasionaly quite outlandish routines: who won't remove soiled clothes or bathe. One, I recal, kept his ears plugged with wool and Vaseline jely. Al of these protections are barriers; al serve to keep them as solitaries. We try to equip a man with better ways to confront the terrors he suffers but there is nevertheless a dangerous period of raw, unprotected insight.

'There was a mother once whom I particularly recal; her son came in as a living body inhabited by a dead man. He lay in the dark, mute, apparently unhearing, curled up, facing the wal. He responded to neither heat nor cold, pinprick, bright light nor sudden noise. To be honest, I thought it was a hopeless case. He was very frail: his temperature was always abnormaly low, his pulse slow; we wrapped him in blankets and hot-water bottles, and we chafed his hands. We fed him by tube.

'We did everything for this patient. My son urged me to have him removed to a larger, probably more permanent institution, but his mother begged me to keep him. She didn't want him moved again. She sat there, stroking him, talking to him. About his dog, about fishing. She brought the seasons into the room: leaves fel, snow drifted, corn ripened in the fields, the pond at home dried up, the barley was gathered in, the wind brought down an old barn. She continualy changed the photographs by his bed. She put books there for him, which she selected carefuly and replaced every so often. Sometimes they were children's picture books, some were boys'

adventure stories. One was about Captain Scott's expedition, I recolect.

'And slowly, over months and months, he improved. Astonishingly, he improved. His senses came back. His wits came back. He began to eat, to talk, to read and to smile when he saw his mother. To remember. Eventualy she suggested he should be alowed home for a weekend and we agreed. He cut his throat in his mother's bed on his first evening back. He wrote one line to say he simply couldn't live with his memories. His mother told me she sometimes wished he'd been kiled outright in Flanders or that she'd accepted him as he was before we treated him.'

Chilvers was obviously stil moved by the case. He looked drawn and tired. Laurence felt uncomfortable, hearing this tragic account in response to his own lies.

Chilvers took off his spectacles and started to polish them. 'In a little while, I shal get my son to escort you round the premises and explain a little of how we treat such cases as you go along. I find that is usualy the most effective way of covering al the possibilities.' He rang a smal bel. 'But in the meantime, no doubt you have questions of your own?'

Laurence struggled to articulate the apparently innocent but potentialy fruitful enquiries he'd planned with first Eleanor and then Charles's help, and the questions that he felt Chilvers would expect him to ask if he realy had a brother in need of care. For reasons he could not put his finger on, their discussion had unsettled him. He also knew that he had come prepared for a charlatan, even a sadist, and Chilvers, although perhaps a little certain in his ideas, was neither. Confronted with Chilvers'

insights, and given that the man had naturaly enough heard plenty of stories of war from his patients, Laurence was acutely aware that it was he who was in fact the impostor.

'By the way,' the doctor said, 'I wondered how you heard of us. I assume it was a personal recommendation?'

Laurence flailed. 'Yes.' Could he name the Emmetts? Would the family of a runaway suicide have suggested he put his brother in the same institution? Suddenly a conversation he'd had yesterday came to him.

'It might have been Lord Verey, I think. I met him at a dinner. For charity,' he improvised. 'And I mentioned Robert only towards the end.'

The room was silent. Laurence thought that he probably cut an implausible figure as a dining companion for the great and good.

Then the doctor said slowly, 'As I believe I mentioned earlier, we are always discreet, but I think Lieutenant Verey's case—a very sad situation—could be considered one of our successes. His physical injuries were so severe that I thought at first his state of mind was entirely contingent on those limitations. It was also obvious that he would need virtualy ful-time nursing care and I had some doubts as to whether he would be suitable for Holmwood at al. We pursue quite... vigorous treatment here and to have cases that are not susceptible to any kind of improvement is bad for the morale of the others, quite apart from taking up a bed that might be better used by another. But his lordship was very insistent—perhaps at that stage he felt a confidence only a father could—and he was happy to support the hiring of extra nursing staff. Young Verey improved more than I could ever have hoped.'

Before Laurence could respond, and while he was stil trying to disguise his relief that his improvisation had succeeded, there was a knock on the door and a man, probably in his middle thirties, came in. Though the newcomer was slimmer and lighter-haired than Dr Chilvers, the similarity was such that Laurence realised it must be his son. There was a certain formality in their response to each other but presumably that was because Laurence was there.

'George,' the doctor said. 'This is Captain Bartram.'

Laurence shook hands with George Chilvers. Even-featured and of average build, he was as handsome as had been reported and in a way Laurence suspected would be attractive to women. His reddish-gold hair was slicked to a sheen and his trim figure was enhanced by expensive tailoring.

'Perhaps you could show Captain Bartram around?' the older man suggested. 'After that, we might meet to discuss any further questions he might have.'

They moved into the hal. A slight man in his twenties was crossing it from one room to another. His trousers were so loose, Laurence noticed instantly, that they had been gathered in deep folds and were held up by an old tie used as a belt. The man stopped when he saw them and started to go back into the room he had just left. Doctor Chilvers moved towards him and placed a reassuring hand on his arm, nodding towards his son and Laurence. Laurence observed Chilvers' firm but comforting demeanour: while he talked, he kept his hand gently where it had lain and looked the man in the eye. Eventualy the younger man smiled slightly and glanced at Laurence.

'How do you do?' he said softly and then hurried into the next doorway.

Chapter Fifteen

Laurence was surprised how exhausted he felt when he got back to the Bul. If he had been able to admit his real interest to Chilvers, he felt the doctor could undoubtedly have helped him. Except that if he had mentioned John, Chilvers would probably have disappeared behind a screen of professional reticence. Seeing the place had been helpful and fairly reassuring, but Chilvers' own perceptions had both disturbed and moved him.

A couple of hours later, he and Charles were exchanging information: his incomplete impressions for Charles's more substantial progress.

'Wel, apart from the fact that our disgruntled one-armed friend and his chum could drink both of us under the table, it's been a useful exchange, ale for il-wil. I was glad when the landlord caled time, though,' Charles said. 'But to start with: there's something his sister either didn't know or didn't tel you. Emmett was front man on a firing squad. Dr Chilvers told the coroner that his patient had been very troubled by the execution.'

'Neither Mary nor her mother attended the inquest,' Laurence said. He was certain Mary had no idea. 'But, God, poor man.' He'd known one young officer who was ashamed that he'd faked ilness to get out of presiding over a firing squad but, as the subaltern said, he would have felt ashamed either way.

'And another odd thing,' Charles remembered. 'This was probably just a straightforward bit of trouble-making but the sacked employee commented in passing that given that one of Emmett's main symptoms was paralysis of the right arm, it was strange that he'd managed to shoot himself with it.'

Laurence sat forward. 'Are you sure?' Although the symptom tied in with what he already knew.

'Sure he said it, sure Emmett had it or sure that he was naturaly right-handed? Al three. I can remember him on the cricket pitch. Good bowler. Chilvers'

evidence stated that Emmett's right arm was useless. Police surgeon was equaly certain that he couldn't have done it with his left. Perhaps because it would have been the wrong angle? Anyway, my man had been involved in the treatment, which at the subtler end was a matter of trying to trick John into forgetting his arm didn't work: handing him a book, or whatever came to mind. They tried tying his other hand behind his back for days at a time, and, at the more dramatic end, giving him electric shocks to stimulate the muscles.'

Laurence grimaced.

Charles said ghoulishly, 'Regular Dr Frankenstein. Are you sure you didn't see wires?' But he didn't wait for an answer. 'Strangely, he'd shot himself through the heart, not the head.'

'Less messy. Definitely no letter?'

'Nothing much at al, I think. I did ask. A few bits and pieces and our joly old school scarf near by. Faithful til death and al that. Neatly folded. Coroner saw the deliberation as evidence of intent. Removed it to be sure of his shot. Much what you'd expect except for no note. Damn hard on the family, not having a letter. I suppose they got the scarf. Not much consolation.'

'It wasn't Marlborough colours actualy—Mary showed it to me—and hardly his sort of thing anyway, I'd have said. But where was he between-times?'

Charles shrugged. 'There were any number of barns and outhouses he could have holed up in until the hue and cry had died down, they say. They reckoned if John could have got hold of some food, he could have survived a week or two before he emerged and sauntered off to get a train. Perhaps not from Fairford, where they'd probably circulated his picture, but from a neighbouring vilage perhaps.'

'Do you know exactly where they found him?'

'The Foly. On the hil. We passed it yesterday. I pointed it out—at Faringdon. Wel, obviously we al knew it from school.'

The location came as a shock. Foly Wood had been such a strange place, always in shadow. But it made it much more likely that John had gone there of his own volition. Why was it more painful to think of him seeking out somewhere familiar to end it al, Laurence wondered? He thought of the young Holmwood patient who had died in his mother's bed. Was that a last frenzied act of rage or a final refuge in the safest place he knew?

'Frankly, when I realised both the degree of disaffection even in the man currently employed there, and the fact that we are never likely to be coming back, since I for one would certainly choose an alternative therapeutic establishment if I were to suddenly believe that I was Napoleon Bonaparte,' Charles said, 'I came clean, or cleanish. That's when I learned some interesting facts about Emmett's time there. Most interesting of al, he had visitors. An army friend and two members of the family.'

'"Army friend" could be anybody,' Laurence said, although he recaled that Mary had given the impression he had few left. And Mary visited, but I thought that his mother stayed away.'

Charles lowered his voice, although the room was empty. 'Yes, Mary did visit. In fact, two sisters did. More than once.' He paused. 'One was dark-haired and cross, though a bit of a looker, as the man who stil works there tels it: presumably your Miss Emmett; and the other was red-haired and crosser.'

'Eleanor Bolitho?' said Laurence, astonished, simultaneously realising that there could be any number of redheads in John's life.

'That's my guess,' said Charles. 'Do you think it's true that redheads always have tempers?'

'Charles,' Laurence butted in, 'when did these so-caled sisters come, did you ask him that?'

'It was Eleanor,' said Charles, 'because one time she brought her boy with her. Moreover, in addition to my deductive guesswork, and though both girls gave their name as Emmett, our man overheard John saying his fond farewels and he caled her Ely. He remembered thinking it was a rather sweet, feminine name quite at odds with her personality.'

Laurence laughed. 'What had she done?'

'Wel, the only thing she approved of was the food, I gather. Demanded that arrangements should be made for John to be accompanied on daily walks, if they weren't prepared to let him out on his own. She took him out once but they wouldn't alow it the other time she visited. Dr Chilvers was away and they needed his permission, they said. She was impressively furious and al else folowed. She inspected the library and declared it inadequate. Was incensed that al the patients wel enough were made to go on church parade. Harangued Chilvers Junior about John's room; he had been moved to one of the barred ones. She said he was hardly likely to jump out, although my man pointed out, with a certain degree of satisfaction, that jumping out, in a manner of speaking, was exactly what he did when he got the chance. But she was angriest of al to hear that John had been put in close confinement simply for leaving the building without permission. Close to tears in her fury, apparently.'

'They were right too about not letting him out alone,' said Laurence. 'Though, in fact it was churchgoing that was to give him the chance to escape. So perhaps the Holmwood people knew him better than she did.' He kept to himself Eleanor's assurance that she had not met John after the war. 'And actualy, I found Dr Chilvers quite impressive. 'It was the son I took a dislike to.'

'Even my complainant says the old man's a decent chap, dedicated to his patients, if a bit on the zealous side. But he's not wel, goes up to London for treatment. Probably a hopeless case, he reckons. Says the doctor's lost stones in the last year. It's when he goes away that young Chilvers gets to impose his stamp on the place: changes treatment, sacks people at wil. The old man rarely stands up to him. And of course the staff know it wil al be his when his father shuffles off his mortal, so they mostly toe the line. Not many jobs in these parts.'

Laurence thought that if he'd been less focused on his own deceptions, he would have guessed Chilvers was il from his palor and thinness.

Charles was gaining momentum. 'And he was shot with a Luger.'

Laurence looked up, sharply. 'Wel, that should have made it easier,' he said. 'To track down, I mean. Not many of those in circulation. No recuperating German officers in Holmwood. Plenty of our lot got hold of them but it was a side arm for the flashy type.'

'I had a Luger,' said Charles, after a momentary pause. 'Stil have, in fact.'

'How?' said Laurence and immediately wished he hadn't.

'I captured it.' His eyes caught Laurence's momentarily. 'Off a dragoon Hauptman to be precise. I was a good shot, it was the best side arm around and I was keen to live.'

'But did John have a Luger—or any gun at al?'

'Al the witnesses thought not. But they would, wouldn't they?'

There was a long silence.

'You're stil thinking he wasn't the Luger type,' said Charles.

Laurence didn't answer. He was thinking that George Chilvers was precisely the sort of man who would have a Luger, had he not been the sort of man who avoided military service completely, but he felt irritated with himself for both pointless thoughts.

'Wel, lots of us weren't the type for lots of things, but we changed,' said Charles.

There was another, longer silence.

'In fact the records showed he'd turned in a perfectly regulation Webley at the end of the war. It came up at the inquest, of course. Which was in Oxford, by the way. Doesn't mean he hadn't acquired anything else, though. But what did you make of the place? How do they fix them up?' Charles looked hopeful.

'Straightforward, realy,' Laurence said, thinking back. 'Dr Chilvers believes routine splints the broken mind in the same way that a splint holds a broken leg.' He realised he was quoting him almost verbatim. 'They have to get up at the same time each day, they have to take meals. They're alowed a short rest after lunch, otherwise they're not alowed to return to their rooms and sleep during the day. Chilvers said this is partly to counteract the insomnia that's a major problem. Church on Sundays.'

Thinking of church brought him back to Eleanor's complaints.

'Chilvers said he didn't care whether they believed in God or not.' He remembered this clearly, because it seemed quite a worldly view from an otherwise old-fashioned man. 'He said it was good for them to have the pattern established. They have to confront the outside world—some of them have huge problems with people, apparently—and church services give an opportunity for this within a familiar context. And he said they didn't realy have enough to do on Sundays. 'A bit of a walk and some singing is good for them; it's al exercise, in its way, Chilvers had said.'

'Not surprisingly one or two are quite angry with God, but, as a general principle, we like to have these things out at Holmwood,' the doctor had added. He had been close to a smile, Laurence had thought.

Charles was uncharacteristicaly silent.

'There's a ward, I suppose you cal it, holding two men at present, for those whose physical condition is poor,' Laurence continued. 'Some patients are injured, but young Chilvers explained that some melancholics simply cease to eat. Here they are fed and treated for physical ilnesses before they get the mind stuff. These two both looked pretty sick to me. One had a tube taped to his cheek. I couldn't wait to get out of there, to be honest.

'Apart from that, it was like any officers' convalescent home. Piano, comfortable drawing room, newspapers, though Dr Chilvers told me earlier that occasionaly they withheld these if current events were likely to distress occupants. A smal library; actualy I didn't think it looked too bad, though I didn't do an inventory of the titles.' He smiled at the thought of Eleanor's inspection. 'Tennis court. A couple of inmates helped with the garden from time to time, young Chilvers said.

Found it calming. Both Chilverses referred to treatment rooms, but I was shown only one. It has a bath, water nozzles, sitz baths, hydrotherapy, al rather old-fashioned, it seemed to me.'

'My man says they have al the latest electrical stuff,' Charles interrupted, 'though I suppose they don't want to frighten a potential paying customer.'

Laurence remembered that Eleanor had talked of electric shocks being given to those with false paralysis of limbs. She talked as if it were fairly standard.

'I realy didn't see anything like that. Sorry, Charles. But what was interesting is that young Chilvers told me that al comforts were withheld for what he caled

"misbehaviour". They have to earn them. And there's a secure floor: the top floor, where patients in a state of agitation are confined. The windows were barred, I noticed, from the outside. Presumably that's where John was incarcerated. I was shown only an empty room on the second floor, made up ready for a new arrival. Nice enough.'

'Why not keep them downstairs if they think they're going to leap out?'

'I suppose downstairs they could escape more easily?'

'Did they say anything about suicide to you?' Charles asked.

'Wel, only in a general way. I mean, for God's sake, Charles, I could hardly interrogate them on their failures. Young Chilvers said that it had happened, though very rarely, in the twenty years that Dr Chilvers had been running the place. It seemed rude to ask what "very rarely" meant in numbers.'

He had been quite pleased with how he'd raised the question of his fictional brother's threats of suicide. George Chilvers hadn't looked particularly surprised.

'Six,' said Charles.

'Six?'

'Suicides. Four since the war. One other was actualy just discharged, and one was before the war, but, listen to this: that one was a girl of twenty. She got out somehow, lay down on the tracks just outside Fairford Station and waited for some hapless train driver to chop her in three. Her family asked for a post-mortem, which the coroner granted, and, as it turned out, she was five months pregnant.'

'Was that why she was depressed?'

'It might be why she kiled herself but it wasn't why she was melancholic in the first place. She'd been admitted eight months earlier. Nearly a scandal, certainly there were nasty rumours. Staff reckoned she was sweet on young Chilvers; a single man then, of course. One female nurse—now dismissed—had said Chilvers had been found with the naked patient in a bathroom. He was using a high-pressure hose on her: she was soaked and squealing. Chilvers insisted it was treatment for hysteria. A different attendant, who went up to check her room when the alarm was first raised, says he saw a letter addressed to Chilvers in an envelope on her desk.

At that point, naturaly, nobody knew she was dead, but when he went back to check later, no letter.'

As there had been no letter after John's death, Laurence thought, though the incidents must have been years apart.

'My man said that "these sort of letters" seldom helped anybody anyway,' Charles went on. 'They were just self-pity. "The same old stuff they were on about every day," he said.'

'Did people realy think George Chilvers was the father of the dead woman's child?' said Laurence. 'Or is that just a sacked man's bitterness?'

'I think they did. Though apparently some said Chilvers Senior could have drugged her to have his way with her. But probably that was black humour. He's a widower, has been for years. Married to the job. Al the same, it had to be someone from inside; she never left the place, and George Chilvers already had a bit of reputation as a lady's man. Mad ladies. Sad ladies. I got the impression that his eventual marriage to another patient was not so much for the money but forced upon him by his old man to prevent a further scandal.' He paused. 'Wel-made chap, from al accounts—wel, the account I got'

'I suppose he's handsome enough in his way,' said Laurence. 'But patients? Surely he could find someone who wouldn't put his reputation at so much risk?'

'Wel, he's not a doctor like Papa, so I suppose he could get away with it. Perhaps he's attracted to highly strung girls. Young ones. Lonely. Rich. Can't have been difficult.'

