by Anne Perry
He was awake when the jailer came with a tin jug and bowl of tepid water so that he could wash and shave and would look at least presentable, if not clean or uncrumpled. They lent him a comb for his hair and took it away again as soon as he had used it. Only then did he wonder if it might have lice in it. He had not even considered that before touching it. The thought was disgusting, and he tried to force it out of his mind. There were immeasurably more terrible things to think about.
Physical discomfort was trivial, and as far as he could see, unalterable. He could adjust his position, sit or stand, but he could not walk more than about five paces before having to turn and walk back. It was good only to uncramp his legs. The sounds of tin or stone, voices, the occasional scrape or clang of a door barely intruded on his thoughts.
If he were convicted, whoever sat as judge would be ordered to give him the harshest sentence the law allowed. This would be partly as an example to all other jurists, that they, above all others, must keep the law, and partly to demonstrate to the public that they had no partiality toward their own. Whatever they felt personally, Rathbone had no doubt that the authorities would make certain there was no misunderstanding in the direction of leniency. They had to, for their own safety.
What could Rathbone do to save himself? Was there a legal defense? He had given the prosecution evidence that called into very serious question the honor and integrity of their chief witness. That was not illegal. Nor could he have given it to the police earlier: he had not realized he had it.
No. The sin was in not having given it to both parties and then recusing himself from the case. It always came back to that. But if he had done so, it would automatically have been declared a mistrial. Both Taft and Drew’s reputations would have been unblemished. It was highly unlikely they would ever bring the case again—not unless stronger evidence had emerged.
Somewhere near him two men were shouting strings of inarticulate abuse at each other. More banging of tin mugs against the bars and the sound of footsteps and voices. Was someone coming? Monk again, to see him? Then the footsteps receded and went another way.
Was Rathbone’s real crime possessing the photographs in the first place, and not destroying them as soon as Ballinger’s lawyer had brought them to him after Ballinger’s death? What arrogance had made him imagine he was immune to the temptation to misuse them, as Ballinger had? Why had he thought he was above such human frailty?
He could recall even now the horror with which he had seen them, looking through more than half of them, recognizing faces and realizing the incalculable power he held in his hands. Should he have pushed it away from him then, refused to pick up the weapon, in case it slipped in his keeping and endangered the innocent and gradually corrupted him?
But he had never used those photos for his own gain. In fact, he had barely used them at all! There were men from all walks of life whose faces were in that locked box. Should he destroy what might be the only means to curb their power?
He still was not sure of the answer to that.
He knew one thing for certain: he could not hand over the box of photographs to anyone else. If he had given it to the home secretary it would place on him a burden that would cripple him. There were some things that should not be known, sins that needed redemption in darkness and silence, where their poison could spread no further.
Perhaps, for the sake of those, he should have destroyed them all. But it was too late to wish that now.
When was Monk coming back? Rathbone had been in prison twenty-four hours already, and there had been no one else to see him. Of course Monk was the only person to whom he had sent a message. But it would not be long before everyone knew. He could imagine what the newspapers would make of it.
The jailer came with a breakfast of porridge and tea. The porridge was revolting, thick and lumpy, a bit like tepid glue. But Rathbone could not afford not to eat. He must keep awake, watching and thinking. He must come up with a strategy to defend himself, first from the legal charge, and then later on, if it all came to the worst, from the other inmates.
He was brooding over that with deepening despair when the jailer came back again, this time to fetch him, saying that he had a visitor. He refused to give any more information than that.
Rathbone stood up awkwardly, his muscles almost locked with stiffness after the discomfort of the night. Was it Monk again, at last? Or was it someone else?
“What’s the matter, Fancypants?” one of the other prisoners called out jeeringly. He was a scrawny man with matted hair. “Not feelin’ so much like dancin’ today, are yer? I’ll larn yer, after yer bin before the beak!”
“Gracious of you,” Rathbone said sarcastically. Perhaps it was not wise, but he could not let them see he was afraid.
