by Anne Perry
“Yes,” he said abruptly to Jacobson. “I saw a man with a profile like Mr. Punch, and a boy.”
“Soldiers?” Jacobson said skeptically.
“Of course. Who else would be out there?”
“What were they doing? Did you speak to them?” Hampton put in.
“No. The boy was hurt. The man was carrying him,” Matthew answered, still trying to make sense of it in his mind.
“Did you offer to help?” Hampton pressed.
“No. I don’t have any medical training. He was going toward the Casualty Clearing Station anyway.”
“What about helping to carry him?” Hampton, apparently, would not give up.
“He was only a boy!” Matthew protested. “It would have been more awkward for two of us than for one.”
Hampton shrugged.
“I see.” Jacobson nodded. “And you made a point of telling us that you did not know, nor had you ever heard of Miss Price, until the news of her death, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain of that, Major Reavley?” This time it was Hampton who spoke.
“Yes, of course I am,” Matthew said somewhat tensely. “How would I know her? I haven’t been to the front line before. Most of my work is in London.” It seemed a stupid question.
“Indeed?” Jacobson raised his eyebrows. “But Miss Price has not been here long—in fact, less than a year. And she has been home on leave even during that time.”
“Which she took in London,” Hampton added.
“There are four or five million people in London,” Matthew told him with a touch of sarcasm. “Curiously, so far as I know, my path and Miss Price’s did not cross.”
Hampton took a step forward. “That is not true, Major Reavley. In going through her effects I found not only a photograph of you and her together—taken; to judge by the clothes and the general surroundings, some time before the war—but also a note from you, undated. From the tone of them, it is quite clear that you had a relationship of some warmth, even intimacy. It must have been nice to find an old friend out here in this waste of mud and death. But she wasn’t so friendly anymore. How did it happen, sir?”
Matthew was stunned. This was becoming grotesque. “I’d never even heard of her until after she was killed!” he protested.
Hampton moved a piece of paper on the table beside Jacobson and picked up a photograph, laying it where Matthew could see it. It showed a young woman, very pretty, with fair hair and a wide smile. She was facing the camera, and beside her was a handsome young man, posing a little self-consciously. He, too, was fair, with level blue eyes and a strong-featured face not very unlike Joseph’s, and clearly recognizable as Matthew in his university days. He had on a cricketing pullover in Cambridge colors. His arm was around the girl. Sarah Gladwyn. He remembered her well. She had been courting a friend of his but found she preferred Matthew, and the courtship had ended. It had all been embarrassing, and he knew he himself had not behaved well.
“Sarah Gladwyn,” he said aloud, his voice hoarse. He felt the heat burn up his face. “Her name wasn’t Price. I…I never connected them. It was years ago!”
“Yes, Major, we can see that,” Hampton agreed. “But you said you didn’t know her at all.”
“I didn’t! Not by the name you told me!” Matthew protested.
“So you say.” Disbelief was heavy in Hampton’s voice. “But she was killed the night you arrived, and no one can account for your movements. The only person who can vouch for you at all is your own brother, the chaplain. If I may say so, he is a rather unworldly man, and obliged to think the best of people by his calling, not to mention by his relationship to you.” Hampton took a couple of steps around the table. “I advise you not to make a fuss, Major. I am arresting you for the murder of Sarah Gladwyn Price. We will inform the chaplain so that he can make any arrangements you wish for your defense.”
Matthew drew in his breath, then let it out again without saying anything. The whole thing was a nightmare. He felt the canvas walls of the tent sway around him and blur into unreality. And yet Hampton’s hold on his arms was hard and very real indeed.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Joseph was writing letters at the table in his bunker, catching up with condolences. There was a terrible grief in the senselessness of the slaughter this close to the end. Dusk was falling rapidly, and he found himself straining his eyes in the lamplight as the ink on the page blurred in front of him. He put the pen down for a moment, blinking. He was even more tired than usual. These last few weeks seemed to be the hardest. It was foolish. They should have been easier now that the cease-fire was in sight.
They would even know who the Peacemaker was. He had given up hope of that until Matthew had come, and then Schenckendorff had actually crossed through the lines. Fortunately his foot seemed to be healing. The swelling was reduced, and the infection they had feared had not materialized. As soon as Jacobson found out who had killed poor Sarah Price, Joseph and Matthew, and perhaps Judith, could leave and take Schenckendorff with them. It was the twenty-first of October. They probably had a couple of weeks left.
He was startled by the sound of boots on the step and someone banging loudly on the lintel. Even before he could reply, Barshey Gee pulled the sacking aside, his face smeared with mud. He was clearly very upset.
“What’s happened?” Joseph rose to his feet in alarm.
Barshey came in, letting the sacking fall. “Chaplain, that daft policeman has gone and arrested Major Reavley for killing the nurse. He’s got him locked up back in the hut next to where they have the German prisoners.”
“That’s absurd!” Joseph refused to believe it. Barshey must have it wrong. “Matthew’s an intelligence officer. He isn’t even stationed here. What the…” He started to push past but Barshey clasped his arm, holding him tightly.
