'There is one other thing. Did you know that Byers' cousin had been murdered? Same surname, same home vilage?'
He knew instantly that this was news to Brabourne. The journalist became suddenly alert. At the door Laurence looked back and saw Brabourne stil watching him. He stepped out into light that seemed astonishingly bright.
Chapter Twenty-five
The next day he woke up with a headache and couldn't face his planned morning in the library. Eventualy he decided to catch a bus to Marble Arch; he would go to his barber's and get some fresh air by walking in Hyde Park.
A couple of hours later he sat on a bench, relishing the crisp morning, watching the ducks on the ornamental lake and some elegant women on horses, trotting along the bridleways. Having now heard two versions of the events around the death of Hart, he thought he had a ful picture.
He wondered how many executions by firing squad had taken place in the field. This made him think back to routine orders and how often he'd just passed over the notification of an execution. Hundreds, certainly, must have been shot. He hoped five hundred was too many. Say it was two or even three hundred soldiers.
Only three officers in total, Brabourne had said. It seemed very few, yet he'd never heard of any until he had looked into John's troubled war.
Each execution would involve six officers or more for the court martial, officers for the prosecution and the defence, two or three senior officers to ratify the sentence, the assistant provost marshal, and six to ten soldiers on the firing detachment. An officer commanding the execution, medics, padres, guards, the burial party.
Twenty or so men involved in despatching a single soldier of their own side. Even alowing for some duplication, four to five thousand or so men must have been involved between 1914 and 1918.
The only unusual element in Hart's case was that the condemned man held a commission. Did that make it harder for everyone involved, he wondered? He thought it probably did. Even so, the numbers of men caught up in trying and executing Hart made the notion that there was some sort of curse ludicrous. There was no reasonable way to check, but they couldn't al be dead. Nonetheless he wondered what had happened to the other subaltern who had reported Hart for walking away.
Ralph Liley. He, almost more than anyone else, would seem to be responsible for Hart's predicament. If Lieutenant Liley was stil alive, that would virtualy confirm that the nexus of deaths, including John's, did not have Hart at its centre.
He was getting cold so he walked fairly briskly along the Bayswater Road. The Hyde Park Hotel loomed up behind the mottled plane trees and on impulse he turned in past the doorman. He asked to use the telephone and the concierge made the connection for him. Of course it was a ridiculous time to try to catch Charles at his club but he left a message with the porter, simply saying that he had a lot to tel him and that he planned to go to Birmingham the folowing morning. He felt slightly melodramatic as he ended, saying that he expected to return on the same day.
On the spur of the moment he decided to jump on a bus to Victoria. From there he crossed the river. Although Brabourne's account had hardly mentioned Byers, Laurence had been bothered by something in the way Byers told his own story. Now he had an excuse to speak to him again, even if a pretty feeble one.
It took him forty minutes to reach the lock works. The watchman came out.
'You looking for the major?'
'No, Mr Byers.'
'Not here, sir. Won't be until later.'
'How much later?' Not that he could hover in the yard to ambush him.
'Search me.'
Very briefly he considered leaving a note, asking Byers to contact him, but he was sure that he wouldn't do so. He might be able to prevail upon Calogreedy to speak to Byers again, but the reason for his visit was pretty tenuous. It had been a ridiculously impulsive detour and he knew it was largely because he had too much time on his hands.
He set off for home. The street outside the works was empty. He was approaching the bridge when, as he turned to cross the road, he almost colided with a man on a bicycle coming round the corner. He stumbled back over the kerb. The man half stopped and half fel off. As he picked up his cap from the road and straightened himself up, the cyclist apologised.
'Sorry, sir. Not usualy anyone about. I should of looked. You al right?'
It was Byers. Slowly his expression changed. 'Mr Bartram.'
Laurence's reason for being there suddenly seemed even flimsier.
'I had some news.' He felt a fool as he said it. 'You might like to know the man you told me about—Tresham Brabourne, who defended Lieutenant Hart—he's alive and wel.'
It sounded ridiculously thin. Why should Byers care? Byers stared at him, gripping the handlebars tightly.
'So not everyone's under a fatal curse,' Laurence said, trying to sound light-hearted.
Only a slight tension of his jaw showed that Byers had heard but he didn't move on. He looked more uneasy than relieved at this information. One foot remained on the pedal, the other pressed down on the road surface as if he was about to push off and cycle away.
'Did he say anything?' Byers asked eventualy, stil wary.
'Wel, more or less what you said. A bad business.'
'About me?'
Laurence thought back. 'Nothing in particular. I mean, apart from you, because you'd been with him before, he didn't even know the name of anyone in the firing squad.'
