by Anne Perry
Winchester then called Bertram Harkness, who was a very different proposition. He was both nervous and angry. He clearly wanted very much to account for Ballinger’s time in such a way as to make it clear that he could not possibly have killed Parfitt, and yet he was not aware of what the ferryman had said, since being a later witness, he had not been permitted in court at that time.
He blustered. He did not like Winchester, and Winchester was clever enough to play on it. He was charming, even amusing in a mild way, as if to give them all a respite from the seriousness of the crime. Some people in the audience even laughed, although possibly more out of nervous relief than humor.
Harkness was furious. “You find this amusing, sir?” he demanded, his face scarlet. “You drag a good man here, blacken his name in front of all and sundry, accuse him of murder, and by implication God knows what else. Then you stand around in your elegant suit … and make jokes! You are a nincompoop, sir! An irresponsible nincompoop!”
Winchester looked startled, then embarrassed.
Rathbone swore under his breath. It was Harkness who looked ridiculous, not Winchester. The crowd in the gallery was already on Winchester’s side; now they were all but rising to defend him.
“I apologize if I have hurt your feelings, Mr. Harkness,” Winchester said gently. “Perhaps you would explain to me again exactly what happened, and the lie of the land around the area in which you live, so the jury may have that uppermost in their minds, and not some frivolous remark of mine.”
But Harkness had lost the thread of the story he had been trying to concoct, somewhere between the truth as he guessed it and a later and longer version that would protect Ballinger.
“I understand your predicament,” Winchester said softly. “You would have had no idea that you would be called upon to account for every minute of your time with such precision. Let us agree that your judgments are approximate.”
“Ballinger did not kill that wretched creature!” Harkness said tartly. “If you knew him as I do, you wouldn’t even have entertained the idea. Look among Parfitt’s own ghastly confederates, or some miserable victim of his disgusting trade.”
“Your loyalty does you credit, sir,” Winchester replied.
“It’s not loyalty, you damn fool!” Harkness shouted at him. “It’s simply the truth, man. If you can’t see that, you should be occupied in some trade where you can do no harm.”
Winchester smiled patiently and turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”
Rathbone considered for only a moment, weighing, judging, deciding. “Thank you, Mr. Winchester, but I believe Mr. Harkness has already told us exactly what happened.” He drew in his breath and plunged on. “This witness of yours, Miss Benson, is apparently reluctant to testify as to the theft of the cravat that Mr. Cardew was wearing that afternoon. You have conclusively proved it to be the instrument with which Mr. Parfitt was strangled to death. Without this witness’s testimony, it seems to me, as it must to the jury, that there is every reasonable doubt of Mr. Ballinger’s involvement with any part of this unhappy matter, let alone his guilt in Parfitt’s death. Surely the answer is exactly what it appears to be? The man was killed by some victim of his revolting trade.”
For once Winchester was genuinely startled. “My lord,” he began, “that … that is an unjust conclusion regarding Miss Benson’s reluctance—”
“Whether it is doubt, remorse, or fear that some punishment will be visited on her for lying,” Rathbone responded, now suddenly sure that Winchester was hiding something, “that is surely irrelevant. She is not here to tell us about the cravat, or to suggest that it ever left Rupert Cardew’s possession!”
Now Winchester was pale, the tension in him palpable. “Hattie Benson is not here to testify because her dead body was carried out of the Thames at Chiswick, three days before Mr. Ballinger was arrested,” he said hoarsely. “Strangled exactly the same way as Mickey Parfitt!”
A woman in the gallery screamed. Someone else muffled a cry, and a man let out a gasp.
One of the jurors lurched forward as if to rise to his feet.
The judge banged his gavel and demanded order, and was ignored.
Rathbone felt himself go cold, as if there were ice water in the pit of his stomach. His mind was numb, darkness at the edges of his vision. How in God’s name had that happened? No wonder Monk looked like a ghost. He must have known.
Suddenly Rathbone was overwhelmed with pity—and a profound and terrible fear.
CHAPTER
11
“I’M SORRY,” MONK SAID quietly as he and Hester sat in the parlor. “I wanted to have a better answer before I told you. I hoped I could find out enough to say that there was never anything you could have done.”
Hester sat perfectly still, as though she were frozen. Tears prickled in her eyes, and she was furious with herself because they could be out of guilt and an sense of overwhelming failure as much as out of grief for Hattie. Was she too used to the death of street women, even young ones, long before their bloom was gone and they were riddled with disease? They came in injured, and she knew that patching them up was often only temporary.
But Hattie had trusted her. Monk himself had trusted her to keep Hattie safe.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have been able to protect her. I suppose it ruins the case too, and Ballinger will get off. Without Hattie’s testimony, there has to be reasonable doubt, and Rupert’s name will be shadowed again too. Oh, damn! Damn! Damn!” She wanted to cry properly, to let the sobs come, and to swear as she had heard soldiers do, words Monk had never heard, and she would rather he never knew that she had heard them, let alone remembered them.
