Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [70]
‘I did. She escaped.’ George was breezily defiant.
Joe snorted in exasperation. ‘Sir, are you saying you had the woman in your grasp and you let her loose?’
‘That’s about it. Yes. And, Joe, that’s exactly where I want her – on the loose. At liberty, to go where she pleases.’
Into the astonished silence he set about his explanation. With rather less than his usual confidence he spoke: ‘I’ve resigned my position, you know. I’m free for the first time in my life of duty, protocol, intrigue, politicking of any kind. I’m not so old I can’t enjoy the rest of my life. Got all my faculties and bags of energy. Knees not wonderful but I hear they can do amazing things in Switzerland with knees. Funnily enough, at the very moment when you might say my life was hanging by a thread, I’ve realized the value of it. It came to me on the bank of the Seine this morning. I’m going to make good use of whatever years are left to me and I’m not starting on them by taking the life or liberty of another. Especially not a woman like Alice whom you rightly surmise I have always held in esteem and affection.’
The expression in the blue eyes he turned on Joe was, for once, not distorted by guile, amusement or cynicism. The eyes were direct and piercing and Joe found it hard to meet them. How could he accuse George of negligence in letting Alice Conyers go free when he’d done exactly the same thing himself five years before?
‘And lastly, before you fall asleep, my boy, you’ll be wanting to hear about the rascal Somerton. Do try to concentrate. You really ought to know what it was he did to make a mighty number of people want to stick a dagger in him. Including yours truly!’
Chapter Fifteen
George took a fortifying swig of his brandy and lapsed into thought.
‘Look here, chaps,’ he said finally, ‘I know you’re both men of the world and violence is your stock in trade, so to speak, but what I have to tell you is shocking and offensive. In the extreme. You must be prepared. It may be that, when you understand the kind of man he was, you’ll be less eager to pursue his killer. A plague-infested rat . . . a striking cobra . . . Somerton . . . the world would always be well rid of them.
‘He was commanding officer of a military station in the north of India. Before the war. Known to me – we’d met briefly during a tour on the Frontier and I’d formed a dislike for the fellow then. The affair I’m about to mention was hushed up to avoid bringing disgrace on the British Army at the time so – if you’ll excuse me – I’ll respect that and give you no names, no pack drill.
‘You’ll know, Joe, that when outfits turn rotten, you always find the cause of it is the commanding officer. And Somerton’s was a rotten outfit. Oh, outwardly crisp – their drill and appearance could never be faulted. Indeed, in the way of such men, he was a stickler for detail, regimentation. So, the fact that he was running a brutish, bullying crew, moulded by him in his own image, was likely to be overlooked. They were never seriously tested militarily – I’m speaking of the period before the war when there was always the danger of units turning soft through inactivity and boredom – so I can’t speak for their fighting qualities. After the event, the whole corps was broken up and dispersed. I presume they went to France and many must have perished on the battlefields, along with the rest of the army of the day. I’m probably the only man left alive who would be willing to tell the tale but there must be many more who remember and will always stay silent.
‘There was a native village on the outskirts of the station . . . usual arrangement. Many of the local men undertook work for the army. One day the rubbish collectors, going about their business, found a body on the rubbish tip. It was the corpse of a young girl from their village. They all recognized her. She was the daughter of the dhobi – the laundryman.’ Sir George was uneasy with his story, his delivery flat and deliberately uninvolving.