better, and from the very first months, it became clear that the two boys were unusually close. As babies, their cribs stood in the same room. If, for any reason, one of the cribs were moved, the other baby would instantly wake up and scream. Likewise, when they were toddlers Tom began to be taken down to his father, Jack’s, cottage for regular visits. At first it was thought that Tom would prefer to go by himself, but any time the experiment was tried, the little boy would turn black in the face and knot his fists until Alan was allowed to come along too.
By the end of the century, the two boys were six and a half years old. They were thriving, happy, and healthy.
Alan had grown a fraction taller, Tom a fraction broader than the other. Alan was pale-haired, with eyebrows so blond you could hardly see them. Tom was already developing dramatic good looks: glossy, dark, curly hair with eyes of a startling blue. The boys were infinitely close. They went everywhere together. Their communication was so close, they often appeared to read each other’s thoughts.
Visitors to the house invariably mistook them for twins (not identical, of course), and after a while the Montagues stopped bothering to correct them. The boys were twins. Born the same night, reared in neighbouring cribs, suckled at the same breasts. The boys were twins. The only difference was that one called Sir Adam ‘Father’, the other referred to him as ‘Uncle’. The difference is a small one, even tiny. But that wasn’t the point.
Even the smallest things can grow big enough to kill.
New Year’s Day 1901.
In the newly sanded stable yard, horses and huntsmen milled in impatient circles. Frost glittered from the clock-tower. Hounds pawed the ground, anxious to be off.
Tom Creeley, seven and a half years old, wasn’t yet old enough to ride with the hunt, and he was annoyed. For the last half-hour, he’d hung around the stable yard with Alan. The two boys attempted to scrounge one of the glasses of sherry that were being passed amongst the horsemen. They’d stolen hot pastries from the kitchen to feed to the dogs. But Tom was still annoyed. He wanted to ride and wanted to hunt.
‘I’m going in,’ he announced.
On the way back in, he passed close by Guy’s grey mare. The mare bristled at something, and stepped backwards, knocking into Tom.
Guy turned in the saddle. ‘I’m so sor –’ he began, before seeing who it was. ‘Careful, brat,’ he said, flicking his whip so Tom could feel the rush of air above his head.
Tom scowled. There was no love lost between the two boys. Guy was a bully, Tom his target. But Tom was a fighter, who gave as good as he got. On this occasion, Tom dodged away from the whip, braying as he did so. The braying sound was a carefully chosen insult. As a boy, Guy had been nervous of horses and had been taught to ride on a donkey. Tom, as fearless on horseback as he was in most other situations, was already confident on Sir Adam’s sixteen-hand hunters.
‘Stable boy!’
But Guy’s last insult bounced off Tom’s back. Tom was gone to search for new entertainment.
His first trip was down to the kitchen: usually good for warm food and interesting gossip. But today his luck was out. He’d been spotted pinching the pastries and right now he wasn’t welcome. Tom thought about getting Alan and going down together to Tom’s father’s cottage. Jack Creeley had been teaching the two lads how to poach: how to tickle trout, how to set traps for rabbits, how to move silently in the dark. But just as Tom made up his mind to go, he heard a noise from the library. He was puzzled. Sir Adam was with the hunt. So if not him, then who was it in the library? Tom pushed the door open.
The man bending over Sir Adam’s desk wasn’t much to look at. He was a plump, overtailored man, with a walrus moustache and a chalky complexion. He was bent over the telephone apparatus in the corner of the room, shouting down the speaking trumpet, the earpiece jammed hard against his head.
And he was shouting – shouting about money. Business, money, the purchase of rights, company incorporation. Tom’s feelings of restlessness disappeared in a flash. He was rooted to the spot, burning to hear more.
And why? Simply this. In the seven and a half years he’d been alive, he’d never heard a rich man talking about money. He’d heard his father talk about it. He’d heard servants talk about it. But to Uncle Adam and people of that class, the subject seemed to be unmentionable. It was as though, to people who were already rich, money was like air: something that surrounded you, something you didn’t have to think about. And already Tom knew he wasn’t like that. He knew that Guy would one day inherit Whitcombe House and all the surrounding fields and farms. He knew that Alan, somehow, was in the same position: not as lucky as Guy, but still all right. And Tom? He didn’t know. He dressed the same as Alan, he ate the same meals, he studied the same books, he played the same games. But Alan’s father was a gentleman. Tom’s father was not. Seven and a half years old, and Tom didn’t know where he stood.
Tom had seen enough. Seen but not heard. He knocked loudly at the already open door and strolled on in. The man looked up.
‘Why, hello!’
‘Hello.’
‘You must be young Alan, I suppose.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’m Tom.’
‘Oh, Tom! Well, good morning, young man.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Knox D’Arcy. Robert Knox D’Arcy.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead: the name meant nothing. On the table in front of D’Arcy, maps were spread out, maps traced in wild contours of brown and pink, maps speckled with place names that sounded like something from The Arabian Nights. Tom peered at them curiously.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Persia, Western Persia and Eastern Mesopotamia, to be exact.’ The man smiled at Tom’s blunt interrogation.
‘Why? Are you going there?’
‘No. I’m looking for something.’
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
There was a short silence.
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead again. This time his puzzlement ran deeper. ‘If you need oil, we’ve got plenty in the kitchen.’
The Walrus laughed. ‘Not that sort. The sort you put in your motor-car.’
Tom was about to point out the blindingly obvious, that the village carrier would happily deliver cans of petrol to the door, but the Walrus continued.
‘Not because I need petroleum spirit, but because I want to make some money.’
‘Money?’
The Walrus nodded. ‘Money, young man. I hope to purchase the right to look for oil in Persia. If I find it, I’ll collect it up and bring it in ships back to England. When I get it here, I’ll sell it to anyone with a motor-car – anyone with an engine, in fact.’
Tom’s eyes were as wide as soup bowls. He couldn’t have said why, but he felt he was in the presence of some vastly important truth. He sat down, staring at the maps.
‘In Persia?’ he asked. ‘There’s oil in Persia?’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘Where in Persia?’
‘Under the ground. Perhaps even one mile down.’
‘Like