But there was no time for that now, and there were far more urgent uses for her energy. One of the worst things she would have to do was tell Scuff, because he had been with her when they’d first met Hattie. It was after nine in the evening now, but there would be little time in the morning. She would have to stay with him tonight, judge very carefully how much comfort to offer. She had no idea how he would take it. He had grown up on the dockside and must have seen death many times before, possibly the deaths of people he knew. How she reacted would mark him, perhaps for all his life. She must not show fear, but neither must she ever let him think she did not care.
Monk was saying something. She looked up and saw the anxiety in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said very gently. “I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Do you want me to tell Scuff? He’ll have to know.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You have enough to do. You need to sleep. I’ll tell him, and stay with him. Besides, if he needs to cry, we can do it together.” She smiled, and the tears slid down her cheeks. “He’ll expect it of me, and it’ll be all right.” She stood up and turned to go.
“Hester!”
She looked back. “Yes?” She thought he was going to thank her, and she did not want to be thanked. It wasn’t as if she’d given him a gift.
“I love you,” he said quietly.
She drew in a shaky breath, using all her strength not to go back and cling to him and let the tears come. “I know. If I didn’t, do you think I could do any of this?” Then, without waiting for him to answer, she went up to waken Scuff and tell him Hattie was dead.
She knocked on the door because she always did. He must have a place where no one else entered without his permission. As she had expected, there was no answer. She turned the handle and went in. The night-light was still burning. He had to have enough to see by if he woke up. He must never have that first moment of terror not knowing where he was, of imagining the bilges of Jericho Phillips’s boat, even for an instant.
“Scuff,” she said quietly.
He did not move. She could see his head on the pillow, hair ruffled, still damp from his bath.
“Scuff,” she repeated, more loudly.
He stirred, and when she spoke a third time, he opened his eyes and sat up
, holding his nightshirt around himself with one hand.
She came and sat on the end of the bed, where he could see her face in the light.
“Wos wrong?” he asked, noticing the tears. “Wos ’appened?” His perception of her grief was instant, and it filled him with fear. She realized with a sharp stab how much of his world was bound up in her.
“Hattie’s dead,” she replied, so he would not be afraid that it was something to do with Monk. “She was killed—not an accident, though. William just told me. He wanted to wait until he could find out exactly how it happened, but it came out in court today.”
He blinked. “Somebody killed ’er?” He gulped, then reached forward and put his small, thin hand over hers, so lightly, she saw it rather than felt it. “Don’t cry for ’er,” he whispered. “She were always gonna finish bad. This way it won’t ’urt so much. Quick. Like yer should pull a tooth out, if yer’ve gotter, like.”
She wanted to hug him, but it would be an intrusion too far. Not everyone liked to be hugged.
“You are quite right,” she agreed, angry with herself because her voice trembled. “But I still feel that I need to know how she left the clinic, and who helped her. You understand?”
He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers, still full of fear. If she wavered even slightly, all his doubts would storm back, drowning his courage.
“D’yer reckon as someone took ’er?” he asked.
“No, I think they more likely tricked her, told her she’d be safe, or told her a lie of some sort. I want to know who, because I mustn’t ever trust that person again.” Did that sound too extreme? As if she never forgave a mistake? Would she make him fear that if he made a mistake he would forfeit love forever? “If they did it on purpose, I mean,” she added.
“ ’Ow’d they kill ’er?” he whispered. “Like Mickey Parfitt?”
“Yes, exactly like that. I expect she didn’t even know what happened.”
“Were it the same person wot done ’im?”
“Yes, I expect it was. She was found in the water, as he was, and pretty close to the same place.”
“In’t Mr. Ballinger in jail?” He pulled the bedclothes a little tighter round his body.
“He is now, but he wasn’t when she was killed. But neither was Rupert Cardew.”
His eyes opened wider. “Yer think as ’e done ’er?”
“No, I don’t. But they might try to make it look that way, to get Mr. Ballinger off.”
“Yer like Mr. Cardew, don’t yer?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t have anything to do with it. At least, it shouldn’t.”
He looked puzzled. “You wouldn’t like ’im anymore if ’e done it?”
His hand was still lying on top of hers, as if he had forgotten it. She was careful not to move. “I might still like him. You don’t stop liking people, or even loving them, because they’ve done something horrible. I suppose first you try to understand why. And it makes a difference if they’re sorry—really sorry. But it doesn’t mean they don’t have to pay for it, or put as much of it right as they can. You have to have right and wrong the same for everybody, or it isn’t fair.”
He nodded. “So wot are we gonna do?”
“Find out what happened.”
“Termorrer?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I woke you up to tell you, but there might not be time in the morning … and …”
He waited, eyes shadowed.
“I just wanted to tell you now.”
His mouth tightened. “You thought I were gonna cry.” He was on the very edge of it, and angry with himself.
“No,” she told him. “I thought I was. I still might!”
He smiled at her widely, as if it were funny, and two large tears spilled over and rolled down his cheeks.
This time she did put her arms around him and hug him. At first he merely let her, then quite suddenly he hugged her back, hard, hanging on to her and burying his face in her shoulder, where the hair that had slipped out of its pins was loose.
IN THE MORNING MONK went back to the court, and Hester and Scuff went to the clinic.
