Armistice (10 page)

She thanked him, which felt strange—but what else could she say? His effort had been immense. She stood up. Jonathan looked quizzically up at her then also stood. She thanked him a second time and left the cafe. Jonathan didn't try to persuade her to stay, or follow her. She didn't care that she was walking the streets alone in the dark.

In her bed, during what remained of the night, Philomena couldn't sleep. Too stirred up. Her hotel creaked and groaned hideously anyway. In the predawn quiet the unfamiliar background London noise—continuous motor engines, horses, trains, trams and hawkers, and the hum of millions of humans—was reduced, and all the hotel's sounds came to the fore. The footsteps above, the creaking bed next door one way, the snoring that rumbled in from next door the other way, or from above. There were also the pipes that roared alarmingly every now and again—the waste pipes that is, that ran vertically down the corner of her room. But all these external sounds were themselves only the background to the thoughts swirling in her mind. Jonathan Priest, whom she knew to be Dan's friend because Dan wrote to her saying that he was, was suggesting that Dan was murdered by a superior officer just after the war ended. And she'd sworn that she wouldn't go running to anyone to ask if any of this was true. Well, she hadn't quite promised exactly that, had she? She'd promised to not say that Jonathan had told her. And she wouldn't. But she had to try and verify Jonathan's story, didn't she? If there
had been an investigation, there must be a record. The army were sticklers for all that, weren't they?

She took out one of her letters. It was short. In it the author offered his sincere condolences. He'd only just met Daniel. His death was “a tragedy, no, a crime.” This letter was signed Anthony Dore …

Would he have written such a letter if he were Dan's killer? He was, as he stated in the letter, a superior officer “with him when he died,” so a letter would be normal, wouldn't it? To not write would be abnormal, wouldn't it?

Would someone else turn up with another story that told a third version of Dan's death? Perhaps even one in which he wasn't dead at all. He'd been horribly disfigured. Or he'd lost his memory—she reined in her imagination. Dan was dead, that was certain—or was it, now, now that everything she knew had been placed in doubt? But how should she feel about the possibility that Dan might have been murdered? She didn't feel like she thought she should. She imagined that she should feel angry. But she just felt confused.

She lay down and made a mental list of possible next steps.

1. Go back to Major James and fish for information without dropping Jonathan in it. Major James, who had written her the official version of Dan's death.

2. Drop Jonathan in it. Jonathan, a man whom she had witnessed striving for justice in the case of the one-armed veteran, and whom Dan said was his friend—
who'd told her a wildly different version of Dan's death, but one that she was not allowed to quote from.

3. Seek out Anthony Dore. Anthony Dore, a man she'd never met, who wrote her a slightly different version of Dan's death, and had been accused by Jonathan of actually being Dan's murderer.

4. Quiz Jonathan, testing his story.

5. Go home and think about it.

She tried to sleep, hoping that when she woke she would have the answer.

The morning sky was gunmetal gray, rendering The Daphne drabber than before. In the bathroom down the hallway there was a pair of clean knickers sitting tidily on the floor in front of the sink. Philomena had a vision of the owner stepping out of them and leaving them there. Had she been alone? She had a sudden vision of sex with Dan. She didn't chase it away. She let it last as long as it wanted then washed herself, thinking again about Jonathan's story, about Jonathan's character, about what she felt about Anthony Dore in advance of ever having set eyes on him. She told herself to guard against pre-judging him, then went out in search of some breakfast.

She re-introduced herself to Major James' aide and asked if it would be possible to see the major for a few extra moments before she caught the train home. This was an untruth in the sense that it made it sound as if her train was imminent when
in fact she didn't intend traveling home immediately, but it wasn't a downright lie.

There was a mirror in the waiting area. She saw that her eyes still displayed the bright dilation of the grieving and the scared. Everyone must be familiar with that look through the war, and now, in the aftermath. Big eyes in shrunken faces. The points of light on the tips of her irises were pronounced that day. She realized Major James was watching her look at herself, a wary look in his eye. Was he sneaking about or had she been preoccupied? He ushered her into his office. As before, she sat on the creaky seat and he perched on the front of his desk, but then she saw that he changed his mind and took his seat the other side, as if the necessity had occurred to him to be more formal.

