Free An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd Page A

Sister. It was very kind of you. I shall take comfort from it. I’ve had precious little of that since Jerry died, I can tell you. But why would anyone report my husband hanged himself, when neither you nor I believe he would or even could?”
    “I don’t know. There must be times when there are so many dead and dying that the rolls are confused. It’s all I can offer you as a reason.” It wasn’t true, but I wasn’t prepared to add to her burden the possibility that Private Wilson was murdered.
    “Yes, but he hasn’t written to me, so he must be dead. How did he die then?”
    “From overwork—exhaustion. We weren’t sleeping at all, and we ate only when we remembered and there was time. It took a toll on all of us. And Private Wilson was nearing forty, wasn’t he?”
    “He was forty-one his last birthday.”
    “That could explain it.”
    “I still don’t see how a mistake could have been made,” she insisted.
    “I don’t know myself. But I’m going back to France as soon as possible, and I’ll find out what I can. You may not hear immediately. But I shall write after I’ve spoken to Matron and some of the others he and I served with.”
    “I’ll be forever in your debt, Sister, if you could do that for me. For him. It isn’t fair for him to be treated like a leper if he did nothing wrong. Or for Audrey to be singled out as the daughter of a suicide.”
    “There was nothing at home—you or your child—to worry him?”
    “Nothing at all. We’ve done better than most, having only a small farm, too small to have our crops taken from us. We eat what we grow, and we manage very well. There’s hardly anything to buy, is there, with shortages everywhere one turns. And so his pay was enough for us. I don’t know as I get a pension, under the circumstances. What worries me now is finding someone to help with the cows and the milking and general handiwork, what Jerry always did. I can’t pay now, you see. And there’s other farms that do.”
    All the more reason to get to the bottom of what happened to Private Wilson.
    Aloud, I said, “Did he write often, your husband?”
    “His last letter came barely a week after he died. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He sounded like himself, though tired, as you’d expect, and he gave me advice about matters here on the farm, as he always did, remembering what time of the year it was. I was that shocked when the word came. I sat here until three o’clock in the morning, trying to take it in. Except for Toby, I told no one. And cats don’t talk, do they? But soon enough word got round. I don’t know how they found out, but people did. And so I sent my daughter out of harm’s way. That left just Toby and me to do all that needs to be done. But we’ll survive somehow. Our kind always does.”
    It was a sad commentary on the future.
    We talked a little longer, and at one point she said, “I’d give anything to have my man back again. And then that woman in London behaves so badly she’s divorced. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Why couldn’t her husband have died, if she was so eager to be free? Not wishing him harm, you understand, but let me keep mine.”
    I did understand. I rose to leave soon after, and she went with me to the door, thanking me again for coming to tell her what I believed.
    I walked to the motorcar with a heavy heart.
    Whoever had killed Private Wilson had much to answer for.
    As promised I drove the rough track that passed for a road running through Cheddar Gorge. The limestone walls, often sheer, rose over four hundred feet high and in places were honeycombed with shallow crevices or deep caves. The entrance was half hidden by cheese shops, tea shops, and souvenir stalls, most of them closed for the duration, but beyond we could crane our necks and see the tops of the ramparts. I’d always found it an impressive sight, even though I’d viewed the great peaks of the Himalayas. The deeper into the Gorge we went, the more