Elizabeth Speller - The Return of Captain John Emmett

'What about the corporal?'

'Tucker was naturaly devious—Emmett thought he'd planted the comb to keep his friend in line—but he sensed Perkins was frightened and out of his depth.

Over the next couple of weeks, Emmett kept Perkins in sight. By now the man looked haunted, and he and Tucker were no longer the mates they'd always been. In fact, Emmett thought he was trying to avoid Tucker. Then, right out of the blue, Perkins asked to speak to Emmett privately. Tucker was out of camp. The corporal wasn't specific but he hinted that it was to do with the murder. Perhaps he was going to confess; perhaps he thought he could turn King's evidence.'

'Didn't he say?'

'No. Emmett, who is off up to HQ, says he'l see him the folowing afternoon. But Tucker gets back earlier than expected—perhaps he didn't trust his old friend.

The folowing morning, they're repairing trenches when, oh so conveniently for Tucker, you might think, there's a colapse and his chum dies unpleasantly but without a word. Emmett is sent off to the regimental first-aid post and then hospital, and the CO is kiled within weeks.'

'I hadn't realised,' Laurence began. 'I knew about the individuals involved in the trench fal. A man caled Bolitho told me. An officer. He was there.' He recaled Byers' sense that Tucker had let his friend die. 'But Tucker rescued John. Why would he do that if John had wanted to tie him to a murder?'

'God knows. Game playing? Power? Perhaps he was being watched too closely to finish him off when the fal didn't kil him. Emmett, of course, thought that the whole episode was about Tucker trying to murder him. And he was near as certain that Tucker had engineered Perkins' death. It wouldn't have been hard. Those old trenches were pretty unstable. But, of course, his accusations were in danger of sounding like paranoia. He kept the comb, the only evidence of the rape, in his pocket al the time. He said one day he would show it to the girl's mother for identification. But it would only have tied Perkins to the murder and he was dead. He showed it to me. I have to say, you needed to know what you were looking for to see any initials.'

'But John didn't mention a Bolitho?'

Brabourne shook his head.

'Being trapped was John's nightmare.'

'That fits,' said Brabourne. 'The good criminal mind is adept in sensing the weakness of others. Perhaps that was al Tucker intended—to torment rather than kil, and, by getting in there for the rescue, to have al the pleasure of watching Emmett suffer.'

'I think I know how the story went on from there,' said Laurence, as Brabourne put his feet on the desk. 'John was injured. Sent to hospital. His battalion took heavy casualties. John went home until he was declared fit for active service again and then, finaly, in 1917, his path and Tucker's crossed again.'

Brabourne shook his head and tapped his ash just short of the ashtray. 'With the subtle addition that Tucker had officialy saved your friend's life.'

They both lapsed into silence. Laurence looked over Brabourne's shoulder to the window, trying to gauge the time by the light outside.

'Did you know that in John's account of the accident—if it was an accident—in the trenches, it was a Captain Bolitho who saved his life?' Laurence asked.

Brabourne shook his head. 'I can't swear to it but he didn't actualy talk much about the incident at al, except to explain how Perkins ceased being a danger to Tucker. You have to understand that for Emmett it was al about the French girl's murder.'

'He left him some money. Quite a lot,' said Laurence after a short pause.

'Tucker?' Brabourne looked astonished.

'No. Bolitho.'

Laurence alowed this to sink in for a moment.

And Byers,' Laurence said, more cautiously, 'seemed uneasy about the lead-up to the execution.'

It wasn't the whole truth but he wanted to let Brabourne tel him about Byers himself.

But Brabourne just looked blank. 'Byers?' he said. He seemed puzzled. But after a few seconds' thought, he seemed to realise what Laurence meant. 'Cutting off the badges? Poor man.'

Laurence wasn't sure whether he meant Byers or Hart.

'I imagine he thought he was supposed to for some reason,' Brabourne said. 'He wasn't a chancer of any sort. Emmett should have stopped him, of course.'

After a moment's further thought, Laurence asked, 'The article you did on the murder: the policeman? Did you think then that it could be connected to Hart or Tucker or John?'

'It honestly never entered my head. I didn't even put two and two together when the story first came in. I mean, I knew he'd served in France. I suppose it's odd that there are no leads and that it was so efficiently and cooly done. But if you want the truth, to start with I thought Mulins would have been on the take and had crossed some criminal bigwig. If there's anything that didn't fit, I suppose it's that, in military life, Major Mulins had a reputation of acting right by the book. A very tough man. I would have thought corruption would have been anathema to him.'

'Your piece said he was "mutilated"?'

'Newspaper dramatics. The second shot got him in the face. Very nasty. As much for onlookers as for Mulins, who could hardly have cared by then.

Personaly, I'd rather there wasn't a connection,' he went on thoughtfuly, 'as the numbers of those present at the time of Hart's death seem to be diminishing rapidly.'

'Byers is wel.' Having said that, Laurence was stil nagged by the fact that Leonard Byers' cousin had been murdered.

'But his cousin was shot in the face. Like Mulins.' Brabourne indicated the papers on the floor.

Laurence nodded. He could see that Brabourne's newspaperman instincts sensed a connection. 'Perhaps you'l find the link,' he said. 'In the meantime, I'l let you know how I get on with Tucker.'

'Yes. Do. And be careful. I don't want to be running a piece on another mysterious but violent demise.'

Brabourne felt in his waistcoat pocket. More cigarettes, Laurence assumed, but instead he brought out a fine fob watch and opened the case.

'I'm going to have to...'

Laurence jumped up. 'I'm realy sorry, I keep returning and seem to have tried to extract from you an entire history of the war. One thing seemed to lead to another.'

'That's the joy of my job,' said Brabourne. 'Connections. So many things do seem to link together so often.' He tapped the watch and turned it so that Laurence could see it. It was old and handsome.

'It was my grandfather's. He fought at Balaclava. Mind you, although I'm very attached to it it's not much good for actualy teling the time.'

He smiled broadly, giving off the boyish energy that Byers had commented upon. He tapped it again, then started rummaging through one of the piles on his desk. Several leaflets and loose sheets slipped to the floor but he seemed unbothered.

'Take this.'

He handed Laurence a magazine. It had stark red and black print on the front and a title, Post-Guard: The New Review.

'Myself, I've given up writing poetry in favour of photography. If I get a lucky break I'd like to move into film. Movement: speed, machines, that's the future. But for now...' He gestured around him extravagantly. 'This might pay for my dreams. Realy I'm better on murders, but I do bring out this periodical in my free time. It's subscription only and we haven't got it going regularly but one or two of the wordsmiths in the copy of Constellations that you've got are in my mag too. Writing very different stuff now, of course. None of that morbid sentimentality: summer, lilac, ancient warriors. None of that, thank God. Do you remember Frances Cornford on Brooke? "A young Apolo, golden-haired,/ Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,/ Magnificently unprepared/ For the long littleness of life." I mean, Brooke was hardly unprepared. He was at King's, Cambridge, for heaven's sake. And no innocent, one hears. And he worshipped the heroic littleness of life, clutching his Homer closer than his gas mask. I've nothing against the dead and nothing against Cornford: "the long littleness of life"—lovely line. Wish I'd written it. She was in love with him, of course, wasn't everybody? Perfect poetry. Means nothing and so everything. That's why people like it. Not everyone could cope with Sassoon.'