Armistice (17 page)

The streets were dark, sparsely peopled. They passed a row of shops. In a little garden or square off to the side she saw
the flames of a bonfire, and men, like statues, warming themselves at it. They looked mostly young, dressed in military uniforms. Nearby at a night kitchen, hands holding ladles dished liquid into mugs offered up. For a moment she thought she glimpsed the soldier she and Jonathan had cut down—she almost called for the taxi driver to stop—but when she saw the boy's face clearly in the flickering light it wasn't him but one similar: another young, gaunt and pale.

Was she in peril from meeting Anthony? She didn't think so. He had no idea who she really was. Should she find Jonathan to tell him she'd met Anthony Dore and her opinion of him? What was the point of that? She was never going to meet Anthony Dore again, either as Felicity or herself. Failed plan. Objective not achieved. It wasn't as if she could make him tell her anything, was it?

As she entered The Whitehall, exhaustion washed over her. The porter barely acknowledged her while handing over the key. He was a surly one; greasy, spotty, who despite his obvious deficiencies arrogantly tried to give off that he shouldn't be here as he was too good for the place. Philomena idly wondered if night staff were chosen for their disagreeableness, or if the unnatural world of nocturnal work had made this one the way he was. Dropping her key in her hired bag she began to climb the stairs, wishing she were going to her own bed, using the hand rail as an aid to lift her tired body.

Anthony watched Felicity from outside the front doors. He hadn't arrived at his vantage point in time to see if she'd
retrieved a key or spoken to the staff. Was Felicity staying there, or visiting? It was a rather shabby place. The porter moved out of Anthony's view and didn't reappear. Anthony decided not to make inquiries about Felicity. He'd simply follow her, corner her, and demand to know why she'd walked out on him so abruptly. He slipped in through the entrance doors, swiftly crossed the foyer, and started up the stairway.

Almost asleep on her feet Philomena was taking the last steps to her room when a figure stepped out of the shadows, startling her. She stifled a gasp.

“Phil?”

“Jonathan …”

He stood back and looked her up and down. “Gosh. You look …”

“I went shopping,” she said, truthfully, feeling somewhat guilty, then telling herself not to feel that.

“Didn't you just!” said Jonathan, no hint of disapproval in his voice. But there was a question.

“It's all hired.”

Flustered, she rootled in the folds of her unfamiliar bag for the key. She wasn't sure how she felt about finding that Jonathan had been waiting for her; checking up on her. She remembered to remember that he didn't know about Felicity, or about her having met Anthony Dore.

“My key,” still rootling.

“You've lost it?”

“I can't find it.”

Jonathan watched her search in her bag, relieved that she hadn't just told him to get lost.

She'd forgotten her intention never to speak to him again, and she knew she looked fantastic, if a little jaded. She thought that he must have been wondering where on earth she'd been to that time, dressed like that. It must have looked as if mourning Dan was quite low on her list.

A stairway down, Anthony Dore could hear the soft noises and the occasional sound from two voices, a man's and a woman's. He heard the woman distinctly say “got them” and the man mutter something. Anthony heard a key in a lock. Believing they were about to enter a room, desperate to see if it was Felicity and a man, he inched toward the corner of the landing.

“Can I come in?” asked Jonathan, on the threshold. “There's something I need to tell you, that I wasn't quite straight about last night.”

“I don't know,” she said.

He held his hands up to show he presented no threat.

“How long have you been waiting?” she asked.

“Not long really,” said Jonathan. “I wondered if you wanted supper. I could tell you about this thing.”

“It's too late for supper, now.”

“Yes, but it wasn't when I first thought about it.”

“Very well.” She opened her door and stepped in.

“Thanks,” said Jonathan, following her inside.

* * *

Anthony peeped around the corner, just glimpsing the man's heels before the door shut behind him. He waited, went to the door and listened from a few feet away. He couldn't hear anything from inside room four oh seven. He didn't even know if it was Felicity in there.

Inside the room Jonathan stood awkwardly, unsure where to put himself. Philomena perched on the edge of the bed, removed her shoes, rubbed her feet, wondering whether she should tell Jonathan anything of her adventures. He looked out toward the shabby young soldier's window, and said: “I was wondering about the boy, the young sol—”

“I don't know,” she said, meaning she didn't know what had happened to him.

