We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [111]
“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