I regret to report that our first attempt to carry out the sentence passed on Stephen Gilmore has been unsuccessful. You will no doubt wish to know why this was.
It was almost entirely due to the presence of Alexei Iskander in Gilmore’s house. We were all very surprised to find him there, although remembering Iskander’s friendship with young Gilmore in the camp – more to the point, remembering Iskander’s rebellious ways and disruptive influence – perhaps we should not have been so taken aback. He is a rogue and a ruffian, that one, and likely to be always at the epicentre of any kind of trouble.
We had approached the house under cover of darkness, careful to be silent and secretive, in line with all the training we had received. The four of us climbed over a wall and were creeping through the grounds (the house has large gardens – clearly Gilmore’s family are prosperous). It was an eerie experience; the gardens are overgrown and filled with thick, nodding shadows and murmuring trees. A bitterly cold and most inhospitable wind blows across this part of the land from the North Sea, and a person of any imagination might suppose the sighing of the trees to be the sighing of the dead. As we went along, a church clock somewhere chimed one, making us all jump nervously. It made Hauptfeldwebel Barth jump so violently that he tripped over a boulder and sat plump down in a nettle-bed growing untidily against a wall. I am afraid he gave vent to a loud curse of annoyance, which I am sure you will allow that anyone might do in such a circumstance, particularly since it later transpired that he had also stubbed his toe.
But the noise alerted Iskander to our presence. I saw him open the curtains in a downstairs room and look out. There was a lamp shining in the room, and we all saw him clearly – the untidy dark hair which he always wore slightly too long, and the characteristic tilt of the head – a ‘listening’ air, as if he is intent on absorbing everything he hears, and will be dissecting it afterwards, and writing it into one of his infernal articles. One of the men believed Stephen Gilmore stood just behind Iskander in the room, but opinions are divided on this. I cannot, myself, say I saw Gilmore in the room. I do know that the man at the window was not Gilmore.
We retreated to our inn, in no good order, carrying Hauptfeldwebel Barth as best we could, but making many pauses to rest, for, as you know, sir, the good Hauptfeldwebel is not a thin person.
The innkeeper’s wife (a most helpful lady who believes me to be a Dutch tulip-grower from Scheveningen) has been enthusiastic in ministering to the Hauptfeldwebel’s injuries, removing his nether garments in the privacy of her own bedroom, and applying suitable lotions to the worst affected parts of his anatomy. She has also strapped up his stubbed toe and feels he should rest in her room for the remainder of the night.
We mean to return tomorrow night, when we hope to outwit the rogue Iskander, and to finally succeed in recapturing Stephen Gilmore. I shall, of course, send you a further report, trusting it will reach you safely.
In the meantime, I send my respectful duty to you.
Hugbert Edreich.
I’ve copied the letter exactly as Father translated it, and it’s certainly full of surprises. I hardly dare hope it means Stephen could have escaped. But it might. Although, if so, why do I still see him and hear him trying to get into the house? Because I do see him and hear him, and I find myself waiting for him to reach for my hand once again.
I know to think that way is mad, but I do think it.
The greatest surprise – perhaps a greater surprise to me than it was to Hugbert Edreich – is the discovery that Iskander came to this house. Because in my mind Iskander belongs to that mad journey with Leonora – the journey they made across the muddied, bloodied countries sacked by the invading German and Prussian armies, after he got her out of Sacré-Coeur. He has no place here, in this quiet, old-fashioned corner of England, so I’m wondering if those men were right in thinking it was Iskander they saw that night. It’s obvious they saw someone peering out of the window – someone who had a lamp burning and who, either deliberately or by accident, let that lamplight shine into the dark garden.
But whoever he was, that man, he was not Stephen.
Michael laid down the diary, his thoughts tumbling.
At one o’clock, those men had seen someone in this house. They had seen someone draw back the curtains, so that light had spilled over into the dark gardens.
At one o’clock, Michael himself had done exactly that. He had not meant to open the curtains by more than a sliver, but they had fallen open and the light from the desk lamp had streamed out. And those figures, those walking shadows that he had seen so definitely, had turned to look at him, their faces startled, their eyes wide with confused alarm. Then, as if an order had been given, they had fled, carrying an injured man with them. Had that man been Hauptfeldwebel Barth, he of the nettle trip and the stubbed toe?
Michael was not going to wonder, even for a moment, if there could possibly be any basis for the wild theory that Booth Gilmore had propounded to the fifteen-year-old Luisa about time bleeding forwards. There was no basis whatsoever, of course. All the todays and tomorrows, and all the tomorrows to come, might creep at their own petty pace, but they crept forwards not backwards.