by Anne Perry
She tried to blink back the tears that filled her eyes, but they spilled down her cheeks. “You’re right, Oliver, and I love you for it. I’m sorry. I’m just so frightened that somehow it will go wrong. I have no belief in justice. If it were real, he wouldn’t even be facing trial at all. And I’m sorry, but I think Monk is ruthless, and I don’t even trust Hester anymore. I think she’ll do anything for him, even lie if she has to, to stop him from looking bad—again. He can’t afford to make another terrible mistake, or he’ll lose his job.”
“You truly think she would lie for him?” he asked.
“For goodness’ sake, Oliver! She loves him,” she responded with exasperation. “She’s loyal! She’s his wife.”
“Is that loyalty?” he said very softly.
She looked puzzled. “What do you mean? Of course it is.”
“I don’t believe it is loyal to help someone do something that is wrong, something that could end in another person’s death. You would be helping them to commit a sin they would regret and pay for, for the rest of their lives. Would you want that? I wouldn’t.”
She looked confused.
“If you loved them?” he pressed.
“I … I don’t know. I would want to defend them. Wouldn’t you?” Now she was frowning. “Perhaps if I loved them enough, I wouldn’t even think that they could be wrong. Not as wrong as that.”
“And would you sacrifice your own judgment?”
“I don’t know. But that isn’t going to happen.” She shook her head fractionally. “I’m not married to William Monk; I’m married to you. I can’t grieve over Hester’s problems. That’s up to her.”
Rathbone had a sharp flash of memory, so vivid that it seemed Hester was in front of him now, her face as intense as Margaret’s, but angry, vulnerable, passionately concerned for the problems of someone else, needing to find an answer for them, unable to rest or sleep until she had. She had frightened him, and excited him. And he had loved her for that.
He lowered his eyes away from Margaret’s gaze. He did not want to see into her emotions, in case it left an emptiness in him. And he did not want her to see into his.
He let go of her hands and stood up. “I’m going back into my study. I need to read it all one last time. Try to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” It was a lie. He did not need to, or intend to, read it all again. He simply wanted to be alone, where he also could rest. For all his attempts to comfort Margaret, he was a good deal more anxious than he wished her to know.
THE COURTROOM WAS PACKED, and people were turned away even before the preliminaries of the trial commenced. By the time the first witness was called, the atmosphere was like that before an electric storm. Rathbone was not surprised. He had expected it, because the prospect of a respectable lawyer charged with murdering a seedy riverside pimp in particularly squalid circumstances had driven the more lurid journalists to speculate up to the legal limit, and beyond, in what it was permissible to print. Even thought he had expected the crowd, he dreaded the pain he would see in Margaret’s face. He had considered asking her not to come but had known that she would see it as an invitation to cowardice—worse than that, to betrayal.
Winchester called Monk first, as Rathbone had expected.
Monk climbed the spiral steps up to the witness stand high above the body of the court, and stood there elegantly, as always. He looked assured. Only Rathbone, who knew him so well, could see the tension in his body, the uncharacteristic complete stillness as he waited for Winchester to begin.
Winchester’s first questions were simple, a matter of identifying Monk so the jury knew exactly who he was, and his seniority, then establishing time and place, and who had called Monk to the scene, for what reason.
“You were standing on the riverbank in the early morning mist,” Winchester said.
“Actually, in the water,” Monk corrected him.
“Shallow?”
“Over the knees, and muddy.” Monk gave a slight wince at the memory of it.
“And no doubt cold,” Winchester added.
“Yes.”
“And the reason the local police had sent for you?”
“The body of a man, fully clothed, floating in the water. They turned him over to identify him, which was actually fairly easy in spite of a degree of water damage, because he had a withered arm.”
“Withered?” Winchester questioned.
“His right arm was shorter than the left, and the muscle was badly wasted. It looked as if it was almost unusable.”
“Whose was this body?”
“A local man called Mickey Parfitt.”
“Did he appear to have drowned?” Winchester sounded no more than curious, his voice mild. “Do they call you for every drowning?”
“No,” Monk replied. “There was a nasty injury to the back of his head, slightly to the right of the crown. And we discovered there was a tight ligature buried in the swollen flesh of his throat.”
“Ligature? As in something long and thin tied around his throat and pulled so tight as to strangle him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you notice what it was that had done this?”
“Not at that time. We only really looked at it later.”
“Later?”
“When the police surgeon cut it off and brought it to me.”
Winchester raised his hand in a slight gesture, as if to prevent Monk from saying anything more. “We will come to that later. At that time, Mr. Monk, standing in the water in the early morning light, did you believe that Mr. Parfitt had come to his death from natural causes?”
“I believed it extremely unlikely.”
“An accident?”
“I could not think of any that would meet such evidence.”
“So it was murder?”
“I thought so, yes.”
“What did you do then, Mr. Monk?”
Monk described hauling the body out of the water, heavy and dripping with mud, then carrying it up to the cart, and finally back to Chiswick, leaving it in the morgue for the police surgeon to perform a postmortem.
