She came to on a long chair in the house. For a moment she thought it was a compassionate, sympathetic stranger looking down at her, then she remembered the soldier.
‘Lie still,’ he said.
She closed her eyes again, half rebellious. Was he going to start ordering her about too, like his officer?
‘I’ll fetch missy drink.’ It was Chemor’s voice. ‘Then go find mother and tuan. They coming long way round,’ he said, nodding significantly to Liz as she opened her eyes again.
Alan Cresswell supported the glass as her limbs shook. ‘I think it’s shock,’ she reported as the glass rattled on her teeth.
‘I would say that’s about right,’ he agreed, holding on to the glass and pulling up a stool so he could hand it back if she wanted more. ‘The tracker told me you had found your father’s jeep.’ She looked up at him with such an agonised expression he reached forward and took her hand, held it tight.
‘Mysteries about people you love are awful,’ he said.
She suddenly realised he was older than she had first thought, probably not an eighteen-year-old conscript at all. She wondered if there was some personal reason he had made that remark, or whether he was just talking to distract her from whatever thoughts had driven her to escape consciousness.
‘I heard before I came that your father was missing. I’m not sure how that feels — but maybe something like my father’s sudden death.’ He stopped, frowned and looked down at their hands, and instinctively she curled her fingers tighter around his as if the role of comforter could be hers too. ‘I went to his funeral the day before we sailed from Southampton.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Her concern for him now veneered the raw anxiety she had been feeling; innate sympathy and trained good manners prompted the question, ‘What happened?’
‘I still can’t believe it, really. He was only forty-eight. In the air force all through the war, then dies digging the garden. My mother’s completely floored.’
The unseemliness of rushing a son from his mother within a day of his father’s funeral was outrageous. ‘Wouldn’t the army give you compassionate leave?’
‘I did have extra time, but there was a postmortem and an inquest — and they said as I had an older brother at home they considered my mother was taken care of.’ He paused and looked at her a little shamefaced, ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘I shouldn’t he … you have enough worries.’
She pushed herself upright, denying the need for apology. ‘So your mystery was how he died.’
‘More why, really. The sort of question you ask yourself when you’re hurt. It doesn’t make sense, just gives you a better sense of grievance.’ He smiled ruefully.
‘But at least you know.’ She gritted her teeth for a second to stay the tears, lifting her chin as she had been taught. Shoulders back, chin up, don’t slouch. She remembered being stood in the school gymnasium, her shoulder blades and the small of her back pressed against the wall, to teach her deportment. ‘Are you a regular soldier?’ she asked.
‘No, just your run-of-the-mill conscript.’ He tossed the empty glass in the air and caught it. ‘But I wish our drill sergeant at the Guards’ depot could hear you ask me. He used to say I was “as upright as the bleeding Tower of Pisa!”’
The imitation made her laugh. Then she heard herself say, ‘I think my father’s dead. Now I do think he’s dead. It’s just not knowing where he is, what happened to him.’
He gave her time to take control again. ‘He was in the war, I expect.’
‘He was in the navy. He was always away, always in danger — but I thought when the war was over ... ’ She looked around as if scanning not just the lounge but the whole terrorised countryside. ‘But we’ve just swopped one battle for another.’
‘That was another thing my mother took so hard, my being sent out to a battle area when her husband and first son had fought all through until 1945. She wrote to her Member of Parliament.’
‘Did she have an answer?’
‘He came to Southampton to see the troop ship off.’
They both laughed. Looking in each other’s eyes they saw the rueful understanding and laughed again but softer, like echoes of people in old age talking of lost loves.
The sound was that of a man presented with an intriguing emotional problem he wanted to solve, but was totally unsure how to tackle it.
Liz studied him as he now tossed the glass in a series of rapid arcs from hand to hand, thinking of the sketch she had made of him. How strange that he should come to Rinsey! She weighed what she now knew, weighing the sadness in his life with her impression, and yet there was still more, some quality that she could not name in words or drawings — not yet, anyway. She felt she might well have echoed his ‘Hmm’ for she was just as fascinated.
He held the glass suddenly still and caught her studying him. They both smiled again, very carefully.
‘I think I can hear your mother coming.’ He rose to his feet and, backing away, looked once more a young, tall, awkward soldier in jungle green. Desolate was how she felt as he moved away towards the door.
Blanche came in quickly, anxiety making her forgetful of her own exhaustion. She noted the glass in the young man’s hand and the complete lack of vagueness in her daughter’s face. ‘No wonder you felt faint going off after Chemor! What did that achieve?’
*
All the whole expedition achieved was related to the police inspector from Ipoh and his sergeant early the next morning. Liz was surprised when all those who had visited the fails, and Alan Cresswell, were interviewed separately by Inspector Aba. ‘As if we’re suspects,’ she complained.
After her interview she admitted to herself she had told far more about the missing Josef than she would had her mother been present, even going back to her first sighting of him coming through the back garden.
Chemor also spent a long time with the police and afterwards led them off through the plantation. She was helping her mother prepare a curry tiffin for everyone when they returned by the back way.
‘The inspector’s uniform looks a bit worse for wear.’ She drew her mother’s attention to the window.
They watched as George joined the police and Chemor. A serious conference seemed to be developing and the guardsman was beckoned over.
Liz wondered about going out to join them, but judged it looked like a closed circle of men making decisions.
‘Men only, I think,’ Blanche said, as if reaching the same conclusion.
‘And it’s not about where the perimeter wire is going to be,’ Liz was certain. ‘They look as if they’ve got their hands tied to their sides, they’re keeping them so still!’
‘They know we’re watching.’
The serious talk went on for some time, then the inspector seemed to reach some decision and all of them nodded.
‘That was unanimous, anyway,’ Blanche commented with dark irony.
‘I’ll go and see what they’re discussing.’
‘They’d stop. Just watch.’
The inspector stepped back as if leaving his final words for approval. George nodded several times and moved forward, hand outstretched as if ready to help. Instructions now from inspector to sergeant, who saluted his acceptance, then more tentatively to the soldier. He rubbed his chin speculatively, then seemed to make a suggestion that rather spoiled the momentum. The men went back to the circle. The inspector spoke rapidly again; George put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
Liz saw Alan glance towards the kitchen window where they stood, then he made the dismissive open-handed gesture of one who has tried to help but has been turned down. She would ask him what it was all about. She was deciding to go and tell him about the spare charpoy in the old nursery at the first opportunity, as the inspector nodded himself away from the others and came towards the kitchen door.