As the Crow Flies (55 page)

I
chose a Monday to make the trip as I suspected it would be the quietest day of
the week on which to have a pub lunch. Before I set out on the journey I
telephoned the Happy Poacher to be sure Mr. Wrexall would be on duty that day.
His wife assured me that he would be around and I put the phone down before she
could ask why I wanted to know.

During
my journey up to Cheshire I rehearsed a series of non-questions again and
again. Having arrived in the village of Hatherton I parked my car down a side
road some way from the pub before strolling into the Happy Poacher. I
discovered three or four people standing at the bar chatting and another half
dozen enjoying a drink around a mean-looking fire. I took a seat at the end of
the bar and ordered some shepherd’s pie and a half pint of best bitter from a
buxom, middle-aged lady whom I later discovered was the landlord’s wife. It
took only moments to work out who the landlord was, because the other customers
all called him Syd, but I realized that I would still have to be patient as I
listened to him chat about anybody and everybody, from Lady Docker to Richard
Murdoch, as if they were all close friends.

“Same
again, sir?” he asked eventually, as he returned to my end of the bar and picked
up my empty glass.

“Yes,
please,” I said, relieved to find that he didn’t appear to recognize me.

By
the time he had come back with my beer there were only two or three of us left
at the bar.

“From
around these parts, are you, sir?” he asked, leaning on the counter.

“No,”
I said. “Only up for a couple of days on an inspection. I’m with the Ministry
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.”

“So
what brings you to Hatherton?”

“I’m
checking out all the farms in the area for foot and mouth disease.”

“Oh,
yes, I’ve read all about that in the papers,” he said, toying with an empty
glass.

“Care
to join me, landlord?” I asked.

“Oh,
thank you, sir. I’ll have a whisky, if I may.” He put his empty half-pint glass
in the washing-up water below the counter and poured himself a double. He
charged me half a crown, then asked how my findings were coming along.

“All
clear so far,” I told him. “But I’ve still got a few more farms in the north of
the county to check out.”

“I
used to know someone in your department,” he said.

“Oh,
yes?”

“Sir
Charles Trumper.”

“Before
my time,” I said taking a swig from my beer, “but they still talk about him
back at the ministry. Must have been a tough customer if half the stories about
him are true.”

“Bloody
right,” said Wrexall. “And but for him I’d be a rich man.”

“Really.”

“Oh,
yes. You see, I used to own a little property in London before I moved up here.
A pub, along with an interest in several shops in Chelsea Terrace, to be exact.
He picked the lot up from me during the war for a mere six thousand. If I’d
waited another twenty-four hours I could have sold them for twenty thousand,
perhaps even thirty.”

“But
the war didn’t end in twenty-four hours.”

“Oh,
no, I’m not suggesting for one moment that he did anything dishonest, but it
always struck me as a little more than a coincidence that having not set eyes
on him for years he should suddenly show up in this pub on that very morning.”

Wrexall’s
glass was now empty.

“Same
again for both of us?” I suggested, hoping that the investment of another half
crown might further loosen his tongue.

“That’s
very generous of you, sir,” he responded, and when he returned he asked, “Where
was I?”

“On
that very morning...’”

“Oh,
yes, Sir Charles Charlie, as I always called him. Well, he closed the deal
right here at this bar, in under ten minutes, when blow me if another
interested party didn’t ring up and ask if the properties were still for sale.
I had to tell the lady in question that I had just signed them away.”

I
avoided asking who “the lady” was, although I suspected I knew. “But that doesn’t
prove that she would have offered you twenty thousand pounds for them,” I said.

“Oh,
yes, she would,” responded Wrexall. “That Mrs. Trentham would have offered me
anything to stop Sir Charles getting his hands on those shops.”

“Great
Scott,” I said, once again avoiding the word why?

“Oh,
yes, the Trumpers and the Trenthams have been at each other’s throats for
years, you know. She still owns a block of flats right in the middle of Chelsea
Terrace. It’s the only thing that’s stopped him from building his grand
mausoleum, isn’t it? What’s more, when she tried to buy Number 1 Chelsea
Terrace, Charlie completely outfoxed her, didn’t he? Never seen anything like
it in my life.”

“But
that must have been years ago,” I said. “Amazing how people go on bearing
grudges for so long.”

“You’re
right, because to my knowledge this one’s been going on since the early
twenties, ever since her posh son was seen walking out with Miss Salmon.”

I
held my breath.

“She
didn’t approve of that, no, not Mrs. Trentham. We all had that worked out at
the Musketeer, and then when the son disappears off to India the Salmon girl
suddenly ups and marries Charlie. And that wasn’t the end of the mystery.”

“No.”

“Certainly
not,” said Wrexall. “Because none of us are sure to this day who the father
was.”

“The
father?”

Wrexall
hesitated. “I’ve gone too far. I’ll say no more.”

“Such
a long time ago, I’m surprised anyone still cares,” I offered as my final
effort before draining my glass.

“True
enough,” said Wrexall. “That’s always been a bit of a mystery to me as well.
But there’s no telling with folks. Well, I must close up now, sir, or I’ll have
the law after me.”

“Of
course. And I must get back to those cattle.”

Before
I returned to Cambridge I sat in the car and wrote down every word I could
remember the landlord saying. On the long journey back I tried to piece
together the new clues and get them into some sort of order. Although Wrexall
had supplied a lot of information I hadn’t known before he had also begged a
few more unanswered questions. The only thing I came away from that pub certain
of was that I couldn’t possibly stop now.

