“The top brass were determined to set an example. The British were within sight of winning out in the province. Parading through townships, victorious. The men were seeing civilisation again with High Streets and shops full of things they couldn’t afford to buy. They had to get the military out of the country with a good clean record so the politicians would have a clear field, Abe said. Both sides had dirty secrets they wanted to draw a veil over—like the concentration camps, the treatment of the native Africans—do you remember that in the papers? Well, there was something that it was in their power to do. To show how upright the British Army was. Looting, because it affected the general civilian population, was taken as a cardinal sin, and swingeing punishment was handed out for it. Men were hanged, Superintendent, most of them innocent.”

“I have the details of the men’s arrest and trial from KOYLI headquarters,” MacFarlane said.

“Huh! What that won’t tell you is that they were innocent. Betrayed. In fact, ‘fitted up,’ to use Abe’s words. Some arsehole—also Abe’s vocabulary—had gone to the bother of nicking some trinkets, shiny stuff from a shop worth about tuppence ha’penny, and putting it away in the men’s lockers in barracks. Only the six in Abe’s old platoon. And whoever it was had informed the police section of the army. Anonymously? Or had a deal been done? Abe has always thought the latter. But Captain Dunne accepted responsibility for the whole shebang and answered up for them in court. There was quite a hoo-ha, and with some big guns on his side, Dunne got off with his life and his men with him. They were all out in a year.”

“And you’re thinking . . . ?”

“He saved his men from an unjust and terrible fate. A man like that would never throttle another soldier under his command. Not even a rogue like Abe, who certainly had it coming.”

MacFarlane stirred uneasily in his chair. Her reasoning was faulty and showed how little she understood of the fighting man, but he was beginning to warm to Edith. Time to put her on ice and follow up some other leads he’d noted down. He told her she was being released into the care of the Regency Hotel for the next two days, and then, if all was well, she might make arrangements to transport the corpse home. After she’d finished explaining exactly who Philip Drew was and how he came to be caddying for her at Woodleigh Spa.

The moment she had left, MacFarlane reached for his telephone.