“Then what, Mr. Monk?” Winchester looked relaxed, comfortable. Rathbone knew him by reputation, but he had not faced him across a courtroom before, and he could not read his mood. He seemed deceptively bland, almost casual, as if he imagined this case would require only half his attention.
“I started to make inquiries as to the nature and business of Mr. Parfitt, and why anyone might have wished to kill him,” Monk replied.
“Routine?” Winchester said quickly.
“Yes.”
“Then, unless Sir Oliver wishes to go into detail …” He swiveled a little to glance at Rathbone, his face sharp with inquiry, but it was rhetorical. He looked back at Monk. “I would be quite happy not to bore the gentlemen of the jury with every step of the way. What did you discover? For example, what was Mr. Parfitt’s occupation, as far as you could ascertain, and please be careful to keep precisely to the facts.”
Monk smiled bleakly. He knew that for all Winchester’s casual air, he was as tightly coiled as Rathbone, concentrating just as intensely on every word, every nuance.
“The police told me that Mr. Parfitt owned a boat, which he kept at various different locations; at that time it was moored farther up Corney Reach, something like halfway between Chiswick and Mortlake. I went to the boat, taking Sergeant Orme with me.”
“The local man?”
“No, my own sergeant from the station at Wapping.”
“Why was that, Mr. Monk? Would not the local man have been of more assistance, given his knowledge of the area, the tides, and possibly of Mr. Parfitt himself?”
“He was still speaking with Mr. Parfitt’s associates, and we found his local knowledge to be more advantageous in that undertaking.”
“I see. We will hear from him later. My lord, I shall call Mr. Jones, Mr. Wilkin, and Mr. Crumble in due course. I think it would be simpler for the court to hear all Mr. Monk’s evidenc
e in one piece, even if it does disturb the narrative a little, if it so please your lordship?”
The judge nodded and made a small, impatient gesture with his hand.
Winchester inclined his head slightly to convey his thanks.
“Did you board this boat, Mr. Monk?” he asked.
Rathbone realized that he was sitting with his muscles clenched, and deliberately forced himself to relax them one by one. He could not look up at the dock to his left, where fifteen feet above him Arthur Ballinger was sitting immobile, staring down at them. If he did, he would draw the jury’s attention, and he might regret that later. Even one fleeting expression that looked like arrogance or indifference could be interpreted as guilt, however little it actually meant. Better that they watch Monk.
“Yes,” Monk answered. “We boarded it with very little difficulty. It was just a matter of coming alongside, tying our boat, and climbing up the ropes. The main hatch was locked, so we broke it open and went down the steps—”
“You mean the ladder?” Winchester interrupted. “Would you describe it for us, please?”
Rathbone hated this, but he must keep it from showing in his face. The jury would watch him too. From the way in which Winchester had asked the question, and the horror in Monk’s face, it was clear that the answer to the question mattered.
Monk was standing stiffly, his hands now on the railing in front of him, holding on to it as if for balance. His face was pale, eyes hard, lips drawn back a little. From his manner he was in some pain that he could barely control.
“The boat was about fifty feet long, as near as I could judge,” he began quietly. “I did not measure it. There appeared to be three decks including the open deck on top. This later proved to be the case. There was one mast, and a wheelhouse. We went down the first hatch, which was wide and gave easy access. The way down was not a ladder. It was strong and comfortable steps, which led into a large room fitted out rather like the bar of a gentleman’s club. We found alcohol in the cupboards, and several dozens of glasses.”
Rathbone saw the jury staring at Monk, puzzled as to why this very ordinary-sounding account was of any importance at all, let alone should stir the emotions of horror that were so clearly in Monk’s face and his voice, even in the attitude of his body.
Rathbone felt his stomach twist. He knew exactly what Monk was doing.
“Please continue,” Winchester prompted, his voice grave. He was an unconsciously elegant man with his height, good shoulders, and unusually handsome hair.
“The other half of that deck was a second room roughly the same size,” Monk went on. “But it was arranged rather like a theatre, with a stage at the far end—just a bare platform, and lights.”
“A curtain?” Winchester asked. “Room for musical players?”
Monk winced. “No curtain, no music.”
Winchester nodded.
The judge grew more impatient. “Mr. Winchester, is this leading somewhere?”
“Yes, my lord, I am afraid it is. Mr. Monk?”
“We went down to the deck below that.” Monk’s voice dropped and he spoke more rapidly, as if he wanted to get it over with. “There were several small cabins, no more than cubicles, each big enough to hold a bed. In the room at the back we found a locked door, which we forced open. Inside the space were four small boys, aged from four to seven years old …”
There was a gasp from the body of the courtroom. A woman in a brown dress and bonnet gave a cry and instantly put her hand over her mouth to stifle it.
One of the jurors let out his breath in a low sigh.
“They were white-faced, crouched together”—Monk’s voice cracked—“and terrified. We had to convince them that we did not intend to hurt them. They were cold, starved, and half-naked.”
Winchester glanced at the judge and frowned at Monk, as though he would ask Monk if he was exaggerating. Then after several seconds of meeting Monk’s eyes, he rubbed his hand over his own face and shook his head.
“I see. What did you do then, Mr. Monk?”
