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“No … it’s not.”
The ferryman nodded and kept his silence.
They reached the far side. Monk climbed out stiffly, paid him, and took his leave. His whole body ached abominably. Served him right for his pride. He should have let the ferryman row.
He arrived back in Edinburgh tired and without any feeling of satisfaction in his discovery. He chose to walk, in spite of the gusty wind blowing in his face and the touch of sleet now and again out of a gray sky. He strode across the Waverley Bridge, right down Market Street, up Bank Street and over the George IV Bridge and right into the Grassmarket. He ended outside Hester’s lodgings without having given a thought to why he chose there instead of Ainslie Place. Perhaps in some way he decided she deserved to learn the truth before the Farralines, or to be present when they were told it. He did not even consider the cruelty of it. She had liked Baird, or at least he had formed that impression.
He was already at her door before he realized he simply wanted to share his own disillusion, not with anyone, although there was no one else, but specifically with her. The knowledge froze his hand in the air.
But she had heard his footsteps on the uncarpeted passage and opened the door, her face filled with expectancy, and an element of fear. She saw his own disillusion in his eyes before he spoke.
“It was Baird….” It was almost a question, not quite. She held the door for him to go in.
He accepted without the impropriety of it crossing his mind. The thought never occurred to him.
“Yes. He was in prison. Arkwright, the man on the croft, knew it; in fact, I imagine the bastard served with him.” He sat down on the bed, leaving the one chair for her. “I expect McIvor let him use the croft to keep him silent, and when Mary found out, he killed her for the same reason. He could hardly have the Farralines, and all Edinburgh, know he was an old lag.”
She looked at him gravely, almost expressionlessly, for several seconds. He wanted to see some reaction in her, a reflection of his own hurt, and he was about to speak, but he did not know what to say. For once he did not want to quarrel with her. He wanted closeness, an end to unhappy surprises.
“Poor Baird,” she said with a little shiver.
He was about to ridicule her sentiment, then he remembered with a jolt that she had tasted prison herself, bitterly and very recently. His remark died unspoken.
“Eilish is going to be destroyed,” she said quietly, but still there seemed a lack of real horror in her.
“Yes,” he agreed vehemently. “Yes she is.”
Hester frowned. “Are you really sure it was Baird? Just because he was in prison doesn’t necessarily mean he killed Mary. Don’t you think it is possible, if this Arkwright creature was blackmailing him, that he might have told Mary, and she helped him by letting him use the croft that way?”
“Come on, Hester,” he said wearily. “You’re clutching at straws. Why should she? He’d misled them all, lied to them about his past. Why should she do what was virtually paying blackmail for him? She may have been a good woman, but that calls for a saint.”
“No it doesn’t,” she contradicted him. “I knew Mary, you didn’t.”
“You met her on one train journey!”
“I knew her! She liked Baird
. She told me that herself.”
“She didn’t know he was an old lag.”
“We don’t know what he did.” She leaned forward, demanding he listen. “He may have told her, and she still liked him. We knew about a time when he was very upset and went off by himself. Maybe this was when Arkwright turned up. Then he told Mary about it, and she helped him, and he was all right. It’s quite possible.”
“Then who killed Mary?”
Her face closed over. “I don’t know. Kenneth?”
“And Baird playing with the chemicals?” he added.
A look of scorn filled her face. “Don’t be so naive. No one else saw that but Quinlan, and he’s green with jealousy. He’d lie about Baird as quick as look at you.”
“And hang him for a crime he didn’t commit?”
“Of course. Why not?”
He looked at her and saw certainty in her eyes. He wondered if she ever doubted herself, as he did. But then she knew her past, knew not only what she thought and felt now, but what she had always thought, and done. There was no secret room in her life, no dark passages and locked doors in the mind.
“It’s monstrous,” he said quietly.
