We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [109]
“No,” Judith said quickly. “I do. But in a way it’s half true. Not here, however; your bunker or mine.”
“Mine’s closer. What is it?”
“I’m sorry,” Judith said fiercely. “I really am. I wouldn’t do this if there were any other way.”
Lizzie walked in silence. It was a bad beginning. She was already afraid. They reached the bunker and went down the steps inside. It smelled of damp earth and enclosed space. The wooden slats on the floor were rotting but still better than the bare mud.
“What is it?” Lizzie demanded again. “Do they know something?” She did not sit down but remained standing, facing Judith in the gloom.
Judith could understand very easily how Lizzie might rather not know who had raped her, whose child she was carrying. Anonymity kept it one step further away. She wished with passion that she could leave it that way, or at least leave the choice to Lizzie.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I am! They don’t know, and all we can work out is that it had to be Cavan, Wil Sloan, or Benbow.”
“How?” Lizzie’s face was not clear in the faint light inside the bunker, but even in the shadows her disbelief was obvious. “It could have been anyone! I have no idea.”
“It couldn’t have been just anyone who killed Sarah. Everybody else is ruled out.” It was brutal, but Lizzie had to know it was true. She had said so herself, to Onslow.
Lizzie sat down slowly on the bunk. Now she seemed unbearably tired, as if the strength inside her was used up. “I don’t know,” she said again. “I’d hate to think it was Cavan, or Wil Sloan, but I can’t say it was Benbow because I don’t know! It might not have been.” She stared at Judith. “When it comes to it, even the people we like can have terrible secrets that we have no idea of. I’m not going to say it was Benbow just because Cavan and Wil are your friends. I’m sorry.”
Judith was momentarily stunned. It was the last thing she had considered, at least consciously, but she could see how easily Lizzie must have thought of it.
“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