“Oh, I do,” said Jonathan. “He'll survive, they tell me at the hospital.”

“You went to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I'm glad.” Glad the boy would survive and glad Jonathan went to see him. It hadn't crossed her mind to do so.

“His name is William Rust. He's nineteen.”

“I thought he was about that age. Did you find out why?”

“No. He's not speaking yet. His throat, you know. And they didn't find a note.”

“Poor lad. I thought I saw him earlier, in the street.”

“I'm going to try and get him off. No point in charging him with attempted suicide.”

She nodded. No, no point. There was something familiar about Jonathan being there. It was quiet.

“Do you mind me being here?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, surprised he asked that. Had she been telling him she did mind without meaning to?

“Look, I should go,” he said. “You must think I'm mad. I wondered if you wanted supper and then I lost track.”

“I would have liked supper with you,” she said quietly, almost to herself, watching Jonathan's eye fall on something. He stopped moving toward the door and dipped his head toward the photo of Dan smoking a stick.

“This is good.”

“Isn't it,” she said, not wanting him to go. “But you said there was another reason other than supper you wanted to see me.”

Jonathan patted his pockets. “I've got something of his, somewhere.”

Outside the room, Anthony Dore could hear the man's voice had moved closer and he could almost make out a few words, but he could also hear footfalls coming up the stairs. He was going to have to move away—and fast—if he wasn't to be caught snooping. He took off in the opposite direction from the approaching feet. As he walked further down the corridor he could tell that they had left the stairs and were walking behind him. Accelerating as much as he could without breaking into a run, for that would advertise his guilt, he saw a door marked exit that he pushed open, hoping that it looked as if
he knew where he was going. Behind the door lay an uninviting service stairway. He gave in to panic and began to run down, on the verge of tripping, taking the steps two, three, or even four at a time.

Inside four oh seven Jonathan's hand emerged from his pocket and Philomena was astonished to see that it was holding a photograph of her. She had been about to reach out her hand to take whatever it was that Jonathan had of Dan's but now she didn't know what to do. Jonathan twitched the photo back and forth as if unable to decide what to do with it, either. He tried to joke: “I expect you know what you look like.”

“That's me in a previous life,” she said.

Jonathan carefully placed the photograph of her on the bedside table next to the photograph of Dan.

“Was that the thing?” she asked, suspecting that that photo couldn't have been the thing he'd said he hadn't been straight about last night.

“Cognac!” said Jonathan loudly, flourishing a hip flask. “Fancy one?”

She shook her head. Jonathan took a big swig then reached in another pocket for something else. It was a pack of cards held together in a plastic band.

“These are the cards,” he said.

It took her a moment to catch on. “The cards from the game?”

Jonathan nodded. “The alleged game. I didn't let on last night that I still had them.”

Philomena immediately wanted to touch them, hold them.
With great reverence, Jonathan handed the pack to her. “You can remove the band.”

Philomena slipped it off and around her wrist, then didn't know how to hold the cards.

“You're thinking about fingerprints, aren't you?” said Jonathan. “There aren't any. I stole Dore's to test them. Got them off a glass in a bar. But these cards are too battered and sweaty and scarred to give a reliable result.”

“That's a pity,” she said with feeling. “That's a damned shame.”

“He would have claimed any fingerprints were from another game, on another day,” said Jonathan, resignedly.

“But you said he and Major Chiltern hadn't met before in the war,” said Philomena, countering his apathy.

“My word against his, again. He would also have argued that I couldn't prove that Major Chiltern had always owned the cards, so he, Anthony Dore, could have played a hand with a previous owner. Or that Major Chiltern had lent them to another man with whom Dore played cards. Basically, if it isn't possible to trace the pack from new and prove that they had only ever been in Major Chiltern's possession then even a crystal clear set of Anthony Dore's prints on them wouldn't suffice.”

Philomena felt more guilty that she wasn't telling Jonathan about meeting Anthony. To cover it she fanned the cards and said: “Everyone plays brag. It's not a proper game like poker or something.”

