No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [88]
“Of course I do,” Joseph said a trifle sharply. “You asked me what I know of Sebastian, not what I might reasonably suppose.”
“Oi see what you mean,” Perth replied. “Thank you for your help, Reverend.” He nodded several times. “Then Oi’ll just keep on.” He turned and went out of the door, at last pulling out a worn, leather tobacco pouch and filling the pipe as he went down the stairs, slipping a bit on the last and most uneven one.
Joseph left a few moments later and walked briskly across the quad and out of the main gate into St. John’s Street. But instead of turning right for the town, he went left for a few yards along Bridge Street, across it, along the main road, and eventually onto Jesus Green, looking over to Midsummer Common.
All the time his mind was struggling with the fact that Sebastian had passed by the place in the Hauxton Road where John and Alys Reavley had been killed. The question that burned in his head was this: Had Sebastian witnessed it and known that it was not an accident, possibly even seen whoever it was emerge from the ditch and go over and search the bodies? If so, then he had known too much for his own safety.
Since he too was in a car, he must have been seen by them, and they had to have realized he knew what had happened. Had they tried to follow him?
No, if they were on foot, their car hidden, then they would be unable to go after him. But with any intelligence at all, a few questions and they could have found who owned the car and where he lived. From there on it would be simple enough to trace him to Cambridge.
Had he been aware of that? Was that why he had been so tense, so full of dark thoughts and fears? Had it not really been anything to do with Austria or the destruction that a war in Europe would bring, but the knowledge that he had seen a murder?
Joseph walked across the grass. The sun was hot on his right cheek. There was no traffic on the Chesterton Road, and only a couple of young men in white trousers and cricket sweaters walking side by side a hundred yards away, probably students from Jesus College. They were involved in heated conversation and oblivious of anyone else.
Why had Sebastian said nothing? Even if he had not known at the time that it was John and Alys Reavley who had been killed, he must have known afterward. What was he afraid of? Even if he had weighed the chance of them tracing his car, since he had not recognized them, what threat was he?
Then the answer came to Joseph, ugly and jagged as broken glass. Perhaps Sebastian had known them.
If they were responsible for his death, then there was only one hideous and inescapable conclusion: it was someone here in college! No one had broken in. Whoever murdered Sebastian was one of those already here, someone they all knew and whose presence was part of daily life.
But why had Sebastian told no one? Was it somebody so close, so unbelievable, that he dared not trust anyone with the truth, not even Joseph, whose parents were the victims?
The sun burned in the silence of the mown turf. The traffic seemed to belong to another world. He walked without sense of movement, as if caught in an eddy of time, separate from everyone else.
Was it fear for himself that had kept Sebastian silent? Or defense of whoever it was? Why would he defend them?
Joseph came to the edge of Jesus Green and crossed the road onto Midsummer Common, walking south into the sun.
But if Sebastian thought it was an accident and he had been the one who had reported it, why hide that fact? If he had simply run away, why? Was he such a coward he would not go to the wreck, at least to see if he could help?
Or had he recognized whoever it was who had laid the caltrops and pulled them away afterward, and kept silent because it was someone he knew? To defend them? Or had they threatened him?
And had they killed him afterward anyway?
Was that why he had not come straight to college that day . . . fear?
But what about all the other occasions Perth spoke of? Joseph felt a strange sense of disloyalty