The corridors were as dank as before, but he had remembered them as longer, somehow larger. It was only moments until he was in the small room where prisoners were allowed to see their lawyers.
“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned Rathbone then let him inside, slamming the door. They heard iron on stone; the heavy bolt was locked home the instant he was through the door. A scarred wooden table was screwed to the floor, and two hard-backed wooden chairs sat one on either side.
Monk was waiting for him.
Rathbone’s first reaction was overwhelming relief and gratitude. Then, the moment after, he felt an embarrassment almost as acute. Had he been free to change his mind and retreat, he might have. But he was not free—the door had already closed behind him, literally, and in the larger sense of his life and his future.
He walked forward, shook Monk’s hand rather as if in a dream, then sat down.
Monk sat opposite him. There was no time to waste in niceties, even a habitual “How are you?”
“You did give Warne the photograph?” Monk said immediately. “Under some sort of privilege, I presume?”
“Yes, of course. I took it to him and told him where I got it and how. I left it up to him whether to use it or not.” Did that sound like an excuse? “I didn’t know he was going to call Hester.”
Monk dismissed that with a slight movement of his hand. “It was the best thing to do,” he replied. “And it gave him a chance to show the jury, and anyone else, that she wasn’t the emotionally fragile woman Drew had painted her to be. It was the perfect tactic. Calling me might have been practically difficult at short notice and would have looked as if I were defending Hester. Not nearly so effective.”
“You make it sound cold-blooded,” Rathbone said quietly. He was ashamed that Hester had been used, even though he had not done it himself.
Monk’s face darkened with impatience. “For God’s sake, Rathbone, you know Hester better than that! She doesn’t need protecting, by you or anyone else, and she wouldn’t thank you for it. We need to find out who laid the charge against you, and why. Who else even knew about the photographs, and that you have them?”
“I don’t know,” Rathbone replied, chastened. He was too desperate to be angry. There was no time for emotional self-indulgence. “I’ve been trying to work that out myself.” He smiled bitterly. “I’ve made a great many enemies in my career, but I didn’t realize any of them would stoop to this. Every case is won by someone and necessarily lost by someone else. It’s the nature of law, at least in the adversarial system. Sometimes it’s the skill of the lawyer; quite often it’s simply the evidence.”
“Is that how you feel when you lose? That it was the evidence?” Monk asked, amusement flickering for an instant in his eyes then disappearing.
“Not at the time,” Rathbone admitted. “But after a day or two, yes, it is.” His mind raced; he tried to think of any case he had won that was so bitter his opponent could carry a grudge of this magnitude. Had he ever done anything worthy of such resentment, such patient hunger for revenge?
Monk was not prepared to wait for him. “Why did you give the photograph to Warne?” he asked grimly. “The real reason, not the superficial one. We haven’t time for excus
es.”
Rathbone was startled. “To stop Taft, of course. He was ruining the reputations, and in a way the lives of simple, gullible people who had trusted him—in the name of God—because that was what he asked of them. They weren’t doing it for any hope of profit. If it were that sort of confidence trick I’d have less pity for them.” He heard his voice grating with anger, his own situation momentarily forgotten. “I know a great deal of the money found its way into Taft’s pockets. Very little of it ever went to the charities he named, despite the way he talked his way through the account books. And those who gave so generously ended up cheated and desperate—their faith and their dreams taken from them, and their dignity. And then he mocked them in open court.” He leaned forward across the battered wooden table. “Damn it, Monk, Taft and Drew both deserve to be shown up for what they are. I’m sorry Taft killed himself, but surely the fact that he killed his wife and daughters as well says something of what kind of a man he was.”
Monk sighed. “The question has passed beyond whether Taft was a cheat, or Drew an abuser of children. It’s become whether you, as a judge in our legal system, and therefore in a place of unique trust, used secret knowledge to twist the outcome of a trial over which you presided, and did it for some personal reason of your own. They can call it perversion of justice because you should have recused yourself, and you know that, but there’s a bigger picture beneath that, and that is what concerns me.”