'Yet he is a solicitor, and you said Cyril Trusty seemed to think they'd done wel out of a couple of bequests, but then I suppose doctors do, don't they? Quite often?'

'Except the clientele must be rather younger than the run-of-the-mil spinsters of a practice in Bognor Regis. The Holmwood patients wouldn't be expected to die in the normal run of things,' Charles said, 'though one of my Bognor great-aunts was quite mad. Great-Aunt Caroline. She should have been locked away, without any question. Would have saved a mass of trouble.'

He absent-mindedly tore off a piece of bread and soaked it in his beer.

'Al this talk of George Chilvers' love life diverted me,' Charles went on. 'We were on suicides: John, most recently. Before him, there was some flying ace who hanged himself, apparently at the prospect of going home, though he had pretty hideous burns so it's a bit more understandable. A major in the Glosters who seemed better but turned out not to be, and after him a chap who certainly made his mark on the establishment. Apparently they've got some kind of atrium, with a glass roof, several storeys up?'

Laurence nodded. It was a slightly grandiose description of the entrance hal.

'He got out on the roof through the attics and threw himself head-first, not off the roof into the garden as you might expect, but in through the skylight, and dashed his brains out on the flagstones in the middle of the house.'

'Good God,' Laurence said. 'How appaling. The poor people who found him.'

'Poor chap himself, I'd say,' Charles observed. 'Not poor George Chilvers, as he'd recently made up a wil for him. Mind you, no personal bequests, so scandal kept at bay with this one, but a tidy little chunk to Holmwood itself. In gratitude. So my man says.'

Chapter Sixteen

Laurence was looking forward to regaining the peace of his own territory, though it was only when they stopped for a light lunch that he and Charles had any further discussion.

'So. What's your next step, old chap?'

'Hard to know. I didn't like young Chilvers, although Dr Chilvers seemed professional yet sympathetic. The place itself gave me the wilies, but then the condition of the men who end up in places like that doesn't exactly bring peace of mind. I didn't feel as strongly as Mary, or Eleanor apparently, that something was rotten.'

He wondered, but didn't say, whether this was simply because, unlike them, he knew about war and what it could do to men's minds as wel as bodies. Though Eleanor must have seen much of it too. He also had the first solid information that directly contradicted an account given to him by anyone involved in John's life.

However, Eleanor Bolitho was already so cross with him that it was hard to contemplate querying her story or any approach to her that might bear fruit. What if, by some coincidence, John had known two red-haired spitfires? He was grasping at straws, he knew.

'Wel, wil you be settling your poor lunatic brother there?' said Charles. 'I imagine it wil come as the greatest relief to the family to see him locked up.'

Laurence didn't answer. He was considering what it would be like to have a brother, even a mad one. Would he put him in Holmwood? Despite Mary, despite Charles, he thought he might. His reservations lay with the son—too glib, too wiling to generalise about the imagined experience of battle.

At one point they had been peering into the smal ward. The nearest man lay in bed with his eyes closed. There was a zinc bowl on the nightstand and a sour smel of vomit about him; a bottle of what looked like milk hanging above the bed was passing down the tube into his nose.

'FE again,' said George loudly. 'Flanders Effect.'

The man in bed was startled. His head on the pilow shook and his fingers clutched at the blanket. George made no attempt to soothe him. Laurence thought he detected a flicker of disdain in Chilvers' face but it was quickly replaced by a perfectly businesslike demeanour.

'Some of these people should never have been expected to fight in the first place,' he said.

Laurence agreed with the sentiment but found himself unable to answer. He suspected his reasons for believing it were quite different from Chilvers'. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask the man about his own service but he kept silent, thinking that however delightful it might be to prick Chilvers' confidence, it was hardly worth provoking him.

'Do you know,' Laurence said now, 'I realise that I more or less forgot about Robert once I'd left Dr Chilvers' study. I don't think I mentioned him to George more than once or twice. Must have looked damned odd. He didn't ask me either, too busy seling the place. Stil, I suppose it doesn't matter now. Not likely to see him

—any of them—again.'

Charles gave a slow smile. If it hadn't been Charles, reliable, straightforward Charles, Laurence might have thought there was something devious in it.

'My man,' said Charles. 'I saw him again, last thing, as the lad was putting our bags in the car. He said Mrs Chilvers, Mrs George Chilvers, late resident of Holmwood, was a bit sweet on John Emmett. Or vice versa. Or mutualy. Can't have pleased George too much.' He attempted to look inscrutable but couldn't resist sounding pleased with himself. 'Now there's somebody it might be worth talking to, if we could ever get near her.'

He paused, but when Laurence didn't respond, added, 'Apparently everybody there thought that Emmett had been moved up to the top floor as a punishment for talking to George's wife. Not for some faling-out with a warder or trip out without a pass.'

Laurence felt faintly exasperated that Charles had come out with this only now.

'Did you find out where she—where they— live?'

'Used to live in a flat above the old stables near Holmwood but Dr Chilvers thought it better for her to live away from somewhere that had mixed memories for her. That was recently, though. After Emmett's death possibly? Now they live out of the vilage—in a biggish house; she was a wealthy woman, of course—in a rather isolated position. That was courtesy of our good host Cyril Trusty. He says George Chilvers has just about got her locked up. Some of the servants at Holmwood—

maid, cleaner, cook—do turns there. Not a great improvement on her original circumstances.'

'What a bloody odious man,' Laurence said, louder than he intended.

'Ah, Sir Laurence, knight-errant. Dragons skewered, enchanters foiled, moustache-twirling seducers thwarted, dungeons breached. Damsels in distress a speciality.' Charles's smile took the sting out of his words.

'I'm being ludicrous, aren't I?' Laurence said.

'Not at al, frankly. Though I'm not sure where it al goes from here.'

'I just can't think what to tel Mary. I had mixed impressions of Holmwood so I'm hardly likely to produce a coherent line for her. The firing squad link would horrify her and I can't tel her about Eleanor. She might go round there and God knows what scenes there'd be.'

'Laurence,' said Charles patiently, 'you're not a hero in one of Mr Drummond's books and she's no swooning maiden. She survived her brother's death—

whatever the cause. She asked you to look into it a bit. What did you think? That they were al going to be palpable vilains, keeping the deranged wretches chained up in the dripping celars? Then how on earth would they have taken in so many wealthy and often wel-connected families for so long? Or did you hope they were going to come clean and provide a tidy solution at your command? Yes, he did have a gun hidden away. Sorry, slipped the mind. Yes, we found a letter behind the wainscot only last week. Turns out he had some incurable wasting disease and wanted to save his loved ones the pain of watching his prolonged expiry.'

'But what if he didn't exactly kil himself?'

Charles looked incredulous.

'No, hear me out. Maybe someone didn't put a gun to his head but deliberately drove him to it. What then?' Laurence was astonished at his own recklessness.

'Wel, I'd ask who?' Charles said, surprisingly calmly. 'Who could have done? Who would have done? Why?'

Laurence thought for a few seconds before saying without great conviction, 'George Chilvers. He'd be top of my list.' He stopped, faced with Charles's look of astonishment. 'No, of course you're right. Is it more likely a depressed man kiled himself or that he was murdered by persons unknown? It never entered Mary's head and even Eleanor doesn't think that. Forget I said it.'

Reflecting on Charles's assessment the next day, back in London, Laurence was stil surprised at the perspicacity behind his comments. He started to write to Mary about the trip but gave up after two muddled paragraphs. In the end he simply agreed they meet as she'd suggested. But by the time he'd stuck down the envelope, he'd also decided on one further journey. After that, he thought he would stop living someone else's life and get back to his own. His slender manuscript lay on the edge of the desk, very tidy, but, to his shame, a fine layer of dust covered it. He drew an M on it with his finger.

He went out to post the letters. The sky was palest blue with fast-moving clouds. He walked as far as Coram's Fields, where he sat down on an empty bench.

There was a folded newspaper abandoned on the damp wood and he read the headlines. Opposite him an old man was tossing crumbs to a dozen squabbling pigeons.

A nursemaid holding a wel-wrapped smal girl by the hand walked past, pushing a perambulator. Laurence smiled at the child and she looked back at him curiously as she passed by.

As he walked home he read a piece about the next month's Varsity match. Having finished with the paper, he put it in the dustbin beneath his own steps. He looked up to see his neighbour, a man who rarely left his rooms, appear in the doorway. There was invariably a faint smel of cats about him. He thrust out a letter to Laurence.

'It's for you,' he said, almost reproachfuly. 'Picked it up with my own post.'

'Thank you.'

Laurence examined it, failing to recognise the handwriting. His neighbour nodded and retreated back to his flat. Laurence's eyes folowed him briefly. It was possible the man was no older than he was but life had aged him.

He hung up his coat and opened the envelope, expecting it to be from a woman: the writing was what he vaguely thought of as artistic. His eye went to the bottom of the page. This time the letter was from Wiliam Bolitho.

Dear Bartram,

It was very good to see you the other day. I realise Eleanor may have given you a different impression but I have enjoyed our brief talks. I rather envy you having a meaty task to get your teeth into, though I continue to regret Emmett's death. He was a decent man. You must not take Eleanor's rebuffs to heart. Eleanor is very defensive of those she loves. It is a sterling quality—I doubt I would be here were it not for her—and I count my blessings even though she sometimes overrates threats to my welfare.

What I wanted to tel you, though I fear it may be of slight use in your enquiries, is that I remembered the name of the major who was bileted on us in 1917 and whose batman helped rescue John Emmett in the tunnel colapse. The man who was in your photograph. Calogreedy was his name. Name like that, can't think how I ever forgot it. Ex Indian Army man. God knows what his servant was caled; al I can remember of him is his accent—broad west country—Somerset, perhaps, if that helps at al. It's quite a coincidence but yesterday I was checking some smal investments I have and I noticed a firm caled Calogreedy and Weatheral were quoted on the stock exchange. As far as I can tel, their business is locks, safes, strong-rooms and so on. It was such an unusual name that I remembered the major instantly and I thought there might, just, be a connection.

I hope this is helpful and that when things are calmer we shal meet again. In the meantime I shal take the slightly clandestine step of handing this to Ethel to post.

Yours,

Wiliam Bolitho

Laurence ran back downstairs to where his scavenged newspaper lay on top of the rubbish in the bin. Self-consciously he looked around to check he wasn't observed and smoothed it out on the wal, brushing tea leaves off its back page. He suddenly had an image of Louise's father scrutinising the financial pages, making gruff noises of approval or concern and occasionaly putting a mark against certain figures. He remembered Louise's mother objecting to her husband tucking his silver propeling pencil behind his ear while he read. For a brief moment, his father-in-law felt more real to him than any memory of Louise.

Laurence's fingers traveled down the columns. Calogreedy and Weatheral were there; their shares seemed to be healthy. He put the paper back in the bin. The next day he would try to find out where they did business.

He was relieved that Wiliam Bolitho had been in touch; Eleanor had been so adamant that he was causing her husband distress that he had been almost persuaded of it, although, if anything, Bolitho seemed bored by the constraints on his actions. John's death must have eased the Bolithos' circumstances, but it could never have given Bolitho any kind of life. Fleetingly, he wondered whether Eleanor could have been petitioning John for financial help but Eleanor was only a colateral beneficiary anyway. Had she simply become over-involved with John while she nursed him? Or was it a passionate love affair, independent of war, and was it reciprocated? The period when she would have visited John at Holmwood would have been wel after she got married so an enduring love affair seemed unlikely.

He wondered whether Eleanor knew about John's role in the firing squad. Whether she was friend or nurse, it was not unlikely she shared his secrets. Not that this one was his alone; there would have been plenty of others at an execution, of course.

He stared at the photograph he'd received from Mary and remembered Chilvers' evidence to the inquest, stating that John was preoccupied by the event. This photograph was one that John had carried with him to his death. Bolitho had identified John, Tucker and the sapper's servant. They were al men involved in the trench accident, yet this was clearly winter and Bolitho had said the colapse took place in the heat of summer. Could they also have been part of a firing squad? Although the presence of the medical officer meant it could have been an execution detail, there were also plenty of times when soldiers clustered together, looking glum and waiting for action. Yet who could have photographed the men and why? Whose was the monogram on the back?

He'd never seen an execution but tales of them circulated from time to time. Sometimes he thought that their circulation was deliberate; it made it clear to nervous soldiers that whilst the Germans might be aiming to kil them on one side, the forces of their own military discipline were equaly lethal on the other. Like every other aspect of the war, horror stories abounded. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd been involved. The officer who was supposed to deliver the coup de grâce fiddling with a jammed revolver; executioners caling out to a friend or brother tied to a stake; right down to the straightforward humiliations: the condemned soldier losing control of his bowels or bladder, the young ones crying for their mothers. Better to go towards the guns or through the wire.

Trench tales were always about removing choice, he reflected; the good soldier was a resigned soldier. The good soldier never wasted time thinking about alternatives.

Chapter Seventeen

Finding Major Calogreedy turned out to be Charles's easiest task so far. There were only two Calogreedys who'd seen service in the war. Calogreedy and Weatheral had offices at Lambeth. A telephone cal established that Calogreedy was in the office, running the business, and had indeed seen action in France. Laurence made an appointment to go over and see him the folowing Friday at midday, ignoring Charles's efforts to lure him to a party in Suffolk.

'But we're celebrating,' Charles had said and added, 'Funny choice of day to track down this Calogreedy.'

It was not cold so he decided to walk. He passed down a peaceful Kingsway towards Aldwych but as he got nearer to the Strand he seemed to be crossing the tail-end of a crowd, the bulk of which he could see pushing westwards towards Whitehal. The mass of people were hardly moving. Just out of sight, but stil just audible, was a brass band. He listened and recognised it as a hymn. He knew the words to it. 'Victor, he rose; victorious too shal rise, They who have drunk His cup of sacrifice.' Hearing it so unexpectedly made a great impact on him. Although he was far from sharing its sentiments now, the music was as powerfuly evocative as ever; to his horror, the conflicting emotions made him shiver.

As the hymn died away he realised with a shock the significance of Charles's apparently throwaway remark. Almost simultaneously the bels of Big Ben rang out over a nearly silent London. Eleven o'clock. It was Armistice Day. This year there was a ceremony at the new Cenotaph and a few of those around him were wearing the paper poppies. They looked oddly frivolous but the expressions on the faces in the crowd belied that. Whether the crowds wanted to see the King or wanted to honour their dead, everybody was looking back, either in sorrow, as here, or in jubilation—going to the races or, like Charles, preparing for a party. The country was divided: between those who wept and those who danced.

Except he was doing neither. Only three years had passed, yet he had forgotten it was the eleventh. Peace descended more abruptly around him now than it had in 1918; he could hear the flutter of squabbling pigeons on a window ledge. The sky above him was uniformly grey.

He remembered when the news had come through in France. He'd been in a makeshift stable, examining a sick horse. They were trying to decide whether to shoot it. The horse was coughing and roling its eyes as a young farrier tried to restrain it. Its jaw was dark with saliva and it looked completely mad. The new adjutant had rushed in but was stopped in his tracks by the sight of the deranged horse. Then he said, 'It's over.' And for a second Laurence had thought he meant they should hurry up and shoot the horse. Once he understood what the officer realy meant, his first thought was that it would be marvelous to have a clean colar every day. His second had been a feeling of such profound pointlessness that even remembering it now made him want to weep.

When the silence came to an end, he crossed over Waterloo Bridge, which was bitingly cold in the wind, and then moved into the shelter of buildings on the south bank of the river. He walked briskly along York Road towards Lambeth. The business was easy to find: a middle-sized factory abutted the road. Above a wide archway the words 'Calogreedy and Weatheral' were speled out in ironwork. The buildings were quite old but the sign looked new. When Laurence entered the gateway a young man in a dark suit came towards him.

'Mr Bartram,' he said, holding out his hand. 'Would you please folow me, sir?'

Calogreedy's office was just across a smal yard. Laurence stepped forward and greeted the tal man who had stood up behind his desk. As the door closed behind them, a distant background of banging and grinding became fainter.

'The men al wanted to come in, business as usual, but we stopped for the commemoration,' said Calogreedy, shaking Laurence's hand and nodding back towards the yard. 'I said a prayer. It was appreciated, I think, but one never quite knows.'

Calogreedy was obviously a military man, upright and with decisive movements. He had dark hair, a neat moustache, blue eyes and weathered skin. He was about forty-five, Laurence guessed. The entire wal behind him was covered in photographs. Some looked recent and were of what Laurence presumed was the factory floor: with workbenches, presses and tool racks as a background to ten or so men in overals. One picture was of Calogreedy shaking hands with a government minister. The more faded ones were either regimental or apparently taken in India: a tiger shoot, a magnificent picnic overlooking a fort in the foothils of some mountains, and one of what looked like the 1912 Durbar. The King and Queen stood pale and stiff under a silken canopy, dwarfed by ostrich-plumed officers, jeweled maharajahs and ornately decked elephants. It might as wel have been another century.

'Wel, to start with, you've certainly found the right man. Funnily enough, the only other serving Calogreedy—I believe—was my brother Godfrey. He's a director of the company, too, and might as easily have been here today, but I'm clearly the man you are after. Basil Calogreedy. A regular. Indian Army.' He nodded to the photographs. 'Sappers.'

Laurence wondered, briefly, whether Calogreedy had been in the same outfit as his fictitious brother, Robert.

'Came out in 1919 and bought this business. We've been expanding ever since. Weatheral was a sleeping partner. Very much asleep, in fact, as he passed on before the war, but the name means something in the locks and safes world so we kept it. Doing wel. Factories in Birmingham and Bristol. Unfortunately, we live in hard times: men come out of uniform and there's no job for them.' He sat back, placing the palms of his hands flat on his desk. 'Outcome: desperation. Burglary. Petty theft. Solution: good locks. Al the men I take on have been in uniform. We owe it to them. Find they can't get skiled positions because they've been out of their trade for four years and some fifteen-year-old is being trained up for a pittance.'

He shook his head in apparent disbelief at his own words before his attention returned to Laurence.

'I can't think I've much to contribute but perhaps if you fire off some questions, something I say wil be of use. Strange business, your friend's death. Sadly not unique, though.'

'It was very hard for his sister and widowed mother,' said Laurence. Then, hesitantly, 'Do you remember an incident in 1916? I believe you were passing through a vilage near Albert where there was a colapse of a major trench system. Two men kiled, one injured? My friend was one of those men.'

