The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller Read Free Book Online

impression that he was definitely getting better—that I simply can't make sense of'
    He took her hands in his. She bit her lip, looking at him without speaking. 'I'll do everything I can,' he promised.
    He caught a bus to the station and only made the train by running down the platform. Once in a seat, he rested his head against the window and his breathing calmed. The train gathered speed. He had to close his eyes against the setting sun and, drifting on the edge of sleep, he reflected on the afternoon.
    He was disoriented by his encounter. It wouldn't be hard to be attracted to Mary Emmett—he had been in a way, all those years ago—yet he knew he was now responding to emotions and a vulnerability that had nothing to do with him.
    He took out the will. Mrs Gwen Lovell was the first beneficiary—or was it Lowell? The legal hand was clear but the letter 'v' less so. Her address was 11 Lynmouth Road, Kentish Town, London. Bolitho's address was a convalescent home at Brighton. Those bits would be easy, he thought.

Chapter Six
    Laurence managed to get home, change and still be only a quarter of an hour late, but he was so tired he feared being poor company. He and Charles sat down to eat in an almost empty dining room.
    'Everybody's on the moors,' Charles grunted. 'Lucky devils. But you look as if you've come hot saddle from Aix to Ghent.'
    'Actually I went and saw John Emmett's people today.'
    'Did you, by God?' For once Charles looked surprised. 'What are they like? I heard they were cooped up in some ghastly place in Cambridge.'
    'Mary's a really nice girl. I hardly recognised her, though.' It wasn't true but he wanted to resist acknowledging the impact she'd made on him.
    'Bad business,' said Charles, picking up his glass and half closing his eyes in appreciation of the wine. 'Have they taken it hard?'
    'Well, it doesn't help that he didn't leave a letter.'

    'They've really been through it,' Charles reflected. 'Pa died suddenly before the war, I heard from Jack—that's the Ayrshire cousin—and the Emmetts can hardly have come out with anything, once they'd paid off his debts. The mother was always pretty batty, he'd heard tell—must be where Emmett got it from—and more so when they had to sell the house. And before then, John gets engaged to some Fräulein and it takes a war to get him out of it. And the sister, Mary, my aunt said had been involved in some scandal with a married man. Takes a war to get her out of that too. Blown to smithereens at Vimy Ridge.' He added as an afterthought, 'Jack said he had been at school at Ampleforth with the fellow. RC. Can't remember the name. Nice chap, though notoriously flighty wife.'
    Laurence was shocked by the lurch of his heart. He was unable to distinguish whether his annoyance was with Charles, Mary or himself. To his astonishment and discomfiture he felt jealous. Mary wasn't what he'd taken her for. Immediately he knew he was being ridiculous. Not only did he hardly know her but she had not volunteered anything about herself to him and why should he have expected her to? He was being a fool. She must be in her mid- to late-twenties by now. Why shouldn't she have had another life, a life away from her family? Why shouldn't she have been happy for a while?
    'John's father can't have been too profligate as John was able to make generous bequests in his own will. One to a chap called Bolitho.' Laurence knew he sounded gruff. 'Served with him, apparently. Do you know him?'
    Charles's social antennae meant that, even unasked, he could provide chapter and verse on just about any officer or outfit he had come across.
    'Bolitho? Bill Bolitho, I expect that'll be; he was with John's lot,' he answered, almost like a music-hall memory man. 'Good man. Legs shot off in 1917. Well, not shot off but gangrene or something. One, anyway. Not sure about the other.' He paused, thinking. 'So Emmett left him some money? Not entirely surprising that he felt grateful, I suppose.' His