Rathbone heard the words with a surge of anger then, looking into Monk’s eyes, a sudden horrifying clarity. Monk was right. He had seen what the legal system was going to see: their desperate need to protect themselves by cutting off the gangrenous limb—himself.
Monk was watching him quietly, as if he could see past all the protective masks into the desperately vulnerable heart inside.
“What motive would they ascribe to me, do you think?” Rathbone said, his voice shaking for the first time.
“Arrogance to think yourself above the law and to retrieve what you lost in the Jericho Phillips trial,” Monk answered him. “To give Hester the chance to show people that she has all the courage and judgment that she failed to show then. To turn back the clock.”
Rathbone sat silently. Had he wanted to do that? Was exposing Drew only the excuse? He had not thought so at the time. The hot anger in the front of his mind had surfaced on behalf of the same victims Hester had wished to save. But would he have done it if the person involved had been somebody else, somebody he did not know? Or over whom he had not still felt such corrosive guilt?
“I’ll find out all I can,” Monk was saying. “I think there may be a lot about this that we don’t know yet.”
Rathbone jerked his attention back to the moment. There was no time to waste—perhaps only minutes left for this meeting. He was a prisoner. He stood up and sat down when other people commanded him to. He ate what he was given, and only at their pleasure. In time perhaps he would wear only their clothes. He would look like any other convict. Would the time come when he would feel like that—seem like that, to others?
His father would never abandon him, no matter how bitterly disappointed he might be.
The thought of his disappointment was so painful it tightened around Rathbone’s heart like a closing fist. He could hardly draw in his breath.
Monk was talking again. There was a sudden, intense compassion in his face, burning a moment and then vanishing.
“You must get someone to represent you, as soon as possible.”
Rathbone started.
“Don’t even imagine you can speak for yourself,” Monk said sharply. “You can’t do it any more than a surgeon can remove a bullet out of his own back. You must find someone you trust and, more to the point, who trusts you.”
Rathbone was shaken. The second of Monk’s conditions was something he had not even thought of. Who would trust him? Who would be prepared to jeopardize his own career by speaking up for Rathbone, in these circumstances?
“But I don’t even know who to trust because I have no idea who started this prosecution,” he said wearily. “I’m as blind as a bat stumbling about at the bottom of a hole.”
“I’ll do what I can to find out who is behind this,” Monk replied without even the flicker of a smile at the absurdity of the picture evoked. “But I think, then, your father is the man to find you a lawyer. With the respect he’s earned he’ll be able to employ the best person, someone to trust no matter what he thinks of this issue.” He smiled now, with both pity and friendly jest. “And whatever he thinks of you in general.”
Rathbone wished to protest, but he felt too vulnerable to fight.
Monk must have seen the pain in his face. He leaned forward a little across the scarred and stained table. “You’ve fought far too many cases for anyone to be impartial about you, and won too many of them. Don’t drown in self-pity now. You chose what you wanted to do, and you did it extremely well … well enough to have got yourself noticed by the winners, and the losers. It is too late for you to seek solace in anonymity. That door shut a long time ago.”
Rathbone had always known Monk had a ruthless streak, but this was the first time he could remember being at the painful end of it. And yet what use to him was a man who flinched at anything or who would step aside from the truth to save a temporary injury?
He had been robbed of a shield, but it was a worthless one, and perhaps he was stronger for the glimpse of reality.
Then the other thing that Monk had said reached him and he was forced to face it.
“I haven’t told my father yet. I wanted to have some kind of an answer before I did, so I could soften the blow, tell him what was behind it, and …” He stopped. There was no understanding in Monk’s face at all, only disgust.