Calogreedy wrinkled his brow. 'It happened al too often,' he said, but it was obvious that he knew what Laurence was talking about. 'I wasn't actualy there on that occasion—I was surveying another stretch. It was my servant who helped get the men out. They were lucky. Lucky not more men were down there, I mean. I'd been sent forward because the diggers were anxious about the stability of the trenches; they were pushing ahead at terrific speed. HQ wanted them back in commission, but they didn't have the materials to prop the new tunnels adequately and the ground was chalky; tree roots a problem, as I recal, and they kept running into abandoned German trenches. Anyway the colapse simply bore out my judgment. Three or four men, including your felow presumably, were underneath when it caved in. Byers, an officer and an NCO got the survivor out.'

'Byers?' said Laurence, remembering the name on John's list.

'Yes. Leonard Byers. He was my servant—a good man; tremendous aptitude for figures. Farm boy. Bit of a phenomenon. If commissions were awarded on intelect alone, he'd have been an officer of engineers. As it was, he just proved that if you had a good batman the war could be a very much more congenial experience.

Started off as a bit of a joke, getting him to do mental arithmetic. Lads used to throw questions at him and lay bets on how long it would take him to tot up forty numbers, that kind of thing. He was always quicker in his head than anyone doing the same sum on paper. Heaven knows where he got his abilities from; left school at twelve and, from what he tels me, they never got the farm to pay. But I've kept him with me. Man who showed you in.' He nodded at the door. 'He married one of our lady typewriters the same year we set up and I've half a mind to bring him on to the management side eventualy. One day. Just need to persuade Godfrey who is a conventional chap. Can't see the brain behind the rough edges.'

'Byers was your mess servant in 1916?' Laurence asked. He had temporarily forgotten that Calogreedy was rumoured to have kept his batman with him when the war finished. It was not so odd for a regular officer but usualy the relationship became one of master and valet. The making of such an easy connection, after so much information that had seemed to go nowhere, caught him by surprise. He was looking for a Byers, and for the batman, and now they had turned out to be one and the same.

'Was there a Darling or a Coburg there?' It was a very long shot and he wasn't surprised when Calogreedy shook his head. His mind was evidently stil on his employee.

'He's had a tough time recently because of al the palaver over the death of his cousin a few months back. Poor chap was murdered. In cold blood. Can you believe it? Policeman came here to tel him as the nearest surviving relative. He took it badly. Can understand why: his cousin makes it unscathed through three and a half bloody years in France and someone does for him while he's milking cows. As I said: desperate times—desperate men. But have a word with him in a while; he'l be in his office until late.'

'I do have one other question.' Laurence hesitated. 'It's a slightly strange one. Perhaps this should be for Mr Byers himself and you may not know the answer anyway, but was he ever part of a firing squad?'

It was obvious he had hit on something. Calogreedy's face answered for him.

A bad business. He realy shouldn't have had to do it. I was on leave or I would have stopped it. He was forced into making up numbers because so many had dysentery at the time and even then there was a bit of malice in his selection, I think. The condemned man was an officer, you see.'

Laurence stiffened. The execution of an officer was virtualy unheard of. He struggled for a second to take it in.

'His own men were loath to do it,' Calogreedy said, 'but once the sentence had been handed down and confirmed, I expect the powers that be wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. At least Byers didn't know the man, but neither did he realy know anybody else on the squad except for the sergeant and a couple of the officers. And although he was a country lad he wasn't even very good with a gun. Needed spectacles.'

An officer executed?'

'Yes. Poor felow. Cowardice, I imagine. Of course you can't make exceptions but stil, he was very young, I gather. There were chaps out there who couldn't have commanded a tea party, much less an assault on a machine-gun post.'

'You don't—?'

'Remember his name? No. Absolutely not, if I ever knew it. Not very good on names. I dare say you could find out. Careful how you go with Byers—touchy subject. Al this stuff in the papers now: accusations of summary justice and so on. Though it beats me how you can expect much subtlety in military law, not in the field, not when there are men out there who couldn't find their way into battle with a map. So deciding theoretical degrees of guilt when the German guns were rumbling in the background ... Wel, a lot seemed to depend on local morale and setting examples, nothing consistent about it. But, d'you know, I only ever read of one other officer being executed. They were tougher on the whole: good schools, independence, team sports, values. Byers won't welcome talking about it, I can tel you. I'l have a word. Smooth things over. You'l need to be persistent.'

It was obvious that Calogreedy had little else to share with him and Laurence stayed only long enough not to seem impolite. He was eager to speak to Leonard Byers and Calogreedy made it easy for him by taking him across to a smaler office on the far side.

'Look, it's almost their lunch hour. He might feel more relaxed off the premises. Take a walk, that kind of thing.'

Calogreedy strode ahead, pushing open a door. Laurence looked up at the spitting rain without enthusiasm. Inside the office, surrounded by graphs and diagrams, Leonard Byers sat hunched over a desk between hefty files, writing notes against columns of figures in front of him. He didn't hear the door open or see them standing there at first. When he did he looked embarrassed, jumping up while straightening his tie.

'Sorry to disturb you,' Calogreedy said, 'but curiously it turns out that although it was me that he had come to see, you were, in a manner of speaking, realy the man Mr Bartram was after al the time. He was hoping you might be able to help him look into the death of his friend. Anyway, take your time. Nothing urgent to do here.'

It might have been Laurence's imagination but he thought he detected a look of wariness cross the younger man's face. Although it was gone almost immediately, he looked uncomfortable even as he belatedly reached out his hand.

Calogreedy paused in the doorway. 'Difficult times. But try to help him, old chap. I'd be grateful, you know.'

Chapter Eighteen

Leonard Byers had a pale, serious face, a faint shadow of stubble on his chin and purple holows under his eyes. One lens of his wire spectacles was cracked. Laurence remembered that he had only recently, and violently, lost a close relative. Most people stil assumed that talk of death meant talk of the war, but here they both were with enough distance from it to have experienced death in peacetime.

Byers, who was slight in build with inteligent eyes, looked younger than his years. He must be in his mid-twenties at least but could have been five years younger. He faced Laurence unsmilingly. A farm boy, Calogreedy had said. Yet here he was, translated by the war into an urban clerk on the banks of the Thames.

Byers motioned him to a spare chair and sat down behind the desk.

'I'm sorry,' Laurence said. 'I gather this is a difficult time for you. Death in the family. Not a time to answer questions, perhaps?'

'My cousin, Jim,' said Byers, 'back in the summer. But it's al right, ask what you like. If the major thinks it'l help.' He looked unconvinced. 'Nothing'l bring Jim back.' He took off his spectacles and held them in front of him.

Laurence could hear a slight west country burr in his voice.

'You must have been close?'

'Wel, close as lads. We were the same age to the month. Almost like twins when we were young 'uns. Up to al sorts. I was the clever one but he was the sportsman. Strong. Ran like the wind. Star of the vilage cricket team before the war. When they stil had a team. But when he went back to the farm in 1918 and I folowed the major here, he wasn't so happy. Didn't say as much, mind, but I could tel he thought he'd got a raw deal. It was just him and the old man. I should've gone to see them more, but it's a long way and I was helping the major get things going. Then I met Enid—she's my wife now—and we were saving. But I should have gone down. It wasn't fair on Jim.

'The farm hadn't been properly run in the war. Couldn't get the labour, it was al girls and old men. Didn't buy in new animals, let a few bils go unpaid. Couple of bad harvests, didn't keep the repairs up to scratch and it's an old place, needs work on it al the time. After the war, for al the talk, nobody gave a...'

He seemed to struggle to find a respectable word.

'Nobody cared if a tatty little farm went to the dogs. Stupid thing is, neither of us had to fight. We were needed at home. Essential work, they caled it. But to tel the truth, I was bored and wanted to see the world.' He frowned. 'Which I did. And we both thought that girls would be al over a man in uniform. Which they weren't. And once I'd joined up, then Jim wasn't going to be left behind in the mud at Combe Bisset. Went to find some nice foreign mud of his own. Come Christmas, he just signed on the line. Went in as a private, came out with his stripes. Uncle looked like he could carry on with the lads we'd got, but then he fel off a roof he was fixing and his leg was never right, and of course eventualy the younger lads were itching to get into uniform too.'

'Your uncle?' The conversation had moved a long way from where Laurence intended it to go but he wanted to gain the young man's trust and Byers seemed wiling to talk about his family catastrophe.

'Yes. That's what made it worse. The old man had been pretty wel bedridden since Jim'd got back. But he liked to sit in a chair by the window upstairs. He saw it al.'

'The death?'

'The murder.'

'He saw the person who did it?'

'He did that. Though a fat lot of help it's been. Man in a hat and a coat. That's only half the population, then. Arrived by car probably, though left it out of sight.

My uncle said he heard it but never saw it. He'l have been right about that: his eyesight's not great but his hearing was always spot on. So it was a man with the nerve to drive within earshot of the house and to see off our dog, and she's a nasty bit of work. A man who carried a gun and didn't hesitate in using it at close range. Twice.'

'Twice?'

'Once in the chest and then a second, head shot, once he was on the ground. The police said the first shot would have done for him. He can't have known anything. The second was just to make sure.'

'How extraordinary,' said Laurence. 'Did the police have any ideas at al who it might have been?'

'No. I mean, Jim'd never been anywhere, excepting after he joined up. We were brought up on the farm. Both his parents died when he was very young. My father died of lockjaw when we were boys. My uncle looked after my mother and both us cousins in return for her keeping house. She passed on just before the war.

Anyone Jim knew, I knew. I'd have known if he'd got into any kind of trouble. We had the same friends, got into the same trouble—but only the schoolboy kind: scrumping, girls, playground knuckle fights. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to Jim until the day somebody came al the way out to the farm and shot him.

Nothing to nick, either. No reason to it.'

'What kind of gun was it?'

'Not a shotgun. A pistol. Kils him, then blows his face off,' Byers said bitterly.

Laurence was surprised. When Byers had spoken of a final shot to the head, he'd been thinking of a single bulet, a military coup de grâce.

'They might of got his tyre tracks,' Byers was saying, 'and had some hope of tracing the car, the major says, but the police and the local doctor had driven backwards and forwards down the same track by the time those clods thought of it. Mashed into nothingness, it was. But what did they care? Single man, mucky farm.

Probably thought he'd been after some other yokel's wife.'

'How dreadful for your uncle.'

'Yes. It was. He comes down the stairs on his ... on his behind, must have taken him for ever. Got himself out in the yard. Found Jim, but there was nothing he could do for him and no way he could get help. Lucky he didn't die of cold, poor old man. Didn't have an obliging bone in him but he didn't deserve that. The girl found him—the one who did the milking. Him and the dog sitting in the muck, and then Jim's blood splattered al over the yard. But it did for him realy, the old man. The farm was sold. The money that was left after the creditors had their take went to pay a widow in town to look after him in her home. Me and Enid didn't see a penny of it,' he added defensively.

His face softened. 'Funny thing is, when the police first came, I thought, just for a minute, that Jim'd done it himself. Topped himself. He was that fed up. So, just for a minute there was a queer kind of relief that he hadn't. Mind you, I wasn't the one who had to find him. The old man wasn't beyond covering up a suicide: that generation, you know, and a bit on the religious side. He could of made up cars and strangers, but not the gun. Jim had a shotgun—crows and rabbits—but it was stil back in the house. Didn't have it with him so obviously wasn't expecting any trouble. Hadn't been fired for a while, the police said.'

Laurence's head was buzzing. 'Do the police think the assailant knew your uncle was there as wel?' he asked.

'God knows. Local man would of known, but anyone else—probably not. Bastard was taking a risk but then he was carrying a loaded gun. Not so much of a risk if you've got a strong stomach and more of us around now have seen some sights would've turned us before the war.

'A few days earlier a man came into the pub in the vilage. It's a mile or so's walk from our farm. It was early and nobody much was in there but he had a half of cider. Kept himself to himself but was pleasant enough. Might have been useful information if the landlord didn't help himself to his own spirits al day. Al he could remember was the man spoke like a gentleman and asked where the farm was. And he didn't even remember that for a week. The stranger took himself off. Where he went, if it was him, for the next day or so, who knows? If he had a car, he could of gone anywhere. But I'm certain Jim had no more idea than I do why anyone would want to kil him in the first place.

'You'l be thinking he might of got involved with something in France I don't know of Leonard Byers rushed on. The circumstances were obviously stil bothering him. 'The major got me to see a senior policeman friend of his. But he was realy just doing it as a favour for the major. Smal fry, me and Jim, but people wil do al sorts for the major.' He looked almost proud. 'A London policeman. Mulins. Turned out I'd sort of met this Mulins when we were both in France. He thought Jim had got mixed up with some bad lads there. But Jim didn't get into any funny business. We weren't close like we once were, but he would stil've told me if anything was realy wrong. He just said his time out there was mostly uncomfortable or frightening. He said it was his duty and, like al duty, boring but unavoidable.'

Laurence nodded. Byers' assessment was wel observed. He was also relieved that he was talking so freely, although most of the time he avoided eye contact.

'I would of known if he'd been caught up in anything so odd that someone would've come hunting for him over two years after the war ended. After al, he was hardly in hiding, was he? He wasn't scared. He was right back where he started. He didn't expect anything to happen, not ever again. That was his gripe. I don't suppose we'l ever know. Too careful, too planned, Mulins said, for a homicidal maniac. Everyone knows us down here. Whoever it was, he wouldn't have got that far without being clear precisely who he was about to shoot. And he did get right up to him. Looked him in the face. Perhaps Jim knows the answer but he's past teling.'

Awkwardly Laurence asked, 'Would you like to go for a beer or something? The major's quite happy for you to take time away...'

'I'm temperance.'

'Oh. Right. A walk?'

Byers looked to the window. 'It's raining,' he said flatly.

There was a long-drawn-out silence. The door of the smal iron stove rattled as wind came down the pipe. Laurence was absorbing the fact that Combe Bisset was one of the names written on the list John had carried at his death, but now was not the time to bring this up and he knew he was avoiding a more difficult topic.

'Look, I'm sorry to have to ask you this,' Laurence began in a rush, 'but were you ever part of a firing squad?'

Byers shoulders tensed. He looked down, turned his spectacles over in his hands. His lips tightened. For a minute Laurence thought he was going to refuse to speak.

'So that's why you're realy here. The major told you, is that it? And he wants me to tel you?' he said, stiffly. 'Why do you want to know? For the papers? It's al over now.'

'I asked him—your name had come up—and he said you'd help me,' Laurence said, not quite truthfuly. 'It's just the friend that he mentioned, the friend whose death I'm looking into, may have been connected with it.'

'You think he was involved in that dismal bloody mess?' Byers looked suspicious.

Laurence felt for his walet and took out the photograph. 'Is this you?' he said.

Byers took the picture. He stared at it impassively. 'Jesus,' he said. 'Mr Brabourne and his ruddy camera. Could never leave it alone. I'm surprised he didn't take one of the actual shooting as wel.'

'Brabourne?'

'First Lieutenant Tresham Brabourne. They caled him "Fiery". He wasn't so much fiery, though, as some kind of fizzing grenade that you're not sure if it's a dud or it's about to turn you to mincemeat. I'd been under him early on in the war. We were bantams. Short-arses. Never thought I'd see him again. He was so green, so lacking any normal sense of self-preservation, the lads there said just folowing him was the most dangerous thing you were ever likely to be asked to do.' Byers' face relaxed momentarily. 'Nineteen, twenty perhaps? Not that I was any older. Apparently his mama had given him the camera as a goodbye present. Perhaps she thought it was going to be like a touring holiday. Going to visit family friends in this or that chateau, chomp on snails and frogs' legs for dinner? When he went on leave, he hopped off to Paris. Brought back some champagne one time. Wanted to be a writer or some such, though what he realy loved was his camera. No, I remember now, he was going to be a newspaperman when he got out of the war. Which was about as likely as the Kaiser being invited back for tea at Buckingham Palace. If ever there was a man with a short lifespan it was Mr Brabourne.

'He'd been told about the camera. You couldn't have people taking any old pictures. He thought he could sel them to the papers, I suppose. Make his reputation. But he was heading for trouble if he was caught again. He could probably even have been charged with spying, though I expect his family knew people in the War Office. His sort did. But this,' he tapped on the picture with his forefinger. 'It has to be Brabourne's work. He was there. We were there. He was the only one who could've taken this.' He paused. 'Was Mr Brabourne your friend?'

Laurence shook his head. 'No. Can you tel me what's going on in the picture?'

'Apart from the fact that we're about to see off some poor bastard, which you obviously guessed already. Look, I decided way back never to talk about it.

Never even to think about it, if I could. You just come in here...' He was struggling to contain his anger. 'I don't know who you are. I've only said this much because the major.' He put the picture on his desk, laying it face down as he pushed it sharply towards Laurence.

'I'm sorry,' said Laurence, trying to disguise the excitement he felt at the confirmation that the image was of the firing squad. 'I realy wouldn't be bringing it up if it wasn't important. It's just my friend has a sister and she doesn't understand why he died. He shot himself, you see. And he was part of al this and felt much as you did, I think.'

He waited to see whether Byers would give him an answer. He sensed it was no good pushing him further.

'Then, assuming he was an officer, your friend must be either the MO, the padre, the APM—the assistant provost marshal—or the captain,' Byers said, after several minutes. His tone was resigned. 'Empson, I think his name was.'

'Emmett,' said Laurence.

Byers nodded and picked up the photograph again.

'Emmett,' he said. 'Right.' He fel silent again. 'You know, this wasn't the first time I'd met your friend the captain. I came across him before this business. He was a lieutenant then. I was passing near Albert but didn't know anyone. He asked where I came from in Devon. He could place anyone by their voice. I told him Combe Bisset. He said his mother's maiden name was Bisset. Next day the trench colapsed on him. Looked nasty, but he was lucky. Lucky then, anyways.'

Laurence was about to ask him about the colapse but then the young man pointed to himself in the picture. A slightly plumper self, but even more tense than he looked now.

'Watkins,' he said, moving his finger to the man next to him. 'Welsh nutter.' His finger moved again: 'Vince somebody, a cabinet maker in real life, a Londoner, on light duties with his rupture. Not the sort of light duty he had in mind, I'd imagine. Next to him—a man whose nerves were al over the place. Wound us al up.' His finger moved on. 'This one—nickname was Dusty. I suppose that means he was caled Miler—Dustys usualy are, aren't they? Can't remember this one at al, he was on the end. One of Dusty's lot probably. Just a lad. Two were from the poor bugger's own company. They were sick about it. Said their officer was no worse than any other. Old man's the doc,' he pointed, 'and very unhappy. Your friend, Emmett there. And that evil bastard—sorry,' he looked up at Laurence, 'but he was—is—

Sergeant Tucker. He's the one that had it in for me.'

