We Shall Not Sleep (32 page)

"I don't want you to! That isn't what I meant at all. Of course I don't want it to be them, but if it is, then we must face it."

"What do you want?"

Now was the moment. "Onslow didn't ask you to go through it for him in detail, did he?"

"No!"

"Joseph wouldn't, or Matthew." That was really a statement rather than a question. She knew the answer.

"No." Lizzie's voice was quiet, but there was dread in it.

"Somebody must," Judith said as gently as she could. "You might remember something ..."

"I don't! I don't know who it was! Just a man ... a soldier. Judith, if I knew, don't you think I'd tell you?"

"Yes, of course you would. Just tell me anything. What time was it, roughly?"

"Sometime between midnight and three. I can't remember now. We were busy."

"What were you doing before it happened? Where were you?"

Lizzie hesitated. "In the Resuscitation tent. We'd just finished a bad one. We lost him."

"Who did the operation?"

"Cavan, Bream, Moira Jessop."

Judith felt cold. "Then what?"

"We had the body taken away. Joseph wasn't here, he was up in the lines. I don't know where everybody went. I felt dreadful. We'd fought really hard. Thought he was going to make it. He was ... about seventeen." Her voice caught, and she struggled to keep control of it. "I went outside. I wanted to be alone and not have to look at anybody else's face. I..." She stopped, then started again. "I was standing outside in the dark, somewhere beyond the Evacuation tent, when I realized there was someone near me."

"How?" Judith interrupted. "How did you realize it? Did you see him?"

"No." Lizzie thought for a moment. "I heard his feet squelch in the mud. It wasn't so bad then, but it had rained earlier and there were a few places that never seem to get dry."

"Did he speak? Did you hear him breathing?"

"No, I don't think so. Does it matter now? I can't tell one person's breathing from another." Lizzie s voice was strained, tight in her throat as memory brought it back to her.

"It might," Judith insisted. "Then what? Were you frightened?"

"No, of course I wasn't! I didn't think there was anything to be frightened of. Then the next thing I knew he'd caught hold of me from behind, and... and twisted me around to face him. But before you ask, we were in shadow and it was cloudy. I didn't see his face at all. That's the truth."

"How tall was he?" Judith asked.

"What?"

"How tall was he?" she repeated. "A lot taller than you? A little?"

Lizzie shut her eyes. "It doesn't matter, Judith. Cavan, Wil, and Benbow are all much the same height, within an inch or two. They're all half a foot taller than I am."

"I know. But he kissed you?"

"Yes! I told you!" Lizzie's
voice
was ragged, her control slipping.

Judith felt brutal, but she did not stop. "Where were his hands?'

"Hands? I don't know! I..."

"Yes? What? Why didn't you twist away?"

"He held my face—"

"Smell," Judith said instantly. "What did his hands smell of?"

Lizzie froze, her eyes wide.

"Ether?Disinfectant? Blood?" Judith demanded.

"No ... no, smoke, like cigarettes," Lizzie replied. "And oil?"

"What kind of oil?" Judith's voice was shaking now, too. "Think! Was it petrol, metallic oil, butter? What? Bring it back, exactly?"

"It wasn't Cavan, was it," Lizzie said with certainty. "He couldn't have gotten rid of the ether and disinfectant. Engine oil from Wil, gun oil from Benbow."

"Yes. What was it?"

The silence was intense, as if the clay walls behind the wood shoring them up was somehow absorbing the sound, even their breath.

"I'm not sure. Bitter," Lizzie said at last. "I couldn't smell petrol, just tobacco, cigarette smoke, and a tiny bit of metallic oil.

"No ... he ..." Lizzie stopped with a gasp.

"What? What?"

"I heard him put it down...," Lizzie said with slow, gasping amazement. "I remember... I heard him put it down. It unbalanced and fell against the duckboards. It was Benbow! It had to have been! Wil and Cavan don't have guns. And his tunic was rough, khaki. Cavan was still in his white coat." She swallowed convulsively. "Why didn't I know that before?"

"You didn't want to remember it. Who would?" Judith said simply. "I'm sorry..."

Lizzie shook her head. "No. Don't be. What should I do? I suppose I have to tell Onslow?" Her fear was palpable in the closed room, even in the semi-darkness.

