The Return of Captain John Emmett (30 page)

'Oh God. You haven't brought a gun, have you?'

Theatrically, Charles opened the front of his voluminous coat, reached into a deep poacher's pocket and brought out a short, thick truncheon with a leather loop. He placed the loop around his wrist and slapped the truncheon down against the palm of his hand a couple of times. Laurence frowned.

'It's a priest,' said Charles. 'For despatching fish. I've gone off fishing but found this in a cupboard; better than nothing, I thought. And less provocative than a gun. I do have one or two other useful things here.'

He reached into another pocket, brought out a hip flask, which he waved vaguely and then put away, and finally dragged out a buff-coloured folded map.

'Birmingham,' he said, 'but I suppose you've got one already?'

Laurence smiled and shook his head.

'But you know where to find your man's drinking den?' Charles asked. 'It's a big place.'

'I know its name, according to his friend who told Leonard Byers. And I know it's a long shot,' he added, not that Charles had protested. 'It's not unreasonable to assume he'll be traceable from there.'

Charles raised an eyebrow. 'And you think his pals are going to tell you, just like that?'

'They might.'

Charles rummaged about in yet another pocket. This time he withdrew a thin, folded bundle of one-pound notes.

'Money?' Laurence looked puzzled.

'Quite right, old chap. Well done. See your detective skills are coming on.'

'You can't give him money. Well, it's very decent of you, of course, but I can't let you. I'd thought I might offer a very small amount, but if Tucker is half the rogue he's said to be, it might make the situation more dangerous, not less, if he thinks we've got full wallets.'

'My guess is that Tucker may have had his finest hours as a soldier,' said Charles. 'Once home without any real power, he's probably no threat at all. His sort need war. Still, I could be wrong. That's why I'm here.'

They walked down alongside two carriages of the train—handsome in its dark purple and cream. A gleaming peacetime train, Laurence thought, remembering the dinginess of trains in the war years. When they found an empty compartment, Charles struggled out of his coat and threw it up into the luggage rack. Laurence wondered briefly, and disloyally, how Charles's plus fours would blend into a working-men's pub in Birmingham.

The whistle blew and the train pulled out slowly, gathering momentum once it was clear of the first bend. They passed by the water tower, then under a viaduct and between high warehouse walls, all red brick and flaking painted advertisements. After a quarter of an hour they were carried over a bridge above an anonymous parade of shops. Then came row after row of terraces: narrow houses, their yards and washhouses a depressing patchwork of black and grey below the track. A solitary washing line bore dingy sheets that drooped heavily in the drizzle. The train had still not taken on much speed. A canal ran alongside the line for a while but, beyond the weeds in the crevices of decaying brickwork, there was no vegetation anywhere.

Only as they moved outwards from the heart of the city did larger houses appear, comfortably set amid gardens and parks. On a summer's day the prospect might be quite fine. Laurence suddenly recalled a childhood smell of suburban lilac and sticky lime trees. He had once lived and played in places like these. They roared on, passing a long strip of potato fields marking the transition from urban to rural landscape. Most of the holdings were tidy dark patches but others appeared long abandoned. The train speeded up across level earth fields as north London was left behind. Near the line the bushes were blackened with soot while further away the few bare trees were so misshapen, presumably by the prevailing winds across the open terrain, that they were unidentifiable. A small factory stood neatly to one side of the line at the edge of a small town. He wondered what county he might be in: Hertfordshire? Bedfordshire? Rain and smuts soon obscured even the monotony of the view.

They sat in companionable silence. Above Charles's head was a cheerful print of the Lake District. A man, a woman and a terrier strode forward under a perpetually blue sky with fluffy clouds. Charles was reading. Eventually Laurence must have fallen asleep because he was startled by the ticket inspector opening the door. Looking at his watch, he saw that they were halfway to Birmingham. The weather had improved slightly and they seemed to be passing through gentle hills. Laurence tilted his head to read the title of Charles's book:
The Mysterious
Affair at Styles.
On the cover, three or four figures, dressed in their nightclothes, their faces illuminated by hand-held candles, peered into the darkness. Laurence smiled. No wonder Charles had a taste for intrigue.