'In what way?'

'Wel, they were making up a squad. Nobody wants the job. General feeling was that it was a rotten business. By al accounts, the poor useless bastard they'd got it in for was round the bend. And because he was an officer. You'd think some of them might have gone for that on general principles, but most felt it would bring bad luck. Not Sergeant Tucker, though. He was in his element. It wasn't personal or anything; he was just a nasty bit of work. I'd met him before, too, funnily enough, same accident you just asked me about. One of Tucker's so-caled mates had been suffocated. Tucker was supposedly trying to help him until a medic came. The others were al trying to get the rest out, but I'd turned round and watched Tucker, and I can tel you he wasn't lifting a finger to help his friend. He was leaning over him but it looked more like he was putting his hand over his mouth rather than clearing it of earth. He saw me looking and moved to block my view. When I met him again, I hoped he'd forgotten me.'

Laurence made a non-committal grunt.

'But he never forgot anything.' Byers was obviously thinking. 'Frankly, he made a bit of a mess of it, your friend. As for me, half the regulars were il. The others were al belyaching. I was there waiting for the major to get back from Blighty. I shouldn't have been there at al. It's difficult when you don't belong, when it's not your outfit. At night I had to kip with the others and Tucker had it in for me from the start. The other lads were taking the rip but most of it was pretty good-humoured. One pretended to put on an apron and dust the place down. When I went out for a piss, they made out I was picking flowers for the major's bilet. But Tucker, he was al for me being a nancy-boy. Caled me the major's girl. Caled me Leonora and soon they were al at it.' His cheeks flared red. Then he said, almost aggressively, 'Look, you realy want to know al this stuff? It's not pretty, any of it. Not the bit with your friend in either. Not stuff his sister and mother would want to know.'

Laurence had no idea where it was going: but he was simultaneously apprehensive and eager to hear the rest of what Byers had to tel. 'Please,' he said, 'you've no idea how useful this is. I won't pass on al the details.'

He hoped Byers' evident loyalty to Calogreedy would keep him talking, rather than asking himself why Laurence needed the details if he was not intending to use them.

Byers took out a crumpled handkerchief. For a second Laurence thought he was going to cry and felt a flash of embarrassment, but the young man simply rubbed the lenses of his glasses. 'What started it was that, the first evening, I was there when Tucker was seling some German stuff. Most of it was the usual: belt buckles, badges. He had a ring and a watch with its glass smashed, a beautiful thing, an officer's probably, but it stil went, and a pen, and a couple of photographs of some Fräuleins, that he'd nicked from dead men's pockets, and some letters nobody could read in that funny writing of theirs. Oh and some fancy drawers and a hair ribbon he'd taken off a French lass. But some of it was plain disgusting and that's what everybody wanted to buy. He had some colar flashes stiff with blood and then he'd got something in a little jar of inky liquid. He handed it over to me, saying, "You'l like this, Byers, it's right up your street." I thought at first it was some sort of smal animal he'd pickled, but then from the grin on his face I knew it was something much worse. I shook it a little and then I saw what it was.' He stopped, looking uncomfortable. 'It was a part of a German. His thing. Organ. It was stinking. I almost dropped it there and then. Of course it could have been anybody's if we'd stopped to think. After al, there were enough dead bodies about, but he'd got them al faling over each other to have it. Even Watkins who was forever talking about sinners and helfire.

'Anyway, he's asking for bids, and some of them are offering money and some are trying to trade for tobacco or sweets or saucy pictures. The young lad—his eyes are on stalks. You can see Watkins wants the drawers but there's the Holy Book holding him back, and Dusty is offering for different combinations of stuff, but Tucker keeps adding or subtracting according to what he chooses. Finaly they agree, but I can see Tucker's added up the total wrong. So I correct him. I mean, that's what I'm good at. The look he gives me. Wel, of course he was trying to cheat them. Not for the money but as a game. But I didn't know him then, did I? I hadn't taken to him on account of his being too chummy with the young soldiers, but I didn't know what a sick bastard—sorry, again, sir, but it's the truth—he was. And then some of the men start to laugh and I know I've had it.

'Two days later the rumour that's been going round—that some young officer, who they've had locked up in the guardhouse, and who'd been done for being a coward, has been sentenced to death—turns out to be true. Tucker comes in late, happy as Larry, tels us he's looking for volunteers for a squad. Of course he doesn't mean "volunteer" and he doesn't get any. Wel, only Dusty, who's half-witted and would put his hand up to go over the top in a tutu armed with a stick of Brighton rock if an NCO asked him. The others don't like it. The one with nerves is shaking. Two of them know the officer. I don't, of course.

'He wants ten but he'l settle for seven and a burial party. There were a lot of men on sick, granted, but I knew it would only be a matter of time until he picked on me. And it was. He played about, pretending he wanted X or Y, who turned out to be puking up somewhere or on leave, and then he said, "Oh Byers, just the man.

You like doing officers favours. Wel, you can do this one a favour by shooting straight." Bastard,' Byers muttered, almost to himself.

'That night they bileted us in the farm, the one you can see in the photograph. Nobody slept much, bar Dusty who snored the whole night through. What with that and Watkins reading aloud from his bible, and the cold, and the prospect of what was to come, it was a horrible night. Too long and too short at the same time, if you know what I mean. For once Tucker was in with us. Just lay on his back, no trouble to anyone for once, not sleeping: you could see the glow of his cigarette in the half-dark. Captain Emmett came in about six. He looked pretty sick too.'

And this Brabourne, was he part of the squad, then?' asked Laurence.

'No. He didn't pitch up until we were about to do it. Just in time to take our photograph, I suppose.'

Laurence was puzzled. 'But what was he doing there?'

'I was told that he was part of the trial. The one who's put in to defend someone but never gets them off. But I mean, Mr Brabourne, they might as wel of shot the man right there.'

Laurence saw they'd arrived at the point which he should have clarified to start with.

'And the prisoner was?'

'Mr Hart. Another lieutenant.'

Laurence realised that he'd increasingly expected to recognise the name, whatever it turned out to be, but Hart meant nothing to him. 'Hart?' he repeated, blankly.

Byers looked unhappy. 'Whatever he'd done, and Vince said he'd left them al in a ditch, being shot at, and done a runner and been found stark bolock naked spouting balderdash, he was brave enough in the end. We were hanging around for a while beforehand; that's probably when Brabourne got his picture. It was a dark morning, a bit of snow, not light enough at first. Then Emmett gives us a little speech, though you can tel his heart's not in it: about how sometimes duty asks strange and difficult things of us just as necessary as fighting the Germans. Chin up. Soon be over. That kind of thing. Probably read it in his officer handbook.

'Tucker marches us off. It's stil sleeting and my boots have a hole in them. I remember thinking I shouldn't be noticing this now. The captain comes over, says,

"Al right, lads?" I hear myself saying, "My boots are leaking." It just come out. Captain Emmett gives me a hard look. There's a post, and some rope. Wel, you must know how it goes. Tucker puts me on the end next to him. So as he can have fun watching me, no doubt. Then he mixes the rifles.'

'Mixes the rifles?'

'You must know. Being an officer.' He looked incredulous. 'Shift your rifles about. Of course it means you're not firing with the weapon you're used to. Not that I'd fired more than twice anyway.'

'I'm sorry—I misunderstood.'

But truthfuly Laurence had never given it any thought; it had seemed at first like an uncharacteristicaly humane idea but of course it would be a shambles in its effect. And by the time a man was shooting a felow soldier, his sensibilities were probably past protecting. By the time he'd been six months in France, he would be pretty wel inured to most of war's surprises.

'Then Tucker loads them; supposedly one's a blank, that's what they tel you, but if it was, I knew I wasn't getting it; Tucker was way too chipper with me.

Dusty lights a ciggie behind a hand and Captain Emmett shouts at him to put it out. Then we're al silent. It's just breathing and sloshing as we stomp our feet up and down to keep warm. Watkins starts muttering, "I know that my redeemer liveth." Tucker says, "No he don't, Watkins. Not here." Then Tucker must have heard something because we al have to stand to attention. And then we see them, and I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was racing so fast in my chest. Tucker's looking like it's the best thing he's seen in ages.'

Byers faltered. His shoulders rose and fel a couple of times.

'The lieutenant's stumbling along with his hands tied behind his back. The padre—one of the young ones, gripping his book and not lifting his eyes from the page, though you'd have thought he'd have known the words by heart—walks a little in front of him, reading prayers. The two men who'd been guarding him are either side and the APM—I suppose to execute an officer they needed to do it right—folowing on.'

Byers was speaking at an increasing speed, his initial reticence having transformed almost into eagerness to get to the end.

'They're bringing him along at quite a lick and the ground's rough and he nearly fals when he sees the place, but the corporal steadies him. They have him tied to the post in a jiffy. He doesn't struggle though he says the ropes are too tight. The corporal has a scarf but Hart won't have a blindfold. He looks at us and he seems a bit puzzled. The lad beside me, he looks down. It's worse for him because he's served under him. Part of me's thinking, at least if his boots is leaking, they won't be troubling him long.'

The look he gave Laurence was almost an appeal for understanding.

'Nerves; it was just my nerves. The MO steps forward, pins a white card or something over his heart. He's shaking his head just a bit, as he backs away. Could of been the sleet melting off his hat. The padre goes on with his "I am the resurrection and the life" stuff and then steps to the side, looking at the ground al the while.

Funny, the things you notice. The APM reads out the sentence and leaves us to it, walking back the way he come. Never looks back. He'd got a car waiting, they said.'

Byers looked momentarily uncomfortable but after a brief hesitation he went on.

'Then Captain Emmett cals out, not loud enough realy, "Ready", and there's the first click and then Mr Hart shouts out, "Goodbye, lads. Shoot straight and for God's sake make it quick." And the captain, he seems startled. Instead of going on, he stops. Then starts again: "Ready, aim, fire." Which we do.

'But the thing is, we don't shoot straight. First off, we're not using our own weapons. Dusty had been tippling out of his flask al night; God knows where he got it but he'd had plenty. Watkins is so busy with his mutterings about Jesus that his aim's al over the place, and the lad next to me whose name I can't remember shoots even before the captain has given the order to fire, he's that jumpy, and he hits the bloke al right, but not in the heart. We can al hear him moaning. Vince fires when he's told to, I think, and so do I, but I'd never even had to shoot a real person, not close up. Hart slumps against the ropes. As for Tucker, he shoots, but after me and he gets him in the leg or the bely or somewhere, and he was a good shot. Famous for it. Wasn't nervous either. It's Tucker's shot that makes him fal forward and the weight of him puls the post with him at an angle and the ropes give way and he's on the ground and we can see he's bleeding. It doesn't take the MO to make it official.

He's alive. We al look at Captain Emmett. Not just us but the padre and the MO and Mr Brabourne. It's the captain's mess to sort out now.'

Laurence felt cold with disgust. The inhumanity of it al.

'Captain Emmett takes his pistol out of its holster. He steps up to Hart, who's moving slightly. He hesitates and it looks like Hart's trying to speak. God knows how. Captain Emmett should have just ended it there and then. But he stoops down and tries to hear what Hart says. Puts his hand on his arm. Then he stands up again, whiter even than he was before. His arm with the gun is just hanging at his side. He looks up towards the MO and Mr Brabourne and for a minute nobody moves. Mr Brabourne looks back. The MO moves forward but stops. Hart's sort of coughing. His leg's twitching.'

Byers swalowed hard.

'Then suddenly Tucker walks across to the captain. He pushes Hart half over with his boot, reaches out and takes the captain's pistol out of his hand. No resistance at al. He shoots Hart, straight in the face. Then he takes Captain Emmett's hand, puts the gun in it, salutes sharpish, and walks back to the rest of us.'

Byers fel silent and when he spoke again his voice was husky.

'It was al wrong, al of it. It's why I took it so bad with Jim, it brought it al back.'

He put his spectacles back on and looked defiantly at Laurence.

'Tucker marches us off back to the farmyard. But not before we could al hear someone throwing up, Mr Brabourne, I think it was, but then whatever you say about Mr Brabourne, he'd had guts to be there; he didn't have to be. Could have been the padre, mind you. He was green too. God knows what happened between the officers. We don't see the MO and the padre again; they went off someplace else, and Captain Emmett and Mr Brabourne get back a while later. No mention of any irregularities. Nothing. No comeback I ever heard of against Tucker. Nor against your friend, Captain Emmett. Our secret. But Tucker, when the officers come in, he's standing next to the captain and the captain won't even look at him, when Tucker cals out, "Byers, there's an officer here needs his boots cleaning," and I look down and Captain Emmett looks down and there's blood and brains and stuff al over his foot.'

The room was suddenly silent. Then, slowly, sound crept back in. Laurence was aware of a clock ticking and a squeak each time Byers moved in his chair. His own grated as he pushed it back. Incongruously he could hear a blackbird somewhere outside. Byers was looking down and absent-mindedly tapping his pencil on his desk. Slowly Laurence picked up the more remote noise of metalworking and someone shouting.

'Thank you for teling me,' he said. 'You're a brave man. It can't be easy to go back over it.'

'None of us were brave, ever,' said Byers. 'Bravery's when you've got a choice.' He blinked as if finding himself somewhere he didn't quite expect. 'I'm not a man for fancies but sometimes I think we were cursed after. Dusty was gassed, I heard. Not in an attack but by some stupid lamp in a dugout. Probably too drunk to notice. Vince's body was never even found after the last push at Ypres. I heard Watkins went raving mad after his twin brother was kiled, and he was locked up. The padre was done for when they took a big German dugout. Some wel-meaning lad tels him there's a little shrine in the corner stil with a cross. Padre rushes in, marveling. Booby-trapped. Blew him to kingdom come. And the APM, a hard man, they say, survived the war, went back to the police here in London—he was the copper the major knew. Just the other week he was shot by some vilain with a grudge. I saw it in the paper. Now you tel me Captain Emmett's done himself in. I'm not even surprised; it was a stinking business from start to finish.'

'Yet you're stil here.'

But even as he spoke, Laurence was considering the reach of coincidence. Most of the casualties Byers had spoken of were straightforward, but if the assistant provost marshal had been murdered the balance seemed to shift.

'Right,' said Byers. 'Wel then, that leaves me and Tucker and the MO. Who knows about the young one whose name I've forgotten and the one with the shakes. Tucker's alive and kicking, of course. Alive, at any rate.'

'Our secret,' Byers had said. But not many shared it now. He didn't tel the younger man that the MO had died.

'Enid's brother-in-law, Ted, who'd served with him, said Tucker came out and took himself back up to the Black Country. Hasn't managed to hold down a job, though, I hear. So perhaps the war did get him in the end? Ted's a Birmingham man and he saw him a year or so back, though not to speak to. Had a wife al along, did Tucker, and some kiddies. The devil looks after his own's al I can say.'

'And Mr Brabourne?'

'Never heard of him again. Doubt he made it through. Like I said, he was a schoolboy on a spree. Right out of his depth.'

Laurence wondered about Tresham Brabourne. In ideal circumstances, advocates at courts martial were chosen from those who'd had legal experience before the war but circumstances were seldom ideal. With a military manual, a so-caled Prisoner's Friend might try to construct a defence. It was surprising, though, that an officer hadn't been represented by someone who'd been a barrister in civilian life. However, if they'd been in a hurry, and his family either hadn't been notified or hadn't been wel connected, then someone like Brabourne might be the best the accused could hope for. Al the same, he had accompanied a man he'd defended, presumably to the best of his ability, to a horrible death. He didn't have to be there. That made him a bit more than the careless boy that Byers took him for.

Could Brabourne stil be alive? Rumour had it that if a man defended the accused too energeticaly, he found himself on al the worst sorties afterwards. Simply defending Hart might have shortened the odds on young Brabourne's survival.

When he looked at his watch, Laurence was embarrassed to see that over an hour had passed. He jumped to his feet, apologising.

'No matter,' said Byers, although he looked relieved. 'I'd said I'd never talk about it again but now I have. It doesn't change anything. The major knew, of course, and I'd spoken of it to Jim, but I've never even told Enid. I don't want her to know the man I was then. I'm only talking of it now because the major brought you in. Al my anger's gone Tucker's way but the war just gave Tucker his head. Yet who else is there? The system? The generals on both sides? The Kaiser? The hothead who chucked a bomb at that duke in Serbia? Truth is, I don't even know who to blame. It's the same with Jim's death. A great unknown enemy out there that I can't even hate properly.'

Laurence had a sense that there was something Byers had withheld from his account. 'And there's nothing else you want to tel me?' he asked.

Byers was rotating a pencil in his fingers; it twirled like a propeler. Suddenly he lost control of it and it spun across the room. Momentarily Laurence folowed its trajectory with his eyes. It hit the wal. When he looked back, Byers seemed not to have noticed; his fingers were stil moving.

'Isn't that enough?' he said.

Laurence put his hand out and after a moment's hesitation Byers shook it. The rain had stopped and men were struggling to get a large safe on to a palet as Laurence walked across the yard. There was no sign of Major Calogreedy.

He strode out through the open gates and turned left. The Thames was brown, with foam from one of the industrial works forming a pale scum along the pilings.

It was chily down by the river. Laurence could smel the dankness of the water and the smoke of a thousand afternoon coal fires.

As he walked back along the Thames, he found himself hoping that Leonard Byers' marriage was a comfort to him. On the point of leaving he'd asked him whether he would ask Mrs Byers' brother-in-law where Tucker could be found. Byers doubted he knew—but he gave him the name of the pub he'd been told Tucker drank in: The Woodman.

'I've never been there, never been north of London, but he said that's where to go if I was ever up in our Birmingham works and wanted to look Tucker up.

That was his idea of a joke.'

Chapter Nineteen

He was impatient to see what Charles could unearth so rather than wait until their usual rendezvous, Laurence scrawled a note to him with the few details he had about Hart and Brabourne in the hope Charles might find out something by Thursday, when they were due to meet. He didn't even know Hart's first name. He kept the thrust of the story to himself; he was interested to see its effect on Charles when he retold it in person.

