I felt a flicker of jealousy. Simon usually came to dine with me when he was in London. He'd served with my father in all our postings around the Empire, and now lived near us in Somerset when he wasn't doing whatever hush-hush work he and my father never talked about. No longer in active service, their experience was still invaluable, and the War Office sent for them often, sometimes for weeks at a time. My mother and I had tried to guess what they were doing, but I had a feeling we were well off the mark.
Simon had always been a part of my life. He'd picked me up at six when I fell off my first pony, he'd taught me tactics when I was tired of being a girl and bored with petticoats, he'd interceded with the Colonel Sahib when I was in disgrace. He'd listened to my secrets and comforted me when I was in the throes of first love and couldn't tell Mama, and he'd stood on the dock when my packet had sailed for England that last time and promised me I'd return to India some day, when the time was right. Half confessor, half godfather, half friend, half elder brother- Simon had no business taking my flatmates to dinner. Besides, Diana was in love with someone else.
Mrs. Hennessey finally let me go, and I went up the stairs. I was just plumping my pillow when she came in with a cup of tea. I think I was asleep before I'd finished half of it.
Twenty-four hours later, I was back in France. The next two weeks were a blur, broken bodies and long hours. Then one afternoon Sister James came in with a box that had just arrived from her family. Martha was two years my senior, plump, levelheaded, and a very experienced nursing sister. I'd learned a great deal from her, and we had become close friends as well as colleagues.
We had just finished an extra shift, and were tired and on edge from the German shelling that had gone on for hours. Although we were out of range, here behind the lines, the ground shook with the pounding until our heads were aching and our nerves frayed. It was usually a sign of an attack to come, and an ambulance had been sent back to the depot for fresh supplies to see us through. Harry, the driver, had also found time to walk across the camp to ask if there was any mail for our sector. Arriving at the hospital, he'd looked up Sister James and presented her with her package before unloading his cargo.
'I think Harry is half in love with you,' I said as she let me feel the weight of the box. Hefty enough for sharing. I smiled, looking forward to seeing what was inside. It was a much needed distraction. 'You seem to receive your post before anyone else.'
Sister James laughed, then winced as another miniature earthquake shook the beds we were sitting on. Our only lamp had fallen over earlier in the day when the shelling began, but blessedly was still intact. A jar of tea hadn't fared as well. There was a crack down one side. And my mirror had come off the wall, fortunately landing on my spare pair of boots before tumbling to the floor.
The beds danced again, and Sister James said, 'If this doesn't stop, we'll get no rest this night.'
'Never mind the guns,' I said, handing her my scissors to cut the string. 'Open the box. There may be something perishable in it that we ought to eat at once.'
'Chocolate,' she said, 'if it hasn't melted in this heat.'
She managed to get the box open, and the first thing we saw was a small jug of honey from the hives on the James's home farm, swathed in a scarf her little sister had knitted, never mind that it was summer. Under that was a tin of fruit and another of milk for our tea. I wondered how her family could bear to part with such treasures, knowing as I did how scarce these were at home.
Around the whole was a folded newspaper, and Sister James gently pulled it out with a cry of delight. Just then the beds shook once more, and we both reached for the jug of honey, bumping heads as we caught it right on the brink of going over.
'Blast them!' she said, and then began to unfold the pages. It was a London newspaper, and in it was the engagement announcement of her middle sister. She read it hungrily, having missed the excitement of the proposal. Sitting back, she said, 'Oh, how I wish I could be there for the wedding!'
We munched on stale biscuits that we'd found tucked in the scarf, and speculated on the chances of the marriage taking place in early autumn as planned.
I coughed as the next shell landed, catching me with a mouthful of biscuit crumbs. 'If I were her,' I said, clearing my throat, 'I'd want to be married as soon as may be. Still, a Christmas wedding would be nice.'
'If Henry can manage leave…'
We fell silent. Henry had proposed on his last leave. There might not be another.
Sister James said, 'Well. We can hope.' She took the engagement notice out of the newspaper and folded it carefully, stowing it in her trunk. I picked up the rest of the pages to search for the obituaries.
Instead I found myself staring at a pen-and-ink drawing of a woman's face. Beneath it was the caption: Police Ask for Witnesses-Evanson Murder Still Unsolved.
Startled-for I recognized the face-I read on. The murder of Mrs. Marjorie Evanson, wife of Lieutenant Meriwether Evanson, presently in hospital in Hampshire, remains a mystery. Police are asking any witnesses who may have seen her to step forward. Mrs. Evanson left her residence shortly after noon on 15 May and was never seen alive again. Tracing her movements that fateful day has proved difficult, and Scotland Yard has now turned to the public for assistance in learning where she might have gone and whom she may have seen…
I put the newspaper down. Sister James, shoving her trunk back under her bed, said, 'What is it? You look as if someone has walked over your grave.'
It was just an expression, one I'd heard many times, but I said without thinking, 'Not mine-but someone I may have seen. Look, read this.'
Sister James took the newspaper from me and scanned the column. 'I don't know her. Do you?'
'Her husband was among that group of wounded I escorted to Hampshire. The badly burned pilot. Remember? He kept his wife's photograph by him-and that's his wife. I can't bear to think how he must have felt when he was told.'
'But, Bess, murdered? That's awful.'
'Yes, but what's more important is that I saw her late that very afternoon. She was at the railway station, seeing off an officer in a Wiltshire regiment. She was crying. Terribly upset. I'm afraid I stood there staring. I was so surprised to recognize her.' I winced as the next shell landed. They seemed to be coming closer together now.
'Who was the man with her?'
'I've no idea.' I shook my head, trying to come to terms with the fact that she'd been murdered that very same day. 'That poor man-her husband-was counting the hours until he saw her again. It was what kept him fighting to live. I wonder who had to break the news to him. I can't imagine having to do it.'
'Bess, if you saw her that day, you must tell the Yard.'
'But I don't know who she was with, or where she went after she left the station. Only that she was there for a few minutes, seeing someone off, and that's not terribly useful. It's been a week since this request came out in the newspaper-surely someone else has come forward. A waiter in a restaurant, a cabbie, a friend who ran into her somewhere.' But what if they were saying the same thing: someone else will do it.
'If he's at the Front, this Wiltshire officer hasn't spoken to the police,' she pointed out. 'And just now, what Lieutenant Evanson probably wants more than anything else is for the police to find her killer.'
'Does it say there how she died? I didn't read the rest of the article.'
She went back to the newspaper, scanning down the column of close print. 'Here it is. She was stabbed and then thrown in the river. They say that she was still alive when she went into the water, but was most likely unconscious.'
'How awful.' I tried to bring up the image of the woman I'd seen in London, her face streaked with tears. Yes, it was the same person. I'd have no problem swearing to that. And the man? Could I remember him as clearly? Dark hair, blue eyes, a rather weak chin…
More to the point, would I know him again?
'What if this officer hasn't seen the newspapers? Or been told yet that she's dead? If the police find him, it's possible he could tell them where she was going after she left the station. There's no way of knowing where that might lead,' Martha James persisted.
'Yes,' I said slowly. 'You're right. I really should report what I saw, and let the Yard decide whether it's helpful information or not.'
'They don't mention what time she died or when her body was found. More's the pity,' she added, finishing the article. 'You may have been the last person to see her alive, except for her killer. Now there's an unsettling
