Elizabeth Speller - The Return of Captain John Emmett

'Look, I have to go in,' Eleanor said. 'I'l keep in touch but it's too cold for Nicholas to be out.' She leaned forward and kissed Laurence on the cheek. 'I'd like to meet your Miss Emmett,' she said. 'Perhaps it's time she was introduced to Nicholas. If you want to tel her I knew John, wel, you can, of course. If it would help.'

Then she bent over the car and exchanged a couple of words with Charles as she retrieved her son to wails of protest.

Charles was obviously delighted to have met Eleanor whilst simultaneously disappointed that she had not exploded into anarchy on her own doorstep. He had kept shaking her hand until she had had to withdraw it. As they drove away Laurence knew what Charles was going say next, but it was not until they had turned the corner that he finaly spoke.

'You know what they say about redheads?' he muttered, his teeth clenched on his pipe.

When they drew up at the Lovels' smal house, Charles let him out on the opposite side of the road, a little way down the street. Charles suggested waiting in the car but it was far too cold and Laurence had no idea how long he might be. If Mrs Lovel was in, he hoped the photograph might serve as an excuse to ask her some more questions. What regiment her son had been in, for a start.

Laurence braced himself. He crossed the road and walked up to the front door. The house was almost in darkness although a very dim light shone from a smal window that he thought must light the stairs. He knocked, waited. Knocked again. Listened.

The paint was peeling on the front door. The passage to the side was shut. He had a sudden vision of her standing on the doorstep with pistols stuck in her sash and a dagger between her teeth like a pirate queen. At the same time he knew that if he realy believed she was a murderer, he would hardly be here alone on a late winter's afternoon. He took two steps back to look up at the upper windows. He looked back over the road. Charles had gone. As he was about to knock again, he heard footsteps inside. Somebody was coming slowly down the stairs. The chain was removed and finaly the door opened.

Chapter Thirty-five

Gwen Lovel stood framed in the doorway, her face in shadow. For a split second he took her for her daughter, but it was an impression caused by Mrs Lovel's hair faling loose over her shoulders. As soon as he saw her, reality hit him. She was just one of tens of thousands of mourning women.

'I'm sorry. It seems as if I've come at a bad time.'

'No,' she said vaguely, but made no attempt to ask him in. She rubbed her face. He wondered whether she had been asleep. When he had first met her, her melancholy had had a sort of vigour. That was al gone now. His visit began to seem thoughtlessly impulsive.

'I'm realy sorry to bother you, but I have a photograph and it's possible it might be someone your son knew—you said you'd met a few of his friends—and I wanted to check with you. I could come back at some other time.'

'No. Come in, Mr Bartram.'

Her voice was quiet. She motioned to him to folow her into the front room and lit the lamps, leaving the curtains open. He put his coat down over a chair.

Finaly, a smile flickered briefly, although it was as if she was having to make an effort.

'Are you wel?' She said it with a tone of genuine concern.

'Quite wel, yes, thank you. And you?'

She shrugged. 'Wel, you know ... it is not easy. Not at al. Do you have any news of your friend?'

'I think I know some of what happened to him,' he said. It was too complicated and too private to start to explain it to her. She seemed to understand this and inclined her head slightly, but her eyes were alert.

'But you have something to show me?'

He puled out the photograph. She sat down and picked up some half-moon spectacles from a smal table. He watched her face as he had Eleanor's but was absolutely unprepared for what folowed. She put her hand up to her mouth. Her eyes opened wide. Her silence was unnerving.

Finaly she spoke. 'Oh my God. What is this? Where did you get it?'

'I was given it.' He knew the answer was inadequate—she was so pale he was afraid she was about to faint.

'Harry,' she said.

Laurence's head spun. Was the condemned man not Edmund Hart but Harry Lovel after al? Had Brabourne lied and, if so, why? Why hadn't he checked first with Leonard Byers that this was indeed Edmund Hart?

'Harry?'

Gwen Lovel gazed at the picture.

'Where have you got this?'

'Is it realy your son?' It was a ridiculous question. She was so obviously shocked. 'Can I get you a drink of water? I'm terribly sorry, I hadn't realised for a minute...' He felt cold with horror and angry with himself. Did she even know the man in the picture had been executed? But then, had he?

'Harry,' she said, then was silent. He became aware she had started to cry only when some of her tears fel on the picture. He heard a faint noise upstairs.

Catherine was obviously at home; he hoped she wouldn't come down.

'You can keep it,' he said hurriedly, regretting it immediately when she threw him a look of disbelief.

She puled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. 'Who did you think it was?'

'Actualy I thought it was a man caled Edmund Hart.'

She looked at him, pityingly, he thought. Her shoulders lifted as she took a breath.

'It is. This is my son—Hans Edmund Hart. He was never Lovel. Only Catherine is Mr Lovel's child.' She brought out the words slowly. 'My name was Hart before my marriage. I named him after my father. My father was German. I am German, although my mother was Welsh. We came to cal him Harry. A diminutive. But also because—Hans—wel, living in England, you can imagine; it would not have been easy.'

'And when he took a commission, he used his second name for every formality?'

She nodded. 'He had been brought up in England. He felt English. He was prepared to fight as an Englishman. But not as Hans.'

'You have no other photographs of him.' It was a statement but she took it as a question.

'I have pictures of Harry. I see him before I go to sleep and when I first wake up. When you have a child, they are your calendar, your measure of time passing.

I see him in his christening robes, I see him as a little boy with his hoop. I see him building castles on the sand. I see him play the piano. I see him at school. And now,'

she glanced at the photograph again, 'I see him at the end ... No, don't explain. I know what I am seeing. I am seeing what I already know.'

Laurence stood just inches away but with a continent of distance between them. He noticed that her accent was stronger in her distress. He wondered how he could have thought it insignificant before. He could think of nothing to say.

Yet as he stood there and watched her stroke the image of her son's face with her finger, it dawned upon him that if she had known al along how Edmund Hart had died, then she also had a much stronger motive for kiling John than he had thought. Had he made a sentimental misjudgment?

After a long time he spoke. 'Did you know how he'd died?'

She shrugged. 'Not at first. Not for a long time. Not when your friend Mr Emmett wrote to me or when he left me the money. Not when I first met you. But now, yes. I know it al.'

'And Edmund's—Harry's—real father is dead?'

She looked up, alarmed, not by his question, but by something she had seen beyond him.

'Captain Emmett.'

The words came from behind Laurence's back. A man stood in the doorway to the room. Laurence hadn't heard him. He stepped forward and stood beside Gwen Lovel. In the better light, Laurence guessed he was in his late fifties. He was of medium height, strongly built and had an authoritative presence. He was familiar yet Laurence couldn't identify him. Where had he seen him before and why, given that he had obviously been in the house al the time, did Gwen look worried to see him?