I hesitated, playing the part of a plain man searching for the right words. ‘I was in Korea with Barnes,’ I said. ‘Me and a few others thought we’d like to chip in for some kind of memorial. You know, a plaque or something like that.’
‘Is that so? How’s his widow feel about it?’
It was a God-will-strike-you-dead kind of question. And if God wouldn’t, Felicia would. ‘She’s agreeable. You were in Korea, weren’t you, Mr Brown?’
‘US Infantry. Second division.’ There was a snap in the words and his jaw seemed to tighten. ‘How about you?’
‘Sergeant, A Company, Third Battalion.’
‘I was a captain, most of the time.’
‘Barnes was…’
‘One of the toughest soldiers I ever saw. It was a bloody terrible war. Best forgotten.’
‘Can you forget it?’
His eyes moved around the room without focusing, as if he wasn’t seeing the furniture and the blueprints but something else-paddy fields, burning tanks, panic-stricken men about to die? ‘No, I sure can’t,’ he said quietly.
‘Did you and Barnes talk much about Korea?’
‘Yeah. We talked. But about business, mainly.’ He undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. Flesh bulged. ‘I guess I could make a contribution. It’s the least I can do.’
‘What d’you mean?’
He looked at his watch. ‘I usually work for another hour, but what the hell. Got anything you need to do just now, Mr Hardy?’
He seemed to be two people-the flabby, harassed businessman and the steely cold warrior. Both could be dangerous and I felt very unsure about him. ‘I’m free for a while,’ I said cautiously.
He got up and walked across the room; his jacket hung on a key sticking out of a filing cabinet. He freed the jacket, turned the key in the lock and put. it in his pocket. ‘Let me take you somewhere.’
We went out through the foyer and Brown made a sign to Wayne with his fist and forefinger. Wayne nodded.
‘What’s that mean?’ I said.
‘Dozer driver stuff. Means cut off the motor.’
We left the building and got into Brown’s Volvo, which was parked in a slot labelled ‘the boss’.
Brown snapped his seat belt on. ‘Safest car on the market. What d’you drive?’
‘A Falcon.’
He didn’t comment. He drove out through a boom gate at the back of the big yard. Shadows were spreading across the cranes and other equipment, which were painted dark green and looked like prehistoric monsters immobilised by a climatic change. Brown drove aggressively but well. I wondered whether he had a gun in the car, the way I did in mine. Great help it was to me there. If he had headed for the river or anything that looked like a dumping ground, I suppose I would have got ready to jump him or jump out, but he didn’t. He worked his way across to Newtown and parked in a side street near St Stephen’s church.
It was after six o’clock, but King Street was still crowded and the shops were open. I hadn’t seen a paper or heard a radio for days and had lost track of the week. It was Thursday-late-night shopping. The road was full of cars crawling along and spewing fumes, but no one seemed to mind. If you can’t take car fumes, you don’t live or shop in Newtown. Brown was a quick walker; his purposefulness cut a path through the strolling shoppers and I recalled reading somewhere that this was a characteristic of successful Americans-purposefulness. I was finding it irritating.
‘Where the hell are we going?’
‘You’ll see.
Brown cut across the path of a woman pushing a laden shopping trolley and pushed open a door. I followed him into a long, dark room. Some soft music was playing and, as my eyes adjusted to the concealed lighting, I saw several low tables with cushions laid out geometrically around them.
Brown’s nostrils flared. ‘Smell that.’
I sniffed. I could smell seafood, spices, sesame seeds, chilli.
‘This is the best Korean restaurant south of Seoul,’ Brown said.
A waiter came out of the nether darkness and, after a lot of hand-shaking and bowing and Korean palaver, we sat on cushions with our legs under us or under the table. The dishes started to arrive and Brown identified them for me. Ku-jeol-pan came in a box with compartments that held fish, meat and vegetables and small pancakes; kimche was a very hot pickled cabbage; nakgibokeum was braised octopus with spicy sauce. Brown ate quickly but delicately; I picked along in his wake. We drank Korean beer from green bottles.
‘Barnes and me came here all the time,’ Brown said. ‘We’d eat this great food and get high on the beer and talk about old times.’
‘The war?’
‘Sure. What else?’
‘Bob Mulholland told me about an accident you had when you were clay shooting with Barnes.’
Brown gulped beer and speared up some kimche. He chewed it with relish. A few strands of the stuff had nearly taken the lining off my mouth. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Damn careless. But there was no harm done. Were you at the Han?’
I didn’t answer. I was still unsure of him, but getting surer. A few more customers had arrived and soft conversation blended with the clink of bowls and glasses. The waiter brought more beer.
‘They bring it till you tell them to stop,’ Brown said.
I drank some beer and told him that the closest I’d ever been to Korea was Malaya. I told him Bob Mulholland’s story about the US captain and his threat to Barnes.
‘You thought I might be him?’
I shrugged. ‘I think Barnes was murdered. It was something I had to check.’
Brown went on eating for a while. He drank more beer and belched. ‘I know all about that, but I never thought I’d have to talk about it.’
‘I think you have to now, Mr Brown.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s dead. What harm can it do? There haven’t been any real war heroes for a long time.’
I said nothing and waited for him to order his thoughts and memories. When he spoke, he sounded much older than the go-get-’em businessman, much more tired. ‘The sergeant got it wrong, Hardy. I was there. The sergeant couldn’t see a thing and Barnes ‘n me stage-managed it all. What could we do? It was get down that fuckin’ road or die.’
‘What happened?’
Brown looked around him as if the walls might become his accusers. He guzzled a glass of beer and shook his head. ‘We shot people to get through. All kinds of people. You had to be there to know what it was like. The panic was like… like cancer racing through everyone. Someone had to do something. We weren’t the only ones.’
‘What about the American captain?’
Brown sighed. ‘That guy was a coward. He kept going in the space we opened up. Bleating about human rights the whole fuckin’ time. Shit, the Chinks would’ve cut off his human rights where his legs met. The top brass wouldn’t have understood. No one who wasn’t there could understand. We did what we had to do.’
I had had enough military experience to know what he meant. ‘A scapegoat?’
Brown nodded. ‘The guy was courtmartialled. He died in Leavenworth pretty quick. Cancer, I think.’
My image of Barnes Todd was in fragments, although I knew that was a naive reaction. I couldn’t find any words. I drank some of the tepid beer.
‘What can I say?’ Brown growled. ‘It was a shitty war. Everyone who died in it was just plain dumb.’
I knew he was talking a kind of brutal, pragmatic sense. Despite what the promoters and medal-givers say, the main thing about war for the participants is survival. I tried to concentrate on my reason for seeking Brown out in the first place. I located it finally among the ruins of my stupid illusions. I gave him a quick resume of the case as I understood it. ‘So forget history,’ I said. ‘Any clues on why anyone’d want to kill Todd?’
