Grabbed at Solomon, twisting Solomon’s arm around his back, prising apart his fingers till he had the treasure in his hand. A small thing, glinting in the sunlight. A silver cap badge with a lion raising its paw.
‘Where did you get this?’ said Bothwell.
Solomon flushed again, face hot. ‘It was my dad’s.’
‘No it wasn’t. Your dad was a conchie.’
‘Give it back.’
‘Did Jackson give it to you?’ Solomon’s silence told Bothwell that this was true. He laughed. ‘He gives it to all the boys he likes. You’re nothing special.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do. He’s disgusting. Why do you think he left his other school?’
Bothwell stuffed the little cap badge into his pocket, grabbed at the rope that hung from the tree instead, a thick plait hanging down to touch the surface of the water, ready to swing out.
‘Shall we go on the rope?’ he said.
‘I don’t want to,’ said Solomon, his face pinched. All the boys were warned to stay off the rope.
‘Don’t be a scaredy.’
‘I’m not.’
Though it was clear that he was.
‘Go on, I dare you.’ Bothwell grinned. ‘I’ll give you the badge back if you do it.’
Solomon felt it then, the heat that rose all through his body. He stepped towards the rope, felt it huge between his hands. His little heart was galloping one two one two at the thought of the water, how cold it must be, how deep. He heard Bothwell laughing, was about to drop the rope again, step away, when the shove came, the other boy’s hands rough on his back, the sudden swing out. Then his feet dangling over nothing. Water deep beneath him, glittering in the sunlight. The sound of air rushing in his ears as he felt his hands slipping, his voice a high shriek.
‘I can’t swim!’
Somewhere behind him Bothwell laughing. Then everything falling as he finally let go.
Solomon landed with a thud on the shingle, breath forced from his lungs, grit all along his thigh. He lay for a moment, winded, nothing but the sound of the water rushing on and on. He could feel the sting of a graze on his elbow, blinked as a shadow cut across the sun. Bothwell grinned above him, offered a hand, took it away again as Solomon reached out, laughing as he tossed the little cap badge towards the river instead. That was when Solomon Farthing made his move, just as the Jackdaw had taught.
The older boy cried out as he went down, Solomon upon him, knees clamped in like a bony vice, feet dug into the damp and shifting shingle, one small arm after another punching and punching, fists small ridges of bone. Then he was pushing and pushing at Bothwell’s face, the older boy’s head suddenly in the water, bubbles on his lips. Bothwell’s legs thrashed as he twisted and scrabbled, tried to get free. Solomon punched again then, as though it did not matter anymore. That his mother was dead. That his father was dead. That there was no one left in the world for him. Then he rolled away, lay on his back amongst the shingle, watched the sunlight ripple and refract through the trees.
After a moment, Bothwell tried to get up, blood smeared across his cheek as though he had put on make-up for a play. He stumbled in the shallows, then again, staggering as he slipped on a hidden stone beneath the surface, went down. He splashed like a hooked fish as the current pulled him under, one hand waving. Like the little silver cap badge, thought Solomon, lion raising its paw.
He watched as the boy disappeared beneath the dark water, one glimpse of his face pale amongst the river reed, then nothing, the surface of the water suddenly smooth again. No sound but a bird singing from the branches, the water running on and on, Solomon standing on the shingle, feet dug into the ground.
Then came the shout from across the field.
‘Boy!’
That black cape flapping, an old man descending on him as though from the sky. Pulling on Solomon’s shoulders as he shoved past him to plunder the water, grasping for Bothwell. By his ankles. By his shirt. By anything he could get his hands on. Feet. Belt. Or hair. An old man ducking and ducking and ducking again, until he came up for air. Solomon watched as the Jackdaw rose from the river with Bothwell in his arms. Then he crouched to pluck something from the shallows. A silver cap badge rescued from its little shingle grave.
PART FOUR
The Charge
2016
One
Solomon woke in the very early morning to a dawn washed clean by night-time rain. Outside a lark was singing as though its tiny lungs might burst. He lay listening to its solitary call, wondered if somewhere over the border Walter Pringle was listening, too.
