She seemed to find difficulty in speaking. After a few moments she managed to say, ‘And what happened then?’
He shook his head. ‘We needn’t go into details. He came for us, one by one, that club foot of his sliding along the stone flags of the corridor. He tried for three hours, and nobody would talk. Finally he brought Charles Graham back to my cell and told me he was going to start again, only this time he was laying it on the line. Each man would be asked once to speak. If he refused, he would immediately be taken outside and shot.’
‘He must have been insane,’ she cried in horror.
Shane shook his head and said calmly, ‘No, he wasn’t insane. I don’t even think he derived any conscious pleasure from what he was doing. He was no sadist. That’s what made it worse. He was so unbelievably cold-blooded about the whole thing.’
He took out another cigarette and rolled it between his fingers in an abstracted manner, and she said, ‘And this was how Simon died?’
He pushed the cigarette into his mouth and lit it. ‘That’s right. He was the first to go. I heard the shots fired outside, and some time later Colonel Li came into the cell and told me he’d got the information he required. He said he regretted having had to shoot Simon, but war was war. He almost sounded as if he meant it.’
‘And who talked?’ Laura Faulkner said quietly.
There was a moment of complete silence as she waited for his answer, and rain tapped against the window with ghostly fingers. He turned slowly, his face calm and expressionless. ‘That’s what I’ve come to find out,’ he said.
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
He shook his head. ‘About two hours later the temple was blasted by American fighter-bombers. That’s when the curtains came down for me.’
She got to her feet and, walking across to the easel, stood looking at the unfinished landscape. After a while she said in a peculiar voice, ‘Tell me something. What happened to your regiment when it attacked?’
Shane leaned down and gently ruffled the dog’s ears with his right hand. ‘I found that out yesterday when I called at the War Office. The attack was a complete failure. There were over two hundred casualties.’
She picked up a brush and palette and started to work on the canvas. ‘Did you tell anyone at the War Office what you’ve just told me?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s been too long. They couldn’t do anything about it now if they wanted to. I discovered the other four had survived and were all living in Burnham. The clerk in charge of the records office was most obliging. For some reason he’d got hold of the idea I was trying to arrange a reunion.’
She frowned, concentrating on a particular corner of the canvas, the brush steady in her hand, and said tonelessly, ‘And are you?’
He walked across the room and stood behind her right shoulder and examined the painting. ‘I want to know who spilled his guts to Colonel Li seven years ago,’ he said, and his voice trembled slightly. ‘I want to know so bad I can taste it. I know it wasn’t me, and it couldn’t have been Graham because he was in the cell with me the whole time. That leaves Crowther, Wilby, and Reggie Steele.’
She dropped the palette and brush, and turned swiftly, her eyes flashing. ‘And what will you do when you find out?’ she said. ‘What possible good can it do to know after so many years?’
He started to turn away without answering, and she grabbed for his lapels to hold him. One of her hands knocked against the butt of the Luger, and the breath hissed sharply between her teeth. For a moment she gazed up into his face, horror in her eyes, and then she reached inside his jacket and pulled out the pistol. ‘You fool,’ she said. ‘You stupid, damned fool. What good will this do? Will it bring any of those men back? Will it help Simon?’
He took the Luger gently from her hand and replaced it in his inside pocket. As he buttoned his trench-coat he said quietly, ‘Let’s just say I’m doing this for myself and leave it at that.’
She turned from him, hands clasped in agony. ‘What right have you to come and upset all our lives like this?’ she said. ‘It’s ancient history now. Dead and buried long ago. Why can’t you leave it there?’
He ignored her outburst and turned towards the door. As he reached for the handle she cried out sharply, ‘They’ll hang you! You realize that, don’t you?’
A peculiar, twisted smile appeared on his face. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I shan’t be available.’
Something in his voice, some quality of deadness, caused her to shiver uncontrollably. ‘What do you mean by that remark?’ she said.
‘I mean that I’ll be dead, Miss Faulkner,’ he replied calmly, and there was a hard finality in his tone.
As he opened the door she darted across the room and caught hold of his arm. ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded.
He shrugged. ‘That fall I had did more than restore my memory. It moved the shrapnel into a more dangerous area of the brain. It means that an attempt to remove it is essential. I’ve got a date with a brain surgeon at Guy’s Hospital one week from today. If I don’t keep that appointment I’ll be dead within a fortnight and the odds are a hundred to one against success. Quite a choice, isn’t it?’
He walked out on to the veranda without waiting for a reply, and descended the steps to the garden. Behind him Laura Faulkner was crying uncontrollably. He glanced back once and saw her standing in the doorway, the Dobermann by her side, gazing after him.
He followed a path round the side of the house, and when he reached the corner he looked back again, but this time the door to the studio was closed and the veranda deserted.
It was still raining heavily as he walked away from the house, and when he reached the main road he hesitated on the corner, looking for a bus stop. There was a small general store opposite, and he bought some cigarettes and checked on Charles Graham’s address. It was only a quarter of a mile away on the main road into town, and he decided to walk.
He wondered if Graham had changed much. Seven years was a long time, but then Graham hadn’t been very old. He couldn’t be more than thirty-two or three now. As he walked along the wet pavement he tried to visualize the others. Wilby, a rough lout of a man with a long record of petty crimes, but a good soldier. Crowther had been a student, fresh from university, and Charles Graham had worked for his uncle, learning to be a wool-broker. And what about Reggie Steele? Shane tried hard, but was unable to remember.
It was something to which he was becoming accustomed by now, an irritating hangover from his illness that made him forget odd, unimportant things, leaving exasperating blanks in his memory.
He found Graham’s place with no difficulty. It was a large and pretentious, late-Victorian town house in grey stone standing remotely in a sea of smooth lawns and flower-beds. It had one unusual feature. Most of the second storey was taken up by a large conservatory, with a terrace that looked out over the valley to the town below.
Shane checked the address again, and then shrugged and walked along the drive to the front door. He pressed a button and a peal of chimes sounded melodiously from somewhere inside. After a moment or two he heard steps approaching. The door opened, a pleasant-faced, motherly looking old woman peered out at him. She was wearing a large white apron and there was flour on her hands.
‘I’d like to see Mr Graham if he’s at home,’ Shane said.
A