the enemy. It would have been easy to let your imagination run away with you in a situation like that.’
Penrose waited, not wanting to hurry her. When she didn’t speak for some time, he said, ‘It’s not surprising that he developed claustrophobia. Surely nobody could leave that behind and come away unscathed?’
‘I don’t know. He was a strong man, in some ways incredibly so, and I think he’d have been fine if it hadn’t been for one particular incident. It was in the spring of 1916 – some of the tunnels ran a third of a mile or so under enemy territory by then, so you can imagine how important the ventilation was. They’d judge it by a candle – forgive me if I’m telling you things you already know –
168
and if it stayed alight, even if it was only the feeblest of blue flames, it was judged safe to work. With the longest tunnels, there’d be an infantryman above ground working those big blacksmith’s bellows, pumping air to the face along lines of stove piping. It was real teamwork, and a huge act of faith for the men underground.’
She got up and poured herself a whisky and soda from a decanter next to the flowers, then picked up a second glass and looked at him questioningly. He shook his head, reluctant to accept anything that would make him more tired than he was already, and she resumed her story. ‘One day, Bernard was down there with two others, young engineers who were placing charges according to his instructions. They’d nearly finished when they noticed that the air was beginning to deteriorate and it was getting harder to breathe. Obviously they couldn’t just call up to see what was happening with the bellows – it was too far and anyway, only sign language was permitted below ground – so Bernard ordered them back up immediately. Fortunately, because their senses were so attuned to the slightest change, they’d noticed in time to make it back to safety, but one of them refused to go.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’d nearly finished laying the charge and was determined to get it done. Bernard knew the boy had misjudged how long he could stay down there safely and he tried to drag him away, but he wasn’t strong enough to do it on his own – the third man had followed orders immediately and left – and he knew it would be dangerous to make a noise by struggling because it would alert the enemy to their position. He had no choice but to go back and get the bellows working again, and try to save him that way. When he reached the surface, he found his colleague and a few other soldiers wrestling with the piping; apparently the infantryman had been working the bellows constantly, so they realised there must be a blockage somewhere in the system. Of course, Bernard knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of locating it before the man below suffocated, so he turned and went back down.’
Penrose was silent, trying to imagine the courage it must have 169
taken for anyone to respond like that, to descend to what must have seemed like certain death. The mental picture of Aubrey’s contorted face and outstretched hand, already fixed distressingly in his mind, took on a new horror.
‘Needless to say, it was hopeless. The air in the tunnel was all but extinguished and Bernard only got a hundred yards or so in before he was gasping for breath and losing consciousness. He was on his knees, still trying to move forward, when the man he’d sent back caught up with him and dragged him out. It’s a miracle that either of them got out alive.’
‘And the boy?’ Penrose asked, although he knew there could only be one outcome.
‘When they got the air circulating again, they found him about a hundred yards from the face, obviously on his way back. What a terrible death it must have been – all that blackness and nothing to breathe, and the sheer terror of being down there alone and knowing you’re doomed. He was face down, Bernard said, with his mouth full of soil. They may as well have buried him alive.’ She shuddered, and added with a wry bitterness, ‘The charge was perfectly laid, however. They used it that evening and I gather it was rather successful.’
‘It’s impossible for anyone who wasn’t there to understand how that must have affected him and I’m sorry if this sounds naive –
but I don’t quite see why he felt that to be a sin for which he had to be punished. Guilty for not being able to help, perhaps – but not responsible. It was an accident, surely? What more could he have done?’
‘Yes, it was an accident, but the boy who died wasn’t just anyone: he was Bernard’s nephew, Arthur, his sister’s only child, and Bernard had made a promise to look after him. That in itself is ridiculous, of course – you can’t make promises in war, it doesn’t work that way – but he made it all the same and never forgave himself for being unable to keep it, even though his sister certainly never laid the blame at his door.’
For Penrose, a piece of the jigsaw fell at last into place. He had no idea how it got him any closer to finding Aubrey’s killer, but 170
somehow he knew it was important. ‘Do you happen to have a photograph of her?’ he asked.
‘Of Nora? Yes, of course. I’ve got one of her with Arthur, taken not long before his death. Do you want to see it?’
‘Yes please, if you don’t mind.’ She was gone only a couple of minutes and, when she returned, handed him a small photograph in a plain gold frame. The boy in the picture was, he guessed, little more than twenty, and he smiled broadly out from behind the glass, handsome in his new uniform and with a warmth in his eyes which would have made him attractive even if the rest of his features had been less appealing. He had his arm round his mother, who looked up at him proudly but with an apprehension which had been justified all too soon. Her face was in profile and she was older here than when Penrose had last seen her, but it was unmistakably the same woman whose picture looked down from the bookshelf in Aubrey’s office, the woman to whom he imagined the bayonet and flower had been pointing. Without really knowing why, he asked: ‘The irises – here and in Bernard’s office – are they connected at all to his sister?’
She looked at him, completely taken aback. ‘I suppose in a way they are, although how you know so much about my husband puzzles me.’
It puzzled Penrose, too, although he had no intention of discussing the scenes – and they were, he realised now, very much like theatrical scenes – which had been created for him both on the train and in Aubrey’s office. In truth, almost everything he knew about Aubrey was based on what the killer had told him, so who else, he wondered, was so familiar with the man’s past?
Too polite to question him more, Grace Aubrey continued with her explanation. ‘Actually, the irises are more linked with Arthur.
He was a brilliant young man, you know. When he enlisted, he was two years into an engineering degree at Cambridge, but what he loved most was gardening and he spent virtually all his time in the Botanic Gardens. It was always his intention to go back there after the war. There was a job waiting for him as soon as he graduated.’
171
Penrose remembered the Gardens; he’d visited them once or twice himself during his university days and, although they lay just on the edge of the town, within easy walking distance of his col-lege, their contrasting landscapes offered a seductive other world.
