by Anne Perry
FROM TIME TO TIME Monk had done certain favors for men from police forces other than those under his own jurisdiction. Perhaps in the distant past, before his accident and resulting amnesia, that might not have been true. Evidence he found suggested he had been grudging to share back then if he could avoid it. Now he thought such an attitude not only mean-spirited but also tactically shortsighted. He saw the wisdom in not only doing favors now and then, but also in being seen to return a favor done for him.
He was grateful to be owed a few that he could now collect. He chose them very carefully. Inspector Courtland was a lean, middle-aged man who had worked his way up the ranks to a position of some power, but he never forgot the great, decent family that had nurtured him. Monk knew that his mother was a churchgoing woman who had raised five children after her husband was killed in an industrial accident. Courtland spoke of her in such a way that Monk had envied him a family childhood, which, if he had had such a thing himself, he could remember nothing of now.
He did not insult Courtland by pretending he was doing anything other than collecting a favor. He would not have appreciated such condescension himself.
“Not my case personally,” Courtland explained as they shared a couple of pints of ale and remarkably good pork pies in a public house half a mile from Courtland’s police station. “But of course I know about it. What do you need?”
Monk smiled and took another bite of his pork pie. “They do a very good baked apple here.”
Courtland nodded. “Good. It’ll take that long for me to tell you all I can about Mr. Taft and his unfortunate ending. Mind, you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Of course not,” Monk agreed. “I observed it all myself, or deduced it. I don’t know that it’s going to be any damned use anyway. But there’s something in all this that we don’t understand.”
“Something?” Courtland raised his eyebrows. “There’s everything. Starting with, where is the money? Going on to, where did Rathbone get the picture of Drew? Why did Taft kill himself because Drew was a child abuser and pornographer? And why the devil did he kill his wife and daughters? But the facts say that that is what happened.” He took another mouthful of his pie. “And you know as well as I do that if we can prove a thing happened we don’t have to find a sane reason for it—or any reason at all.”
“Just tell me as much as you know of what are absolute facts,” Monk asked. “The sort of thing the best defense in the world couldn’t shake.”
Courtland stopped halfway through his pie and took another long draft of his ale. He put his tankard down again and met Monk’s eyes.
“Taft and his wife came home from court after the revelation about Drew and the photograph,” he began. “They got there a little after five o’clock. Both daughters were at home, but there were no servants in the house.”
“At five in the afternoon? Why not?” Monk asked, his mouth full.
“Apparently they all gave notice when the scandal broke and Taft was accused of misappropriating the charity money. Mrs. Taft is probably the only one who could confirm that, though, and she’s not here to say different, poor woman,” Courtland explained.
“But he hadn’t been found guilty yet,” Monk said with some surprise. “Looks as if they didn’t expect him to be acquitted. Why was that? Did they know something more than the prosecution did?”
“A good question,” Courtland answered. “But I doubt we’ll get a straight answer from them. If they left because they thought he was guilty, they’ll want to stay far away from the whole thing.”
Monk thought for a moment, drinking more of his ale, and Courtland waited.
Someone slapped the plump barmaid lightly on the behind, and there was a burst of laughter from the next table. She flounced off, giggling.
“Did they go before the trial began, or afterward?” Monk asked. “Because, according to the prosecution, they thought they had a good case against Taft, until Drew started to give evidence. Then he pretty well destroyed it.”
“You’re giving the servants credit for more foresight than I think they warrant,” Courtland told him grimly. “Looks more like they went as soon as they got a decent offer anywhere else. The feeling was much divided in the community. Still is. Servants don’t like uncertainty. Can’t blame them. If you’ve been in a home where there’s a scandal it can be hard to find another place.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Monk agreed. “So the daughters were home, and Mr. and Mrs. Taft got back at about five o’clock. What then?”
Courtland shook his head. “Their lawyer, Gavinton, called by. He’s not sure as to the exact time, but he thinks about half past eight. He said Taft was very upset, but he didn’t think he was in the least suicidal.”
Monk smiled bleakly. “Well, he would say that. He’s hardly likely to admit he found the man looking as if he’d kill his family and then himself. He’d have a lot of explaining to do if he walked out and left them after that.”
“True,” Courtland conceded. “All the same, it’s easy enough to believe that as far as Gavinton was concerned, Taft was distressed at the prospect of conviction, as any other man would’ve been, and upset to find that the man he had trusted so completely was a child abuser and pornographer. But that isn’t the type of distress that drives you to kill your family and then yourself. You really can’t blame Gavinton for not noticing that anything seemed out of the ordinary, given what the circumstances were.”
“Does he blame himself?” Monk asked curiously.
“Actually, yes, he does. He says he ought to have seen it, but he didn’t.”
“What about Drew? Did he call?”
“No. Not while Gavinton was there, anyway, and there is nothing to suggest that he came later on. But even if he had, Taft didn’t die until a few minutes after five in the morning, by which time Drew was miles away and can prove it. So can Gavinton. Not that anyone suspects him.”
“Five in the morning?” Monk was mildly surprised. “That’s late to commit suicide. Just about daylight again.” Had Taft sat up all night, trying to think of a way out? Or trying to find the courage to end his life?