Seeing Calogreedy and Byers caught up in their working lives, Laurence had felt guilty. Recently he'd hardly picked up his own work. That was the trouble with his research: too solitary, too quickly set aside. His publishers were easy on him and, in a sense, the smal income Louise's money had provided was a trap. It was time he did something more demanding. Not in business like Calogreedy and Weatheral, and certainly not a return to coffee trading. What did begin to attract him was going back to a classroom, not the tutoring he'd done after leaving Oxford, but something more structured. He wondered whether he could get a beak's job at a good school.

On Thursday night Charles's club was almost empty. They both chose lamb chops with Cumberland sauce. The lamb was beautifuly tender and sweet but Laurence scarcely noticed as he struggled to recal every detail of what Byers had told him. When he had finished, his friend whistled through his teeth.

'We had a private who faced the death penalty for sleeping at his post but the colonel was never going to let it be carried out. It was enough the lads thought it could be. Kept the rest awake. But bad for morale, these things. Shooting an officer. Rotten luck that old Emmett drew the short straw. They usualy made a subaltern do the dirty work. As always. Byers give you anything else?'

'That was it,' Laurence said. 'Resentful but frank.'

Charles said, 'I heard there was a point when the powers that be wanted to quash the rumours that there was one rule for officers and another for the men.

From what you say, this Hart seems to have been the best they could do for an example. Don't imagine it would have happened if his people had known the right people.' He stopped and gave it some thought, then said, 'Damn odd about the batman's cousin, don't you think?'

'There's something odd al round. I keep thinking there's something I'm missing,' said Laurence. 'John seems to have been making amends for things that happened in the war. Leaving money to Bolitho after his terrible injury, unburdening himself to Dr Chilvers. Various people seem to have noticed an improvement in his mental state towards the end of his life. It seems unlikely Mrs Lovel's son was part of either the trench colapse or the execution of Lieutenant Hart, although he might have been involved in the court martial, I suppose. But he was apparently close to his mother, and never told her about it. So what is John's connection with Lovel—or even Mrs Lovel herself? It's quite possible there was something else there that he was trying to put right. John served for over three years. God knows what else happened. And what about the unknown Frenchman?'

Eventualy Charles spoke again. 'Wel, there's another possible line of enquiry re Hart. Young Tresham Brabourne's alive, you'l be surprised to hear. Or he was when he came out of the army in December 1918.'

Laurence found his spirits lifting. He'd instinctively taken to the unknown Brabourne and was glad he was stil around. His survival disproved Byers' gloomy predictions. If they could find him, Brabourne's account of John's state could be invaluable. He might even know of a connection with a Lovel.

'But no idea where he is, I'm afraid. There's his mother's name as next of kin.' He puled out a bit of paper from an inner pocket. 'Fulvia—they go in for funny names, these Brabournes. Mind you, she's not Brabourne, either. She's Green. Mrs Fulvia Elizabeth Green. Must have remarried. But the only address is Beverley, Yorkshire. Brabourne joined up in 1915. Profession, pupil in chambers. Al of which is a fat lot of good to us. Leave it with me and I'l see what other sleuthing I can do.

Or we can go north to find him?'

'So he was training at the Bar? That's why he defended Hart.'

'Possibly. Poor disgraced Hart. My cousin in the War Office clammed up about Hart, or any execution. Papers not public and they're currently sensitive to parliamentary concerns. Whatever that means. But the records are in chaos anyway. He just gave me the enlistment details. His name was Edmund. A Londoner when he joined up, if this Hart is our boy. Which he probably is, though it's quite a common name, but the date's right. Born in Winson...'

'What kind of place is that?' Laurence asked.

'A smal place,' Charles replied. 'In Gloucestershire, I think. A coincidence? No profession given, which is not so surprising as he was only eighteen. Parents, Mr and Mrs P. Hart. Very informative,' he said dryly. 'At least there's a street this time, but no name or number and you can hardly go from door to door saying, excuse me, was your son shot as a coward? Families try to cover these things up. In fact, they often don't find out until they begin to smel a rat when the pension doesn't come through. Stil, more officers were sentenced to death than you'd think. Just not shot on the whole. Recommendations to pardon or commute hurtling across the Channel like whizz-bangs. Hart was unlucky.'

'What a bugger.'

'Yes. I expect he thought so,' said Charles. 'Beastly business. God knows what it did to Emmett. Mind you, what was he thinking? Once Hart was wounded he should have just finished him off. It makes it al much worse for the men who misfired. Everyone has the jitters in these sorts of situations but he was the officer. And as for Tucker, he should have been sorted out way back, it seems to me. Insolence, abuse of power, bulying, contravention of King's Regs. Weak leadership there, letting a rogue NCO cal the tune.'

'And now I'm going to have to go and confront the man himself,' said Laurence.

'What?'

'Wel, something set John and Tucker against each other and that something apparently culminated in the fiasco at the execution. They obviously loathed each other. And Byers hinted that Tucker's ministrations to his own friend after the trench accident were murderous rather than medical. Though his actions were vague and Byers hated the man, so it may be wishful thinking.'

'So you think you can track down Tucker, wherever he might have got to?' Charles spoke slowly. And might I add that Tucker is hardly in the same league as Tresham Brabourne when it comes to distinctive names? Then you're going to tel him that the man he persecuted, by the sound of it, was your chum, whom he drove to his death, and then he's obligingly going to tel you exactly what it was al about, man to man, and you can bear the news to the fair Mary Emmett and set her mind at rest and ensure her everlasting gratitude. Is that how you see it?'

'Wel, no, obviously not. But I don't have to show Tucker how partisan I am. I can think of some legitimate reason for seeing him. If he's falen on hard times he might even talk in exchange for money. And actualy I do know how to find him. He's in Birmingham.'

'Ah, that rural hamlet. Should be easy, then. And I expect he has war heroes, brimming with derring-do, traveling up from London to ask his opinion on this and that every day of the week?'

'I know exactly where he is. At least I know how to find him. In a public house.'

Charles gave him a long look. 'Of course. Simple. Apart from anything else, Tucker could be dangerous. He doesn't sound like a man to cross. My cousin says the final wartime death tol is going to be a loss of about one in four or five officers and rather less than that for other ranks, one in eight, say. Mind you, that doesn't include poor buggers with half-lives like John and Bolitho. Maybe a third of us were casualties of some sort. Some outfits were hit badly, obviously some got off lightly, but what we're talking about here is a complete reversal of that ratio: almost everybody connected with Tucker is dead. Some died wel after the hostilities.'

'Wel, the soldiers died in action. Byers' cousin can hardly be counted and policemen do, occasionaly, die on duty. John made his own decision. Probably.'

Charles looked thoughtful. 'What do we know about the death of the police officer, late APM, then? Mulins, was it? When was it for a start? Have the police got anybody for it?'

'I don't know. No idea,' said Laurence. 'I vaguely remember seeing a headline. I suppose I can find out but it must have been weeks, maybe even months ago.'

'My point exactly. If it's a question of kiling their own, the police won't rest until he's caught and hanged. Not a casual crook, I'd say, if he's managed to elude them. Anyway, when did you last hear of the death of any senior policeman?'

Laurence shook his head.

'I'm not being overly dramatic,' said Charles, 'but think about it. Even Byers' cousin's death could have been someone wanting to get back at Leonard Byers, someone with a nasty line in vindictiveness, and from everything you've told me about Tucker, he seems to fit the bil.'

'Charles...' Laurence began.

'You think it's improbable? I think it's improbable but it stil makes me cautious about you tootling off to track Tucker down. Think, man, what was realy shocking about Tucker's behaviour over Hart's death? He shot him in the face. Unnecessary. Maximum damage. Maximum impact for onlookers plus public contempt for John.'

'I know what you're getting at,' Laurence interrupted, 'that whoever it was deliberately shot Byers' cousin in the face. Whom do we know who has a taste for that kind of thing? Who might want to send a message to Leonard Byers? Tucker. That's why I'm going. Al roads lead to Tucker.'

'But I don't think yours should. He strikes me as one of those men who hated al officers on principle.'

'John wasn't shot in the face,' Laurence said. 'He didn't even shoot himself in the head like most suicides.'

'No,' said Charles, 'but you've already started to wonder whether it realy was suicide. Could you stil put your hand on your heart and tel Miss Emmett her brother kiled himself?'

Laurence's optimism was flagging, yet it had al seemed to be coming together less than a week ago. Not perfect, but approaching coherence.

'It simply makes it more important that I try to see Tucker,' he said. 'Why would anyone disguise John's death to look like suicide? If there is a single kiler he certainly didn't bother to do so with Byers and Mulins.' He felt foolish even articulating it. 'And I keep asking myself, why would anyone be doing this?'

'Any chance you've stil got your gun?' Charles asked, and then, seeing the look on Laurence's face, went on, 'No, of course you haven't.'

'I'm not getting on a train at St Pancras armed to the teeth anyway, if that's what you've got in mind. I'm not a gangster. This isn't America,' Laurence retorted.

After a moment's hesitation he added, 'But I'l tel you what. I won't go rushing up there just yet. Before I do, I'l check the archives for the story of that policeman's death. No danger there and it's easily done.'

And I'l try to track down Brabourne,' said Charles. 'Then if, and only if, we feel it's necessary to head north, we'l both go. No, don't protest,' he interrupted as Laurence started to speak. 'Safety in numbers. Tucker's a maniac. Don't want to find myself buying back your tenderest parts pickled in a bottle, do I?'

'You think Tucker's more likely to talk to two strangers than one?' said Laurence. 'I don't.'

'No. But I think he's less likely to attack two than one. His sort go for the safe bet. Anyway, I'd like to look the man in the eye.'

They finished their dinner, Laurence turning down the offer of brandy and cigars. Charles walked with him to get his coat. Impulsively, Laurence shook his hand, holding it with both his own.

'Thank you,' he said. 'You've been more of a help than you know.'

Charles looked simultaneously pleased and embarrassed.

'I was getting bored, you know. Before. At least with the war you knew where you were.'

Chapter Twenty

When he arrived home his rooms felt cold and unwelcoming even when he'd lit the fire. He made some thick, bitter cocoa and warmed his hands on the cup. There were things he thought he'd never know for sure but the biggest remaining question mark, apart from Tucker's role in al this, was why Gwen Lovel had been left money by a stranger and why they couldn't find Harry Lovel's records.

But then another thought struck him. They'd al made the assumption that Lovel was an officer. He had done it from the start himself. Mrs Lovel had never said so but he'd taken it for granted because, although in visibly reduced circumstances, she was a lady and also because of her assumption that John, a captain, might plausibly have been her son's friend. Friendships were rare across the ranks. But whether or not you went into the ranks wasn't always a matter of class. Sometimes it was one of preference.

He'd read of a famous headmaster's son who'd set out to be a conscientious objector, but when half the young men in his vilage had died he had finaly joined up, refusing the commission his education entitled him to. Eventualy he had won the Victoria Cross. There were plenty of others. One school friend, he'd heard, had gone into the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic, simply because he was fascinated by the engines.

It was much rarer the other way. A costermonger or a miner didn't get a commission, however good a soldier or however bravely he fought. Although an exceptionaly able bank clerk or a seed merchant might work his way up to major if casualties were sufficiently high, he doubted they'd find an unstinting welcome in the mess. Even in the face of imminent death and conditions of massive discomfort, the nuances were always there. Snobbery, prejudice, bulying: al of it transported straight from the playing fields and drawing rooms of English society. He had been guilty of it himself, assuming the son of the wel-spoken Mrs Lovel would automaticaly have held a commission.

If young Lovel was the link between John Emmett and the bequest to Mrs Lovel, and Lovel was a private soldier, not an officer, the puzzle became more complex stil, simply in terms of numbers. It was just possible that the man his mother had described as sensitive and music-loving might have refused a commission despite his background. He cast back to the events that people had described to him over the last few weeks and thought how often he'd heard the phrase 'some corporal' or been told of 'a young soldier' or 'a private—I don't think I ever knew his name'. He felt momentarily dispirited but then recaled that Lovel, though an interesting loose end, didn't seem to be at the centre of his enquiry. Why was he making everything so complicated?

As he got ready for bed, he thought about seeing Mary again. Tomorrow, no, he tipped his watch to the light, today, she'd be here, in London. Yet since her unexplained encounter with Charles in Tunbridge Wels and that fleeting exchange with a stranger at the Wigmore Hal, he was wary. He could hardly ask her to explain herself.

Several hours later, when she appeared waving vigorously from the far end of the platform, so that the pompons on the ends of her scarf danced on her coat, the minutiae of his concerns about her fled away. She tucked her arm in his as if they were the oldest friends in the world. Her other arm clutched a bag to her body.

'Gosh, it's cold,' she said. 'Do you think it's going to snow early this year? It'l make the winter seem awfuly long.'

She had put on a little weight, he thought, and it suited her. Today the cold had also flushed her cheeks and her eyes sparkled.

'How've you been?' he asked once they were settled on the bus, knowing that he realy wanted to ask what she had been doing.

'Oh, al right. You know. Up and down but I think, on the whole, more up than down. It's not so easy for my mother.'

'But she's stil got you,' said Laurence.

'Maybe you always count the cost of what you've lost more than what you stil have,' she said. Anyway, she was always trying to get rid of me—marry me off.

Ghastly men. Whiskery bachelor academics, mournful widowers.' She looked mortified. 'Oh Laurence, how frightful of me. I'm dreadfuly sorry.' She put her warm, gloveless hand over his. 'I didn't mean you or anyone like you. It was just a joke. I talk too much, always have, especialy when I'm trying to impress someone. Say things I shouldn't even think.'

He was more amused than anything else, though glad she might want to impress him.

As he helped her down from the bus he said, 'Perhaps she's eager for grandchildren. Another generation to live for.' He added swiftly, 'There, that sounds awfuly clumsy too. I don't mean to suggest your only purpose is to produce babies as her consolation.'

'You're probably right, though,' said Mary. 'Idealy they'd be boys and the oldest one could be caled John. The youngest too, possibly. That should do it. A girl caled Johanna in the middle. But I need to find the right man first.' He knew she was teasing him as she squeezed his arm a little more tightly.

'Let's get out of the cold and have tea,' he said, already turning up a street in the direction of the British Museum. They were walking too fast to talk easily.

It was the same smal place that he had used to meet Eleanor. The waitress who took their order seemed completely indifferent to them. Her cap was pinned far back on her crimped yelow hair and with her lips coloured into a surprised-looking bow, she looked like a large, rather peevish dol. In any case she was too busy watching the door, waiting for somebody she evidently expected. But nobody else ever arrived; the room was theirs. Laurence curved his cold fingers round his cup.

Before he could start to tel Mary of what he stil thought of as his detective work, she took out a brown envelope from her bag.

'Look,' she said, 'these were things I found in the bedside cupboard in John's room. They were just odds and ends that came back with his things from Holmwood, so we shoved them in there and forgot about them. Nothing very exciting. A couple of laundry lists, notes of some birds he'd seen in the garden. You see,'

she said, puling out a lined sheet, 'he did have some interest in what was going on.'

Laurence took the bit of paper. The writing was uncontroled but the content was clear: H'wood

Blackbird.

Mistle thrush, M. and F.

Great tit.

Blue tit (nesting in garage wal?)

Beside it John had sketched a blue tit, a coal tit and a great tit, and labeled them.

Chaffinches.

Woodpecker (heard, but never seen).

Hedge sparrow —lots.

Pipit? Chiffchaff.

Wren (in honeysuckle outside music-room window)

Red kite. A pair. Just once, walking out. Mewling over the river valey. Wonderful. N. was a little frightened at first.

Larks. 'Al the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.' Went as far as river watching them through Dr C's glasses. As agreed did not throw myself in!

Another, much neater hand, had added:

Greater puff-chested yellow fiddler. Fine plumage; watchful demeanour. Mates prolificaly with weaker females.

Harsh and irritating repetitive cry. Minemineminemine. Moneemoneemonee. Rarely leaves his natural habitat, where he is king of his tattered little flock, for the open countryside where the woodland animals might tear him apart.

They looked at each other.

'It's nice, isn't it?' said Mary, hopefuly.

Laurence, lost in the last sentence, was startled for a second but realised she meant the birdwatching. It was true, he could feel John's old enthusiasm. The quote was Edward Thomas, he thought. This was the first he'd seen of a John he recognised in anything he'd heard about him since the war. It went a smal way to dispeling the image of him as just an angry and unstable officer. Nor had he been alone, from the sound of it. Could his timid companion, frightened by birds of prey, have been the fragile Mrs George Chilvers, he wondered?

'But who do you think wrote this?' he asked, pointing to the foot of the page.

'Wel, I assumed it was about the younger Chilvers. Not an actual bird, obviously. I suppose it could be anybody. Briefly I thought it might be John writing about himself; it has his sort of wit, and even caling himself a coward ... but nothing else fits. He was never puffed up and couldn't give an earthly for money. He worried about my father when Daddy kept putting too much on the horses—Daddy was a bit of an optimist where racing was concerned and our mother used to rage at him—

but I don't think he was happy when he discovered that my maternal grandparents' wealth had always been entailed to him.'

Laurence mentaly ticked off one question: which was how John had had any money to leave Bolitho and Mrs Lovel, and how the Emmetts came by their current house. Had John got everything simply because he was the male heir, he wondered?

'And the bottom bit's not John's writing,' she said. 'He had to use his left hand because his right was paralysed. And al those tails like umbrela handles on the Ys, not him. If not Mrs Chilvers, another inmate, perhaps?'

Even as she spoke, Laurence felt certain the unknown companion must have been Eleanor but he didn't want to raise this with Mary yet.

'A disaffected member of staff?' she suggested. 'And it could be about anybody. But my money's on Chilvers. Did you see the man's driving gloves?'

'What were they?' John asked, trying to sound light-hearted and disguise his discomfort at withholding information. 'Mink, studded with emeralds, or spiked metal gauntlets to incapacitate any motorist who impedes his way?'

'Wel, nearer the mink. Bright-yelow kid, fine and soft. Must have cost a fortune. I know because when we met, he had just got out of that car of his and rather creepily he shook hands—wel, he squeezed hands—without taking them off. It was like warm loose skin against my own flesh. Disgusting. Had his poor wife with him.

Like a mannequin. Al the latest fashions—French probably. Perfect hair. Perfect marcasite earrings. Enviable hat. Wel, I was envious. Fox stole. Just the thing for a madhouse in some rural back of beyond.'

She stopped and seemed to consider what she'd said.

'Poor woman. She didn't say a word and he didn't introduce us. A life sentence, however many hats.'