“Thank you for seeing me again,” she said.

“I'm pleased that I am able to,” Major James replied, showing his practiced smile.

“There is something that I meant to ask you yesterday, that I forgot to.”

“Oh?” said Major James. “Fire away.”

She steadied herself. “I received several letters of condolence from military sources,” she said. “One of them puzzled me at the time because it referred to my fiancé's death as a ‘crime.'”

“A crime?” asked Major James. “Really?” He was acting as if he didn't understand. “Did they elaborate?”

“No.”

“They shouldn't have written that. Whoever they were.”

Philomena ignored his oblique request for the identity of the writer.

“But something did happen? Something unusual?” she asked.

He mused for a few moments. It was obvious that Philomena knew that something had happened. She hoped that he wrongly assumed—as she intended—that he knew who had written to her that Dan's death was a crime.

“There was an unfounded allegation of a crime, made by a man who couldn't substantiate any of it. No evidence of a crime. No witnesses. That's all.”

“Was there an inquiry?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Major James. He winced and seemed to lose his nerve: “Look, I really can't tell you anything more.”

“Was it a crime or wasn't it?”

“It was an accusation. Whoever wrote to you was out of turn in bringing it up. I'm afraid that I am very pressed for time,” he said, rising suddenly from his seat.

“Let me tell you what I know,” said Philomena, also rising. “I shall be very brief. Please give me just one more minute of your time.”

“I have nothing to say except this,” said Major James. “Pursue it and you'll end up in court.”

“Please, just confirm for me, was there an allegation that my fiancé's death wasn't at the hands of the enemy? Please!”

Major James paused, nodded several times to himself then once to her. She felt herself shiver. Last night Jonathan's story had seemed slightly dream-like, but now it was solidifying.
She said: “One officer alleged that another officer had killed my fiancé?”

Major James nodded.

“Over a gambling debt?”

Major James nodded.

“But he didn't witness the crime and nor did anyone else?”

Major James nodded.

“The man making the allegation claimed that the gambling debt arose from a game of cards?”

Major James nodded.

“But the accused man denied that any such game ever took place?”

Major James nodded.

“And the pledges, or IOUs, were never found?”

Major James nodded.

She guessed: “The accused made it clear to all concerned that the allegations shouldn't be repeated.”

Major James nodded. That meant he had been warned off by Anthony Dore?

“The accused was Anthony Dore,” she said.

Something in Major James balked at confirming this. He neither nodded nor shook his head. She tried a different question.

“The accuser was Jonathan Priest?”

Major James began to move crab-like to the door. “Your time is up, I'm afraid. I'm sorry about your fiancé,” he said. “Being the last to die is especially poignant—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “you didn't tell me that he was killed after the war ended.”

“It wasn't after, as such. It was contiguous.”

“What does that mean?”

“The war didn't stop dead on eleven a.m.”

“No,” she bristled, “for Dan it stopped ‘dead' a few moments after, while men were stopping fighting and deciding not to kill each other anymore. That much is true, isn't it? That Dan was killed while other men were acting as if it was all over?”

“It is extremely difficult to end a war. Especially when not everyone wants to. And for men in the midst of battle, it's impossible to know the overall picture. They can only deal with what's in front of them. It's very hard to trust that if one stops fighting the enemy will do the same.” He was becoming strident. “To make any kind of accusation stick you require a witness or physical evidence. Anybody who doesn't have these should tread very carefully, very carefully indeed, and think more than twice before repeating any allegation that a particular crime has been committed.”

“I think that you are thinking something in error,” she said. “I haven't misled you but you have assumed that you know the identity of the person who described Dan's death as a crime. It was Anthony Dore. He wrote to me that Dan's death was a crime.”

Major James was speechless for a moment. His eyes flicked to and fro.

