Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [98]
“I did not like him, Major Hadrian,” Joseph said. “And I gather you did not either, but that is hardly the point, is it? Most of the men who have died here in this mud had never been to Belgium before, and I daresay some of them couldn’t have found it on the map.”
Hadrian swallowed with a convulsion of his throat. “I take your point, but surely Prentice was killed by a German. If he was out in no-man’s-land, then he was a perfectly legitimate target. Even if he were not, there wouldn’t be anything we could do about it. He shouldn’t have been there.”
“No, he shouldn’t,” Joseph agreed. “Who gave him permission?”
Hadrian colored a deep red. “Is that your concern, Captain? If you feel you owe some kind of explanation to his family, General Cullingford is his uncle, as no doubt you are aware.”
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, Mr. Prentice was not killed by a German soldier, he was killed by one of our own.”
The color in Hadrian’s face ebbed, leaving him pasty white. “Are you trying to say he was murdered?”
“Yes. Very few men know so far, but I would like to find out the truth and deal with it before they do. I would be obliged for your help, Major. I am sure you can see why. He was not a very pleasant young man, and he caused a certain dislike. People will speculate. I confess, in many ways I am more concerned with protecting the innocent than I am with finding the guilty.”
Hadrian was silent, in acute discomfort.
The cold fear began to tighten inside Joseph until it was a hard knot of pain. If Cullingford had indeed given Prentice permission to go wherever he pleased, then why? It was an unprofessional thing to do. He would not have given such latitude to any other correspondent. Was it family favor, or had Prentice exerted some pressure? He thought of the bawdy laughter and the jokes he had already heard about Cullingford’s replacement driver, the helpless Stallabrass, and his drunken confession to an unrequited passion for his local postmistress. The tale had spread like wildfire through the trenches. They needed to laugh to survive, and teasing was merciless. Every time the mail was brought to anyone within earshot of him, the jokes began.
Joseph also knew that Judith and Wil Sloan had deliberately got Stallabrass drunk so Judith could get her old job back driving Cullingford, and Cullingford had allowed it. All kinds of conclusions could be drawn, accurate or not.
“Did General Cullingford give Prentice written permission to go wherever he pleased?” he said aloud. “That is what he claimed.”
Hadrian stared at him in undisguisable misery. He was obviously trying to decide whether he could get away with a lie, and if he could, what it would be to protect Cullingford.
Joseph put him out of his misery, partly because once he came up with a lie he would feel cornered into sticking to it, however openly he had been exposed. “I do not need to know the general’s reasons for doing so,” he said, meeting Hadrian’s eyes. “Prentice was a manipulative man and not above emotional pressure where he perceived a vulnerability.”
Hadrian’s eyes widened.
“Before anyone makes any suggestions, I’d like to know where the general was on the night Prentice died,” Joseph said firmly.
“You can’t think he’d have anything to do with his death!” Hadrian’s voice rose close to falsetto. There was outrage in it, but it was fear that put it there, not indignation. Joseph was now quite certain that whatever pressure Prentice had used, it had been powerful and effective.
“I don’t,” he said, trying to put more certainty into his voice than he felt. “But we need to be able to prove he had not, Major Hadrian.”
“Yes.” Hadrian swallowed hard. “I was at school with Prentice, Captain Reavley. He was not pleasant, even then. He had a knack for . . . using people. I am not being overly unkind. If you doubt me, ask Major Wetherall. He was at Wellington College also, in my year. Prentice used to keep notes on people then, in his own kind of shorthand. Cryptic sort of stuff. I never learned how to decipher