Jonathan glanced at her for confirmation that this was a non sequitur.

“Yes, there's no strategy to brag that I can see,” he agreed. “Once the cards are dealt it's just bloody-mindedness.”

At which Dan had excelled, thought Philomena. Jonathan took another swig of cognac from his hip flask.

“Damn Major Chiltern. If only he'd mentioned it or written to anybody about the run up to that card game. Dore couldn't have known that he hadn't when he lied that there wasn't a game. Lucky bastard. I put an ad in the
Times
—anonymously. Asking for anyone who'd spoken to Major Chiltern on his last day, or received any letter from him, to reply—also anonymously if they wished.”

“Anthony Dore's lack of guile might indicate that he isn't using any, that he has no need to,” said Philomena.

Jonathan studied her, his eyes piercing hers for once. “Are you playing devil's advocate?” he mused. Before she could answer he added, “You're right to be skeptical.”

She didn't know what more to do with the cards so she replaced the elastic band and handed the pack back to Jonathan. Both resumed looking out of the window. A distant door banged shut. Faint footsteps.

“Can I ask you something?” she said, warming to a subject that had been nagging at her.

Jonathan looked at her, scared. But: “Yes,” he said.

“How seriously did you think about killing yourself?”

Jonathan glanced out toward William Rust's window. Then he couldn't return Philomena's gaze. He gulped some cognac. “I'm still here.”

He looked hounded, cornered, did something, fought it, made some shift inside, shrugged.

“After my allegations were dismissed I went on a bit of a bender. I wanted to do something, to act, but there was no clear thing to do. The war had ended, the guns were silent, there were no more explosions, but I felt all that was still going on inside me. I tried to write you a letter but I couldn't get the wording right. I know I sent you one eventually but it was very much diluted. By the way, may I have a look at Dore's letter to you?”

She knew exactly where it was so it only took a moment to find and hand over. Jonathan read it, shaking his head.

“The next day,” he went on, “I went to Dan's makeshift grave where it said, ‘killed in action' and I thought, this just won't do, this just isn't on, this is a lie.” He handed Dore's letter back to Philomena. “I looked for Major James but he'd already packed up and gone. I didn't even know if anyone else was aware of my allegations. But soon I had a visit from a chaplain named Gillies. It didn't go well. He offered me comfort; I asked him what he thought was the truth about my allegation. He said he didn't know what I was talking about. He'd heard I was in difficulty. I think he knew that I'd made an allegation, but not what it was. He told me that I should tread carefully—I should know that, especially as I had been a barrister before the war. I asked him what he was before the war, a man of God? I started swearing a bit I'm afraid. I said, ‘You fucking believe me though, don't you, God-man? I can see it in your eyes. Even though you might not know the sordid details, you know
that what I alleged is true.' You can see how far gone I was, how close to the edge. He swore back at me; ‘I dinna fucking will inything, actually,' he said. Fair play to the chaplain. He was Scottish. I can't do a Scottish accent. But he said: ‘The fucking war's over and I'm going to go home and forget aboot it and if I wis you, I'd do the same. Forget it, drop it, or you will ruin your promising career.' To which I inquired if the chaplain had been offered a nice little tenure somewhere. I was just being out and out rude by now so he turned on his heel and muttered something about praying for me. I remember shouting at his back: ‘I'm going to tell God about you!'”

Jonathan tutted and shook his head as if to say: What was I thinking of?

“Next thing, I found myself almost arrested for fraternizing with the enemy. The military police had to prevent me from sauntering over to the German lines to inquire if any of them were witnesses to Dan's death. I don't know,” said Jonathan, scratching his ear. “When I was sitting one night, a bit tipsy, back here in London, thinking about … It's huge emotions with no outlet … Anyway, I didn't do it. Here I stand before you, as proof. Nor did I tell God about anything. I would have done, once. I used to argue with atheists who challenged me to prove the existence of God. No one can, of course. Prove it. Now I feel the same certainty about Anthony Dore's guilt that I used to feel about the existence of God. I know it's true but I can't prove it. Perhaps one day I'll stop believing in Dore's guilt, too.”