was so bloody ugly. The villages are so ugly because they were all rebuilt after the Great War. In concrete. Millions of men died in these wet fields, Boijer. Millions. In Flanders Fields.'
'I guess so.'
'I think the Finns were still living in igloos at the time.'
'Yes, sir. Eating moss.'
The two men laughed, quite laddishly. Forrester needed some light relief. The Eurostar journey had been equally sombre: they'd used the hours to go over the pathology reports one more time. To see if they'd missed anything. But nothing had jumped out at them. It was just the same chilling scientific analysis of the wounds. Extensive haemorrhage. Stab wound in the fifth intercostal. Death by traumatic asphyxia.
'Think this is it,' said Boijer.
Forrester checked the sign: Ribemont-sur-Ancre. 6km. 'You're right. This turn-off.'
The car swerved onto the slip road, scything through gathered pools of rainwater. Forrester wondered why it rained so much in north-east France. He remembered stories of Great War soldiers drowning in mud, literally drowning in their hundreds and thousands, in the churned wet rainy mud. What a way to die. 'And take a right here.'
He checked the address of the Cloncurrys. He'd rung the family and got their agreement to an interview just a day ago. The mother's voice was cold and slightly quavery on the phone. But she had given him instructions. Go past the rue Voltaire. A kilometre further on. Then take the left, towards Albert. 'Take this left…'
Boijer swung the wheel and the hire car crunched through a rutted puddle; the road was virtually a farm track.
Then they saw the house. It was large and impressive, shuttered and dormered, with a severely sloping roof in the French style. But it was also sombre, dark and oppressive. An odd place to come and live.
Jamie Cloncurry's mother was waiting for them at the end of the wide, looping driveway. Her accent was icily posh. Very English. Her husband was just inside the door, in an expensive tweed jacket and corduroys. His socks were bright red.
In the sitting room a maid served coffee. Mrs Cloncurry sat opposite them, with her knees pressed tightly together. 'So, Inspector Forrester. You wish to talk about my son Jamie…'
The interview was painful. Stilted and laborious. The parents claimed they had lost control of Jamie in his mid teens. By the time he reached university they had lost all contact, too. The mother's mouth twitched, very slightly, as she discussed Jamie's 'problems'.
She blamed drugs. And his friends. She confessed she blamed herself, as well, because they had sent him to boarding school-to be a boarder at Westminster. This had increased the young man's isolation within the family. 'And so he with-drew from us. And that was that.'
Forrester was frustrated. He could tell where the interview was going. The parents knew nothing: they had practically disclaimed their son.
As Boijer took over the questioning, the DCI scanned the large and silent sitting room. There were many family photos-of the daughter, Jamie's sister. Photos of her on holiday, on a pony, or at her graduation. Yet no photos of the son. Not one. And there were family portraits too. A military figure: a Cloncurry from the nineteenth century. A viscount in the Indian Army. And an admiral. Generations of distinguished forebears were staring from the walls. And now possibly-probably-there was a murderer in the family. A psychotic killer. Forrester could feel the shame of the Cloncurrys. He could feel the pain of the mother. The father was practically silent during the interview.
The two hours passed with elaborate slowness. At the end Mrs Cloncurry escorted them to the door. Her piercing blue eyes stared into Forrester, not at him, but into him. Her aquiline face matched the photo of Jamie Cloncurry that Forrester had already sourced from the Imperial College student records. The boy was handsome, in a high cheek-boned way. The mother must have once been beautiful; she was still as thin as a model.
'Inspector,' she said, as they stood at the door. 'I wish I could tell you that Jamie didn't do these…these terrible things. But…but…' She fell quiet. The husband was still hovering behind his wife, his red socks glowing in the gloom of the hallway.
Forrester nodded and shook the woman's hand. At least they'd had their suspicions all but confirmed. But they weren't any nearer finding Jamie Cloncurry.
They scrunched to the car. The rain had finally relented, at least a little. 'So we know it's him,' said Forrester, climbing in.
Boijer keyed the engine. 'Reckon so.'
'But where the fuck is he?'
The car sludged through the damp gravel onto the winding road. They had to negotiate the narrow streets of the village to get to the autoroute. And Lille. On the way through Ribemont, Forrester spotted a little French cafe, a humble brasserie: its lights were inviting in the drizzly greyness.
'Shall we get some lunch?'
'Yes, please.'
They parked in the Place de la Revolution. An enormous and morbid memorial, to the Great War dead, dominated the silent square. This tiny village, Forrester reckoned, must have been right in the middle of the fighting during the war. He imagined the place during the height of the Somme offensive. Tommys loitering by the brothels. Wounded in ambulances racing to the tented hospitals. The ceaseless boom of the shelling, a few miles away.
'It's a funny place to live,' said Boijer. 'Isn't it? When you're so rich. Why live here?'
'I was wondering the same.' Forrester stared at the nobly agonized figure of a wounded French soldier, immortalized in marble. 'You'd think if they wanted to live in France, they'd live in Provence or somewhere. Corsica. Cannes. Somewhere sunny. Not this toilet.'
They walked to the cafe. As they pressed the door Boijer said, 'I don't believe it.'
'What do you mean?'
'I don't buy the weeping mother bit. I don't think they are ignorant as they say. There's something strange about it all.'
The cafe was virtually deserted. A waiter came over, wiping his hands on a grubby towel.
'Steak frites?' said Forrester. He had just enough French to order food. Boijer nodded. Forrester smiled at the waiter. 'Deux steak frites, s'il vous plait. Et un biere pour moi, et un…?'
Boijer sighed. 'Pepsi.'
The waiter said a curt merci. And disappeared.
Boijer checked something on his BlackBerry Forrester knew when his junior was having bright ideas because he stuck his tongue out like a schoolboy working on a sum. The DCI sipped his beer as Boijer Googled. Finally the Finn sat back. 'There. Now that's interesting.'
'What?'
'I Googled the name Cloncurry and Ribemontsur-Ancre. And then I Googled it with just Ancre.'
'OK…'
Boijer smirked, a hint of victory on his face. 'Get this, sir. A Lord Cloncurry was a general in the First World War. And he was based near here. 1916.'
'We know that the family has a military back-ground-'
'Yes, but…' Boijer smile's widened. 'Listen to this.' He read a note he had scrawled on the paper tablecloth. 'During the summer of 1916 Lord Cloncurry was notorious for his grotesquely wasteful attacks on impregnable German positions. More troops died under his command, proportionately, than under any other British general in the entire war. Cloncurry subsequently became known as the Butcher of Albert.'
This was more interesting. Forrester eyed his junior.
Boijer lifted a finger, and quoted: ''Such was the carnage under Cloncurry's leadership, sending wave after wave of infantry into the pitiless machine-gun fire of the well-trained, well-armed Hanover Division, his tactics were compared, by several historians, to the futility of…human sacrifice'.'
The cafe was dead quiet. Then the door rattled as a customer stepped inside, shaking the rain from his umbrella.
'There's more,' said Boijer. 'There's a link from that entry. With a curious result. It's in Wikipedia.'
The waiter set two plates of steak frites on the table. Forrester ignored the food. He stared hard at Boijer. 'Go on.'