“Captain Dore wrote that to you?” He looked aghast.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Anthony Dore wrote to you?”

“Offering his condolences.” It struck Philomena that it was significant that Major James didn't think that it was at all appropriate for Anthony Dore to write to her. Which told her what? That Major James thought that Anthony Dore had been in some way impertinent to write to her, or brazen, perhaps, or just plain wrong.

“You don't think that it is quite the thing for Anthony Dore to have done, do you? The letter is the reason I thought that Dan and Anthony Dore were friends. Here it is.”

She handed it over without waiting for an answer and watched Major James read it. Outwardly he gave very little away.

“I really have to get on,” he said, handing the letter back. “I've told you all I can.”

Philomena wondered if he cared. She liked to think that he did.

After that second meeting with Major James she knew that she would have to meet Anthony Dore and decide about him for herself. But as soon as Dore knew she was Daniel Case's fiancée then any chance she had of extracting the truth from him would be gone. His guard would come up. And he must have a guard after what he'd been accused of. Instead she decided to seek Jonathan out to tell him that Major James had confirmed that he had made a serious allegation against a fellow officer. Which wasn't the same as saying that Major James had confirmed that Anthony Dore murdered Dan. Not the same thing at all.

She had a cup of tea in an ordinary working people's cafe and settled herself before visiting Jonathan's chambers, where she discovered from Jones what sort of time he'd be back. She decided against going to court again to watch him because Jones said in view of the time it would be too easy to miss him as he left. And she'd begun to feel uncomfortable being in places she wouldn't normally visit, being amongst only men all the time. There were hardly any women in and around the courts. Only the odd mother or younger woman in the public areas.

With some time to kill she wandered north-east. The ancient area of Lincoln's Inn gave way slowly to less salubrious surroundings. A railway line ran above, borne on a viaduct. Underneath, arches housing modest industrial units. The people here were ones that she felt familiar with. Self-employed men and women running their own affairs. There was a cabinetmaker, an upholsterer, and a marble merchant. She noticed one arch had “Art Gallery” painted in rough brushwork directly onto the brick. The door—the slightly smaller than man-sized one inset in the big one that opened the entire front of the arch—was ajar. She positioned herself so that she could see inside. The interior walls had been whitewashed. She could see paintings hanging on them. What she couldn't do, though, was raise her foot to step over the threshold, despite the fact that she wanted to. She'd been to galleries before, but big, municipal ones where the paintings hung in ornate rooms and you knew they had to be good otherwise they wouldn't be there and nobody made
you feel stupid by finding out what you didn't know about “art.” That was her main fear, that someone would make her feel stupid if she entered that tiny, intimate art gallery. Someone would ask her if she found a certain painting was like that by such and such, or reminiscent of thingy. And they'd confidently recite foreign names that didn't sound anything like their spelling. She turned to go and nearly bumped into a strong-looking woman coming the other way.

“Crikey,” she said, in a strange accent.

“Sorry,” replied Philomena.

“I thought you were about to go in,” said the woman, in what Philomena guessed was an American accent. She scrunched up her nose. “It's free entry,” said the woman. “It's mine, so I should know. Come in. Just look. I won't bother you. I'll leave you alone in the room with them, okay?”

Philomena had just enough time to worry who exactly it was that the American wanted to leave her alone with before she took her by the arm and guided her into the gallery.

She needn't have worried. It was only the paintings the woman referred to. Philomena brought them to mind later as she watched Jonathan make his way down the pavement toward his chambers. There were two pictures in particular that had made a deep impression on her. One was a depiction of a figure, a civilian, lying dead in a street, apparently after an attack. The cobbles had been thrown up and a shutter on a nearby building was dislodged. The rag doll figure lay limp, a pool of blood around its head. She'd looked closer
and realized it was a child wearing shorts. The second picture was of soldiers but they were all square and machine-like, in rows. The earth that they were trying to dig into was metallic in color. Men and metal seemed to have commingled. It wasn't realistic. It looked like the men would clank when they walked, and get rusty if left out in the rain.