'Rumour has it, she was the one with hats in the first place. It's he who wasn't in gloves until she came along.'

Mary summoned a half-hearted expression of scorn, but she was focused on puling a pamphlet out of the manila envelope. It was poor-quality paper that had obviously been roled up at some time. She tried to smooth it out on the table, weighing down one end with the sugar bowl. The front cover had an ink drawing of a cluster of stars and across it, in what might almost have been potato print, the word Constellations. Inside the front cover was a short typed paragraph, signed only: Charon. He read it.

'Read, stranger, passing by. Here disobedient to their laws, we cry. 1916.'

The epigraph echoed something he knew from school. Ancient Greek, he thought, but the words were not quite right. He read on. The folowing pages were al typed poems. After a few pages he came to the one he'd seen scrawled in one of John's notebooks back in Cambridge. He turned it to show Mary. She nodded. 'That one again,' she said. '"Sisyphus".'

He read it for a second time. Its briliance struck him, just as it had in the stuffy attic at the end of the summer. Once he had been an enthusiastic reader of poetry but since the war he had read very little. He found the best modern poets so disturbing that he was invariably left melancholic; the worst were excruciating lists of rhyming clichés. This poem, however, was beyond categorisation; there was a strangely mystical feel about it. He remembered reading Gerard Manley Hopkins at Oxford. This Sisyphus had the same mad beauty in his writing. Reality had al but disappeared and what was left was like the unease of a dream.

'I can't understand it,' said Mary. 'In fact the more I try, the less I succeed—but when I relax, I seem to absorb it. Or something...' She trailed off embarrassed and then said as if to defuse her emotional response, 'But it's bit affected, this pseudonym stuff. I mean, they're not boys in the classical sixth. Why can't they just use their initials if they're feeling coy? Anyway, if they'd put their names to them, they might be famous by now'

'They wouldn't risk it,' said Laurence. 'It had to be private unless it was frightfuly gung-ho, our glorious dead, noble sacrifice sort of stuff. The one John had published earlier was just on the right side of the divide. But most were never intended for publication. Although this is obviously a bit more than the work of a few friends.'

He remembered what Eleanor Bolitho had told him about John publishing poetry, his own and others', and was certain this was the project she'd spoken of.

Again, he felt forced to keep information back until he'd tried to speak to Eleanor but he felt fraudulent presenting knowledge as a conclusion.

'Someone's typed it, for a start; it's in semi-circulation, I think, and wel before the war ended, judging by the date on the introduction.' He turned back a page.

'I mean, look at this one, it's not satire, it's simply contempt: "The pink brigadier lifts his snout from the swil." I don't think it would have advanced anybody's career.'

Opposite the farmyard ditty was a neat traditional poem. Unlike much of the poetry, this was oddly cheerful and complete. So many of the poems were raw and rough-edged. Yet here was a tidy pastoral sonnet. The work of an optimist or a blind man. Blue speedwel, bluer sky, skylarks, hawthorn after rain. Distant guns like summer thunder. Laurence rather liked it. The pen name was 'Hermes'.

'Hermes,' said Mary, 'the messenger.'

'The winged messenger,' said Laurence. 'And Sisyphus had a vast rock to rol uphil for ever, and Charon rowed the dead, of course.' He looked again at the page. 'Would you mind if I borrowed this?' he asked. 'I can see it's fragile but I'l be realy careful.'

He gave her no reason. There was none beyond a wish to read it, at his leisure and unobserved.

'Have it al—everything—if it helps.'

He refiled Mary's cup with lukewarm tea. The waitress was outside, peering up the street. He could no longer put off recounting his interview with Byers. What he told Mary was pretty faithful to what he'd heard, though omitting the severed penis and the brains that had splattered on John's boot.

Nonetheless, when he had finished, her head was bowed. She was absolutely silent and then two tears dropped from the end of her nose on to the wilow pattern of her plate. She rubbed her nose with her hand, rustling around in her bag and her pockets, apologising and sniffing, until Laurence found his own handkerchief, clean, even ironed. She dabbed rather ineffectualy, then held it across her eyes, almost hiding behind it. Then she sat for a minute with the handkerchief screwed up in her hand and her hand bunched against her forehead. Eventualy she took a deep, slightly uneven breath.

'I'm sure we could have helped if he'd spoken to us.' Her eyes filed with tears again.

'I think,' said Laurence very cautiously, 'that many men—just couldn't talk about things. It was as if once they put words to it, it would overwhelm them completely. And they didn't want to place that burden on people they loved. Couldn't.'

Mary sniffed but he thought it was an encouraging sniff.

'Even now, if I meet another man my sort of age, we know we probably share the same sort of memories; we don't discuss it but it's there between us. But with families there's a sort of innocence. It can be exasperating'—he thought back to Louise's patriotic certainties—'but sometimes it's easier to be with people who haven't been,' he searched for a word, 'corrupted,' he said finaly. He knew that he had moved from the general to the particular, revealing himself more than he'd intended.

'But the price is that you'l always be alone,' Mary said heatedly. 'And a whole generation of women are excluded. Redundant. Irrelevant.'

Laurence nodded. He thought of Eleanor Bolitho and wondered how different it must be to be with a woman who had shared some of the horror.

'It's not fair. You don't give us a chance.' Mary's voice rose slightly.

'The man I was teling you about—Byers. He's not been married long. Yet he's never ever told his wife al this.'

'And perhaps Mrs Byers has lots of things she'd like to tel him. Of fear and loneliness and never knowing who was coming back or in what shape. Sitting.

Waiting. Perhaps you should ask us whether we'd like to know? We're women, not children.'

'He means wel ... he's trying to protect her.'

Mary snorted, or something like it. 'So from now on we conduct our relationships in a dense fog with areas marked do not enter. Briliant, Laurence.'

He didn't know how to respond. He didn't want to tel her she had no idea. That he, at least, couldn't put the past into words, not that he wouldn't. His heart was beating erraticaly.

'So do you have secrets tucked away? Do all you men have secrets?' she asked almost angrily.

He wanted to say, 'Do you?' but instead he said, 'Yes, of course I do.' Then he found himself blurring his truth. 'Everybody has secret bits of their life, I suppose.' He tried to stop it sounding too much like an accusation.

She nodded almost imperceptibly, suddenly calmer. 'Was it al realy, realy awful? Out there?'

'No. Some of it was boring. Some of it was funny. Living in a cottage with two other subalterns and a French family: the mother giving birth noisily upstairs while we ate sausages and lentils. Some of it was plain ludicrous. There were two men in my platoon, and every time we seemed settled for more than a week, they'd start growing vegetables. And rhubarb. A year or so later we passed through the vilage again and the rhubarb was thriving—the only thing that was, amid the ruins. Nearly al of it was uncomfortable. Some people enjoyed bits of it, especialy at first. My friend Charles; he was a natural. He was good at it. His men respected him. He liked his men. I liked mine. Most of them. But we both had an easy war compared with some.'

He had a sudden image of a soldier beaming at him. It was Polock, the fat man, khaki uniform straining. There never was such a man for belching. He could do it to 'God Save the King'. The men counted on his last lucky belch each time they went over the top.

She sat quietly for a while, gazing at the closed pamphlet. Eventualy she said, 'I'm glad in a way we have that list of bird-watching. That's a long time after the worst of it. So at least I know that he didn't always feel as wretched and raging as he was when he came back. This,' she picked up the list, 'is a John I recognise. Look, he can even joke about not throwing himself in the river. He's simply glad to be alive. I think he is, at last, I realy do.'

'Yes.' Strangely, his own reaction to glimpsing this hour of pleasure was sadness.

'But come the winter, it al goes wrong.'

He couldn't decide whether to tel her of his faint disquiet about John's death. What he and Charles might have found plausible after a good dinner was too far-fetched to be presented as real speculation, although it didn't realy seem to make much difference. Mary had stil lost her only brother. Unless you were a policeman, the need to reveal and avenge murder was reduced almost to a philosophical enquiry after the losses of the last years.

Chapter Twenty-one

While Laurence was muling over Tucker's intentions and paying the bil, Mary's mood seemed to shift. She took his arm as they walked into the street.

'Have you ever gone to the films? I suppose you have, living in London?'

Laurence shook his head. 'Not recently,' he said. The only films he'd seen were flickering newsreels at HQ. 'Would you like to, next time, perhaps?'

'I'd love that,' said Mary. 'I saw Lilian Gish a while back, in The Greatest Thing in Life, and she was beautiful and funny. Or we could go to a play?

Heartbreak House might be more your thing. More serious.'

Laurence relaxed into Mary's easy assumption that she knew what he'd like. He clamped his arm down a little so that her hand was caught between his upper arm and his ribs. He looked sideways at her, half hidden under the rim of her dark-red hat. She returned his gaze, apparently amused.

When they arrived at the station, there was an unexpectedly large crowd by the platform. Laurence pushed himself to the front to speak to the stationmaster.

'No train,' he said when he'd fought his way back to her. 'There's been a landslip. Nothing until tomorrow. Do you want me to arrange for you to be put up at a hotel? Or can you go to your cousin?'

'My cousin's about to produce her fourth baby,' said Mary. 'I realy don't think I could pitch up unannounced.'

To Laurence's relief she didn't look particularly bothered.

'Isn't your mother going to be worried?'

'No. She and Aunt Virginia are in Buxton. They're taking the waters in the hope it might help my mother's rheumatism.'

They had turned away from the platform. After a long silence, Mary said hurriedly, 'Look, would it be possible, say if it wouldn't, if I came back with you?' She looked slightly embarrassed.

'Yes. Of course. I just thought you wouldn't realy want to. It's not terribly comfortable.' He was worrying that it might not be terribly clean, either.

'No, that's fine. More than fine. Anyway I'd love to see where you live. There's a limit to the appeal of teashops.'

He was about to tel her that she would have to sleep in his bed, and that he was quite happy to sleep in an armchair, but didn't want her to think his mind had raced ahead to the sleeping arrangements.

They stopped and bought roasted chestnuts on a street corner; the man who huddled over the glowing coals was wearing his campaign medals on his coat.

Cradling the smal, warm bags in their hands, they caught a bus that took them right up to Bloomsbury. Mary insisted she didn't want anything else to eat.

The house was in darkness but, as they climbed the first flight of stairs, the door to his neighbour's flat opened. Laurence stopped dead, placing his hand on Mary's forearm.

'Good evening,' said his neighbour, his unkempt bulk filing the doorway. He looked Mary up and down.

'Ah ... this is a friend of mine: Miss Emmett.'

'Yes. I see.'

'Was there anything?' Laurence began.

'No. I was just going out.' His neighbour stayed watching them as they climbed up to the next floor.

'Sorry,' Laurence said as soon as they were in his flat and he had lit the fire. 'Perfectly harmless. But something a bit odd about him.'

Mary looked amused. 'It's al right. He was just awkward in the way men are who live by themselves for years.'

She slapped her hand across her mouth.

'There I go again, piling on one insult after another. I hope you know I don't mean you.'

'One of your droopy widowers who, having the misfortune to be living a single life, has falen into unsavoury habits?'

'You know I don't think that and I certainly don't mean you.' She lightly batted her fists on his chest.

He looked at her. Her eyes were only a little lower in level than his, grey-green and clear. Her smile faded a little and her lips parted almost imperceptibly. He held her gently by the upper arms, locking her gaze for what seemed like a minute but was probably no time at al, and then let her go. She looked away, apparently confused.

Laurence went through to his bedroom, leaving Mary to warm herself by the fire.

'May I play the piano?' she asked.

'You can try,' he caled through, 'but it's probably unplayable. It hasn't been tuned since ... for ages.'

He knelt down by his bedroom wardrobe to see whether he had any spare linen at the bottom. He heard her open the piano lid and pul the stool closer. Then the stool lid opened and there was silence. He rocked back on his heels to peer through the doorway. She was standing, leafing through some sheet music, staring at it intently with her head bobbing. Then he realised she was hearing the music in her mind. She looked up, saw him gazing at her and laughed.

'Sorry, just trying to work out what I won't disgrace myself with.' She paused and indicated the front sheet. '"Louise Scudamore". Scudamore? Was that your wife? Was she good? At the piano?'

'She practised a lot,' said Laurence, remembering her playing rather heavily, leaning forward with a look of fraught concentration on her face and her nose screwed up. 'Her biggest trouble was that she needed spectacles.'

He remembered how hard Louise had tried. Her mother had thought her exceptional.

'Actualy,' he went on, with a sudden burst of honesty, 'she was probably a bit hopeless, but she enjoyed it and she loved the piano. That's why I've kept it, even though I can't play a note.'

'You should learn to play. It would relax you.'

'I don't know any teachers,' he countered. 'Anyway, I'm far too relaxed half the time. I need to be less relaxed.'

She looked at him knowingly. 'I don't think so, Laurie. I don't think you're ever truly relaxed. In fact, I seem to recal thinking you were a very coiled-up, contained man when I first met you.'

He was about to protest but she had already returned to the music.

'Right, Liszt. That's a good start,' she said, sitting down. 'I used to be quite good at this. Or perhaps not?' she said, as she began to play, faltering a little on the first notes.

He finaly found a pair of sheets. They were old and had been neatly turned, sides to middle, but they were clean and without holes. While she was engrossed in the music he held them to his face to check they didn't smel damp. When he shook them out, they were plainly for a double bed. Swags of embroidered flowers and bows decorated the upper edges. He found one recently laundered pilowcase and for the lower pilow kept the case already on it, smoothing it with his hand.

She went on playing. Her touch was assured but the tone was pretty awful. When he'd finished making the bed— her bed, he realised with pleasure—adding an extra blanket under the eiderdown because she might not be used to a bedroom as cold as his could be, he stood in the doorway and watched her. She thudded on a dead key, and not for the first time.

'It's stuck,' she said. 'You realy ought to get this tuned, Laurie. It's a good piano, a wiling one. It deserves to be tuned.'

'Pianos have personalities?'

'Of course they do. There are good pianos and bad pianos, wiling ones and disobliging ones, modest ones and blustering ones. And this one shouldn't be abandoned.'

She leaned over and touched a slightly warped panel on the front where a shel in faded mother-of-pearl inlay was contained in a cartouche.

'Nor should her finery be neglected. When we stil lived in the country, I had a lovely piano: a smal Bluthner. Wel, it was my mother's, realy. My paternal grandfather had given it to her as a wedding present. My mother could play beautifuly, much better than I can. When I was very little we used to laugh when she played duets with my grandfather.'

'You haven't got it now?'

'No. No room and anyway it was too valuable. We had to sel it.'

'I didn't realise...' Laurence began.

'Actualy father was dreadful with money,' she said. 'Hopeless. The house in Suffolk was in trust for John. My grandfather—my other one, my mother's father—

must have seen the way things were going long before he died. My father was realy kind—wel, you know he was,' her eyes shone, 'but he believed everybody. Every chancer with a half-baked scheme to make money. Every tip on a horse that might reverse our fortunes. And he never learned. He always wanted to see the good in people. Like John, in a way.'

'I'm sorry. Your parents were awfuly good to me.'

'They were good people. But my mother was always a bit disappointed. She would have liked more of London life, I think, and she got worn down by staving off one crisis after another. Although my father was a steadfast family man, he never seemed to notice the odd writ, or the grass three feet tal, or living on mutton and onion tart for a week, or the smel of boiling soap ends.'

She changed the music and played some Brahms he recognised. He opened a kitchen drawer, found some candles and inserted them in the piano candleholders; as he pushed them into place, he could feel the accretion of old wax on his fingers. Wax that had dripped there when Louise was stil thudding through her Chopin. He put some more coal on the fire and lit the oil lamp that had been his mother's.

Mary played for a little longer; the soft light on her skin made her look as young as he remembered her from before the war. But after a while she stopped suddenly, and swung her legs back over the stool.

'No, the piano needs more love to do Brahms justice. I'l tel you what, you get her tuned and I'l give you a concert.'

'I don't have any wine, to reward your efforts, I'm afraid,' he said. 'But I've got gin. And biscuits,' he added as an afterthought. 'Sweet-meal. Mostly broken. Or would you like cocoa?'

'What a feast,' she said.

In the end he found some bottled plums and a loaf of bread, as wel as the biscuit fragments. The combination had shades of a school midnight feast. While he put them on a tray, she was looking at his bookcase.

'A man's shelves reveal al his secrets,' she said as she puled out a book.

After a second of anxiety, he felt pleasure at this strange intimacy. 'Mostly my father's secrets, in this case.'

'Fair enough for the Dickens and the Wordsworth, and I don't think you'd have chosen Meredith, but The Return of the Native is a bit racy for somebody's father, I'd have thought. And—goodness, Laurence— Sons and Lovers.' She looked back at him questioningly. 'Whatever next?' She squatted down to look at the lower shelf. 'Now we get to it.'

Again he felt a flicker of unease.

' Three Men in a Boat next to their natural companion-on-shelf, Foxe's Martyrs. The many faces of Laurence Bartram.'

'Foxe is for my book research.'

'But you don't like your book.'

'No, I do.'

'No, you don't. You never talk about it. We've passed scores of churches and you've never said a thing about any of them.'

He didn't like to say that he had assumed she wouldn't be interested. When he didn't answer, she got to her feet. 'I didn't mean to pry.'

'No. It's fine.' He forced a smile. 'I do like churches a lot but the book's an excuse not to have to do anything else. I haven't looked at it for weeks.'

'Am I an excuse?'

'No, of course not.'

'But helping me is?'

'You mean, is it a diversion? Wel, yes, but not in the way you think.'

Fatigue and gin had relaxed them by the time she finaly braved the iciness of his bathroom, took a glass of water and kissed him on the cheek. He waited until she'd closed the door of the bedroom before stripping down to his shirt, drawers and socks.

He could hear her moving about for a while and the creak as she got into bed. He snuffed out the candles and then stubbed his toe on the armchair he'd arranged. He puled his dressing-gown colar up around his face, covered himself with a blanket and tried to settle for the next half an hour. Eventualy he dragged the seat cushions on to the floor, lay down on them and roled himself up in the old blanket. He had not slept on a floor for three years. He hadn't expected to do so again but he was quietly content and lay for a while, looking towards the grey shape of the window and listening intently to any noise from next door. Was she awake? What was she thinking? He fancied he could hear her breathe though he knew it was impossible.

