SIXTY-SIX
After much searching, Major Watson found Staff Nurse Jennings in the small chapel around the back of the Big House. It had been kept consecrated, for use in the Sunday services that were compulsory for all ranks who were mobile. It was often full and an overspill Communion or blessing was held in a marquee next door.
Jennings was busy lighting candles. ‘We are having a memorial service,’ she said, when Watson entered.
Miss Pippery wasn’t the only staff member that the East Anglian had lost that day. Two orderlies had died and a QA nurse was hovering on the brink of the next world, not expected to make it through till the following day. Plus there was poor old Caspar Myles to be commemorated.
‘Non-denominational,’ she added.
‘Good. Staff Nurse Jennings, I came to say goodbye and thank you.’
She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him.‘You’re leaving?’
‘For the time being. I have to help arrest the man who murdered Shipobottom and the others. I would imagine I will have to spend time helping formulate the case against him.’
She waited, a mix of apprehension and curiosity written across her features.
‘It’s Captain de Griffon.’
She clearly wasn’t expecting this revelation. ‘Lord Stanwood? But—’
‘He isn’t Lord Stanwood. We’ve all been taken in.’
‘You are certain?’
‘As I can be at this moment.’
She shook her head at this. ‘For a while I thought it might be Lieutenant Metcalf. Then Mrs Gregson. She had a history, you know.’
‘I know. Her ex-husband told me.’
‘God forgive me, I think part of me hoped it would be her,’ she confessed.
Watson was shocked. ‘Why on earth would you hope that?’
She moved to a pew and sat down, head bowed. Watson came and stood next to her.
‘That’s not a nice thing to say.’
She looked up, her eyes glistening. ‘Nice? Oh, Major, it’s wicked. Very wicked. But, women like Mrs Gregson . . . I don’t know, they make the rest of us seem so pale, so feeble.’
He sat down next to her. ‘I have known men like that.’
She put her head on his shoulder, exhausted. ‘I’m sorry if I caused you concern when I left to see my brother. I thought you were being over-protective.’
‘I was. I am. It’s a curse. But I am not sorry. I speak as one who will remember you as a friend for the rest of my days. Although, of course, I might have fewer days left than most here.’
It was meant to be a jest about his age, but the church now seemed very chill indeed.
‘Don’t say that. Please.’
‘I have to go. I have some business to attend to before I leave.’
Jennings sat up and straightened her clothing. ‘Where are you really going?’
‘As I said. To the front. I’m going to try to find out why a man would adopt a whole new identity and then, in the midst of war, set about murdering his own side.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I know the answer must lie in Leigh. In the mills. The owner dead, workers dead. I suspect something terrible happened there. And whatever it was, this is where it came home to roost.’