The Mini had refused to start when the time had come for him to leave. Six boys pushing in the dark, alongside Eddie Jackson in his dressing gown, and still the little car had stalled. They had given Solomon a blanket to sleep under instead, blue with a white trim across the edge.
‘We’ve put you in the sick bay,’ Eddie Jackson had said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
Solomon had undressed as though he was a boy again, folding his corduroys with care before laying them on a nearby chair. When he’d got into the bed he’d known that somewhere far in the hidden dormitories of this great building other boys were lying beneath blue blankets, too. He’d gazed towards the ceiling, thinking of the river at the bottom of the hill, the way the sun sparkled from its surface as though refracted by a hundred mirrors, the dip and glide of the swifts. As he fell asleep he was sure he could hear the boys singing,
The Lord’s my shepherd . . .
All their small mouths raised to the chapel roof.
The next morning the sun was barely over the horizon as Solomon stood at the window looking down into the quad, wondering if Alec Sutherland had ever made it onto the glory rolls. The war memorial was a dark presence, lichen creeping across all of its tongues and its grooves. Solomon could feel it still, the cold touch of the stone as he scraped at the moss, sixty years passing through his fingertips as he waited for a man in a black cloak to come billowing over and present his new name. He had a sudden memory of all the poems he had ever learned from that man, crowding now inside his head.
There is some corner of a foreign field . . .
Dulce et decorum est.
A drawing-down of blinds . . .
The war to end all wars, wasn’t that what they had called it? Nothing more than a series of poems for men like him.
Solomon stared through the window, beyond the school buildings, to a long slope of grass running towards a river hidden at the bottom of the hill. The field was grey in the low light of dawn, waiting for a beautiful day to warm it. The banks of the river would be studded with buttercups at this time of year, clear water lapping at the fringes. There would be a tree, its branches stretching as though to touch the other side. Then that place in the middle where the water suddenly ran dark.
Take care, boys. Only ever stay in the shallows.
But what sort of life was that.
Beyond the courtyard on the far side of the war memorial Solomon realized there was someone staring back. A boy with fair hair, his shirt all untucked. As Solomon watched, the boy lifted his hand to wave, waited for Solomon to raise his in reply.
Mid-morning, breakfast done in a scatter of sugar pops and burnt toast and Eddie Jackson leaned into the window of the Mini, small dog once more adorning the back seat.
‘So you’re off to visit the castle?’ he said.
‘Regimental Archive,’ Solomon confirmed. ‘Where all the old soldiers go to rest.’
The most likely place to find Alec Sutherland, a boy soldier born and raised in the local hayfields, must have joined up somewhere nearby.
‘They have a knight’s quest, too, if you fancy it,’ said the teacher. ‘George spearing the dragon.’
Emblem of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Solomon thought again of his lost lucky charm.
The schoolboys cheered as the Mini’s engine rattled into action at the first turn of the key this time, the dog giving a sharp bark as though to j
oin the general fun. As Solomon released the clutch, let the little car begin its roll upon the gravel, Eddie Jackson tapped on the window, slid something in.
‘Everything that came with you the first time,’ he said. ‘Then got left behind. My great-uncle kept it for you all these years, in case you ever returned.’
Some sort of tin wrapped in plastic. Solomon took the parcel, laid it on the back seat of the Mini next to the dog. The dog gave the tin a cursory lick, curled its body about the package as though to keep it warm. Eddie Jackson was about to withdraw, then he hesitated.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been asking.’
The vibrations from the Mini’s engine suddenly jangled up and down Solomon Farthing’s spine.
‘Oh yes?’
‘A man came by yesterday before you arrived. Wore a smart suit.’
‘I don’t suppose he gave you a name, did he?’
‘Oh, I try not to do names if I don’t have to,’ said the teacher. ‘But he drove a big car. Grey, it was, and shiny. Do you know it?’