“You don’t have to be here,” Squeaky said as soon as she was through the door and into the room where he was working at a table spread with receipts. “Nor you neither,” he added to Scuff.
“Yes, I do,” Hester responded. “And Scuff can help me.” There was no allowance for argument in her voice, and no prevarication. “I want to find out exactly what happened to Hattie Benson, why she left here and who said something to her that prompted her to go.”
Squeaky regarded her dismally. “Won’t do no good. Maybe she lied to you. Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, and I don’t believe it. It came out in court yesterday, Squeaky. She was murdered, exactly the same way as Mickey Parfitt—strangled and put in the river, up at Chiswick.”
“Gawd Almighty, woman!” Squeaky exploded. “What d’you want to go and say that for, in front of the boy? Sometimes you’re a cold-hearted mare, and that’s the truth!”
Scuff charged forward, fists clenched, glaring at Squeaky across the table. “Don’t yer dare talk to ’er like that, yer bleedin’ worm! Yer in’t fit ter clean ’er boots …”
Hester thought of pulling him back, and then decided not to. She could not rob him of the right to defend them both, but she had to bite her lip to hide a weak smile.
Squeaky backed off a little, only a matter of leaning away while still in his chair.
“Y’in’t fit ter …” Scuff went on. Then he drew in his breath and regarded Squeaky with disgust. “D’yer think I’m some kind o’ baby, then, that you can’t tell me the truth? Yer gotta pretend, as if yer think I can ’ear yer?”
Squeaky considered for a moment. “I grant that, pound for pound, you’re worse than a wild cat,” he opined. “Never mind defending you, I should be looking after myself from the pair of you.” He turned to Hester, his eyes bright with a strange, almost embarrassed amusement, as if he were pleased but did not want them to know. “And how are you going to find out who took poor Hattie to the door and pushed her out, then?”
“I’m going to ask,” Hester replied. “We will begin with a full account of who was here, when they arrived, and what they did, exactly.”
“Like the bleeding police,” Squeaky said with disgust.
Hester caught Scuff just as he was about to launch forward at Squeaky again, his fists clenched.
“Yes,” she agreed. “What did you expect? That I would first ask everyone nicely if they’d set Hattie up to be murdered?”
“I s’pose you want me to write it all down?” he said accusingly. “Don’t blame me if they all walk out in a huff.”
Hester thought of several retorts, and bit them all off before she said them. She needed his help.
“Who was in that day?”
“You think I can remember?” he countered.
“I think you will know exactly who was here, what they did that was useful, and how much they ate,” she replied. “I shall be disappointed in my judgment of your skills if you don’t.”
He considered that a moment or two, weighing up her precise meaning. Then he decided to take it as a compliment, and dug his books out of the desk drawer, finding the appropriate pages for the day of Hattie’s disappearance.
Scuff watched him, fascinated.
“Does ’e ’ave it all there, in them little squiggles o’ writing?” Scuff whispered to her.
“Yes. Marvelous, isn’t it?” she replied.
Scuff gave her a sideways look. She had not yet persuaded him of the necessity of learning to read. He could count. He considered that to be enough.
Squeaky read out who was resident and who had arrived that morning and at what time. He also listed what duties they had performed, and if, in his opinion, they had been requisitely appreciated for their efforts.
Hester made a couple of notes on a piece of paper, borrowing his pencil for the task, then set out to question each person in turn
.
To begin with the people were defensive, imagining their work was under attack, and frightened of losing the safety of food and a place to sleep.
Scuff followed Hester most of the time, as if he were protecting her, although he had no idea from what.
“She’s lyin’,” he said casually as they left one young woman in the laundry, her sleeves rolled up, her hands red from hot water and the caustic soap necessary to clean sheets that had been soiled by body waste from the sick and injured.
“We’ll check with Claudine,” Hester replied. “Mrs. Burroughs to you. She’ll know if Kitty was there or not.”
“She weren’t,” Scuff told her. “I’ll bet she were at the back door, doin’ summink as she shouldn’t. Are yer gonna throw ’er out?”
“No,” Hester said immediately. “Not unless she did something to Hattie.”
“Oh.”
She glanced at him and saw the smile on his face.
She questioned two more women—patients not well enough to leave yet but able to be of assistance in cooking and cleaning. Their accounts contradicted Kitty’s, and one of the other women’s.
They found Claudine in the pantry checking rations. There seemed to be plenty of the staples such as flour and beans of several sorts, barley, oatmeal, and salt. Other things such as prunes and brown sugar were in considerably shorter supply.
Claudine smiled when she saw Hester’s eye on the half-empty pot of plum jam, and then Scuff’s, wide with amazement at what to him was a lifetime’s supply of luxury.
“I’ll give you a slice of toast and jam later, if you’re good,” she told him.
Hester nudged him.
“Thank yer,” he said quickly.
“Unless you would rather have a piece of cake?” Claudine added. Her eyes were bright, as if she were laughing inside.
“Yes,” he said instantly. Then he glanced at Hester. “Yes, I would—please.”
Hester told Claudine of the discrepancy between the accounts of who was working where on the morning Hattie disappeared.
Claudine had already judged that it was important.