Chapter Twenty-two

The deep contentment he felt in Mary's company lasted him al the next day, even when she'd gone. He thought how pretty she looked in the morning, dressed but with her hair loose and legs bare. She had insisted on assembling a rudimentary breakfast. Eventualy he'd surrendered and watched her as she handled his china and put a kettle on the stove as if she had visited many times before. He ached for her, not just to possess her, although certainly that, but also to protect her and to know her with an absolute familiarity.

But she ate swiftly, returned to the bedroom and sat, tidying her hair in front of the looking-glass. He turned away. She emerged with her hat on and her bag in her hand. To his surprise, she now wanted to go to Charing Cross. She had decided not to go back to Cambridge yet, she said. She referred vaguely to cousins near Wadhurst. Instead of asking her about them quite naturaly, he'd resisted, convinced it would sound like an interrogation.

When he eventualy walked out of the station and turned up the Strand, it was a fine day with the sky bright above the piebald trunks of the plane trees. He was determined not to let his mind dwel on her unexplained times in Sussex.

He had decided to start looking for Inspector Mulins in the archives of the Daily Chronicle. The Chronicle had the sort of ordinary coverage he needed, but also he had once penciled the words of one of its war correspondents into his day book. The man had written: 'As an outside observer, I do not see why the war in this area should not go on for a hundred years, without any decisive result. What is happening now is precisely what happened last year.' Laurence had found it comforting rather than depressing. It meant he wasn't going mad.

He had occasionaly peered at the Chronicle's offices tucked away in a tiny square to one side of Fleet Street. The building had a dark and elaborate brick façade with an impressive portico. He was taken immediately down to an airless basement room crammed with files. The woman running the library of back copies looked blank when he asked whether she remembered the incident.

'I don't read any of them,' she said, as if he'd accused her of idling. 'I just keep them tidy.'

His first problem was in remembering when exactly he'd seen the original article. It was recent, he thought, not long after he met Mary. He took out a month of copies and placed them on a long table, going through them a week at a time. He was pretty sure this would be front-page news. A violent attack on such a senior officer was almost unknown in England, though he vaguely remembered that the head of Scotland Yard had survived being shot by a madman not long before the war.

He found the first mention of Mulins' murder fairly quickly on an inside cover of a September newspaper, but it was obviously a folow-up story, considering whether Bolsheviks might have been behind the attack, so he kept going backwards. Finaly he found the headline he sought. It was unequivocal: SCOTLAND YARD

SLAYING. The accompanying photograph was a portrait shot of the officer in uniform. The date was Friday, 26 August 1921.

He ran through the columns beneath. Chief Inspector Mulins had left Scotland Yard as he usualy did at five-thirty in the afternoon. He was walking down the steps accompanied by a constable who, although some way behind him, was to be the nearest witness. As Mulins reached the last step, a man came up and spoke to him. The constable thought he had addressed him by name and that, although the inspector had nodded, he did not appear to recognise the gunman. The assailant then puled out his weapon from inside his coat and fired. Mulins fel to the ground almost immediately and the gunman fired one further shot, mutilating him. Mulins expired within seconds. With the element of surprise in his favour and because those nearest were attempting to provide aid to the dying officer, the gunman was able to escape apprehension. He was described as clean-shaven, of average build, possibly in middle age. He wore a hat, which concealed some of his features, and a British Warm, with the colar up. The piece ended: 'Chief Inspector Gerald Mulins joined the Metropolitan Police in 1900 and served with distinction within the Corps of Military Police from 1916 to 1919. He leaves a widow, a son who is a police cadet, and four daughters.'

Laurence was struck straight away by the similarity, albeit as much in its vagueness as anything more significant, in the descriptions of the murderer of Jim Byers and the assailant described here.

He went back to the desk at the entrance and rapped lightly. The curator appeared out of the doorway behind it.

'Do you know how I can find out who wrote this?' He laid down the paper and pointed.

She shook her head, much as he expected. But then she said, 'Please wait,' and went back through the door. He could hear her footsteps as she climbed the stone stairs. After ten minutes he began to wonder whether she'd gone for a tea break, but she appeared as suddenly as she'd gone and beckoned him to folow her.

The porter in the little cubbyhole by the front entrance looked up. He was holding the telephone receiver in his hand and after a couple of seconds said, 'Mr Peterkin? Gentleman here to see you, sir.'

Chapter Twenty-three

Peterkin was waiting as Laurence extricated himself from the smal cage of a lift on the first-floor landing. He was shabbily dressed, with a harassed expression.

'Yes?' he said. 'May I help you?' He sounded mildly resentful at any expectation that he should.

'I'm sorry. I just wondered if I could speak to someone about an article in your paper.'

'Today?'

'No. A while back. It's about the murder—of a police officer—last summer. I realy have only a few questions.'

'You mean the Mulins case?' The man looked slightly more interested.

Laurence nodded.

'It's not me you want to see.'

The man turned and Laurence folowed. They passed through a long, scruffy room, amid a low buzz of chatter from men and one woman working at typewriting machines behind half-height partitions. Screwed-up bals of paper littered the floor. A telephone rang as he passed. At the far end was a tiny office. Peterkin stood aside at the open doorway. The room smeled strongly of tobacco.

'Mr Tresham Brabourne,' he said wearily, and a younger man looked up as if strangers were bundled into his office every day. By the time he stood up from his desk and shook Laurence's hand, Peterkin was gone.

Even as he absorbed the extraordinary coincidence unfolding in front of him, Laurence remembered Byers commenting on Brabourne's youth. He stil looked very young, though he had to be wel into his twenties. He was dressed in baggy tweed trousers and a thick corduroy jacket, a Fair Isle jumper and a striped scarf.

Brabourne shut the door and gestured to a bentwood chair while he sat astride a similar one, facing Laurence over its curved back. He was silent for a couple of minutes, patting various pockets and finaly puling out a rather crushed packet of cigarettes before selecting one and putting it in his mouth.

Laurence read a poster on the wal:

BLESS

Cold

magnanimous

delicate

gauche

fanciful

stupid

ENGLISHMEN.

'Wyndham Lewis,' Brabourne muttered, puling strands of tobacco from his tongue as he folowed Laurence's glance. He offered the cigarettes to Laurence, then lit his own. As he struck and discarded a succession of faulty matches, he gestured to Laurence to speak.

Laurence, stil astonished that fate should have delivered Brabourne to him, tried to explain his presence methodicaly but, as he jumped from Mary to Holmwood to the execution in France, he realised how muddled he sounded.

Brabourne listened patiently and intently. 'So,' he said, finaly. 'You came here wanting to find out about the death of a London policeman in the summer, but now you're here, you've discovered you'd rather talk about my part in a firing squad in France in 1917? You know, when they were rebuilding these offices, the first year of the war, they found an old stone lion—probably Roman—hidden beneath our site. You never know what you're going to find if you start digging.'

'It is al a bit odd,' Laurence acknowledged. 'I'm realy only trying to find out what happened to a friend with whom I should never have lost touch.'

Brabourne raised his eyebrows.

'The thing is, his sister realy needs to understand why he shot himself.'

Laurence was aware it al sounded a bit lame. Why a man being treated for mental distress might kil himself was not a very profound mystery.

'But then one thing has led to another; his story was tied up with other stories and everything became more complicated. Or perhaps I've simply complicated it.

The policeman was one thread, a man shot for cowardice became another and finding you is just a stroke of unnerving luck.'

'And they're al connected.'

'I'm sorry?'

'They're al connected. John Emmett and Private Byers were part of the firing squad. Mulins was the APM there. Emmet was hit hard by it al ... So we end up at this place Holmwood,' he went on. 'It's what journalists do: remember things. Tie them together. However, I was hardly likely to forget those names. I never knew the names of the other soldiers involved but Byers had been in my platoon way back in 1915. And of course you probably already know that I met John Emmett, but not, perhaps, that I liked him. You may know that I defended Edmund Hart? In theory, at least.' He stopped abruptly. The ash fel from his cigarette onto the floor.

Laurence ran his hand through his hair. 'The execution. I've had one other account—from Byers, in fact, and he had tried very hard not to talk about it since.'

'Byers,' said Brabourne, nodding. 'Wel, it was a bad business, in that al capital punishment is bad. The offence and the trial were both mishandled, frankly. And the execution was a complete travesty of justice and dignity. But to set the record straight, it was desertion he was charged with, not cowardice. For cowardice, you have to be within hailing distance of the enemy. Hart never got as far as the enemy. And there was the whole question of shel-shock.' He shook his head slightly. 'Hart had been treated for it the year before. In England. But there were those who said he'd faked it and that went against him. He certainly wasn't deranged enough when I met him to gather the medical evidence. Some doctors were sympathetic; some weren't and would simply hammer home the nail already in the coffin. That and the fact that he'd spent every moment since his arrival trying to leave the regiment and get into the navy. Not popular. Not a man you'd want to join your club.'

'And you? What did you think?'

'He was sane enough. A rather awkward, immature man. Not a leader. Hart repeatedly said he was nervous. But he managed to make everyone else nervous too. The colonel had been hesitant about sending him forward on the day in question but he had no other officer available. In my opinion, Hart was a liability in action.

Not his fault. I didn't care if he was barking mad, neurasthenic or even a fake; he just wasn't officer material, as they used to say, or at least only, and redundantly, right at the end. But there was no question in my mind that he was, at the very least, confused and disoriented the night he disappeared. At the end of his tether; it's just his tether wasn't as long as some people's.'

He stubbed out his cigarette and threw it in the empty grate.

'We were at Beaucourt, late October. Three brigades, a ludicrously complicated plan of attack on enemy positions north of the river: a lot of pencil marks and stopwatches. The battalion moved forward. The men were overloaded with kit: it was a miserable evening; damp, foggy, no good for sleep.' He was lighting another cigarette as he spoke.

'We went forward as the third wave, with the German guns blasting away, and the wire in the fog like the tentacles of some hungry subterranean monster.' He added, almost with wonder, 'It was extraordinary: when the bulets struck the wire they sent diamond sparks into the mist: it was as if this monster we were approaching was electrified.'

Laurence didn't interrupt. He could see why Brabourne had done wel as a journalist.

'It was chaos up there. Hart wasn't in my company—but after a bit I hardly saw anybody anyway. My colonel was kiled; I saw two other dead officers recognisable only by their badges.' Brabourne drew in deeply on his cigarette, exhaled after a few seconds' contemplation and re-inhaled the smoke up his nose.

'At first there'd been something comic about my war. I joined in Monmouth. My father's family came from the South Welsh borders. Found myself with a bantam regiment. Byers too although he was transferred soon after. Al these midget Welshmen: five feet three inches or so. Until then I'd thought of myself as rather average build. Perhaps I was down under some mysterious military acronym: SFO, Short for Officer.'

Laurence guessed the man in front of him was about five feet eight inches.

'Suddenly I was a giant. We could go down an open trench and the men would be undercover, walking upright, and I'd have to bend down for safety. I needed to stoop to hear my sergeant if there was a bombardment. Then, in the first serious action, I put my pipe in my pocket and while we're heads down, crossing no-man's land, my jacket starts to smoulder. Gave me the nickname Fiery, of course. Even when I was moved, the name stuck. Trench humour. It must have run in the family: my brother Diggory started his war in Egypt, shifting mummies to Europe to turn them into paper—using the dead to make paper to replace the shortages caused by kiling people. Though in my family, war was safer than peace. We're both alive. Our father died in 1906 in the Salisbury train crash; his father, a planter, bit of a black sheep, disappeared without trace in the eruption of Krakatoa.'

Brabourne looked quite cheerful as he contemplated his legacy of disaster.

Laurence smiled. He had liked Byers' description of Brabourne and he liked him even more in the flesh.

'I had this sense of being at this realy momentous period in history and, what's more, right at its heart. I thought everyone at home would want to share it. I thought, in my innocence, that it was an opportunity.' He gestured with his cigarette. 'Spectacularly naive. But like everyone, I also thought it would soon be over and I was in a hel of a rush to get stuck in. I wanted to picture modern warfare with modern photography. Then, of course, it al became longer and tougher than any of us had dreamed, and I think taking photographs became a way for me to deal with things that were beyond anything I'd imagined. Or, at least, that's with the wisdom of reflection.' He grinned. 'I'm good on that. I'd had two warnings about taking photographs of sensitive subjects and I stil couldn't resist it.'

'Yes. I heard. About the camera,' said Laurence. He puled out of his inner pocket the photograph that Byers had identified as the firing squad. He slid it over the table and said nothing.

'God.' Brabourne picked it up. 'The very day. Hart. It's my picture. A bad one. It could be before or after. Not sure why I took it at al, realy. The light wasn't good enough.' He looked chary.

'Byers,' Laurence pointed, 'said it was before.'

'Right,' said Brabourne, nodding. 'I think I was mostly concerned with getting my picture before I was lynched. Though it seems to be coming into its own, ghastly as the scene is.'

'You obviously knew Lieutenant Hart,' said Laurence, 'but did you know John Emmett? Before, I mean?'

'Wel, yes and no. I'd never met him until then. But I had been in contact with him over something else.'

'Do you mind if I ask what? If it's not private?'

'It was another slightly frowned-upon activity. We both wrote poetry. Lots of us did—not just those chaps who've made their name now. Battalions of minor poets. I mean, you were hardly going to start producing a novel in those conditions. Emmett thought he'd pul some of the stuff together, circulate it. Same sort of diversion as mine with photography, I suppose. A bit like poor old Owen publishing The Hydra at Craiglockhart. Anyway, it got around. I can't remember when I heard of it—quite early on probably, because I think there were four anthologies and I got into number two. Emmett's mag was caled Distant Constellations to start with, and then in later copies it just became Constellations. But we always caled it DC. A slim first issue. The second was better produced because, I think, Emmett was on sick leave, then there were two more towards the end of the war. He was good. His details circulated by word of mouth and we could use noms de plume if we chose. The subterfuge wasn't because he was afraid, but because he didn't want to be stopped, especialy as some of the poetry got more critical of what was going on.

And maybe he was using army ink and paper. Probably made from the grave-wrappings of Nefertiti.'

Laurence pushed the photograph to one side and puled out the smal magazine Mary had given him.

'Good Lord. So you had one al the time.'

'Mary Emmett, John's sister, gave it to me. Is this one of the last issues?'

'Yes.' Brabourne looked again at the cover and blew his ash off it. 'It's the last one. He fel apart after that.'

He picked it up, turned the pages and showed a poem to Laurence; it was just two columns, headed 'Verdure' and 'Ordure'. Underneath were rhyming lists of loves and hates, wittily, if self-consciously grouped and cleverly rhymed.

'It's very—wel, Wyndham Lewis again,' said Brabourne. 'Avant-garde. Blast. Al that stuff. Better when it was original.' He turned over another page and grimaced. 'I can't say that revisiting my own youthful creation is always a great experience. Some of these poems stand up to the test of time. This one of mine was straining to do so even when I wrote it.'

Laurence folowed his eyes. 'You were Hermes?' he said.

'Oh yes. I saw myself as the messenger, bringing news from the front to ... wel, I'm not sure who to. My mother, perhaps? Hermes without a destination. More of a lost homing pigeon.' He turned back a few pages, pointed. 'That's John Emmett's work.'

He was Charon,' said Laurence.

'Charon the ferryman,' said Brabourne. 'How pleased my Classics master would be to know I remembered something. Rowing the dead to Hades.'

Chapter Twenty-four

'Why did you have to defend Hart anyway?'

Brabourne shrugged as he lit his cigarette. 'Wel, somebody had to. He was in my regiment. My father died when I was young but he'd been a barrister. KC in criminal law. Mostly to please my mother I was supposed to be going the same route. I was a pupil in chambers: Paper Court, strings puled, shoehorns applied.

Outcome, disappointment al round. I hated it and suddenly the war came and there was a way out. So I'd had some experience of advocacy, though not much. Fat lot of good it did Hart. Frankly they were only giving lip service to the conventions anyway.'

'Was the court martial fair?' asked Laurence. He wasn't sure whether any of this was relevant to John but having heard Byers' disturbing version of Hart's execution, he wanted to get a sense of the whole episode.

'Fair? What a question. It was a ful-field, general court martial, of course, as he was an officer. Would he have been convicted in a peacetime court? No.

Would he have been shot if he were a private? Probably. Did guiltier men than he escape prosecution? Undoubtedly. Were there grounds for leniency? Certainly; the board made a unanimous recommendation for mercy. And I gather some, at least, were appaled to find the sentence had been confirmed. Were they out to make an example of somebody? Unquestionably.

'But was the sentence unjust in the circumstances?' He appeared to think it over. 'No, not realy. But hard? Very. The evidence was hardly substantial. It was the handling of the whole affair that was cruel. They took six weeks to decide to act against him in the first place and that hiatus had persuaded him that there wouldn't be any court martial. In the event, he had less than two days to prepare a defence, though proper procedures were just about folowed. A court martial isn't realy an inquiry. It's not like a court case at the Old Bailey. There's no real cross-examining, just statements with an assumption the truth is being told—except by the defendant.'

He stopped and examined his cigarette, which was burning fast, and then drew on it almost experimentaly. 'About a hundred years old,' he said, 'my brother got them in Turkey.' He paused for a moment. 'You know how it al came about?'

Laurence shook his head. 'I don't know anything about what he did.'

Ah.' Brabourne said nothing for a while. The cigarette looked close to catching fire completely.

'Do you have the time for this now?' Laurence asked.

'I'l tel you what,' Brabourne said. 'I do need to meet someone actualy. Old friend now at the Bar. Come with me. Have a quick drink at the Cock. He's invariably late.'

He stood up without waiting for a reply, took what looked like an old naval duffel coat from a hook on the back of the door and let Laurence folow him down several flights of stone stairs.

***

They came out of the square and turned right into Fleet Street. Brabourne kept talking al the while.

'In a nutshel, Hart vanished when he should have been fighting. He started off in the rear. The CO instructed another junior officer to tel Hart to take some reserves forward to the green line. He didn't order Hart directly; every aspect of Hart's orders that day was equivocal. He should have got off the charge simply on that count. Anyway, they came under heavy fire and the group dispersed, some taking cover, some wandering about. Hart wasn't the only man to get lost. He told an NCO

that he was going back to HQ for more orders. The trouble was that on his way back he met another junior officer who told him to go forward again with a dozen stragglers. There was bad blood going back months between Hart and this man. In court Hart argued— we argued—that technicaly Hart had seniority and the other officer had no right to give him orders, but it didn't look good. Hart not only refused to go forward again, but just turned round and walked away from battle by himself, in the opposite direction from his battalion and in ful view of a handful of men.'