Yes, thought Solomon. He knew it all too well.
They had fleets of them now, Dunlop, Dunlop & Dunlop. And all the rest. Retired police officers in hybrids, relaxing in lay-bys as they waited for the phone call that would send them into the breach. Doorstepping long-lost relatives. Polite but persistent requests for ID. Checking empty properties to see whether they were worth the chase. One million. Two million. Sometimes even three. Solomon understood these men from the bottom of their sensible shoes to the tips of their ballpoint pens. He, too, was of the door knocker persuasion – liked to do the dirty work himself.
‘What was he after?’ he asked now, as though he didn’t know.
‘Old boys,’ said Eddie Jackson. ‘Just like you are.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him the records were confidential.’
So there were still good men in the world. Solomon held his hand out the window of the Mini, found it all aflutter.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Eddie Jackson, grasping Solomon’s fingers and holding them still for a moment. ‘Come back any time.’
The local castle was just what any boy would expect. Ramparts. And cannons. A dungeon and a keep. Plus plenty of turrets on which to fly a flag. Solomon approached via lanes edged with cow parsley and Queen Anne’s Lace, skirting the fringes of the nearby market town in an attempt to avoid any sleek grey cars that might be lurking there. He was half a mile from his target when he drove past a sign that said: £16 at the Gate. It was only then that Solomon realized he might actually have to pay to view a soldier’s record; with money that he did not have.
The boy appeared at the same time as the castle, a head of muzzled hair ascending into the small rectangle of the rear-view mirror, just as the castle ascended the horizon in front. Solomon swerved the wheel.
‘What the hell . . .!’
The Mini scrunching on mud and gravel as he pulled into the side of the road. Solomon turned to admonish the stowaway only to find him sitting with his arm around the dog. Peter, the acquirer of pretty things, had acquired Old Mortality now. Peter grinned. The dog emitted a low growl of warning. It wasn’t meant for the child.
‘I love castles.’
That was the boy’s explanation.
‘I have a season ticket.’
That was his opening bet.
Solomon phoned the school from a call box, using a pound coin borrowed from the stowaway.
‘Oh, he does that all the time.’ Eddie Jackson was bluff. ‘Usually finds his way home. Why don’t you keep him for the day. His parents won’t mind.’
‘I thought he was an orphan.’
‘No. A confabulator.’
‘So his father’s not dead, then?’
‘Comes to visit him every two weeks.’
‘What about his mother?’
‘She comes too.’
Solomon left the Mini in the castle car park, Peter at his side, approached the entrance by way of a path past a treehouse and a huge plastic swan. When they got to the front of the Pay Here queue they were ushered through with barely a nod – a grandfather and his grandson, camouflage of a sort. As they passed beneath the Lion’s Arch, Peter slipped his hand into Solomon’s, gave a small skip. Solomon’s heart skipped in reply. Whatever he had expected from his search for Thomas Methven’s long-lost kith and kin, it had certainly not been this.
They left the dog on the back seat of the Mini, curled around an old tobacco tin, met the other on the way in. Stuffed. Like the three dead finches on Walter Pringle’s mantelpiece, but with a less inquisitorial gaze. The dog’s name was Sandy, to go with its sandy hair, the Mascot of the Northumberland Fusiliers, welcoming them to the Regimental Museum. Solomon stood close to the case and looked the dead dog in the eye. The dog gazed back, its pupils like tiny mirrors. What was it about soldiers that they would take a dog to war? he thought.
Peter was excited.
‘It’s real, you know.’
Solomon could tell that the boy would have liked a stuffed dog of his own to add to his museum. Along with everything else around them, too. Telegrams sent to grieving widows. A New Testament with a bullet hole through its heart. A dead rat and a piece of one-hundred-year-old bread. Outside it was dragon quests and archery with rubber tips. But Solomon knew that inside this single turret was where the real soldiering took place.