“No, Chaplain. From what Oi hear, that other policeman, Hampton, was looking through Miss Proice’s things, and he found a picture of Major Reavley and her, going back to before the war, and it looked loike they knew each other pretty well.” Barshey appeared embarrassed. “But he says the major denoied it. And o’ course he can’t say where he was when she was killed…that is, he can, but there’s only you would know it, and you were asleep. And seeing as you’re his brother anyway, he doesn’t put a lot of weight on your say-so, if you’ll pardon me.”
There was no point at all in being offended, and no time to waste. He had to prove to Jacobson that Matthew was innocent. He had no idea where to even begin, let alone to reach any conclusion. The idea was preposterous because he knew Matthew, but Jacobson obviously didn’t.
His mind raced. Could he get in touch with Shearing in London and have him use some authority to persuade Jacobson? But Matthew had said Shearing did not know what he was here for. And did men in charge of intelligence units ever emerge from their secrecy to do such things? Would the police take notice of him anyway?
Joseph knew almost nothing about Matthew’s work. No one did. By its very nature that was obligatory. There was no one to support them. They fought in secret, and there was no praise for them, except from their own.
If the police could not blame a German, then Matthew was an obvious scapegoat: a man in uniform who stayed safely at home in London, sleeping in his own bed every night. He never even got mud on his shoes, never mind shrapnel or a bayonet in his body.
“What are you going to do, sir?” Barshey asked, pulling himself to attention carefully to avoid cracking his head on the ceiling. He said it as if he was waiting for orders to help.
Joseph’s mind was suddenly clear. “About the only way I can prove he didn’t do it is to find out who did.”
“Haven’t you been troying?” Barshey asked with a frown.
“Not hard enough,” Joseph answered grimly. “I left it to the police, and they’ve made a complete mess of it.”
“What’d you loike me to do, sir?” Barshey offered.
Joseph was no
t even sure what he was going to do himself, let alone how anyone else could help, but he was loath to refuse even the slightest assistance. There was no one else he could turn to, apart from Judith. Even Barshey’s trust was a kind of strength. “I have a pretty good idea about who couldn’t have done it because they were all accounted for during the hour or so when it must have happened—” he started.
Barshey’s eyes widened. “You know when it happened?”
“Only roughly. She was seen alive at three o’clock that morning, and the state of her body when she was found at about seven means it has to have been no later than around four.” He did not need to explain how a dead person changes in the first few hours; they were all far too familiar with it.
“But they weren’t all accounted for, were they?” Barshey observed. “Want me to work on that, sir?”
Joseph hesitated, torn. Barshey was loyal and willing. He knew she was dead; did he know how brutally and intimately she had been destroyed as well?
“I need to know more about Sarah Price,” he said finally. “Maybe she was chosen at random, but maybe not. She might have had some liaison that was at least the start of this. I thought I knew most of the men, but it seems I don’t. I half expected the violence toward the German prisoners, but nothing like this.”
“Nobody wants to think that sort o’ thing about anyone they know, Chaplain,” Barshey said grimly. “And with respect, sir, most of us want to show a man loike you the best soide of ourselves. Men that’d swear a blue streak usually koind of keep a close lip when you’re there.”
“You’re saying I don’t see the real man?” Joseph shrugged. “I know that, Barshey. I make allowances.”
Barshey did not look convinced, but he was too gentle to say so.
Joseph saw it in his eyes and understood. “All right, I’ll tell you what you can do to help. Give me a more honest picture of the men you think I’ve judged too softly. Help me to see them as they are. Somebody killed that girl pretty obscenely. I saw her body. It was worse than you think.”
Barshey was startled, then overwhelmingly disgusted.
“I’m not as otherworldly as you think,” Joseph told him quietly. “I’ve heard some confessions that would surprise you, especially from men who knew they were dying. I just didn’t think of anyone I know doing something like this. There was a hatred in it I hadn’t imagined.”
“Oi hope it’s not someone from St. Giles.” Barshey’s face pinched as if he expected a blow. “Oi’ll think about it, an’ Oi’ll ask.”
“Don’t think long, Barshey. It’s going to be too late pretty quickly.” It hurt even to say it aloud.
“Oi know that.” Barshey did not offer any words of comfort. The belief in everything working out for good had long ago been swept away. You believed in honor, courage, and friendship, but not in any certainty of justice.
Joseph found Judith helping with nursing shifts in the tent for the walking wounded. It had been a quieter night than usual. The front line having moved farther east, the injured men were being taken to a clearing station closer by. There were half a dozen patients, two standing, and four sitting in various degrees of discomfort. Others had obviously received no more than first aid—a bandage to stop the worst of the bleeding, a sling for a broken bone. More were already treated and waiting to be told where to go next, their uniform sleeves cut away, bandages clean and white. There were two nurses in attendance, an orderly, and a young surgeon.
Judith looked at Joseph’s face and excused herself from the man she was helping, leaving the job for the orderly to finish. She crossed the space between them in a few strides. “What is it?” she asked anxiously. “What’s happened?”
Using as few words as possible, he told her, and saw her eyes widen with horror. “I’m sorry,” he finished. “We have no more time to spare. Quite apart from getting Schenckendorff to London, we’ve got to find out who did it to save Matthew.”
