No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [96]
“You can’t stop people leaping to conclusions. If you deny it, you’ll make it worse,” Joseph warned. “He’ll find out he’s wrong.”
“Will he? When? What if they never find out who killed Sebastian? They’re not doing very well so far!”
“You said people were arguing and Perth didn’t understand,” Joseph said levelly. “Who was he thinking of in particular?”
“Morel and Rattray,” Foubister answered. “And Elwyn and Rattray, because Rattray doesn’t think there’ll be war, and Elwyn does. Sometimes he sounds as if he almost looks forward to it! All heroic sort of stuff, like the Charge of the Light Brigade, or Kitchener at Khartoum.” His voice betrayed not only fear but disgust. “Sebastian thought there would be war, and that it would be catastrophic, which seems to be what Perth thinks. Got a face like an undertaker! Elwyn is only afraid it’ll all be over before he has a chance to do his bit! But it was just argument!”
He stared at Joseph, his eyes begging for agreement. “You don’t kill someone because they disagree with you! Might kill myself if nobody did!” A smile flashed across his face and vanished. “That would be a sure sign I was talking such rubbish nobody cared enough about it, or me, to be bothered contradicting. Either that or I was in hell.” He stood motionless, his cotton shirt hanging limply on his body. “Imagine it, Dr. Reavley! Total isolation—no other mind there but your own, echoing back to you exactly what you said! Oblivion would be better. Then at least you wouldn’t know you were dead!”
Joseph heard the note of hysteria in his voice.
“Foubister,” he said gently. “Everyone is frightened. Something terrible has happened, but we have to face it, and we have to learn the truth. It won’t go away until we do.”
Foubister steadied a little bit.
“But you should have seen some of the things people have come up with!” He shivered in spite of the breathless heat in the sheltered doorway. “Nobody looks at anyone the way they used to. It’s a sort of poison. One of us here actually took a gun, walked into Sebastian’s room, and for some dreadful reason shot him in the head.” He shrugged, and Joseph noticed how much thinner he was than a month ago.
“We have our faults, and I’ve seen that in the last couple of weeks more than I ever wanted to.” Foubister’s face was white with misery, and he hunched as if even in this dazzling summer he could be cold. “I look at fellows I’ve worked with, sat with at the pub all evening, and wondered if any of them could have killed Sebastian.”
Joseph did not interrupt him.
“And even worse than that,” Foubister went on, speaking more and more rapidly, “people look at me—all sorts of people, even Morel—and I can see the same thoughts in their eyes, and the same embarrassment afterward. What’s going to happen when it’s over and we know who it was? Will we ever go back to how we were before? I won’t forget who thought it could be me! How can I feel the same about them as I used to? And how could they forgive me, because I, too, have wondered . . . about lots of people!”
“It won’t be the same,” Joseph said frankly. “But it may still be bearable. Friendships change, but that doesn’t have to be bad. We all make mistakes. Think how much you would like your own buried and forgotten, and then do the same for others—and for yourself.” He was afraid he sounded trite, because he dared not say what was really in his mind: What if they never found who had shot Sebastian? What if the suspicion and the doubt remained here working their erosion forever, dividing, spoiling, tearing apart?
“Do you think so?” Foubister asked earnestly. He shrugged again and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I doubt it. We’re all too damned scared to be idealistic.”
“Did you like Sebastian?” Joseph said impulsively, just as Foubister turned to walk away.
“I’m not sure,” Foubister replied with painful honesty. “I used to be certain I did. I wouldn’t even have questioned it. Everyone liked him, or it seemed that way. He was funny and clever, and he could be extraordinarily kind. And once you start liking someone, it becomes