Soon they had outrun the rain and the sky showed patches of brightness. The train passed some ruins on one side and a large signal box on the other. They were making proper speed now and occasional sparks shot past the window. As they entered a long tunnel, the train started to slow. Charles put down his book.

'Good?' asked Laurence.

'Quite excellent. Mrs Agatha Christie. You think you know who did it and then you think, no, that's what she means you to think, and then, of course, it's going to be someone quite different. Which it is but not the one you've thought. Wonderful stuff. Haven't you read it?'

Laurence shook his head. It seemed ages since he'd read a novel and even then it was mostly Hardy or Trollope, all favourites of his father.

'A bit more thrilling than poor old John's death. Pure escapism. Strychnine, femmes fatales, lost wills, violent death. And it all hinges on chemistry. Stepson saved from the rope by a cunning Belgian.'

'But you haven't finished it,' said Laurence. 'How do you know?'

'Oh, I've read it twice before. First time, she had me believing it had to be the Belgian himself. Mind you, I've a lot of respect for the Belgians. Extraordinarily brave man, their king. You can't quite see our King George commanding a front-line action, can you?'

They arrived at Rugby on time and from Rugby, crossing pastureland, the train soon reached Birmingham. The city seemed to appear quite suddenly. Laurence had never seen England's second city before. His first impression was of redness and solidity, dark bricks and heavy architecture. A new city, not like London with its layers of existence, of squalor and beauty: its fine squares, slums, parks and palaces spreading out either side of the muddy grey Thames. Did Birmingham even have a river? He didn't know. Almost all the buildings they passed were small factories and workshops, although there were some distant spires, grey-white and more graceful than the buildings by the railway.

Charles pointed towards a clock tower in the same uncompromising style as the rest of the city. 'University,' he said. 'The tower's supposed to be like the one in Siena. Can't see it myself, but it looks better on a summer's day.'

Laurence laughed. 'How on earth do you know?'

'Family,' said Charles. 'We had a factory here. I thought I told you.'

Laurence felt guilty.
Had
he known? Charles was probably his oldest surviving friend. Charles was straightforward, growing more bluff with the years, where Laurence had become increasingly intense, even melancholy. If he had to characterise the relationship, he would have said it was simultaneously sturdy but superficial. He could never imagine discussing anything about Louise, or even the war except as a sort of historic event. He'd never even had the sense of shared experience that he'd briefly felt with the injured William Bolitho or Tresham Brabourne. Yet the very fact that their friendship was one of the few that had accompanied him since childhood had its own power.

'You hardly need the map, then?'

'Actually I haven't been to Birmingham for years. The old man used to bring me, trying to get me interested. My birthright of housemaids' boots and gentlemen's cufflink boxes. Had the opposite effect: couldn't wait to distance myself. Every time we came up here and saw the factory—much the same colour as pickled beetroot—or the men: either cowed and overly respectful or surly and monosyllabic—my heart sank. He'd make me handle the slimy hides as they hauled them slopping out of the tanks. My father liked to feel he was in touch with it all, so we'd end each visit by going to a tripe and pig-heel shop. Absolutely foul, and all the while his man would be waiting in the car outside. But it was the smell at the works that was so truly appalling. Perhaps people who spent their lives there became hardened to it but it was the most disgusting stink. I could recognise a tannery a mile off. Probably shall, today.'

As if to make his point he stood up and loosened the window strap.

'When my father died, and I came into my kingdom, the first thing I could think of was: thank God I could rid myself of it. Mama was all for it, of course, she'd never quite got over marrying into trade. And in the war half the men in the works had gone to join the Warwickshires, while the underage ones and the women were off making ammunition at Kynoch's, and at the end few wanted to come back any more than I did. Though I got a good price for the place.'

Before he'd even finished speaking, the train was juddering to a halt, pulling in under the long glass station roof. Charles heaved himself into his coat; Laurence put on his hat and scarf. They went out into the corridor, stepped down and walked briskly along the platform and up the stairs, emerging on to a busy street.

