We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [62]
“From what everyone says she wasn’t a bad nurse,” he went on, exploring the ideas. “I thought she might have made a mistake that turned out badly, or told tales, or anything else that was stupid, and might have caused somebody to get hurt, lose an arm or leg, even die. But I haven’t found anything. She seems to have been perfectly competent—if anything better than some others. She flirted and occasionally, when the rations were decent, drank a bit too much and was silly, but only to laugh too loudly and be a bit of a nuisance. Some of the men thought it was quite funny. Nobody took advantage of her. She had a few romances, but short-lived, just while a particular man was here, usually too badly wounded to do much anyway.”
They moved another step forward. “It was just…just grabbing at life while she could,” he added very quietly. “She was frightened and lonely, like everyone else. According to one of the orderlies, all she really wanted was to marry and have children.” He stopped. “At least that’s what he thought.”
She could barely see his face in the uncertain lamplight, but there was a deep understanding of loss in it, and a pity that hurt. She thought of his beloved Eleanor and the baby who had died at birth. Would Lizzie Blaine ever be able to take Eleanor’s place, or at least make a new place where the old hopes could begin again? At that moment she wished more than anything else in the world, more than anything for herself, that it would happen.
It was not until he turned that she saw his eyes and realized that he was thinking not just of Sarah Price, but probably also of Mason, who had fallen so far below the courage and hope Judith needed to feed her heart. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she turned away. It was strangely painful to be known so well. It left her wounds exposed, too. And yet it meant she was not alone. As long as Joseph was alive, she never would be.
“We’ll find who did it,” she said, needing to say something practical, to stop looking at the things too delicate to touch. Times, places, who was where, who saw what—those were the things that mattered. But now they were at the head of the queue, and it was not until they had received their bread and stew that they were able to move into a quiet corner of a supply tent and resume talking.
“Let’s be practical,” she said firmly, taking a mouthful of stew and trying not to think what it tasted like. “After you’ve taken out all the people who couldn’t have killed her because they were proved to be somewhere else, who’s left?”
He gave a bleak smile, but there was a flash of humor in his eyes. “Sherlock Holmes? After you’ve eliminated all that is impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, has to be the truth,” he quoted roughly. “That’s the trouble: Very little indeed is left. Most people are accounted for because it was a pretty busy night, but in the poor light and with people coming and going, there are still quite a few I’m not certain of.” He ate another couple of mouthfuls of stew before going on. “The trouble is, I think several people could be lying. I can understand it.” He looked at her over the top of the Dixie can. “No one wants to think it’s someone they care about. Perhaps they owe a debt to some friend, a pretty big one, and so they lie to protect them, certain it doesn’t matter because they would never do such a thing anyway.”
She looked down quickly, feeling the guilt burn in her face for her own lie to protect Wil Sloan. It had been for exactly that reason. He could never do such a thing. She knew him too well to even imagine it for an instant, but others didn’t, and he might be blamed. Jacobson didn’t know anyone, and didn’t understand the men, any of them, let alone an American medical volunteer. Did Joseph know she had lied? She was not going to tell him, not now, anyway.
“Yes, it’s difficult,” she agreed. At least her lie would not affect Matthew, and owning up to it would hurt Wil without helping anyone else. She bit into the bread