We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [129]
Did Matthew know that he could be trusted, and had he told him the story? But if Hampton had known Matthew, he would never have allowed Jacobson to suspect him of having killed Sarah Price.
He couldn’t ask Matthew; he was in front at the wheel, separated from them by the back of the cab.
He glanced at Judith, next to the front wall, on the seat beyond Hampton.
She stared back, eyes wide.
Schenckendorff and Lizzie were on the opposite side.
Schenckendorff must have picked up some look, some motion of anxiety in Joseph, perhaps in Judith also. Maybe he, too, was wondering how Hampton knew him.
Then suddenly it was obvious—he was an accomplice of the Peacemaker!
Hampton saw it and understood. His hand went to his belt and the gun appeared, leveled at Joseph.
“You are a good detective, Chaplain, but not good enough. Shortsighted as always. A man with a small vision, loyalty to a little idea, in fact parochial. For a man who claims to serve God, you should think of the whole world, not just your own, narrow few. I cannot allow Schenckendorff to betray the greater cause.” He lifted the gun a little higher and moved it from Joseph to Schenckendorff.
At that moment Judith stood up behind him and hit him as hard as she could over the head with the first-aid box.
He slumped forward, the gun slipping out of his fingers. But he was only stunned.
Lizzie dived for the gun, and her hand closed over it inches before he reached it.
“You won’t!” Hampton said with a sneer.
She pulled the trigger and the bullet struck him cleanly between the eyes. Then she dropped the gun on the floor and was sick.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Lizzie was deeply shocked. Joseph took off his own jacket and put it around her. Still she sat shivering and white-faced. She did not say anything at all, but Joseph knew what must be racing through her mind. He had seen young soldiers like this after they had shot their first enemy, even though it had been in battle and all those around them had been doing exactly the same thing. This was different. Hampton was a man she had known, spoken to civilly over many days. He was as English as she was, and wearing a British uniform. She had stood less than a yard from him, looked in his face, and killed him.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “You’ve saved all of us, and I know it has been at great cost.”
“Schenckendorff,” she murmured, even though she knew that Schenckendorff himself, sitting in the back of the ambulance only a couple of feet away from her, had to hear all she said. “Not the rest of us.”
Judith was outside. She had found some water, albeit muddy, and cleared up the mess where Lizzie had been sick. Matthew and Mason had taken Hampton’s body, and Joseph had not even asked them what they intended to do with it.
It was Schenckendorff who answered Lizzie. “If he had shot me, as he apparently intended to, he would not have allowed you to remain alive. He would have killed all of you, then very probably have made it look as if the ambulance had gone off the road. He might have set fire to it, rather than have it obvious that you were shot. Your courage saved the lives of all of us.”
Lizzie blinked and frowned at him. “I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it, but you are right.” She smiled very slightly. “That does make me feel less…brutal.”
A slight amusement touched Schenckendorff’s face, softening the lines around his eyes. The instant after, it was followed by intense sadness.
She looked away, not to be intrusive.
Judith came back into the ambulance. She looked anxious. “Matthew and Richard aren’t back yet,” she said, turning from Lizzie to Joseph. “They don’t need to bury him! You didn’t tell them to, did you?”
“No, of course I didn’t.” Joseph stood up awkwardly in the narrow space. “I said