Charles breathed in ostentatiously. 'Ah—best ladies' calfskin gloves,' he said. 'Now, as I recall, it's this way. We can walk,' he said. 'I don't think it's far at all.'

Although Laurence had no idea where Charles was heading, he was swept along by his confidence. As a tram clattered down the rise, a horse-drawn coal cart converged on it at an alarming angle, but one passed easily behind the other. It had turned into a crisp day and there were plenty of people about.

They walked for ten minutes between buildings that emanated an acrid smell of hot oil and coal fires against a continual din of metallic hammering and drilling. Through open doors they could see men working over benches and the glow of furnaces. They passed one courtyard that appeared to be full of prison grilles, until Laurence realised he was looking at bedsteads, piled up against every wall.

'You do know it's the Woodman we're looking for?' Laurence asked Charles.

Instead of replying, Charles rifled through an inner pocket, pulled out a leather-bound book—the sort they'd all had in the army—and undid a stained brown strap. He turned the pages to the end and tipped it towards Laurence to show him an address.

'Tucker's home when he enlisted,' he said.

For once he resisted looking pleased with himself. Charles's careful writing read 'Florence Place'. It rang a bell but Laurence couldn't think why.

'Doesn't mean he'll be there or ever was, but it's a start. And it's not far away,' Charles said.

They seemed to be zigzagging across main streets. In one small road two or three establishments sold nothing but hosiery, while another offered mostly household wares, with a cooper's sign over the door of the adjacent double-fronted store. Charles was moving steadily to the right. The shops displayed fewer wares in grubbier windows as the successive streets grew poorer, the houses in worse repair. Roofs bowed. Broken windows were papered over. Children playing in the street, some with bare legs in laceless boots, and women in dirty aprons over old coats, all stopped and stared at the two men. Charles occasionally said 'Good morning' briskly, but there was little response beyond a few nods of the head. There was a marked contrast between the poverty here and the busy industry only a few roads away.

Laurence was glad when they turned into a street at a right angle, away from the stares, but Charles stopped in surprise. The road ended in a bleak wasteland of rubble, laths and rubbish. Charles looked at his map.

'Well, I'll be...'

'What's happened?'

'He should be here. At least, Florence Place should be here but it's not.'

A few yards away an old woman leaned against the last standing building: a boarded-up tavern. She was wrapped in a shawl and had a clay pipe in her hand. She could have been a figure from fifty years before.

'Knocked 'em down ten years back. Pretty, in't it?' she said.

'Damn,' said Charles under his breath. 'We'll have to try the drinking den after all.'

Laurence felt something didn't quite fit. 'But if she's right, then this couldn't have been Tucker's address when he signed up, either.'

'No. Well, nobody checked, I suppose. But then nobody would have been able to notify the next of kin, either.'

'Which wasn't necessary in Tucker's case.'

'No, or he didn't care.'

'Or he didn't have any next of kin.'

However, Laurence remembered Byers saying bitterly that there was a Mrs Tucker somewhere.

'Or he didn't like people knowing where he lived. Even then!' said Charles.

A handful of children started to gather round. One small and grubby girl pulled hard on Laurence's sleeve, silently but holding out her other hand. He slipped her a penny, hoping the others wouldn't see.

Charles walked less confidently back up the road, then stopped. The children followed noiselessly.

'We can ask in there.' He pointed to the isolated public house. It was propped up by two wooden buttresses where neighbouring houses must have been torn down.

'It's closed,' said Laurence.

'I don't think so,' Charles replied.

There was no sign or brewery notice. Laurence crossed the road, walked up to the building and tried the door; it opened easily. Charles followed him in. Three men were drinking beer around an upended crate, while two others and a drably dressed woman sat at a window seat. The landlord stood behind a rudimentary bar. A dog snarled at them from beside a stove, but made no effort to get up.

Laurence didn't feel threatened; the drinkers looked guarded rather than intimidating. All talk had ceased as they came in. From what he could see of the landlord, he seemed to be dressed in part of a uniform: khaki trousers, topped with a collarless shirt and a waistcoat.