"Not yet," Judith replied. "I'll tell Joseph first." She heard Lizzie's sharp drawing in of breath, and understood. "He has to know sometime. Get it over. I'll do it. At least you won't be afraid of everyone now. But don't be alone ... promise?"

Lizzie gave a very slight smile. "I promise."

"Come on then. Now! Come with me back to Allie. She's a pretty good bitch at times, but at least you know where you stand with her."

"Benbow? Are you sure?" Matthew asked.

Joseph repeated the essence of what Judith had told him. He tried to keep his emotion out of it, think of it as a string of facts, imprison his imagination so none of it was real.

"Sounds pretty solid," Matthew said gravely. "I'm glad it wasn't Cavan or Wil Sloan. I'm sorry, Joe. Do you want to face him, or would you rather not?"

"We'll have to go to Onslow anyway," Joseph pointed out. "I hit him. I should do that."

Matthew frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Come on, if I don't do that I'm going to fall long before the last fence." Joseph made himself smile. He was the eldest. He was the one who loved Lizzie. It was his responsibility. "I'll go now."

But it proved far harder than he had anticipated. Onslow accepted the evidence without argument, but when he had Benbow brought in it was a very different matter. He looked haggard, ashen-faced, and, standing feet away, Joseph could smell the fear in him.

"I didn't kill Sarah Price!" he protested, struggling uselessly against the manacles that held his hands tight behind his back. "I didn't, I swear to God! I never touched her!" He wrenched himself around to face Joseph. "Chaplain, I swear! All right, Moira Jessop played me around rotten, an' I took her, all right, an' I weren't none too gentle, fought like a wildcat, but that was a month ago, more. I never touched Sarah Price. Jesus! What do you think I am? She was sliced to bits!"

"You raped Moira Jessop?" Onslow said incredulously. He stared from Benbow to Joseph, and back again.

"Where?" Joseph demanded. "Exactly where? What time?"

Benbow looked stunned. "Out... outside the Evacuation tent," he stammered.

"Were you carrying a rifle?" Joseph asked.

"I never hurt her!" Benbow shouted. "I swear ..."

"Did you drop it?"

"Yes! I don't know. I must 'ave. Why? I never used any kind of knife on 'er. I never even hit 'er. I just..." His face was gray, his eyes wild. "I didn't! She led me on, played ... Oh God!"

"Did she see your face?" Onslow asked.

"She couldn't 'ave. It was dark," Benbow responded. "Could hardly see where you were going."

Onslow looked across at Joseph.

"How do you know it was Moira Jessop?" Joseph asked Benbow.

"I... I followed 'er out of the ..." Suddenly Benbow surged and gulped air.

"It wasn't," Joseph said quietly. "You forced yourself on another woman, one who had never given you the slightest indication that she had any interest in you at all."

Benbow stood silently, blinking as if blinded.

"And Sarah Price?" Onslow asked again.

"I never touched 'er. I swear to God," Benbow replied hoarsely.

Joseph nodded slowly. There was no proof. He was not sure whether to believe it or not, but it was possible that the man who had raped Lizzie and the man who had murdered Sarah were not the same person.

Onslow looked profoundly unhappy. "That will be for a jury to decide," he said grimly. "Take him away."

After Benbow had been removed, Onslow faced Joseph. "I'm sorry," he emphasized. "Perhaps Mrs. Blaine will find some kind of relief, however small, in the knowledge that she was not the intended victim. I hope so."

"Do you think it is possible that he didn't kill Sarah Price?" Joseph said slowly, trying to work his way through the maze of facts, contradiction, and anger.

"Frankly, I have no idea," Onslow admitted. "If I had to stake anything on it, I think it is possible, yes."

"It has to be Benbow!" Matthew said savagely, staring at Joseph in disbelief. "You can't think we have
two
rapists loose here?"

"I don't know what I think," Joseph admitted. They were walking slowly along the rotting duckboards of the old supply trench, heading back to the bunkers.

"Did Benbow have blood on him?" Matthew asked. "Eames must have noticed."

Joseph bit his lip. "He was pretty wet and he had mud on his boots up to his knees. He says he slipped in one of the shallow craters. That could be true."

Matthew swore. "And I suppose Cavan was covered in blood from operating, and Wil Sloan from carrying in the wounded?"

"They would be," Joseph agreed.

