We Shall Not Sleep (16 page)

It was on the edge of his tongue to say that she had not forgiven him from last time, but he bit it back. He needed to begin again with no memories of failure. He was stunned by how overwhelmingly important it was to win her, and how hard it would be. He refused to face the possibility that he might not succeed.

It surprised Matthew to be called to see Jacobson, who was still questioning people, though with no success thus far. He had not told anyone of his true rank or position in the Secret Intelligence Service. With the Peacemaker's connections and his network of informants, he could not afford to trust even those of the most patent innocence. Far better Jacobson take him for the more junior officer he pretended to be.

Actually he had not told even Joseph that he had been promoted from major to lieutenant colonel. It could wait.

"Major Reavley," Jacobson began. "Sit down." He waved to the chair. Sergeant Hampton was standing behind him, his face almost expressionless. "You are not with the Cambridgeshires; in fact, you are not regular army at all. What are you doing here, sir?"

It was a blunter opening than Matthew had expected, and certainly more immediate. It left him no choice but to tell some version of the truth. "I'm with the Secret Intelligence Service, Inspector. I can't discuss my reason for being here."

"Really?" Jacobson looked skeptical. "Can you prove that, Major?"

"I could, of course, but you would have to get in touch with Colonel Shearing in London, and you would have to do it in some secure way. Otherwise you could ask the chaplain. He would vouch for me."

"Isn't he your brother? Hardly an unbiased witness," Jacobson pointed out. "The fact that you are an intelligence officer of some sort doesn't automatically mean you couldn't have committed a crime."

Matthew was startled. Being suspected was a possibility he had not even considered. And yet what Jacobson said was true.

Silence fell as Jacobson waited. Behind him Hampton shifted from one foot to the other.

"I cannot tell you what I am here for," Matthew replied at last. "It would jeopardize my mission."

"Are you saying you distrust the inspector?" Hampton asked a little sharply.

"We make no exceptions," Matthew told him. "For anyone. I'm surprised you don't know that. I had never met or heard of Sarah Price before her death. I have no idea who killed her. If I had, I would already have told you. I am also unaware of the movements of anyone here that night. I was asleep in a dugout a mile or two away, so I cannot offer any information of use."

"Were you alone?" Jacobson asked.

"No. My brother was there." Even as Matthew said it, he realized that Joseph was used to the conditions and had slept for several hours without waking. He could not truthfully swear to Matthew's presence.

"Asleep or awake?"Hampton questioned.

He could be caught in a lie, especially if Joseph were asked without knowing the reason. He would answer honestly. "Asleep."

"All night?" Jacobson asked.

Matthew hesitated. He had gotten up twice, walked outside, and lit a cigarette. He knew the smoke would disturb Joseph, and even more he found the underground bunker claustrophobic. The second time he had gone some considerable distance along the old trench.

"All night, Major?" Jacobson repeated.

Someone might have seen him. "No," Matthew replied. "I got up a couple of times and went along the line a bit to smoke a cigarette. But I was the best part of a mile from the Casualty Clearing Station, and then I walked even farther away. I wasn't gone longer than fifteen minutes."

"Did anyone see you?"

Matthew tried to recall exactly what had happened. His mind had been on Schenckendorff and the possibility that this was one more trick of the Peacemaker's. Alternatively, if Schenckendorff
was
exactly what he said, how could Matthew make sure they got him back to London alive?

"Major Reavley!" Jacobson said impatiently. "Either you saw someone or you did not! Which is it?"

Matthew remembered one picture vividly, perhaps because he did not understand it. He had been tired, sickened by the stench, shivering with cold, but in the flare of star shells in the distance he had seen a man and a boy struggling. There had been a quick lunge, as if with a bayonet, then the boy had fallen, and the man had picked him up and carried him. He had seen the man's face for an instant, in profile. He had a large nose. It had made Matthew think for a moment, idiotically, of the cartoons of Mr. Punch.

"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 Josephs, 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 not 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.