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Ever since Dalgliesh had entered the room the boy had been standing motionless in front of a war painting by Paul Nash. It was one Dalgliesh also wanted to study and they stood for a minute silently, side by side.
    The painting, which was named
Passchendaele 2,
was unknown to him. It was all there, the horror, the futility and the pain, fixed in the bodies of those unknown, ungainly dead. Here at last was a picture which spoke with a more powerful resonance than any words. It was not his war, nor his father’s. It was now almost beyond the memory of living men and women. Yet had any modern conflict produced such universal grieving?
    They stood together in silent contemplation. Dalgliesh was about to move away when the young man said, “Do you think this is a good picture?”
    It was a serious question but it provoked in Dalgliesh a wariness, a reluctance to appear knowledgeable. He said, “I’m not an artist, nor an art historian. I think it’s a very good picture. I’d like it on my wall.”
    And for all its darkness it would, he thought, find its place in that uncluttered flat above the Thames. Emma would be happy for it to be there, would share what he was feeling now.
    The young man said, “It used to hang on my grandad’s wall in Suffolk. He bought it to remember his dad, my great-grandad. He was killed at Passchendaele.”
    â€œHow did it get here?”
    â€œMax Dupayne wanted it. He waited until Grandad was desperate for money and then he bought it. He got it cheap.”
    Dalgliesh could think of no appropriate response, and after a minute he said, “Do you come to look at it often?”
    â€œYes. They can’t stop me doing that. When I’m on job-seekers’ allowance I don’t have to pay.” Then, turning aside, he said, “Please forget what I’ve said. I’ve never told anyone before. I’m glad you like it.”
    And then he was gone. Was it perhaps that moment of unspoken communication before the picture which had provoked such an unexpected confidence? He might, of course, be lying, but Dalgliesh didn’t think so. It made him wonder how scrupulous Max Dupayne had been in pursuit of his obsession. He decided to say nothing to Ackroyd about the encounter and after one more slow circuit of the room took the wide staircase up from the hall back to the Murder Room.
    Conrad, seated in one of the armchairs beside the fireplace and with a number of books and periodicals spread out on the table before him, was not yet ready to leave. He said, “Did you know that there’s now another suspect for the Wallace murder? He didn’t come to light until recently.”
    â€œYes,” said Dalgliesh, “I had heard. He was called Parry, wasn’t he? But he’s dead too. You’re not going to solve the crime now, Conrad. And I thought that it was murder related to its time not the solution which interested you.”
    â€œOne gets drawn in deeper, dear boy. Still, you’re quite right. I mustn’t allow myself to be diverted. Don’t worry if you have to leave. I’m just going to the library to make some copies and I’ll be here until the place closes at five. Miss Godby has kindly offered me a lift as far as Hampstead tube station. A kind heart beats in that formidable bosom.”
    A few minutes later Dalgliesh was on his way, his mind preoccupied with what he’d seen. Those inter-war years in which England, her memory seared by the horrors of Flanders and a generation lost, had stumbled through near dishonour to confront and overcome a greater danger, had been two decades of extraordinary social change and diversity. But he wondered why Max Dupayne had found them fascinating enough to dedicate his life to recording them. It had, after all, been his own time he was memorializing. He would have bought the first-edition fiction and preserved the papers and the journals as they appeared.
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