Before Winter could speak, Laura heard Pim’s voice behind her: “Just here, Doctor, oh, I think he’s very poorly.”
And Jones’s voice answering, sharper than usual with tiredness, “What’s he doing collapsing in the hedges, though, could he not come inside like a sensible man?” And then he was dropping to his knees beside Laura, handing Pim a pocket torch to hold. “Tell me, Iven,” he said.
“A bullet. Liver, I think,” said Laura, trying to marshal her thoughts. “And he’s—” But Jones had stilled, wary surprise in his tired face, taking in the hazy blue eyes, the stubbly sandy hair. Possibly the irregularity in uniform, and certainly the healed stump. Jones was no fool. He’d heard the story of the elusive German.
Winter seemed to shrink from Jones’s suspicious eye, as if he might be able to stand, slip away, hide himself again in the chaos. But he was at the end of his strength. “It’s all right,” said Laura, although she wasn’t sure it was.
“He won’t get away without help,” Winter said to her suddenly, as though he’d made up his mind to speak while he could and damn all hearers. He caught her wrist in a bony hand. “You have to help him.”
Laura crouched close, heedless of Jones and Pim. “Where is he?”
“He’s with—” Winter tried. “He’s lost—” Perhaps English was failing him in his exhaustion, for he said a single word, the blue eyes burning. “Faland,” he said. Then he fainted.
Laura heard Pim’s small gasp. The light in her hands wavered.
“Christ,” said Jones, harsh. “Young’s German. One arm, rags, accent. What’s he doing here?”
Laura, eyes on Winter’s slack face, whispered, “He came here to tell me that Freddie is alive.”With Faland, with Faland. So when I saw him—I must have seen…
But, Freddie, what happened to you? Why didn’t you come to me?
And then—He knew, didn’t he? That bastard with his violin. He knew. He lied.
Her thoughts stuttered to a halt. Jones had rounded on her. “Hesaid—and youbelievehim? Iven, he was just saying the first thing to come into his head. Playing on your sympathies.”
“He knew my brother’s name,” said Laura. She was staring at Winter. So was Pim, her face quite blank.
Jones said, “He could have learned it. If I save him, then they’ll come for him. They’ll interrogate him, and hang him.”
Laura shook her head, not disagreeing. But she said, “I need to know what he knows.”
“Your brother’s dead,” said Jones.
She just looked at him.
Almost pleading, Jones said, “Tell me why you believe him. One real damn reason. Iven—give me something.”
Laura said, “A friend told me—someone I trust. That this man came off the battlefield with Freddie’s things. What he knows—I need to know too, Jones, Ihaveto.”
Jones ran a hand over his stubbled face. He didn’t ask why she’d not said anything about this before. “Iven, this can’t end well.”
Laura knew it. It was one thing to be careless with herself, but this was a risk to people who had not asked to be endangered, people who trusted her, and to whom she had a responsibility. She still didn’t hesitate. “Please.”
Jones nodded slowly, eyes fastened on her face. “All right, then, Iven. All right. We’ll get him into surgery. Shaw, could you—?”
But Pim was already running across the grass, and a moment later two orderlies came with a stretcher. Pim was still with them. Her eyes met Laura’s, a long look. But Pim, voluble Pim, did not say a word.
· · ·
The orderlies took Winter, still unconscious, into the X-ray room and then into surgery, where Jones and Laura faced each other, alone over his unconscious body. Jones’s hands were steady as he laid out his instruments, but his voice was harsh. “Iven, you say he brought in your brother’s things—but you know he could easily have got them off a corpse. He could be a madman. The area isabsolutely teeming with mad—” He broke off. “He said ‘Faland,’ didn’t he? This man you think is the fiddler. The legend, the charlatan?”
She was arranging the mask, the cotton for the ether, counting Winter’s pulse. “I saw Freddie,” she said.
“What?” said Jones.
“That night I spent with Pim and Mary. In Faland’s hotel. That I told you of. I thought I saw Freddie that night. In the crowd. I thought—I thought he was a fever-dream. Perhaps he wasn’t.”
“Or perhaps he was, and you are grasping at straws. Iven, I don’t want to see any patient of mine dragged away to be hanged.”
