Sam Bourne - Pantheon

He tried to be disciplined, even — when he got off at Bletchley and found a seat on a platform bench — pulling out a notebook and pen, writing out his thoughts methodically. But constantly his mind would wander back to the more important enigma. If his wife had left him because he had become impossible, why tell him she loved him, not once but twice? And if she did love him, why run away from him? The Crewe train arrived on time and he got on board. As it headed north past Rugby, he tortured himself that Florence and Harry had been kidnapped, taken hostage by some maniac. Had she smuggled out these postcards or perhaps written them under duress, the abnormal brevity of the message a kind of code for her situation? If so, how obtuse he had been not to have seen it earlier. Perhaps he was meant to realize that his wife would never sign off with a mere three-word farewell and that he had been a fool not to have read the signal.

But then he remembered the suitcase taken from under the bed, the clothes removed from the cupboard, even Snowy missing from under Harry’s covers. Also, when he had gone to look for cash, he had seen that some had been taken already. If all the money had been gone, that might have been further evidence of a kidnap, one compounded by theft. Taking just some, leaving the rest for him, suggested a degree of deliberation, surely impossible with a kidnapper’s knife at her throat. He shuddered at the thought, as if the movement might physically shake the image loose from his head. Instead he saw something worse: a blade pressing against little Harry’s skin. He coughed and opened his eyes wide, hoping the view of the busy platform opposite would expel the thought he had just conjured.

Harry. He had meant the name as a tribute to his dead friend, one of the most vital men he had ever known. It was not supposed to be a morbid gesture, quite the opposite. It was a way of keeping Harry Knox alive and in the present, rather than sentencing him to an eternity in some non-existent next world. He would be in the here and now, not the hereafter. James was not a religious man — he had emphatically rejected his parents’ creed by taking up arms in Spain — and if anyone had put the idea to him out loud he would have laughed it off as superstitious nonsense; but privately he had also hoped that his old comrade’s strength and energy might somehow be passed onto his son, via their shared name.

Yet now James was gripped by the fear that he might have placed on his son’s infant shoulders a curse, that it had been arrogant to name a little boy after a man who had died such a violent death — that he had offered the fates too great a temptation.

He trod over this same ground, forward and back, as he travelled north through Staffordshire and as he waited for a desperately frustrating two hours under leaden skies at Crewe, midday turning to afternoon and then evening. And throughout, even when he was trying to sift through the possibilities with all the logical power a first class degree in philosophy had given him, a larger subject lurked, like a vast, grey whale shifting through the water. It had been there all this time, only occasionally breaking the surface. When it showed itself, it was as a question: had Rosemary Hyde, describing a violent, dangerous man possessed by demons, spoken the truth?

His brain had been scrambled just as surely as those poor boys back from Ypres and the Somme mentioned in the journal article Florence had been reading in the Bodleian. He had spent only a short time in the trenches on Madrid’s north-western outskirts, but he had seen his best friend’s head explode like a watermelon smashed by cricket bat.

He had always believed he had coped admirably. He had never blubbed for Harry; he had followed the doctors’ instructions for the rehabilitation of his shattered shoulder. He had been a faithful husband and, barely two months after he was shot, a devoted father. Yes, he had usually been furious when he woke up and furious when he went to bed, raging against an injury that had prevented him avenging Harry’s murder. It had thwarted him first by forcing him out of the Spanish Civil War, sending him back to England the instant he was discharged from hospital. And it had thwarted him a second time when he was branded unfit to join the battle against Hitler and the Axis powers. What man would not be boiling with rage? But he had kept it to himself and got on with his work, hadn’t he? Why had that not been good enough?

And finally, in the fading summer light, the train crept into Liverpool, wheezing its last gasps as it stuttered to a halt. James edged his way through the soldiers on board, some looking weary from war, others nervous at returning to it. He ignored the tut-tutting at a civilian failing to defer to men in uniform. But there was not a moment to waste. The instant his feet touched the platform, every step he took thereafter would take him closer to Florence and Harry. And he had so little time.

Perhaps it was because of the dark, with the station lights dimmed in deference to the blackout, but this city looked grimier than almost any he had seen, the sides of every building stained with soot. The trams were dusky with dirt and so, it seemed to him, were the faces of the people, or at least those hanging around the railway station at this late hour.

He hurried past them all, determined to reach the docks. He knew it was unlikely that any ferries would be sailing so late, but it was wartime: none of the usual rules seemed to apply. Perhaps Harry and Florence had been booked on an afternoon crossing and it had been delayed. He did not care so long as he got there in time.

He turned down Hanover Street and onto Liver Street, fairly marching down the pavement. With his head down, and in the dark, he saw the policeman standing by a doorway only after he had barged into him. It was James’s left shoulder that had caught the man and the impact sent a rocket of pain shooting down his arm.

‘Watch yourself, lad,’ the special said, brushing the sleeve of his uniform to signal that he had been struck, his torch throwing jagged shadows with each movement.

‘Sorry about that,’ James replied, resuming his near-run. He had gone no more than two paces when the policeman took hold of him. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry? Don’t answer. I want to deal with this so-and-so first.’

James sighed and waited, a picture of impatience, as the constable aimed his torch at the door to the shop. A blind was covering it, save for a gap cut into the middle to reveal the single word ‘open’. The word was picked out by a blued lamp just behind, which revealed that this was not a shop but a cafe. Standing to one side was a man who had remained hidden until now; James guessed he was the proprietor. Suddenly all three of them were in pitch darkness, as the policeman switched off his flashlight.

‘See,’ he said in an accent thick with the Mersey. ‘It’s too bright, in’t it? You’re showing too much light.’

‘Yes, yes. I’m a-sorry. I thought it not so bright.’

‘Are you Italian or what?’

‘I live here thirty-five years, constable.’

‘Yeah, but it’s different now, in’t it? Let’s have a look at your documents and that.’

James closed his eyes in despair. ‘Officer, I really do have to be going. My-’

The policeman turned round, shining the beam directly into his face. ‘I told you. I’ll get to you when I’m good and ready.’

‘It’s just that my wife and child may be leaving on a ferry to Ireland any moment now. I need to-’

‘Ireland, eh? We got all sorts here, in’t we?’

‘Please, officer. I need to get there as soon as I can. I’m sorry I bumped into you.’

The special looked him up and down, taking in the flannels and satchel, then shining the torch back at the proprietor. ‘All right,’ he said to James eventually. ‘Scarper.’