“Yes, it is,” Courtland agreed. “Neighbors heard the shot and sent for the police. They got there from the local station well within half an hour. They found Taft shot through the roof of the mouth. Mrs. Taft had been strangled and both daughters suffocated. The gun was there, the house doors were locked. Drew was at home in his bed, as his servants will testify.” He swallowed the last of his pie. “Naturally the police searched the house, but they could find nothing to suggest anything other than the tragically obvious conclusion.”
Monk was largely ignoring his food, good as it was. He tried to picture the scene in his mind. It was all too easy. He had tasted despair himself, in the long dark hours of the night. Most people do, at one time or another. Money problems become insurmountable; news comes of a death in the family; there is incurable illness, failure, a consuming love that is not returned; or perhaps there is simply the loss of a friend who to that point had made all other grief bearable.
Some people retreat into silence, some weep, some lose their tempers and break things, very few kill themselves. That is a journey whose end is unknown, except that there is no return from it. Why had Taft, a man who professed an overpowering Christian faith, taken that road?
The obvious answer was that his faith was not real and perhaps never had been—at least not for some considerable time. But Hester had felt that his self-love was real enough; that didn’t fit the picture of suicide either.
“Do you believe the police’s conclusion?” Monk asked Courtland, looking up to meet his eyes.
“Short of finding some evidence to the contrary, I have to,” Courtland replied. “And I can’t even think of what that evidence could be.”
Monk could think of nothing either. He finished his meal in near silence, then thanked Courtland and left.
MONK SPENT THE REST of the day examining the police evidence in detail, and
it stood up to his closest scrutiny. Both Gavinton and Drew’s accounts of their whereabouts were unassailable. Gavinton had been at home with his wife and family. His wife was restless and had not slept well. She had told the police, ruefully, that the sight of her husband sleeping, blissfully unaware of her insomnia, had added to her sense of being utterly alone in the house. She had finally given in to temptation, and woken her lady’s maid to make her a cup of hot milk. The maid had confirmed this, with sufficient detail to remove doubt.
Monk had not considered Gavinton likely to be guilty of violence anyway. He decided to go to see him only because such an omission would have been incompetent.
He had found Gavinton pale-faced and looking harassed. He agreed to speak to Monk with the air of a man who felt he had little alternative. He was standing behind an unusually tidy desk, no more than one pile of papers on it.
“I’m not sure what I can tell you, Mr. Monk.” He waved his hand indicating the chair opposite. “I am as stunned as you must be by Taft’s suicide. Even more that he should take the fearful action of killing his family as well. I have no explanation to offer.”
“Was there anything he said or did that with hindsight seems relevant to you now?” Monk asked, aware that Gavinton had no obligation to answer him.
Gavinton was profoundly disconcerted. He was not used to a failure he could not deny, or about which he could shift most of the blame on to someone else. He looked down at the all-but-empty desk. “I’ve thought about that, and in spite of the fact that I defended the man, and therefore I imagined I had come to know him to a degree—I certainly knew where I thought him most vulnerable—the answer is that I cannot think of anything that makes sense of what he’s done. Believe me; I want to for my own sake.”
Monk smiled bleakly. He had no difficulty in believing that.
“You saw him that evening …” he began.
“Yes. He was upset, of course. But he hadn’t actually seen the photograph,” Gavinton said quickly.
“Did you tell him what it was?” Monk had no intention of letting him escape the issue.
“I had no choice,” Gavinton said tartly. “He had to understand why I couldn’t allow it to be seen by the jury. It was … repellent. The boy was only five or six years old … thin as a rail. If you’d seen his face—” He stopped abruptly, his voice choking off. “I think if the jury’d seen it they’d have wanted to hang Drew. I did myself.” He gave a violent shudder, something of a courtroom gesture. Even now he could not entirely stop playing for effect.
“And Taft?” Monk pursued. “Was he disillusioned to the point of despair?” Monk was trying to imagine what might have been going through Taft’s mind.
“I described it as factually as I could, without details,” Gavinton replied. “Taft was stunned, and angry, but he certainly didn’t appear insane or suicidal.”
Monk did not reply to that.
“Could there have been a photograph of him also?” he asked instead.
Gavinton looked as if he were cornered, his face tight, eyes moving from one point to another in the room. He considered for a few moments before at last replying, “I thought about that too, but it didn’t seem to be on his mind. He was disillusioned with Drew, of course, but his overriding distress seemed to spring from the realization that Drew changing his testimony would mean he himself would almost certainly be convicted. Whatever sentence Rathbone handed down, Taft’s career as a preacher was over, and that mattered to him above all else.”
“Did you see Mrs. Taft?” Monk asked.
Gavinton looked even paler. “Yes. The poor woman was distraught. I think that up until that time she had believed Taft innocent. Or if not innocent, at least she had convinced herself it was some slight error, a misjudgment, but not more than that. I imagine she wondered how on earth she would survive. His reputation would be ruined. He would be in prison, and I have no idea how she could have provided for herself. I might have wondered if she had taken her own life, but one cannot strangle oneself.”
