'Then, a month or so later, there was an outbreak of pilfering. Tobacco, sweets, smal change—but causing trouble. There was bad feeling and some suggestion that a young soldier was being picked on as a possible culprit. Emmett and another subaltern decided to do a spot check of accommodation. Tucker was excluded from al this by virtue of rank; indeed, he was part of the checking. No sign of the stolen goods, but in his chum's knapsack there was a comb—a woman's hair comb.
Ordinary, cheap thing, gilt, but Emmett said there was something distinctive about it.'
Brabourne closed his eyes for a second.
'I know. It was a unicorn. The pattern. Just like the one missing from the dead girl. Emmett thought it even had her initials on it. It was on the list the gendarmes had given him. He said Perkins was obviously shocked to the core. Swore blind he'd never seen it before. Tucker suggested to him that he might have bought it for a lady friend back home and the man eventualy agreed. But Emmett said it was wel worn. He knew the colonel thought he'd simply got a down on Tucker and it wasn't enough.'
'What about the corporal?'
'Tucker was naturaly devious—Emmett thought he'd planted the comb to keep his friend in line—but he sensed Perkins was frightened and out of his depth.
Over the next couple of weeks, Emmett kept Perkins in sight. By now the man looked haunted, and he and Tucker were no longer the mates they'd always been. In fact, Emmett thought he was trying to avoid Tucker. Then, right out of the blue, Perkins asked to speak to Emmett privately. Tucker was out of camp. The corporal wasn't specific but he hinted that it was to do with the murder. Perhaps he was going to confess; perhaps he thought he could turn King's evidence.'
'Didn't he say?'
'No. Emmett, who is off up to HQ, says he'l see him the folowing afternoon. But Tucker gets back earlier than expected—perhaps he didn't trust his old friend.
The folowing morning, they're repairing trenches when, oh so conveniently for Tucker, you might think, there's a colapse and his chum dies unpleasantly but without a word. Emmett is sent off to the regimental first-aid post and then hospital, and the CO is kiled within weeks.'
'I hadn't realised,' Laurence began. 'I knew about the individuals involved in the trench fal. A man caled Bolitho told me. An officer. He was there.' He recaled Byers' sense that Tucker had let his friend die. 'But Tucker rescued John. Why would he do that if John had wanted to tie him to a murder?'
'God knows. Game playing? Power? Perhaps he was being watched too closely to finish him off when the fal didn't kil him. Emmett, of course, thought that the whole episode was about Tucker trying to murder him. And he was near as certain that Tucker had engineered Perkins' death. It wouldn't have been hard. Those old trenches were pretty unstable. But, of course, his accusations were in danger of sounding like paranoia. He kept the comb, the only evidence of the rape, in his pocket al the time. He said one day he would show it to the girl's mother for identification. But it would only have tied Perkins to the murder and he was dead. He showed it to me. I have to say, you needed to know what you were looking for to see any initials.'
'But John didn't mention a Bolitho?'
Brabourne shook his head.
'Being trapped was John's nightmare.'
'That fits,' said Brabourne. 'The good criminal mind is adept in sensing the weakness of others. Perhaps that was al Tucker intended—to torment rather than kil, and, by getting in there for the rescue, to have al the pleasure of watching Emmett suffer.'
'I think I know how the story went on from there,' said Laurence, as Brabourne put his feet on the desk. 'John was injured. Sent to hospital. His battalion took heavy casualties. John went home until he was declared fit for active service again and then, finaly, in 1917, his path and Tucker's crossed again.'
Brabourne shook his head and tapped his ash just short of the ashtray. 'With the subtle addition that Tucker had officialy saved your friend's life.'
They both lapsed into silence. Laurence looked over Brabourne's shoulder to the window, trying to gauge the time by the light outside.
'Did you know that in John's account of the accident—if it was an accident—in the trenches, it was a Captain Bolitho who saved his life?' Laurence asked.
Brabourne shook his head. 'I can't swear to it but he didn't actualy talk much about the incident at al, except to explain how Perkins ceased being a danger to Tucker. You have to understand that for Emmett it was al about the French girl's murder.'
'He left him some money. Quite a lot,' said Laurence after a short pause.
'Tucker?' Brabourne looked astonished.
'No. Bolitho.'
Laurence alowed this to sink in for a moment.
And Byers,' Laurence said, more cautiously, 'seemed uneasy about the lead-up to the execution.'
It wasn't the whole truth but he wanted to let Brabourne tel him about Byers himself.
But Brabourne just looked blank. 'Byers?' he said. He seemed puzzled. But after a few seconds' thought, he seemed to realise what Laurence meant. 'Cutting off the badges? Poor man.'
Laurence wasn't sure whether he meant Byers or Hart.
'I imagine he thought he was supposed to for some reason,' Brabourne said. 'He wasn't a chancer of any sort. Emmett should have stopped him, of course.'
After a moment's further thought, Laurence asked, 'The article you did on the murder: the policeman? Did you think then that it could be connected to Hart or Tucker or John?'
'It honestly never entered my head. I didn't even put two and two together when the story first came in. I
