The Return of Captain John Emmett

'A bit more thriling than poor old John's death. Pure escapism. Strychnine, femmes fatales, lost wils, violent death. And it al hinges on chemistry. Stepson saved from the rope by a cunning Belgian.'

'But you haven't finished it,' said Laurence. 'How do you know?'

'Oh, I've read it twice before. First time, she had me believing it had to be the Belgian himself. Mind you, I've a lot of respect for the Belgians. Extraordinarily brave man, their king. You can't quite see our King George commanding a front-line action, can you?'

Chapter Twenty-eight

They arrived at Rugby on time and from Rugby, crossing pastureland, the train soon reached Birmingham. The city seemed to appear quite suddenly. Laurence had never seen England's second city before. His first impression was of redness and solidity, dark bricks and heavy architecture. A new city, not like London with its layers of existence, of squalor and beauty: its fine squares, slums, parks and palaces spreading out either side of the muddy grey Thames. Did Birmingham even have a river?

He didn't know. Almost al the buildings they passed were smal factories and workshops, although there were some distant spires, grey-white and more graceful than the buildings by the railway.

Charles pointed towards a clock tower in the same uncompromising style as the rest of the city. 'University,' he said. 'The tower's supposed to be like the one in Siena. Can't see it myself, but it looks better on a summer's day.'

Laurence laughed. 'How on earth do you know?'

'Family,' said Charles. 'We had a factory here. I thought I told you.'

Laurence felt guilty. Had he known? Charles was probably his oldest surviving friend. Charles was straightforward, growing more bluff with the years, where Laurence had become increasingly intense, even melancholy. If he had to characterise the relationship, he would have said it was simultaneously sturdy but superficial.

He could never imagine discussing anything about Louise, or even the war except as a sort of historic event. He'd never even had the sense of shared experience that he'd briefly felt with the injured Wiliam Bolitho or Tresham Brabourne. Yet the very fact that their friendship was one of the few that had accompanied him since childhood had its own power.

'You hardly need the map, then?'

'Actualy I haven't been to Birmingham for years. The old man used to bring me, trying to get me interested. My birthright of housemaids' boots and gentlemen's cufflink boxes. Had the opposite effect: couldn't wait to distance myself. Every time we came up here and saw the factory—much the same colour as pickled beetroot

—or the men: either cowed and overly respectful or surly and monosylabic—my heart sank. He'd make me handle the slimy hides as they hauled them slopping out of the tanks. My father liked to feel he was in touch with it al, so we'd end each visit by going to a tripe and pig-heel shop. Absolutely foul, and al the while his man would be waiting in the car outside. But it was the smel at the works that was so truly appaling. Perhaps people who spent their lives there became hardened to it but it was the most disgusting stink. I could recognise a tannery a mile off. Probably shal, today.'

As if to make his point he stood up and loosened the window strap.

'When my father died, and I came into my kingdom, the first thing I could think of was: thank God I could rid myself of it. Mama was al for it, of course, she'd never quite got over marrying into trade. And in the war half the men in the works had gone to join the Warwickshires, while the underage ones and the women were off making ammunition at Kynoch's, and at the end few wanted to come back any more than I did. Though I got a good price for the place.'

Before he'd even finished speaking, the train was juddering to a halt, puling in under the long glass station roof. Charles heaved himself into his coat; Laurence put on his hat and scarf. They went out into the corridor, stepped down and walked briskly along the platform and up the stairs, emerging on to a busy street.

Charles breathed in ostentatiously. 'Ah—best ladies' calfskin gloves,' he said. 'Now, as I recal, it's this way. We can walk,' he said. 'I don't think it's far at al.'

Although Laurence had no idea where Charles was heading, he was swept along by his confidence. As a tram clattered down the rise, a horse-drawn coal cart converged on it at an alarming angle, but one passed easily behind the other. It had turned into a crisp day and there were plenty of people about.

They walked for ten minutes between buildings that emanated an acrid smel of hot oil and coal fires against a continual din of metalic hammering and driling.

Through open doors they could see men working over benches and the glow of furnaces. They passed one courtyard that appeared to be ful of prison griles, until Laurence realised he was looking at bedsteads, piled up against every wal.

'You do know it's the Woodman we're looking for?' Laurence asked Charles.

Instead of replying, Charles rifled through an inner pocket, puled out a leather-bound book—the sort they'd al had in the army—and undid a stained brown strap. He turned the pages to the end and tipped it towards Laurence to show him an address.

'Tucker's home when he enlisted,' he said.

For once he resisted looking pleased with himself. Charles's careful writing read 'Florence Place'. It rang a bel but Laurence couldn't think why.

'Doesn't mean he'l be there or ever was, but it's a start. And it's not far away,' Charles said.

They seemed to be zigzagging across main streets. In one smal road two or three establishments sold nothing but hosiery, while another offered mostly household wares, with a cooper's sign over the door of the adjacent double-fronted store. Charles was moving steadily to the right. The shops displayed fewer wares in grubbier windows as the successive streets grew poorer, the houses in worse repair. Roofs bowed. Broken windows were papered over. Children playing in the street, some with bare legs in laceless boots, and women in dirty aprons over old coats, al stopped and stared at the two men. Charles occasionaly said 'Good morning'

briskly, but there was little response beyond a few nods of the head. There was a marked contrast between the poverty here and the busy industry only a few roads away.