Brabourne was moving briskly, dodging pedestrians, and when he puled ahead sometimes his words were lost. Eventualy he stopped to cup his hands round a match. As he did so, three different sets of bels began to ring the hour. Laurence looked up with sudden pleasure at the congestion, even of churches, in the heart of the city. Although Brabourne appeared not to have noticed, he said, 'There was a time St Bride's and York Minster were the only churches to have a twelve-bel peal.'

Brabourne went on, 'Something else seems to have happened on that walk back: when Hart was found, he'd discarded part of his uniform despite the bitter cold. He said a shel had landed near him, opening a smal mass grave, and that rotten fragments of bodies hit him. Who knows the truth? I didn't. There were graves everywhere, theirs and ours, rotting bodies everywhere, come to that. It might have happened that way. His story was semi-coherent. It was generaly believed that he was trying to disguise the fact that he was an officer while keeping his head down until the worst of the attack was over.

'The trigger for Hart's absenting himself was undoubtedly the squabble over who had the right to give who orders. Puerile. This other chap—who was supposed to be in charge of ammo, not giving tactical orders—rushed back to report him. Pathetic and lethal. It was tit for tat realy. Hart had reported him a while back for smuggling a woman into their shared quarters, said he couldn't sleep.'

Laurence recognised so much of what he was hearing: antagonisms, feuds, intolerance born of sheer fatigue, but rarely with such a fatal outcome. In his own regiment, Polock—said to be the fattest, least fit soldier ever to be sent into action, and who was rumoured to have needed to have his uniform made specialy—had been mocked relentlessly as he blundered and wheezed through his duties, always trying to deflect jokes made at his expense by being the funny man. To his shame Laurence had tried not to notice.

'But if Hart had gone straight back,' Brabourne continued, suddenly crossing the street at an angle between two motor buses, 'it would probably have passed over.' A car narrowly missed Laurence and the driver hooted his horn at him.

'When he drifted in the next day, his failure to account for his absence led the acting CO to put him under arrest. What happened to Hart between the moment he walked off and his eventual return to the battalion is anybody's guess. I don't think he planned to get out of a tough situation. I think he genuinely lost his mind. Just for a while. But that wasn't the majority view; they thought he was simply in a funk.'

Laurence nodded. In military offences that he'd witnessed, a lot depended on interpretation. However, the cases he'd dealt with did not involve officers, nor did they carry the death penalty.

They were outside a narrow building with a lead-paned bow window.

'Ye Olde Cock Tavern, no less,' said Brabourne, pushing open the heavy door. 'Dickens' favourite.'

The place wasn't busy and they took a table near the fire, facing each other on blackened oak settles. Brabourne insisted on buying the beer.

'There were two things that prejudiced the case,' Brabourne continued, tapping the end of a match on the table to emphasise his points. 'Firstly, Hart had never wanted to be there. He wanted to be in the navy. And he kept on and on asking for transfers, which, as I said before, didn't gain him any friends and of course the navy never took the casualties the army did. So rather than a genuine wish, I think, to be at sea, this looked like further evidence of cowardice. Secondly, the regiment was struggling. Very low morale. There were rumours that a handful of men had gone over to the Germans in the next sector. Junior officers were terrifyingly inexperienced as wel as bickering among themselves.'

Laurence remembered how Byers had leveled the accusation of inexperience at Brabourne himself.

'But the real disaster for Hart was that one NCO, who spoke as a witness and had seen him arguing with the other subaltern, said he didn't even look as if he was in a funk; he simply looked as if he'd rather be off out of it. There was something a bit dodgy about that NCO and the other junior officer: they used exactly the same words and phrasing in their statements. In a civilian court we'd be on to that like a shot—obvious colusion—but such refinements didn't impinge on military proceedings.

'And of course his vanishing trick had left his men exposed and at risk. If his behaviour was genuine, then he was deranged. If he was faking it, then his acts were several miles beyond unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. They thought he was faking it.

'Ultimately he wasn't quite a gentleman. It wasn't a particularly smart outfit, for God's sake, but he didn't have the background of the other officers and they let him know it. In fact, to start with, his unpopularity was what coloured my decision to defend him. I didn't think anyone else would even try. Not that I did him any good.'

Laurence watched the man's face. It was bleak. His cigarette burned away between his unmoving fingers. Laurence felt uneasy, as he had when talking to Leonard Byers, knowing that he was returning people to events they would prefer to put behind them.

'I thought Hart would get off, or at least get a lesser sentence, and Hart certainly thought so. I mean, in the entire war only two other officers ever went before a firing squad and one of those was for murder. Officers were found guilty of serious offences from time to time but the sentences were always commuted. Nearly always.'

Charles had said the same, Laurence recaled.

'But as the witnesses spoke, I realised he hadn't a hope. It wasn't the facts, meagre as they were. They just didn't like him. He didn't fit in. His commanding officer said he didn't trust him and everyone else took his lead. As for Hart, he wouldn't, or couldn't, even speak in his own defence. They sentenced him to death almost as a matter of course. Stil, they made a fairly vigorous recommendation for mercy, on the grounds of his age and lack of experience. For al the good it did.'

He took another drink and wiped his mouth.

'God knows where my chum is.' He looked around as if his friend might be hiding in an alcove. Laurence drank slowly. He wanted Brabourne to complete his story and was glad the friend was late.

'Then, after he'd been found guilty but we were stil waiting for the sentence to be confirmed, I was alowed to see him again. There was nothing to say, of course. Not easy to have a conversation with someone you've failed to protect from a death sentence.'

Brabourne took a deep breath.

'He said his nerves were bad and he wished he could have some books, especialy poetry. I seized on poetry as something we had in common; we could hardly talk about the weather or the war. I expect you can see what came next: he turns out to have been one of John Emmett's group of poets. It was only then that I found out that he had written for Constellations. I'd read several of his poems. He may have been a pretty inadequate soldier but he was an extraordinary poet.'

Laurence felt his breathing slow, as he began to see things coming together, but he wanted Brabourne to tel it al in his own time. Hart must be Sisyphus. Only one poet in the magazine could be caled extraordinary.

'So there we sit, a chily evening in this room in a French farmhouse, which they've commandeered as a prison. Big old fireplace, black and cave-like: somehow it made the room feel colder, having it there unlit. They'd stuffed barbed wire up the chimney, presumably to deter anyone from attempting to climb out, and when gusts of wind were funneled down, the wire made this whining sound. It made my hair stand on end. The room smeled of cold soot. A smal casement window with wooden slats nailed over it and two guards outside the door, though God knows where he was supposed to run off to. Anyway, he stil believed the sentence would be commuted. We both did. I think everybody expected it. I'm freezing, he's wrapped a blanket round his uniform in this damn awful situation, and we're discussing Masefield and Brooke and whether Bridges was a good Poet Laureate.'

He paused, tapped his cigarette packet.

'Bloody business. I'd had nothing more than a summary of evidence half an hour before I had to defend him and they told him the sentence had been confirmed only hours before they shot him. When they told him they had the formal confirmation of his sentence, they added, as if it would make a difference, that he was to be alowed to keep his badges and his rank. I mean, what kind of mind thinks up that nicety?'

After a while Laurence prompted him: 'And you saw him again?'

'The padre and the colonel arrived. I left. Hart was a waxwork. Next time I see him, he's tied to a post.'

'Which poet was he?' Laurence asked, certain that Brabourne would confirm what he already knew. 'Hart? His pseudonym?' He nodded at the magazine. Grey and dog-eared, its typing irregular, it looked like something a schoolboy might produce.

'Hart? He was Sisyphus. Perhaps he saw himself always struggling to no avail. We were al a bit dramatic and self-important at the beginning—we were very young. But by God he could write.'

And the felow subaltern who reported Hart—the one you said was his enemy?'

'Liley, Ralph Liley.'

Laurence felt a surge of disappointment. It was not the name he had expected.

Brabourne picked up the pamphlet of poems Laurence had put down on the table, turned over two pages and handed it back, open. 'Hart,' he said. It was the extraordinary poem Laurence had first seen in Cambridge. 'Streets ahead of the rest of us, wasn't he? He wrote in every edition bar the first.' Then he shrugged. 'But who's to know what dead men might or might not have become? Saints and prodigies in a very few cases, perhaps. Most would have shown an utter failure to fulfil early promise, that's my guess. Without a few howitzers, maybe even that creative response might have failed to ignite. Good thing in my case.'

'At least you tried,' said Laurence. 'My service was an intelectual desert. The only writing I did was letters to next of kin.' He grimaced. 'Art came down to nothing more than doodles of the colonel's extraordinary moustache. During my whole time in service I think I finished only two books: King Solomon's Mines and The Good Soldier. My wife had sent me her idea of suitable reading matter for a fighting man.' He paused. 'I don't think she'd read them herself, not the second, obviously.

But the title sounded encouraging. I had a book on church architecture, but apart from that it was the London Illustrated News, always minus the best articles, which previous readers had taken a fancy to and cut out. No poetry magazines. I was no John Emmett.'

Brabourne laughed. Then he said, more seriously, 'I managed to get Hart his books; it was the least I could do.'

Laurence hardly took in what Brabourne was saying as the implications of the situation at the time of Hart's execution had suddenly hit home.

'So John knew who Hart was before that morning?' he said.

'No, not realy. In fact, it should have been another officer who commanded the detail but he fel il. The CO let him off and decided Emmett, who had just joined us, but was senior, could take it. A good thing too. The way they carry on, you'd think soldiers would jump at shooting an officer but of course the talk's al blather. I'm sure Emmett had previously never met him face to face.' Brabourne appeared to be thinking. 'No, I'm certain of it. Hence the shock...'

'Shock?'

'When he realised who he was. He knew the name, of course, but it's not that rare and he'd got his orders very late in the day.' Brabourne stopped, deep in thought. 'He was tired and it was al very tense. He might not have taken it on board. It was "unsatisfactory", that's the military term, but pretty bloody dreadful is more accurate. Hart found al the courage he'd hoped for when it came to it. The rest of us were novices except for the APM—Mulins—who couldn't be bothered to stay and see the sentence carried out. A couple of the men were in Hart's own company. I realy thought the padre might faint. He'd been there only a month. I suppose I wasn't much better. The MO was grim-faced. He had to pin the traditional bit of flannel on Hart's chest—al that medical training to identify a route for a bulet to the heart.' Brabourne's lips twisted. 'The squad was subdued but hopeless, and apart from anything else they couldn't shoot straight. The sergeant was a nasty bit of work.'

'So did John know who Hart was afterwards?'

'He put two and two together. I'm not sure at what point. Do you know what happened? That day, I mean?' he asked cautiously.

'He wasn't kiled outright.'

'I'l say he wasn't,' said Brabourne. 'But Emmett should have put him out of his misery instantly and the sergeant should have marched the detail off swiftish the minute they'd fired. Instead of which, everybody stood and watched. And Emmett ... he would have done better by an injured dog. He dithered. No, that's not entirely fair: Hart was obviously trying to speak. Emmett was a decent chap. Probably his instinct was to let a dying man have his say.'

'Did John tel you this?'

'Wel, afterwards he asked me whether I knew that the dead man had been a poet and I said yes. He seemed very cast down but then he was shaken to the core by what had happened. Literaly shaking. I had to give him brandy. Emmett said Hart seemed to be saying that he loved his mother, and that his father would have been ashamed, or something along those lines. Not remarkable last words.'

Brabourne pointed to his tankard. Laurence shook his head. 'No, I realy must go. But what about Tucker?'

Brabourne looked surprised at the use of the name. 'Tucker. Of course, he was the sergeant. You know him?' he said.

'No. But I know more than I like about him.'

'Wel, he was cool as a cucumber. In control. Nasty, as I said. Walked up, took the gun off Emmett. Blasted young Edmund between the eyes. Hel of a mess.

Deliberately, I don't doubt. One of the lads was retching. Extreme insubordination, I suppose. But somebody had to finish it. I'm not sure Emmett was going to fire at al.' The journalist was pale.

'That afternoon it was business as usual and having buried Hart we went off on a practice attack. Emmett spoke to me again a day or so later. I was on the point of going off for home leave. He asked if I knew anything else about Hart. I said I didn't know anything about his home life. Like Emmett, I knew much more about his poetry, but then I'd had years to read his poetry and only two days to familiarise myself with the case, much less the man. And I can't say Hart was very talkative.

Not even in an attempt to save his own life. He no longer cared, I think.'

'I'm sorry to take you back to this.'

Brabourne shrugged. 'It's not something I was ever likely to forget. I gave evidence to an inquiry two years ago. Though I was mostly being questioned about being a Prisoner's Friend. It's said if you defended, you sentenced yourself along with the accused man.'

'So I heard. Was it true?'

Brabourne opened and shut his matchbox a couple of times. 'I'm stil here. Though I think my CO was quite glad to have seen the back of me for a while.

Whereas a month or so later his golden boy, the prosecuting officer, went out on a routine patrol and never came back. By the time I got back from leave the CO was happy to have any officer with experience.'

He glanced behind Laurence at a man coming in from the street. Although he was just a dark shape in the doorway, Brabourne waved. Laurence took this as his cue.

'I'l be off he said. 'Thank you for everything. It's been tremendously helpful. Perhaps we'l meet again.'

He felt sleepy from too much beer and longed to be outside. He nodded at Brabourne's friend who was buying himself a drink, stil wearing his court wig and gown.

'Come back if there's anything else at al,' Brabourne said, standing up and shaking Laurence's hand.

As he was walking away Laurence turned.

'There is one other thing. Did you know that Byers' cousin had been murdered? Same surname, same home vilage?'

He knew instantly that this was news to Brabourne. The journalist became suddenly alert. At the door Laurence looked back and saw Brabourne stil watching him. He stepped out into light that seemed astonishingly bright.

Chapter Twenty-five

The next day he woke up with a headache and couldn't face his planned morning in the library. Eventualy he decided to catch a bus to Marble Arch; he would go to his barber's and get some fresh air by walking in Hyde Park.

A couple of hours later he sat on a bench, relishing the crisp morning, watching the ducks on the ornamental lake and some elegant women on horses, trotting along the bridleways. Having now heard two versions of the events around the death of Hart, he thought he had a ful picture.

He wondered how many executions by firing squad had taken place in the field. This made him think back to routine orders and how often he'd just passed over the notification of an execution. Hundreds, certainly, must have been shot. He hoped five hundred was too many. Say it was two or even three hundred soldiers.

Only three officers in total, Brabourne had said. It seemed very few, yet he'd never heard of any until he had looked into John's troubled war.

Each execution would involve six officers or more for the court martial, officers for the prosecution and the defence, two or three senior officers to ratify the sentence, the assistant provost marshal, and six to ten soldiers on the firing detachment. An officer commanding the execution, medics, padres, guards, the burial party.

Twenty or so men involved in despatching a single soldier of their own side. Even alowing for some duplication, four to five thousand or so men must have been involved between 1914 and 1918.

The only unusual element in Hart's case was that the condemned man held a commission. Did that make it harder for everyone involved, he wondered? He thought it probably did. Even so, the numbers of men caught up in trying and executing Hart made the notion that there was some sort of curse ludicrous. There was no reasonable way to check, but they couldn't al be dead. Nonetheless he wondered what had happened to the other subaltern who had reported Hart for walking away.

Ralph Liley. He, almost more than anyone else, would seem to be responsible for Hart's predicament. If Lieutenant Liley was stil alive, that would virtualy confirm that the nexus of deaths, including John's, did not have Hart at its centre.

He was getting cold so he walked fairly briskly along the Bayswater Road. The Hyde Park Hotel loomed up behind the mottled plane trees and on impulse he turned in past the doorman. He asked to use the telephone and the concierge made the connection for him. Of course it was a ridiculous time to try to catch Charles at his club but he left a message with the porter, simply saying that he had a lot to tel him and that he planned to go to Birmingham the folowing morning. He felt slightly melodramatic as he ended, saying that he expected to return on the same day.

On the spur of the moment he decided to jump on a bus to Victoria. From there he crossed the river. Although Brabourne's account had hardly mentioned Byers, Laurence had been bothered by something in the way Byers told his own story. Now he had an excuse to speak to him again, even if a pretty feeble one.

It took him forty minutes to reach the lock works. The watchman came out.

'You looking for the major?'

'No, Mr Byers.'

'Not here, sir. Won't be until later.'

'How much later?' Not that he could hover in the yard to ambush him.

'Search me.'

Very briefly he considered leaving a note, asking Byers to contact him, but he was sure that he wouldn't do so. He might be able to prevail upon Calogreedy to speak to Byers again, but the reason for his visit was pretty tenuous. It had been a ridiculously impulsive detour and he knew it was largely because he had too much time on his hands.

He set off for home. The street outside the works was empty. He was approaching the bridge when, as he turned to cross the road, he almost colided with a man on a bicycle coming round the corner. He stumbled back over the kerb. The man half stopped and half fel off. As he picked up his cap from the road and straightened himself up, the cyclist apologised.

'Sorry, sir. Not usualy anyone about. I should of looked. You al right?'

It was Byers. Slowly his expression changed. 'Mr Bartram.'

Laurence's reason for being there suddenly seemed even flimsier.

'I had some news.' He felt a fool as he said it. 'You might like to know the man you told me about—Tresham Brabourne, who defended Lieutenant Hart—he's alive and wel.'

It sounded ridiculously thin. Why should Byers care? Byers stared at him, gripping the handlebars tightly.

'So not everyone's under a fatal curse,' Laurence said, trying to sound light-hearted.

Only a slight tension of his jaw showed that Byers had heard but he didn't move on. He looked more uneasy than relieved at this information. One foot remained on the pedal, the other pressed down on the road surface as if he was about to push off and cycle away.

'Did he say anything?' Byers asked eventualy, stil wary.

'Wel, more or less what you said. A bad business.'

'About me?'

Laurence thought back. 'Nothing in particular. I mean, apart from you, because you'd been with him before, he didn't even know the name of anyone in the firing squad.'

Byers looked as if he was engaged in one of his famous computations of figures. When he finaly spoke, his voice was flat. 'Just before, when they were tying him up, Tucker leans towards me and hands me his pocket knife. He nods towards Hart and for a minute I think he's teling me to cut his throat but he just says, "Cut off his pips, son." I didn't get it at first and Tucker gives me a push. I look to the officer, that's your friend, the captain. But he doesn't seem to see what's going on. I stumble out towards the man. Half afraid someone's going to give the order to fire while I'm out there. Then I'm standing in front of him—the officer we're going to shoot