Саймон Морден - Another War

Thacker would normally have flirted with the nurse. She was neat in her blue uniform, a white belt accentuating her hourglass figure. Perhaps she would have expected it of him, also in uniform, pips on his shoulder, a lean strength about him that told of experience and confidence.

Today wasn’t the moment. He felt uncomfortable and hurried. He wasn’t the sort of man to turn up at an old people’s home in an army Land Rover, complete with a squad of men with rifles. Neither was he the type to rest his hand on the butt of his pistol as he invaded the too-warm foyer and asked politely to see Miss Emily Foster.

Give her her due, the nurse the nervous receptionist called acted calmly and coolly. She didn’t allow guns inside her establishment. He apologised, but said those were his orders. She told him that telephones had been in common usage for several years. He apologised again.

Then he said it was an urgent matter of national security, and she relented.

The nurse led him down a corridor rich with paintings and flowers to a conservatory full of bright summer morning light. The view swept down a long hillside, over the town, and across the sea. On a clear day, France was visible as a thin dark streak on the horizon.

There were thickly upholstered armchairs and hothouse plants. It was as warm as the Algarve, but the slight figure in one of the chairs wore a thick cardigan and trembled as if cold.

‘You’ll have to leave,’ he said to the nurse.

‘No,’ she said simply.

‘This conversation will be covered by the Official Secrets Act. You haven’t signed it, and you will have to leave.’

‘Then find me a copy to sign. I’m staying, and that’s that.’

He looked at his watch. Time was running out, of that he was certain. The unknown factor was how much time he had in the first instance. ‘Stand by the door. Make sure no one comes in, and please, face the other way. I need to show Miss Foster some things that you cannot see.’

He was so serious, so urgent, that he managed to shock the nurse into compliance. She nodded, and took her position.

Carefully and slowly, he sat down next to Emily Foster. She made no sign that she was aware of him. She stared out to sea with milky blue eyes, and the sun full in her face managed to illuminate the bones under her parchment-thin skin.

He unbuttoned his battle smock. He was sweating from the heat and from nerves. Nothing in his extensive training had prepared him for this whole insane situation.

‘Emily? Emily Foster?’

She turned, slowly, her head trembling all the while.

‘My name is Major Thacker. I’m with the army. Do you understand?’

Emily Foster thought, and then she remembered.

‘Army?’ she said. Her voice was very quiet, almost shy. ‘Like Robert was? He was a captain, you know.’

She leaned slightly forward, holding her hand clawed with arthritis towards him.

Thacker took it in both his huge hands and gently pressed it. ‘Just like Robert,’ he said. ‘It’s Robert I’d like to talk about, Miss Foster.’

‘Oh dear. It’s a very long time since I saw Robert.’

‘I know.’ Thacker felt that as long as he held her hand, he would hold her attention. ‘Do you remember Henbury Hall at all?’

‘I’m a hundred and five, you know.’

‘Yes, I do know, Miss Foster. I know a lot about you. And about Robert, and Doctor Nathaniel Middleton. But I don’t know enough to help me. Will you help me, Miss Foster?’

‘A long time since I saw Robert.’

It had been a mistake to come here, thought Thacker. He was getting nowhere and he didn’t have the time to waste. One last try.

He let go of her hand and reached inside his battle smock and took out an aerial photograph. ‘This is Henbury Hall, Miss Foster. Do you know it?’

He gave her the glossy print and she brought it to within two inches of her nose. The tremble in her hands made reflected light dance across her face.

‘You must be mistaken, dear. You see, Henbury Hall vanished.’

‘On the second of August, 1919, at roughly ten thirty in the morning. But at quarter to seven yesterday evening, it came back. We don’t know where it’s been for the last eighty years, but we’d like to find out.’

‘It came back?’ she said, and started to cry. ‘Oh Robert.’

Thacker slid his finger between the old woman’s face and the photograph. ‘This is the main hall, yes? What’s this collection of buildings here?’

‘I miss my Robert. I missed him all my life. I was cruel to him.’

‘Miss Foster? Before I can send my men in to see what happened to Robert, I need your help.’ He found a cloth handkerchief and delicately dabbed her tears away.

‘The stables,’ she said. ‘Those were the stables.’

He seized his chance. ‘And this?’

‘Some sort of workshop. Garden tools and the like. Robert lost his leg in the war, you know. The Great War.’ She sighed.

‘Where was Robert’s room?’

‘Oh, on the ground floor. He didn’t hold with stairs, afterwards. We were all in the east wing. Kitchen, drawing room, dining room. The servants lived up on the third floor. Little rooms. Poor Adele. She was a maid.’

Thacker knew. ‘Yes, Miss Foster.’

‘So few people in such a big house. Robert’s brother was killed in the war. Such a pity. So many gone.’

‘Were there cellars, attics?’

‘Yes, and yes. Not very big. I looked once. That was all. Tell me, what ever happened to Doctor Middleton?’

‘He died about fifty years ago, Miss Foster.’

‘Ah, I’m the last. That’s because I’m so very old.’

‘Yes, Miss Foster. Is there anything else you think I might need to know?’

She looked again at the photograph. ‘I loved it there. It was beautiful in a sad sort of way. Such a long time ago.’

Thacker thought the moment had passed. He took the print away from her feeble grasp and put it back in his battle smock. ‘I’m sorry to bring back difficult memories, Miss Foster. I’ll leave you now.’

‘Yes, yes. Poor Robert. If you find him, tell him I still love him.’

‘I’ll tell him, Miss Foster. Goodbye.’ He got out of the chair and strode over to where the nurse was standing, half turned away. It was something, he supposed.

‘Is it about that awful plane crash last night?’ she said.

Thacker remained stone-faced. ‘Nothing that you’ve heard must leave this room. If it does, I’ll know, and so will my superiors.’

She looked at him squarely, faintly amused. ‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’

He shrugged. ‘I assume so. More of a statement of fact. I think you’d disappear more thoroughly than Henbury Hall was supposed to have done. That’d be a shame. You’re very pretty.’ He hated this part of his job: all so bloody cloak-and-dagger.

Her smile slipped as he walked on, back down the corridor, into the foyer with its armed men. He summoned them to his side with a wave of his hand, and they flanked him as he closed the distance to the Land Rover.

‘Tell the helicopter to stand by. I’m going back to Oxfordshire immediately.’

‘Sir.’

He got in beside the driver, who waited for the last door to slam shut before spinning his wheels on the gravel drive. When they were on their way, he took out the photograph again, and pointed to each part in turn, memorising the location and the function of each building, before turning to the main house and mentally labelling it.

Quite why he had been chosen over everyone else escaped him.