“Many women can make their own way in life,” Monk answered, even though a degree of pity stirred within him. “Many widows do, and all women who don’t marry. They may have little to spare on luxuries, but they survive. That is the lot of most people in the world. She was still quite young, and very handsome. She could have married again.”
“It hardly matters,” Gavinton pointed out. “She is dead. Perhaps Taft thought she wouldn’t survive without him.”
“And his daughters as well?” Monk asked. “What damnable arrogance and stupidity.”
“Damnable indeed,” Gavinton said quietly. For the first time genuine humility touched him. “I’m sorry. I failed more than I could have imagined in this one.” He looked numbed by the magnitude of the disaster.
Monk was uncertain he had learned anything of value, but he thanked Gavinton for his time, rose to his feet, and left.
He also checked Drew’s whereabouts at the time of Taft’s death, not with Drew himself but with the police. According to their files Drew lived in a modest but very comfortable house two or three miles away from Taft’s home. He had two resident servants: a manservant and a woman to do the cleaning and laundry. They both lived on the premises. The door had bolts on the inside, which were not undone during the night.
Drew said he had slept uneasily; that was easy to believe. He had supposedly paced the floor of his study until close to midnight then gone to bed. Within a quarter of an hour of the shots being heard at Taft’s house, Drew had woken his manservant when he had accidentally dropped a bottle of whisky in his study and smashed it on the marble hearth.
It was convenient, but it was also unarguable. Were it Drew who was dead, Monk thought wryly, he might have more grounds for suspecting Taft of murder. Even had it been Drew who had committed suicide, it would have been easier to understand. But nothing the police had found involved Drew in Taft’s death.
There were at least fifty pictures, aside from Drew’s, in Rathbone’s possession. But did anyone else have copies of the pictures? Ballinger had run the club, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was the only one with photographs. There could be someone else involved, someone who might be protecting his own skin, or cutting himself a piece of the blackmailing profit.
But none of this speculation helped Rathbone. Rathbone needed evidence that proved to the law that he was within the bounds of his judicial behavior, and to the public that he was not responsible for the death of Taft, or his wife and daughters.
Monk had a deep, cold fear that no such thing would exist. Whatever Rathbone’s intentions, and he did not doubt them, his actions had been disastrous.
He decided he must find a way to search Taft’s house, see where he had killed himself, look at his belongings, and get inside the mind of the man who had done such a thing. And he must do it legally.
FIRST HE RETURNED TO the financial side of the crime, getting all the papers Dillon Warne could give him, but this time looking not for evidence of embezzlement but for an indication of the Taft family’s daily life: their tastes, their expenses, their pleasures.
He chose to do it at the Portpool Lane clinic with Squeaky Robinson, because Squeaky could interpret figures into evidence.
Squeaky complained all evening about the time it was taking, and how many better things he had to do, and that this was not what he was paid for. But at the same time there was a deep satisfaction in him that he still might help Rathbone and that Monk had recognized his value and had asked for his assistance. Behind the scrape of his voice there was a distinct pleasure, and he worked with both speed and skill. It was a matter of double-entry bookkeeping; there were payments to companies for shipments that had appeared to take place, but had not done so. Occasionally there were complicated calculations that took very careful repeating to see where the figures had disappeared. Monk found it difficult to follow, but when Squeaky explained it, finally he understood. A little after midnight he leaned back in his chair and looked across at S
queaky.
“I see,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”
Squeaky inclined his head in acknowledgment. “He was a bad bastard,” he said quietly. “He stole thousands, drove some of them poor souls into beggary ’cos they swallowed his lies. Still don’t know what he did with it. It’s somewhere he can reach it. I’ll bet the house on that! Just got to find it. Everything that poor devil Sawley said about him were true, an’ they made him look like an idiot. That was wrong.”
Monk looked at Squeaky’s thin face with its angular features and stringy hair. For all his oddity, his sense of the wrong in humiliating another person gave him a kind of dignity.
“You’re right,” Monk agreed. “And Robertson Drew deserved to be pilloried for it too. He lied about the money, about people, and probably about everything else. If he were to get blackmailed over his personal indulgences, I would think that a very appropriate fate.”
“What are we going to do about all this?” Squeaky said, thinking practically.
Monk noticed that Squeaky still considered himself part of the battle.
“I’m not certain,” he replied thoughtfully. “Taft is the only one charged with a crime directly, and he is dead. I imagine Drew will remain very quiet for some time and then probably disappear off to another city and start again—new name, new congregation. Anywhere as large as Manchester or Liverpool and he’d probably never be recognized.” He realized as he said it just how much that angered him.
Squeaky regarded him with quiet disgust. “An’ you’re going to let that happen?”
“First thing is to do something to vindicate Rathbone,” Monk answered him. “Once he’s in prison we’ll not get him out again.”
“He won’t bloody survive it!” Squeaky agreed, his anger hot again. “Bad bastards he’s put away, somebody’ll stick a knife in his guts in the first month … or sooner. You’d better think sharpish.” He stared at Monk as if expecting something immediate in return, a plan of battle.