‘It’s clear,’ Johnson said, dejectedly.
‘Are the other men I wanted to talk to still waiting outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then send one of them in.’
The private who took Blenkinsop’s place in the chair opposite Blackstone was called Hicks. He was about twenty-two or twenty-three, and had intelligent eyes.
‘What did you do before you joined up?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I was a cooper,’ Hicks said. ‘I followed my old man into the trade. And between us, sir, we made the best beer barrels in the whole of London. You could always tell if you were drinking your bitter out of one of our barrels — somehow, it just tasted better.’
Blackstone smiled at the young soldier’s obvious enthusiasm for the work that the war had robbed him of, but before he went any further, he wanted to make sure that Hicks was as steady as he seemed to be.
‘Have you ever been in any trouble with the police?’ he asked.
Hicks grinned. ‘Have I ever been in trouble with the police?’ he repeated. ‘With a dad like mine to answer to? You’ve got to be joking, sir.’
‘He’s a bit of a hard case, is he?’
‘Not really,’ Hicks said seriously. ‘As a matter of fact, he never raised a hand to me when I was growing up — not even once. But if I’d ever done anything to bring the coppers round our house, he’d have thrashed me within an inch of my life — and I’d have deserved it!’
Blackstone nodded.
Hicks was just the kind of witness every policeman dreamed of — law-abiding, sober, and hard-working.
‘I want to ask you what happened in the trench the morning Lieutenant Fortesque was killed,’ he said.
‘All right,’ Hicks replied.
But already, his free and open attitude was starting to evaporate, and a note of caution was creeping into his voice.
‘Blenkinsop says that the lieutenant sent him off for a bottle of whisky about an hour before dawn,’ Blackstone said.
‘That’s right, he did,’ Hicks agreed, relaxing a little.
‘You saw him yourself, did you?’
‘I certainly did. As clear as I’m seeing you now. And I can go even further than that — I heard what the lieutenant said to him.’
‘And what did he say to him?’
‘He said, “Quick as you can, Blenkinsop. I really need that drink”.’
‘Did you see anybody enter the dugout after Blenkinsop had left?’ Blackstone asked.
Hicks’ eyes suddenly went blank.
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said in a wooden voice.
‘Nobody at all?’ Blackstone persisted.
‘Not a soul.’
‘So the lieutenant bashed his own brains in, did he?’
‘I don’t know.’
Blackstone sighed. ‘What sort of officer was Lieutenant Charles Fortesque?’ he asked.
‘A good one,’ Hicks replied, without hesitation. ‘One of the best. Nobody wants to charge into the jaws of hell, but if you have to do it, then you want a bloke like Lieutenant Fortesque leading you.’
‘And yet — despite your obvious admiration for him — you don’t want to see his killer brought to justice?’ Blackstone asked.
Hicks looked guiltily at the table. ‘If I thought I could help you, sir, then I would,’ he muttered.
‘You can help me,’ Blackstone said. ‘All you need to do is tell me who you saw going into the dugout.’
‘What if the person I saw was an officer?’ Hicks asked.
‘What if it was?’
‘They’re never going to charge an officer with the murder, are they? You could have a watertight case against him, and he’d still get away with it, because his kind always will.’
‘Give me his name,’ Blackstone said.
‘But what would happen to the poor bloke who fingered him?’ Hicks continued, ignoring him. ‘Well, that’s a different matter entirely, isn’t it? He’d be a marked man.’
‘No one need ever know you’d told me,’ Blackstone assured him.
‘They’d find out,’ Hicks said fatalistically. ‘Somehow, they always seem to find out.’
‘Just give me the name,’ Blackstone coaxed.
‘There was no officer, except for Lieutenant Fortesque, in the trench that night,’ Hicks said firmly. ‘Or if there was, I certainly didn’t see him.’
With minor variations, Blackstone got the same story from the rest of the platoon. Most of the men had seen Blenkinsop leave, and several of them had heard his exchange with Lieutenant Fortesque. But none of them had seen anyone — least of all an officer — enter the dugout after Blenkinsop had left.
Blackstone lit up a cigarette, and wondered what to do next.
Well, he finally decided, after a couple of puffs, if the men who were treated like monkeys weren’t saying anything, then maybe it was time he went and talked to the men who thought they were the organ grinders.
SEVEN
As he got closer to the bottom of the hill, Blackstone was not at all surprised to hear the familiar sound of leather striking willow, nor the restrained clapping which followed it.
This was, after all, a beautifully warm and gentle summer day — the sort of day the English talked about with such pride that they might almost believe they invented it.
And what else would the inhabitants of villages all over England do on a day like this, but flock to the village green, drink warm beer and watch a game so imbued with complexities and nuances that it had become the most Byzantine of English institutions?
Of course, this wasn’t England. It didn’t even look like England. And when the breeze blew in the right direction, it was possible to hear the boom of guns engaged in a bloody and tragic conflict. But such minor considerations had no effect on the Englishmen playing cricket on the edge of St Denis. They were doing what Englishmen always did when they were abroad — completely ignoring the fact that this was a foreign land, and carrying on as usual.
Blackstone reached the temporary pitch, and surveyed the scene. The batsmen and the bowlers, he noted, were all dressed in immaculate cricket whites. The fielders, in contrast, wore mud-stained khaki.
So it didn’t necessarily have to be viewed as just a cricket match, Blackstone told himself. If he were of a mind to — and at that moment he was — he could take it as a symbol of a society in which the rich and privileged had all the fun, and the poor and dispossessed ran themselves ragged making that possible.
He walked over to one of the rich and privileged, a blond-haired, sharp-featured man who, having been recently bowled out, was sitting on a camp stool — his soldier-servant standing in constant attendance behind him — and sipping at what looked like pink gin.
It was obvious that the officer was fully aware of his approach, but it was not until Blackstone was right at his side that he took his eyes off the cricket match, and looked up.
He smiled sardonically, through thin lips.
‘I was wondering how long it would take you to get round to paying us a visit, Inspector Blackstone,’ he said.
‘And why is that, Lieutenant Maude?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Because, unlike many of my friends, I don’t necessarily equate being lower class with being stupid.’
‘Could I ask you to explain that?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Certainly,’ Maude said easily. ‘The last time we met was in the company headquarters dugout in the reserve trench, was it not?’
‘It was.’
‘At the time, you probably didn’t give such a brief encounter even a moment’s thought,’ Maude said.
Oh, but I did, Blackstone reminded himself. Even then, I sensed that something wasn’t quite right.
‘And why should you have?’ Maude continued. ‘After all, the army is so full of arrogant young officers like Soames, Hatfield and I that you couldn’t spit without hitting one of them. Is that correct?’