“They can’t believe it was him!” she said desperately, struggling to find it absurd rather than serious. “Why on earth would he? He only arrived here a day before she was killed! It doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, where would he get a bayonet?”
“Judith, there are weapons all over the place, rusted ones, broken ones, ones people have dropped or lost. And what does sense have to do with any of it?” he demanded, feeling panic rush up inside him. “Why would anyone do that to her? They need to blame somebody, open the station, and get on with ending the war. They want to get the men out of here and start operating it as normal again, probably even move it forward. We’re too far behind the lines now. Above all, they want to say the matter is closed and forget all about it.”
“Even if it isn’t the right man? That’s monstrous!” She waved her hands, refusing to believe it. She ignored the curious glances of the orderly and two of the wounded.
“Look around you!” Joseph said impatiently, keeping his voice low. “How many men are dead? What’s one more if they can close this and say it’s ended? They don’t know Matthew; he isn’t one of them.”
“But somebody really did it! Somebody—”
“I know.” He lowered his voice with an effort, breathing in and out deeply, trying to regain control of himself. “We have to find him, British or German, and we have to do it in the next two or three days, at the most. We need to begin by getting to know everything we can about Sarah Price. We agree that she didn’t deserve it, nobody could, but she may have done something to provoke it—”
Her face tightened with anger. “And what does a person do, exactly, to provoke being hacked to death, Joseph?” she said savagely. “Funny how you never think your brother could be just like other men!”
“That’s the point, Judith,” he said with barely a flicker of change in his expression. “It’s probably someone that nobody thinks of as having violent or uncontrollable passions, or having been so wounded in mind that at times he no longer behaves like ordinary sane people. But somebody knows him, has worked beside him, fought beside him, shared rations, letters from home, all the things we do and the ways we get to know people.”
“Was that why you said it?” she demanded, her eyes wide and angry. “To make me think of that?”
“Not altogether,” he admitted reluctantly. “I do think that she might have said or done something that infuriated someone. If it is entirely random, we don’t have much chance of finding him, do we?”
Her face crumpled with regret. “I’m sorry. I suppose we don’t.” She took a deep breath and looked a little away from him. “I feel guilty because I didn’t even take much notice of her. I thought she was trivial and empty-headed. Father always used to say I was too quick to judge. I thought I’d learned.”
She bit her lip hard. “We’ve got to get Matthew to London with that German officer, whatever his name is, because we’ve got to expose the Peacemaker. My war won’t finish until we have! I’ll start finding out. At least I’ve plenty of time, compared with usually, and I have an excuse to be here. I suppose I even have an excuse to ask questions now. At least nobody can tell me it’s not my business.”
“We have to succeed—” he started.
“I know!” She didn’t want to hear him say it, even though she had accepted that it was true.
She began with the other medical staff, knowing she had a better chance with them than Joseph did with the soldiers. None of them had been here very long: It was the nature of a Casualty Clearing Station for the wounded to move through it as quickly as possible.
“No more time for being charitable about it,” she said briskly to Erica Barton-Jones as they were in the storage tent taking delivery of some clean blankets, having sent away those too torn or saturated in blood to use anymore.
“I thought they’d arrested someone,” Erica replied, heaving the gray blankets up. She was not pretty, but there was a grace and strength of character in her face that was in a way more attractive. A highly practical woman, she held whatever grief she had experienced deep i
nside her.
“They have,” Judith replied. “My brother.”
Erica was incredulous. “The chaplain? That’s idiotic!”
“No, Matthew. He’s an intelligence officer.” She had no compunction at all about shading the truth. “He’s out here on some mission or other, which of course he can’t tell us, and they don’t believe him. He can’t prove it because it’s secret. That’s what intelligence is about.”
“So what are you going to do?” Erica’s face was tense and anxious. “You could ask questions, of course, but what makes you think anyone will tell you something they haven’t told the police? Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t try.” There was an uncharacteristic flash of sympathy in her eyes, perhaps because she thought Judith would not succeed.
Erica’s pity only made it worse, and a flare of temper burned up in Judith. “Because I know what questions to ask,” she snapped. “For example, before anything happened, who was Sarah nursing? Did she flirt with any of the doctors or orderlies?” She saw Erica’s distaste. “And don’t screw your face up and pretend it couldn’t happen. We’re all frightened and tired and sick with seeing people suffer, and we can’t do much to help them. We don’t get close to anyone for long because people are moved around all the time, lots of them die, but we still can’t help the need for touching someone, emotionally or physically. Life can be too hard, too unbearably lonely without it. Friendship is almost the only lifeline to sanity and the things that are worth surviving for.”
Erica stared at her, her eyes shadowed, her lips pulled tight. She looked as if her mind was racing and she wanted to speak, but the words eluded her.
“Well, who was she nursing?” Judith repeated. “Don’t tell me you don’t know, because you do! You are in charge and you never miss anything. You’re the most efficient nurse on the whole Ypres Salient. Did she go anywhere near the German prisoners? I haven’t seen the rosters, but we both know they don’t mean anything. People go where they’re needed. An emergency happens and everything changes.”
