Byers looked as if he was engaged in one of his famous computations of figures. When he finaly spoke, his voice was flat. 'Just before, when they were tying him up, Tucker leans towards me and hands me his pocket knife. He nods towards Hart and for a minute I think he's teling me to cut his throat but he just says, 'Cut off his pips, son.' I didn't get it at first and Tucker gives me a push. I look to the officer, that's your friend, the captain. But he doesn't seem to see what's going on. I stumble out towards the man. Half afraid someone's going to give the order to fire while I'm out there. Then I'm standing in front of him—the officer we're going to shoot
—and I'm not looking at him and I think I says something like, 'I'm sorry,' very quiet so that Tucker can't hear, and I reach forward and sawed the pip off one shoulder and then he turns so I can get the other one. And I'm looking for the other badges when Emmett suddenly wakes up and shouts, 'Byers, what the hel do you think you're doing, get back in position,' so I do. I scarper back, clutching these pathetic bits of stuff in my hand. And when I get back, Tucker's there with his hand out and I just put them in his palm. I felt bad about it after because I thought it was a proper order, but later I heard that they didn't take the rank off a condemned man.'
He caught Laurence's eyes briefly.
'It was just another little game of Tucker's. Probably he sold them for a mint.' His shoulders slumped. 'I'm sorry. I am. I didn't know any better.'
Laurence wanted to reach out and touch Byers' nearest arm, stiff on the handlebar. But even before he could tel him that he had nothing to be sorry for, Byers was moving off, pedaling away without looking back.
Laurence got home feeling cold and dispirited. He had a glass of brandy to warm himself, then managed to settle to his own work. He wrote until evening before assembling his notes. As he tidied up, he gathered up his recent letters. He glanced down to Eleanor's, lying on top. Her handwriting was as determined as her character. Suddenly, he tipped out the odds and ends that Mary had given him. On top was the note about the birdwatching. His eyes went to the bottom and then to the letter. He was almost certain that the comments about somebody dislikeable in the guise of a bird were in Eleanor Bolitho's handwriting, as he had guessed. Eleanor had obviously been seeing John long after the war and had a close friendship with him. But she had chosen to lie about it to Laurence. Could the N be Nicholas Bolitho?
Did Wiliam know that they'd both gone to Holmwood? He picked up the scrap and put it and Brabourne's photograph in his walet.
When he'd left Brabourne the day before, he was reeling with al the new information but as he slotted each element into place he realised there were crucial questions he might have asked. Now he also wondered: why hadn't Brabourne mentioned Byers' actions?
Chapter Twenty-six
Fresham Brabourne seemed keen to see Laurence again, although he made it clear that his time was limited. He suggested Laurence find his way up to the office he'd visited last time. Although the door was ajar, Laurence knocked. The floor was covered in open newspapers and Brabourne was kneeling in the middle.
'I'm checking your Byers bombshel, about his cousin,' he said. 'Turns out Mulins was looking into it. Curiouser and curiouser. There has to be a connection. A story.' He looked excited.
'There were two things I wanted to check myself,' Laurence said. 'Why on earth did John Emmett ask for a copy of your photograph?' He took it out of his pocket.
'He didn't. Nobody saw me use the camera. More than my life was worth.'
'But you gave it to him?'
'No. God, no. Hardly. Last thing I'd want him to know about.'
'Wel, somebody gave it to him,' said Laurence. 'Are you sure this is yours?' He handed it to him. 'Could anyone else have been taking pictures that day?'
'Very unlikely,' said Brabourne, examining the picture. 'No, this is mine. Was mine. Look—my monogram on the back. I stil have that stamp. P is my first name, Peregrine. Not very surprisingly, I opted to use one of my other names—Tresham. It was that or my third name, Everard, which wasn't a great improvement on Peregrine.' He looked down at the photograph in his hand. 'But God knows where the negative is.'
'When did you last see the picture? Do you have any sense of when it was lost?'
'No. I mean, no, it wasn't lost. It was hardly something I gazed at every day but it was with my things until I met Colonel Lambert Ward. I set up an interview with him a couple of years ago. Do you remember the Darling Committee? Suggesting reforms for courts martial?'
'Lambert Ward?' Laurence echoed.
'The MP. The parliamentary questions man. I was doing this big piece on him; I can probably find it. Certainly got the goat up plenty of our regulars. Letters came pouring in.' He looked happy. 'Especialy from those who'd never fought, of course. Very keen on the ultimate sanction, our older readers. But the rest was pure coincidence. We were talking about the bee he's got in his bonnet about burying executed men alongside their more valiant comrades in arms. He's very old school in his ways but strangely vehement about keeping our dead together.'
He stopped, got up again, walked to a cabinet and puled out a drawer. He seemed to find what he wanted almost immediately, ran his eyes over it and handed it to Laurence.
'Quotes. They were for my piece, he said. I could hardly improve on their words. From Hansard or public speeches.'
Laurence looked down at the transcript. Two speeches had been marked in pencil.
'The first is Philip Morrel. The former MP. Liberal. I'd like to do a piece on him too. And this is the colonel,' said Brabourne. ''These men, many of them volunteered in the early days of the war to serve their country. They tried and they failed ... I think that it is wel that it should be known and the people of this country should understand ... that from the point of view of Tommy up in the trenches, war is not a question of honours and decorations, but war is just hel.''
Laurence nodded. He sat back. Just hel. He was glad someone had spoken this truth in parliament.
'He told me that there was utter silence in the Commons after he'd spoken, and nobody would meet his eyes,' Brabourne added. 'But what I found interesting when I met him was his conviction that intolerable fear pushed some men into extraordinary acts of courage, and others into cowardice quite out of keeping with their characters. I think he was saying both extremes were a sort of madness. I liked him.
