We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [94]
“I don’t know. But I know what we’ll deserve if we don’t,” he said softly. “If there is a God, a resurrection—and I have to believe there is—then when we meet those who paid, I want to be able to look in their faces and say that I honored their gift.”
“So do I. If I can’t, maybe that would be hell,” she agreed. “And I still hope it wasn’t Tiddly Wop, or Barshey Gee, or Major Morel.”
“Or Cavan,” he added. “There’s something odd about his story. I don’t know what yet, and I wish I didn’t have to find out, but I do.”
“Cavan would never have killed anyone!” she said aghast. “Even you can’t imagine that!”
“I don’t,” he replied. “But he’s lying. I need to know why, unless we can solve it first.”
“I will!” she said, standing up. “I’ll go to it right now.”
“Be careful!” he said with quick fear, standing as well. “You’re not safe just because you’re an ambulance driver, Judith.”
She swiveled to face him, one hand holding back the sacking. “I know!”
Joseph started to look for Tiddly Wop Andrews. They were all finding the enforced idleness a strain, especially since they were held here in a sense captive and away from the last of the fighting. Most were torn between relief that now they would get home uninjured, and the sense of having let down their friends by not being there at the very end. They felt useless. Hours dragged by in small jobs that were largely no more than filling in time. There was no point at all in shoring up trenches; they would never be used again. Rifles had not been fired, so they did not need cleaning. It was still done, but it was a waste of time. The only thing that actually had value was helping the injured, but there was only so much that an unskilled man could do.
Tiddly Wop had been mending duckboards. There was no point—they would not need them much longer—but it was better than idleness. He put down the hammer as Joseph’s shadow fell across him.
“What can I do for you, Chaplain?” he asked. “I really don’t know anything more.”
“Yes, you do,” Joseph answered, squatting down on a pile of sandbags opposite him. “Where were you the night Sarah Price was killed, Tiddly? The truth.”
“I was in the Evacuation tent,” Tiddly Wop said doggedly. “I already told you that.”
“Yes, you did. And Cully Teversham told me so, too. But Moira Jessop said you weren’t, the first time I asked her. And she said the same thing to Jacobson.”
Tiddly Wop looked unhappy. “Don’t know why she’d say that.”
“No, neither do I,” Joseph agreed. “She said later that you might have been; they were all so busy she couldn’t be sure. But that’s not true, either. The Evacuation tent was actually pretty quiet. Between half past three and half past four there was no one in there at all. And that’s the time that counts.”
Tiddly Wop blinked. “Is it? Is that when…when she was killed?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know that?”
“No. I…I saw her earlier.” Again he looked away. “She was pretty upset. I tried to make her feel a bit better.” He mumbled the words as if he was embarrassed by them.
“What was she upset about?” Joseph persisted.
“Lots of things,” Tiddly Wop answered, his voice thick with sadness.
“That’s not an answer,” Joseph told him. “This girl’s dead, Tiddly. We need to know what happened to her, and why. Why may be the only way we catch the man who did it. I’m not going to repeat it if I don’t have to. What was she upset about?”
“She was afraid of going home,” Tiddly Wop said slowly, searching for the words he needed. “She knew things had changed. She’d only been out here a year or so, but she realized that it isn’t ever going to be like it was before. So many young men are