'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.'
Laurence, who had known Sassoon at school and hadn't liked him much, didn't want to say so.
'There's stil a taste for that sort of thing, of course. Nostalgic de la guerre. But not in this.' Brabourne tapped his magazine. 'This is not for everybody.' He looked proud. 'Not sure we've got the title right—it was supposed to be a pun on avant-garde.' He made a face. 'Picking up where Kandinsky and Co. left off.'
Laurence hoped he looked inteligently non-committal.
'I put two of Hart's in pride of place and there's one of Emmett's too. Of course we're not making a profit yet, but he deserved to be published. We're getting reviews.' Brabourne looked worried. 'I hope his sister won't mind. If a miracle occurs and the public suddenly develops a passion for proper poetry, then we'd pay his heirs, of course.'
They shook hands. Laurence walked down the stone stairs and out on to Fleet Street. Away from the heavy air of ink and machine oil and paper, London smeled light and cold. There was heavy traffic: trams and cars held up by a brewer's dray unloading near St Bride's. He looked up the street towards St Paul's and then up at the sky.
Sometimes he was not sure whether he was more disoriented by al that had altered or by how much had not. The view he had now—of the pale, graceful lines of St Bride's and then the uncompromising dome of the cathedral, rising grey above the City—was little changed since Wren built them. That, at least, was permanent.
And yet this was also the street from which the great business of the nation's newspapers had told the modern world how it was changing.
As he walked back towards Aldwych, he turned on impulse towards the Temple church, almost hidden in its peaceful square. Finding no one else inside, he sat for a while, watching the faint sunlight warm the stone effigies of the Knights Templar.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Having arrived at the station wel before the train to Birmingham was due to leave, Laurence paused outside to look at the war memorial. Had it been here the last time he passed? Similar monuments were suddenly appearing everywhere, but the bare earth around this one suggested it had been unveiled only in the last few weeks. New roses, just a few dormant winter stalks and thorns, had been planted around it. For a second he tried to imagine his own name being chiseled out by a busy mason. But what place would have claimed him as its son and remembered him in death?
He went inside to the ticket office. The steam hanging over the platforms was mirrored in miniature above the large tea urn at the station café, where he sat at a corner table, clutching a cup of tea while he waited for his train. Strong and sweet, it was bitter with tannin. He held it more to keep warm than to wake himself up. He'd brought The Times to read and Brabourne's Post-Guard. He was just rereading one of Hart's poems when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned round to find Charles standing there, with an identical copy of The Times under his arm, the brim of his hat puled down low, a dark paisley scarf round his neck and the rest of him swathed in a vast tweed coat that must have belonged to his grandfather.
'How the hel...?' Laurence began, but swiftly realised that he was neither particularly surprised nor unhappy to see Charles. Had he hoped for this when he'd left his message? His smile acknowledged the possibility.
'It's good to see you.'
'Wel, I wasn't having you setting out on a solitary encounter with Sergeant Tucker, old chap.'
'Oh God. You haven't brought a gun, have you?'
Theatricaly, 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 finaly 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'l be traceable from there.'
Charles raised an eyebrow. 'And you think his pals are going to tel 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. Wel done. See your detective skils are coming on.'
'You can't give him money. Wel, it's very decent of you, of course, but I can't let you. I'd thought I might offer a very smal 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 ful walets.'
'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 al. His sort need war. Stil, 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 disloyaly, how Charles's plus fours would blend into a working-men's pub in Birmingham.
The whistle blew and the train puled 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 wals, al 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 stil 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 recaled a childhood smel 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 smal factory stood neatly to one side of the line at the edge of a smal 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 perpetualy blue sky with fluffy clouds. Charles was reading. Eventualy Laurence must have falen 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 hils. 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 iluminated 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 excelent. 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 Trolope, al favourites of his father.
'A bit more thriling than poor old John's death. Pure escapism. Strychnine, femmes fatales, lost wils, violent death. And it al 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?'
Chapter Twenty-eight
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 al the buildings they passed were smal 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 Wiliam 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?'
'Actualy 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 monosylabic—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 al, so we'd end each visit by going to a tripe and pig-heel shop. Absolutely foul, and al the while his man would be waiting in the car outside. But it was the smel at the works that was so truly appaling. 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 shal, 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 al 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, puling 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 recal, it's this way. We can walk,' he said. 'I don't think it's far at al.'
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 smel of hot oil and coal fires against a continual din of metalic hammering and driling.
Through open doors they could see men working over benches and the glow of furnaces. They passed one courtyard that appeared to be ful of prison griles, until Laurence realised he was looking at bedsteads, piled up against every wal.
'You do know it's the Woodman we're looking for?' Laurence asked Charles.
Instead of replying, Charles rifled through an inner pocket, puled out a leather-bound book—the sort they'd al 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 bel but Laurence couldn't think why.
'Doesn't mean he'l 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 smal 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, al stopped and stared at the two men. Charles occasionaly said 'Good morning'
briskly, bu
t 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.
'Wel, I'l 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'l have to try the drinking den after al.'
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. Wel, 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 smal and grubby girl puled 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 folowed 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.
The Return of Captain John Emmett Page 23