The exhibition on the ground floor of the Regimental Archive paid homage to the Northumberland boys who had fought the Great War. Farmers’ sons and labourers. A footman and a gamekeeper. Men who dug turnips and polished shoes for a living, before heading off to shoot their fellow man. Some of them probably could have got away with staying behind, Solomon thought, like the older Mr Methven had suggested. Tend the land and keep it safe, not to mention themselves, too. But what young man would do that when adventure was at hand? To leave. Or to remain. That must have been the only question then. As it was the only question now.
Peter was already going around the displays pointing at all the treasure. A tin helmet that was twice the size of his head. A metal spike to stab the enemy in the eye. There was even an officer’s gun, primed and ready, bullet standing close.
‘I’d like to have a gun,’ said Peter.
‘What for?’
‘To shoot someone, of course.’
Solomon saw it again then, that look on his grandfather’s face when Godfrey Farthing found him standing by the open cabinet in the pawnshop, pearl-handled pistol in his hand. As though he thought Solomon would shoot him. Right there. Right then. A bullet in the eye, blood and brain matter splattered all over the baize counter like the sparkle from a ruby. Then the fear, a sudden dose of mercury running through Solomon’s bones, as his grandfather took the ladies’ gun, pointed it back at him.
By the time they reached the third floor of the turret, Solomon felt as though he had been to war himself, such was the array of memorials to the fallen both up and down the stairs. As Peter studied yet another Fusilier mascot, shot and stuffed in a way they never would for a man, Solomon stood at the high window to recover, looked down into the Outer Bailey where two rows of young people were facing each other, holding what looked like broomsticks between their thighs.
‘What on earth . . .’
‘They’re learning to fly,’ said Peter, coming to stand close. ‘Like the boy wizard.’
But it wasn’t the would-be wizards that Solomon was exclaiming over. Rather a man in a smartly tailored suit exiting from the staterooms as though he had been casing the joint. Silk tie, check. Striped shirt, check. Highly polished shoes. Solomon stepped away from the glass, put a hand out to pull the boy away too.
‘Shit.’
Peter giggled. ‘You swore.’
Solomon looked at him, a wriggle of a thing in short trousers, just like all the boys running around outside. He knew he ought not. But what was
camouflage for if not to add advantage? Besides:
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Solomon put his hand on Peter’s shoulder, as he imagined a grandfather might.
‘I need you to do something for me while I check the archive. Keep watch, maybe create a distraction.’
‘Can I take the dog with me?’
Solomon wasn’t even sure why Peter was asking. The dog did as the dog did. Not anything Solomon could control.
‘Yes, you can take the dog.’
‘Who am I looking out for?’
Colin Dunlop of Dunlop, Dunlop & Dunlop, haunting Solomon’s every step south.
The actual archive was in the next turret along. No tin helmets. No medals. No Bibles with bullet holes through the heart. Just the real thing. It was a small room, dominated by a table covered in felt, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling cabinets, each drawer neatly labelled, a single computer in the far corner.
‘We normally require an appointment to be made in advance,’ said the archivist when Solomon announced himself, having set Peter loose to play a game of his own.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Solomon. ‘But my car broke down and I was diverted by your splendid displays and . . .’
When in doubt, Solomon Farthing had always found flattery useful. Also the contents of his pockets, which he offloaded on to the table now. A pawn ticket, no.125. An advert for the sale of a child. The flyleaf of a Bible, torn out when the Reverend Jennie made the mistake of turning her back. Plus a crumpled piece of paper with a growing family tree, the name Thomas Methven inscribed at the foot, Archibald and Mabel Methven above. No archivist could resist the sight of paperwork, Solomon understood that.
The archivist stared at the little pile of detritus on his desk. Then he sighed.
‘All right, Mr Dunlop. You win. Service number and battalion.’
Solomon smiled. He’d used the name Dunlop in the hope that should its real owner show up, the archivist would consider him the fraudster, rather than the other way round. Now he attempted some of the famous Farthing charm.
‘I don’t have either, I’m afraid. But perhaps your expertise can help me with that.’
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing Page 21