“Rubbish!” Monk said curtly. “You’re not protecting him, you’re protecting yourself. You’re shutting him out from helping you because you don’t want to face his pain. Sort out your thoughts right now, and then tell him. To keep him out of this would be both cowardly and selfish. He might forgive you for it because he wouldn’t pile his anger on top of what you already have for yourself—but I would damn well be angry! And more to the point to you, so would Hester.”
Rathbone winced. Momentarily he wanted to lash back at Monk, hurt him just as much. But it was more than his own vulnerability that stopped him. He remembered Monk’s fears in the past. He too had spent time in prison, falsely accused, more falsely than Rathbone was now. He knew what it was like to have all judgment against you. He also knew that the only way out was to fight, to gather your wits and your courage and marshal your thoughts.
And yes, Rathbone must tell his father properly, before Henry heard it from someone else.
“I have nothing with which to write a letter,” he said, “and no one to send with it before news of my arrest will be in the newspapers …”
“I’ll tell him for you,” Monk replied. “But it might be better if I ask Hester to. She always got along well with Henry. He’ll know that if she’s on your side you’ll survive it, one way or another.”
Before Rathbone could reply the jailer returned and Monk was told that his time was up.
Rathbone was returned to his cell, weary and confused. He had wanted desperately to find some hope before his father found out what had happened. But Monk was right, of course. He would find out soon enough by seeing it in the newspaper, or else some busybody would tell him assuming he already knew, wanting to commiserate with him. The hurt of finding out the details from anyone except Rathbone himself would be the same: the shock, even the humiliation that he had not been told, would add to his father’s grief. Telling Henry would be worse for Rathbone than the arrest, the physical discomfort, and the indignity of this wretched prison, but it must be faced. Hester would share only the bare minimum, he knew. Then Henry would come, and by the time he did, Rathbone must be prepared with courage and a plan.
IT WAS ALMOST THREE hours later when he was called to the interview room again. Henr
y Rathbone was standing beside the table, tall and lean, though a little stooped now. His face was calm, completely composed, but the grief was unmistakable in his eyes.
The jailer was by the doorway, watching, his expression unreadable. It could have been respect or contempt, a prurient curiosity, or complete indifference.
Rathbone indicated the chair and Henry sat down in it. Rathbone took the other, with the table between them.
“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned, and went outside, clanging the door behind him and turning the key so the falling of the tumblers was audible.
“Hester told me what happened in court, and that you’d been arrested, but not much else,” Henry said immediately. “I assume it was you who gave the photograph of Robertson Drew to Warne?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Henry asked. “Why did you give it to Warne? What did you want him to do with it?”
That was the question Rathbone had known he would ask, and he had tried to prepare an answer.
“Because he was losing the case,” he said. “I meant him to do exactly what he did. Drew and Taft between them destroyed the credibility of every witness against them, even Hester. Taft was going to be acquitted and set free to do exactly the same thing again, vindicated and with an even wider audience to fleece, even more people whose faith he could destroy.”
“An evil man,” Henry agreed. “But were you sure that was the only way to deal with him?”
To anyone else Rathbone might have protested that it was, even that Drew deserved nothing but to be disgraced in front of the many people he had tried so thoroughly to destroy. However, he knew that was not the point now, and Henry would not be sidetracked.
“It was the only way I could think of at the time,” Rathbone replied. “And it was certain. Just raising a slight doubt wouldn’t have achieved anything. He’d been ruthless and the jury believed him.” He looked down at his hands on the table. “If you don’t lie yourself, you don’t have that instinctive feel for other people’s weaknesses. You can’t manipulate people’s faith or gullibility, so you can’t see when other people do it because it just doesn’t occur to you. Most of the parishioners were like that, and most of the jury.” He raised his head again and met Henry’s eyes. “For heaven’s sake,” he said urgently, “we pick our jurors from men of property, men who don’t know what it’s like to be poor, disadvantaged, ill educated, and on the border of survival. It’s supposed to be a jury of your peers, but by definition it isn’t.”