Comes the Dark Stranger - Jack Higgins [8]
There were paintings piled untidily in every corner of the room, and a half-finished landscape in oils stood on an easel by the window. Shane lit a cigarette and nodded at the paintings. ‘Do you make a living doing this?’
She laughed lightly. ‘No, this is a hobby more than anything. I’m a free-lance industrial designer. Anything from furniture to materials.’ She pushed the dog to one side and sat down on the divan. ‘But we haven’t come here to discuss how I make a living. You were saying something rather startling about my brother.’
He nodded. ‘What exactly were you told by the War Office when you received news of his death?’
She shrugged. ‘That he’d been killed in action in June 1952. On the Yalu River, I think it was.’
Shane took out his notebook and opened it. ‘Do these four names mean anything to you?’ he said. ‘Adam Crowther, Joe Wilby, Reggie Steele or Charles Graham?’
She shook her head, a slight frown on her forehead. ‘No, I don’t think so. Should they?’
He put the notebook back into his pocket and shrugged. ‘They were all with your brother when he died, and they all happen to live in Burnham.’
She frowned again. ‘But isn’t that rather a coincidence?’
He shook his head. ‘When the Korean war started, the Government asked for volunteers. The day that happened, I was sitting in a small bar in a back-street near the university. That’s where I first met your brother. I’d just been sacked from my job as a copy-writer with a Manchester advertising firm, and I was passing through Burnham on my way to London. Simon and I started buying each other drinks, and by the time that announcement came over the radio we were both half-drunk. He was fed up with his job, and I didn’t have one, so we went down to the recruiting office together.’
‘And they accepted you in that state?’ she said incredulously.
‘Not only us but a dozen more,’ he told her, ‘and all from Burnham. We were drafted into the same infantry regiment.’
‘And you and my brother stuck together all the way through?’
He smiled slightly and unbuttoned his shirt-cuff. When he pulled back his sleeve she saw a green-and-red snake tattooed on his forearm together with the legend: ‘Simon and Martin - friends for life.’
Something suspiciously like laughter appeared in her eyes, and her lips quivered. ‘Wasn’t that rather juvenile?’
He grinned. ‘To tell you the truth we were drunk that time as well. We had shore leave in Singapore. It was the last stop before Korea, so …’ He shrugged. ‘We had to be carried back to the ship. When we came to next morning we had a snake each.’
‘And what happened after that?’ she said.
He shrugged, and lit another cigarette. ‘Nothing important. Just the usual things that happen in a war. The front-line, death and violence. Of course the climate didn’t help. It’s inclined to be cold in Korea during the winter.’
She nodded soberly. ‘I believe so. But how did my brother actually die?’
He ran his fingers through his hair, conscious of a faint ache behind his forehead, and frowned slightly as if remembering was an effort. ‘A big push was scheduled for our sector of the front. Six hours before the attack was to begin I was sent forward with a patrol consisting of Simon and the four men I mentioned earlier. We were to check on the minefields across the river.’
‘And what happened?’
He shrugged. ‘We were ambushed. One moment we were advancing through the night, the next they were swarming all over us. We didn’t fire a shot.’
‘And what did they do with you?’ she said.
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and leaned back against the wall. ‘There was a small Buddhist temple not far away. It was the headquarters of a Chinese intelligence officer named Colonel Li.’ As he spoke the name, his throat went dry and beads of perspiration sprang to his brow.
She leaned forward in alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded. ‘I’m fine, just fine.’ He moved past her and stood looking out of the window. ‘Colonel Li was an insignificant-looking little man with thick glasses