They discussed it further, achieving nothing. Finally Joseph left and walked on past the bunkers toward the Admissions tent. The wind from the east was rising, and in the gathering dusk the clear sky promised a frost. The colors were fragile and muted, even over the ruined landscape to the west, where the dying light was a faint lilac-pink after the sun slipped below the horizon. The gunfire was too far away to hear except as a distant rumble.

They had to solve this obscene crime. It could not be allowed to slip into oblivion because the war was ending and bit by bit the weary, soul-bruised men would be allowed to go home to whatever love and passion and change awaited them.

Then a thought occurred to Joseph, so ridiculous he dismissed it. It must be Benbow, despite the lack of blood on him. Apart from anything else, he was carrying a rifle and bayonet. Every man on guard duty did. Neither Cavan nor Wil Sloan had such a weapon. Cavan could have a scalpel. But he still refused to believe that Cavan could be guilty. No evidence short of an eyewitness would make him accept that the man he knew had descended from the selfless courage of a year ago, unnoticed by anyone, into the pit of madness where he would rape a woman he knew and had worked beside, even cared for, not with his body but with the raw blade of a bayonet!

It would be like walking side by side with a friend and turning to discover a creature beside you who had the devil's soul looking out of his eyes.

But Cavan could not account for his time. Allie Robinson had lied to protect him, and he had allowed her to until Judith had caught him in it. He had said he had been in the Evacuation tent, but he hadn't.

Joseph was sick with misery, as if the evidence were closing in around him like an enemy in the dark. Any hour now it might strike the blow that could not be defended against, the proof that could not be denied. There was no point in asking Cavan himself, and he could keep Allie Robinson until last when she could no longer lie.

He began with Erica Barton-Jones. He found her with Stan Tidy-man. The soldier was still gray-faced, his eyes hollow, but he was wrapped up with a pillow and a blanket rolled tight to support him. He managed a faint smile.

Joseph asked after him briefly, then took Erica to one side, over in the corner of the tent beside a table piled with old blankets, bandages, and other stores. They could hear the rain drumming on the canvas.

"The night Sarah was killed," he said without preamble. "Tell me what you can remember of where everyone was, just what you are certain of. From about midnight onward."

"It was a bad night," she said grimly. "I can't tell you times, only where I was."

"How many surgeons on duty?"

"Two—Captain Cavan and Captain Ellsworth—and there were anesthetists and orderlies, of course."

He did not tell her that he knew this already, or that all but Cavan were accounted for. "Tell me what you recall," he said.

She repeated what she had said from the beginning, every case, what was done and an estimate of the time. He stopped her, questioned, made her repeat and be as precise as possible, everything checked against what others had said.

"What is it you expect, Chaplain?" she demanded exasperatedly. "Going over and over it isn't going to help. I don't know who killed Sarah, or what snapped in somebody's head, or why it was her and not somebody else. Except that she was the one who flirted, but she certainly wasn't the only one who fell in love or had normal human feelings." Her face pinched, and she turned half away from him. "If you are looking for some unique sin in her that's going to make you feel there's any kind of justice in this, then you aren't going to find it. And quite frankly I think you are morally dishonest to try. There isn't any justice, and nobody with any ... any courage ... is going to believe there is."

He was startled. He had not even considered such a thing. "If life were always just, then there would be no courage necessary," he pointed out. "If being good automatically made you safe, then it wouldn't even be good, it would just be sensible: buying safety, buying your way out of pain or failure, confusion, everything that hurts. Is that what you thought—that I was looking for sense in it?"

She stared at him, her face pale and tired in the half-light. "Aren't you? Aren't you longing to explain God so we won't stop believing in Him?"

"No. I gave that up years ago, even before the war, let alone since." He thought first for an instant how he had felt after Eleanor's death, the anger and confusion, the long retreat from emotion into the religion of the brain. That was over now, a kind of little death from which he had been awoken. "No," he said again. "I'm still looking for whoever killed Sarah because they have to be stopped. I'm not sure it's even anything to do with justice for her, or for them. It's a very practical matter of them being prevented from doing it again."

She blinked. "Sometimes I think you are so pointless, so divorced from the realities of life, well-meaning but essentially futile." She gave a sigh. "Then you come out with something that makes me feel that perhaps you are the only one who really is dealing with the truth, bigger than the little bits of reality we manage."