Charles raised an eyebrow; he too wanted it to be Laurence's choice.
Eventualy Laurence spoke. 'Al right.' He was so weary. He doubted that Somers had the energy to continue his campaign; he doubted that Gwen would let him out of her sight. Despite having other reservations, he didn't want to be the one to turn a decent, honourable man over to the hangman. Gwen Lovel had already lost so much. It al sickened him.
Somers seemed to sag and Gwen helped him into a chair.
'But just as you wanted your truth, I want to be able to tel John Emmett's sister what happened to him,' Laurence said firmly.
Somers stiffened slightly and looked uneasy. His glance flickered to Gwen, then back to Laurence.
'How did you get him to your house?'
'By car. I visited Holmwood a week or so before Christmas. Drove around the lanes not far from the vilage. Parked the car half a mile away behind some abandoned farm buildings, with a blanket over the engine. Couldn't risk it not starting when it was needed, though in the event the weather was mild. Walked to Holmwood. Went through the motions of having a meeting with Chilvers. Met my poor old friend Emmett: al sanctioned by Chilvers, with tea and cucumber sandwiches. The good doctor was keen to accommodate the valiant but shel-shocked son of a titled friend that I'd mentioned to him. Emmett thought I was there to represent Mrs Lovel. He was longing to see her; never was a man so obliging in the arrangements for his own removal.'
Gwen shuddered. Laurence thought she might faint, but she clung to Somers' arm.
'I wanted more information. I wanted
'Nobody to notice at home whether I had or hadn't got the car: one of the few advantages of having lost your entire family. Told my gardener it was being repaired. Agreement was that Emmett would get away when he could, pick up the motor car and drive over to my place at Fawler. He was stil confined to his room, more or less, or under constant supervision, but this suited me, as he was hardly likely to tel anyone of our plan. He thought Christmas Day would be his only chance to get away as he knew they'd al be taken to church. As far as I was concerned, Christmas was ideal as anybody who had a family would be with them. He thought I'd drive him back eventualy, of course. I left a map in the car but he said he'd been at school not so far away and knew the area.'
'Yes,' said Laurence. 'We were at Marlborough together.' Then he suddenly remembered. 'May I get something?' Gwen nodded. Laurence went over to his coat, felt in the deep pocket and puled out a grubby striped scarf. 'This was yours, wasn't it?'
Somers looked down and touched it. 'Miles's scarf, from Welington. His team colours.' He turned back the corner, looked at the school number, then took the scarf in both hands. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I'm glad to have it.' Laurence could see him making connections. 'Was it with John Emmett when he died?'
Laurence nodded. 'I came here on my way to see Tresham Brabourne—taking it to see whether he could confirm the school and identify the initials.'
Somers didn't respond for a while. Finaly he said, 'I gave it to Emmett as we left the house because he looked so cold. Miles didn't need it. I wasn't going to need it again.'
Gwen made no move to touch Somers. Laurence felt indecent, watching her world colapse.
'I don't believe John had to die. I don't understand why,' Laurence said.
'It isn't hard,' Somers replied. 'He died because he kiled my son.'
Laurence was struggling to see this rational, decent man as an unstable, flawed avenger. He thought to himself that, if anything, John had died because he had
'There was no connection in al this with a Frenchman caled Meurice?' he asked on the spur of the moment. Somers' expression was uncomprehending and his head shook almost imperceptibly.
As they reached the front door, Laurence turned to Gwen Lovel. She hadn't put on the light in the hal and in the open doorway her face was dark.
'Your son was a wonderful poet,' he said. 'He had a magical gift and he spoke for al of us. He should have lived.'
She was silent.
He folowed Charles down her chequerboard path and didn't look back. Even as he shut the gate behind him, he stil wasn't sure he had made the right decision.
Would Somers have shot him but for Gwen Lovel and Charles's adventitious arrival? How close had Somers been to shooting Mrs Lovel?
He stood for a second, feeling the weight of Somers' gun in his pocket, and looked in through the open curtains. Somers and Mrs Lovel were sitting opposite each other in the front room. They could have been any middle-aged couple about to make cocoa and go to bed.
As he and Charles trudged up the street towards the car he spoke. 'So, what made you come and find me?'
'Saved by an old soldier. You were hardly through Mrs Lovel's door,' Charles said, 'when I noticed Nicholas Bolitho had left his wooden guardsman in the footwel of the car. I thought I could just whizz back and give it to Mrs Bolitho and stil get to Savile Row. But Mrs Bolitho—Eleanor—wanted to give me a message for you. It was something she'd remembered. She thought she might have come across the man in the photograph. She was thrown when you showed it to her because he was so much thinner in the picture than when she'd nursed him, and she'd known him as Harry not Edmund. But it was the name that niggled at her, because Hart was a German name as wel as a British one, and that made her think, because she'd once had a British patient with a German name. And she thought it was him. She remembered that, because they'd had prisoners of war as temporary orderlies and she had heard Hart joking with them. Harry spoke perfect German, she said. When she warned him to be careful who overheard him—feelings were running high after some bad losses—he told her his mother was half German and had been a classical singer in Berlin and that he'd been born in Germany. Wel, after we'd left—what a mind that woman has—Eleanor starting putting two and two together. Almost as good as Mrs Christie. Apparently you'd told her Mrs Lovel had once been a singer in Germany?'