The
next morning I decided to return to the War Office and ask Sir Horace’s old
secretary if she knew of any way that one could trace the background of a
former serving officer.

“Name?”
said the prim middle-aged woman who still kept her hair tied in a bun, a style
left over from the war.

“Guy
Trentham,” I told her.

“Rank
and regiment?”

“Captain
and the Royal Fusiliers would be my guess.”

She
disappeared behind a closed door, but was back within fifteen minutes clutching
a small brown file. She extracted a single sheet of paper and read aloud from
it. “Captain Guy Trentham, MC. Served in the First War, further service in
India, resigned his commission in 1922. No explanation given. No forwarding
address.”

“You’re
a genius,” I said, and to her consternation kissed her on the forehead before
leaving to return to Cambridge.

The
more I discovered, the more I found I needed to know, even though for the time
being I seemed to have come to another dead end.

For
the next few weeks I concentrated on my job as a supervisor until my pupils had
all safely departed for their Christmas vacation.

I
returned to London for the three-week break and spent a happy family Christmas
with my parents at the Little Boltons. Father seemed a lot more relaxed than he
had been during the summer, and even Mother appeared to have shed her
unexplained anxieties.

However,
another mystery arose during that holiday and as I was convinced it was no way
connected with the Trenthams, I didn’t hesitate to ask my mother to solve it.

“What’s
happened to Dad’s favorite picture?”

Her
reply saddened me greatly and she begged me never to raise the subject of The
Potato Eaters with my father.

The
week before I was due to return to Cambridge I was strolling back down Beaufort
Street towards the Little Boltons, when I spotted a Chelsea pensioner in his
blue serge uniform trying to cross the road.

“Allow
me to help you,” I offered.

“Thank
you, sir,” he said, looking up at me with a rheumy smile.

“And
who did you serve with?” I asked casually.

“The
Prince of Wales Own,” he replied. “And you ?”

“The
Royal Fusiliers.” We crossed the road together. “Got any of those, have you?”

“The
Fussies,” he said. “Oh, yes, Banger Smith who saw service in the Great War, and
Sammy Tomkins who joined up later, twenty-two, twenty-three, if I remember, and
was then invalided out after Tobruk.”

“Banger
Smith?” I said.

“Yes,”
replied the pensioner as we reached the other side of the road. “A right
shiver, that one.” He chuckled chestily. “But he still puts in a day a week at
your regimental museum, if his stories are to be bel ieved.”

I
was first to enter the small regimental museum in the Tower of London the
following day, only to be told by the curator that Banger Smith only came in on
Thursdays, and even then couldn’t always be relied on. I glanced around a room
filled with regimental mementoes, threadbare flags parading battle honors, a
display case with uniforms, out-of-date implements of war from a bygone age and
large maps covered in different colored pins depicting how, where and when
those honors had been won.

As
the curator was only a few years older than me I didn’t bother him with any
questions about the First World War.

I
returned the following Thursday when I found an old soldier seated in a corner
of the museum pretending to be fully occupied.

“Banger
Smith?”

The
old contemptible couldn’t have been an inch over five feet and made no attempt
to get up off his chair. He looked at me warily.

“What
of it?”

I
produced a ten-bob note from my inside pocket.

He
looked first at the note and then at me with an inquiring eye. “What are you
after?”

“Can
you remember a Captain Guy Trentham, by any chance?” I asked.

“You
from the police?”

“No,
I’m a solicitor dealing with his estate.”

“I’ll
wager Captain Trentham didn’t leave anything to anybody.”

“I’m
not at liberty to reveal that,” I said. “But I don’t suppose you know what
happened to him after he left the Fusiliers? You see, there’s no trace of him
in regimental records since 1922.”

“There
wouldn’t be, would there? He didn’t exactly leave the Fussies with the
regimental band playing him off the parade ground. Bloody man should have been
horsewhipped, in my opinion.”

“Why...
?”

“You
won’t get a word out of me,” he said, “Regimental secret,” he added, touching
the side of his nose.

“But
have you any idea where he went after he left India?”

“Cost
you more than ten bob, that will,” said the old soldier, chuckling.

“What
do you mean?”

“Buggered
off to Australia, didn’t he? Died out there, then got shipped back by his
mother. Good riddance, is all I can say. I’d take his bloody picture off the
wall if I had my way.”

“His
picture?”

“Yes.
MCs next to the DSOs, top left-hand corner,” he said, managing to raise an arm
to point in that direction.

I
walked slowly over to the corner Banger Smith had indicated, past the seven
Fusilier VCs, several DSOs and on to the MCs. They were in chronological order:
1914 three, 1915 thirteen, 1916 ten, 1917 eleven, 1918 seventeen. Captain Guy
Trentham, the inscription read, had been awarded the MC after the second battle
of the Marne on 18 July 1918.

I
stared up at the picture of a young officer in captain’s uniform and knew I
would have to make a journey to Australia.

“
When were you
thinking of going?”

“During
the long vacation.”

“Have
you enough money to cover such a journey?”

“I’ve
still got most of that five hundred pounds you gave me when I graduated in fact
the only real outlay from that was on the MG; a hundred and eighty pounds, if I
remember correctly. In any case, a bachelor with his own rooms in college is
hardly in need of a vast private income.” Daniel looked up as his mother
entered the drawing room.

“Daniel’s
thinking of going to America this summer.”

“How
exciting,” said Becky, placing some flowers on a side table next to the
Remington. “Then you must try and see the Fields in Chicago and the
Bloomingdales in New York, and if you have enough time you could also... “