“Made every arrangement I could to get the children evacuated, fed, clothed, and safe for the night,” Monk replied. “There were fourteen in all. We got in touch with a foundling hospital that would take them until they could be identified and, if they had homes, returned to them.”
“Where did they come from?” Winchester asked, making no attempt to hide his own distress.
If you had dropped a pin in the room, the sound of it would have been heard.
“Up and down the river,” Monk said. “Orphans, unwanted children, ones whose own parents couldn’t feed them.”
Winchester shivered. “When did they get to this boat? What were they doing there?”
“They were found and picked up at different times. They were used to participate in various sexual acts with older boys or men, for the entertainment of Mr. Parfitt’s clients. These acts were—”
Rathbone rose to his feet.
The judge looked at him. “Yes, Sir Oliver. I was wondering when you would object to this. Mr. Winchester, how does Mr. Monk know all this? Surely it was not apparent to the naked eye when he broke into the lower deck of this boat? And you have not yet shown any proof that it was indeed Mr. Parfitt’s boat. It could have been anyone’s.”
“My lord, I was going to ask what any of this appalling story has to do with Mr. Ballinger,” Rathbone responded.
“Mr. Winchester?” The judge raised his eyebrows.
Winchester smiled. “I admit, my lord, I was attempting to show for members of the jury what a particularly repulsive character the victim was, before Sir Oliver would do it for me, as I fear he will, so that we may all appreciate that he is likely to have had a great number of enemies, and very few friends indeed.”
There was a sigh of relief in the public gallery and a few faint titters of laughter. Even the jurors seemed to relax a little in their high-backed seats in the double jury row on the opposite side of the floor.
Rathbone could do nothing but concede the point.
The judge looked at Monk. “I hope you are not going to describe these acts, Commander Monk? If you intend to, I shall have to clear the court, at least of all ladies present.”
“I did not see them performed, my lord,” Monk said stiffly. “If I had been present, they would not have been. I was going to say that they were photographed, and the resulting pictures used to blackmail the wealthier men taking part.”
The judge frowned. “I was not aware that it was possible to photograph people who are moving, Mr. Monk? Does it not take between five and ten seconds exposure, even with the very latest equipment?”
“Yes, my lord,” Monk replied. “These pictures were posed for, deliberately. It was part of the initiation ceremony into the club. An added element of risk that, for these men, heightened their pleasure, and their sense of comradeship.”
“Did you know this at the time?”
“No, my lord, but because of previous experiences on another very similar boat farther down the river, I suspected much of it.” He looked at the judge coldly, his face hard and hurt.
“I see.” The judge turned from Monk to Winchester. “I shall expect you to prove every step of this, Mr. Winchester, beyond reasonable doubt.”
“Yes, my lord. I shall leave the jury with no doubt at all. I wish that none of this were so.” He turned to the jury. “I apologize, gentlemen. This will be distressing to all of you, but for the sake of justice, I cannot spare your feelings. I …” He spread his hands helplessly.
Rathbone knew exactly what Winchester was doing, and there was no way Rathbone could prevent it. He had expected Winchester to be clever, but had hoped he would be sure enough of his case to be careless now and then, and take one or two things for granted, where Rathbone could trip him. So far he was treading almost softly, and it made the details all the more terrible. There was nothing for Rathbone to attack, nothing hysterical, nothing unnecessary. To question it would seem desperate, the first sign
that he himself was not sure of his case.
He could not turn to look for her in the gallery, but he knew that Margaret would be watching him, waiting in an agony of tension for him to do something, anything but sit there helplessly. Rathbone was allowing Winchester to go on and on as if he, Rathbone, were tongue-tied. How could Rathbone explain to her, and her mother, that to make useless attacks weakened himself, not Winchester?
He should put her out of his mind; all else must be forgotten, except the defense. The battle was everything.
Monk was talking again in a low, shaking voice, describing the photographs he had seen.
Winchester held a packet in his hand. “My lord, if you believe it necessary, they can be shown to the gentlemen of the jury, just so they are without doubt that what Mr. Monk says is indeed quite a mild description of the terrible truth.”
The judge leaned forward and held out his hand.
Winchester walked across the floor and gave him the packet. His lordship opened it and looked.
Rathbone had not actually seen the pictures, but looking at the judge’s face was perhaps more powerful a flame to the imagination, a pain sharper than the actuality could have been, because it was a living thing in his mind, a monstrosity that changed and that he could never control.
Damn Winchester!
He looked across at the jury and saw their expressions. One man was white, his eyes blinking fiercely, not knowing where to look. Another kept rubbing his face with his hands, as if embarrassed. One man coughed, then blew his nose hard. Others were looking around the room, staring at the judge, fidgeting, breathing rapidly.
“Sir Oliver!” the judge said sharply, as if he had said it before and Rathbone had not heard him.
Rathbone rose to his feet. “Yes, my lord?”
“Are you content that the jury does not need to look at this … material?”
Rathbone knew he must answer immediately. He must be right. Had the suggestion, the emotional charge in the room, made the pictures seem worse than they really were? Perhaps the reality would be an anticlimax.