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Rathbone looked at him icily, in part because there was so very little that was of use yet. His real skill was in the courtroom, faced with witnesses and a jury. He knew how to smell a lie, how to twist and turn words until they trapped the liar, how to uncover truth beneath the layers of deceit, the fog of ignorance and forgetfulness, how to probe like a surgeon until he extracted the damning fact. But he had no witnesses yet, except Hester herself, and she knew so desperately little.
“I am going to learn more of the medical facts,” he replied. “And the legal ones you pointed out earlier. And I shall prepare for trial.”
The word trial seemed to sober Monk out of his anger as sharply as a dash of cold water in the face. He stood still, staring at Rathbone. He made as if to say something, then changed his mind. Perhaps there was nothing that was not already known.
“I’ll go and see Hester first,” he said quietly. “Arrange it.” His face tightened. “I have to know all she can tell me about them. We need everything we can find, even impressions, things half heard, thoughts, memories … anything at all. God knows how I am going to get them to admit me, let alone speak to me.”
“Lie to them,” Rathbone said with a twisted smile. “Don’t tell me that offends you!”
Monk gave him a filthy look, but did not answer. He stood stiffly for a moment, then turned on his heel and went to the door.
“You said something about funds,” he said with acute dislike. It occurred to Rathbone with a sudden flash of insight that Monk loathed having to ask. He would like to have done it without assistance, for Hester’s sake.
Monk saw the understanding in Rathbone’s eyes, and it infuriated him, both to be read so easily and that Rathbone should know his financial state, and perhaps even more, his care for Hester. He had not wished to know that himself. The color burned up his cheeks and his mouth tightened.
“Clements has it ready for you,” Rathbone answered. “And a ticket for tonight’s train to Edinburgh. It leaves at quarter past nine.” He glanced at the gold watch at his waistcoat, a beautiful piece with an engraved case. “Go to your lodgings and pack whatever you will need, and I will make arrangements for you to visit the prison. Write from Edinburgh with whatever progress you make.”
“Of course,” Monk agreed. He hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and went out.
Monk went back to his lodgings with his mind in a daze. Hester charged with murder. It had the horrible quality of a nightmare; the brain would not accept it, and yet the gut knew it was violently and dreadfully real. It had an air of familiarity, as if he had known it all before.
He packed all the clean linen he would be likely to need, and socks, shaving brush and razor, hairbrush, toiletries, and a spare pair of boots. He could not foresee how long he would be there. So far as he knew he had not been to Edinburgh before. He had no idea how cold it would be. Probably like Northumberland. But then he could remember that only in snatches, and in pictures, not sensation. Still, that hardly mattered now.
He knew why the sinking feeling was familiar, the fear and the mixture of disbelief and complete acceptance. It was like his own experience of being both hunter and the hunted when he had first awakened in the hospital after the accident. He had not even known his own name, discovering himself piece by piece as he pursued Joscelin Grey’s murderer. He still knew far from all of himself nearly two years later, and much of what he had learned, seeing it through the eyes of others, half remembered, half guessed at, was confusing to him, full of qualities he did not like.
But this was no time to think of himself. He must solve this absurd problem of the death of Mrs. Farraline, and Hester’s part in it.
He closed his case and took it with him as he informed his landlady briskly and without further explanation that he was off to Edinburgh on business and did not know when he would be back.
She was used to his manner and disregarded it.
“Oh yes,” she said absently. Then added, with a sharp eye to what was important to her, “And you’ll be sending the rent, no doubt, if you’re gone that long, Mr. Monk?”
“No doubt,” he agreed tersely. “You’ll keep my letters.”
“That I will. Everything will be exactly as it should be. When have you ever found it different, Mr. Monk?”
“Never,” he said grudgingly. “Good day to you.”
“Good day, sir.”
By the time he reached the prison where Hester was being held Rathbone had been as good as his word, and arrangements had been made for Monk to gain admittance, as Rathbone’s assistant, and therefore, in a sense, a legal adviser to Hester.
The wardress who took him along the gray, stone-floored passageway towards the cell was broad-backed,
heavily muscled and had an expression of intense dislike in her powerful face. It chilled Monk to see it and filled him with something as close to panic as he could remember in a long time. He knew why it was there. The woman knew the charge against Hester—that of having murdered an old lady who was her patient and who trusted her implicitly, for the chance to steal a piece of jewelry worth perhaps a few hundred pounds. That was enough to keep her in luxury for a year—but at the cost of a human life. She would have seen all sorts of tragedy, sin and despair pass through her cells, brutalized women who had murdered violent husbands, pimps or lovers; inadequate despairing women who had murdered their children; hungry and greedy women who had stolen; cunning women, crude or brazen women, ignorant, vicious, frightened, stupid—all manner of folly and vice. But there was little as despicable in her mind as an educated woman of good family who stooped to poison an old lady who was in her specific charge, and for gain of something she did not need.
There would be no forgiveness in her, not even the usual casual pity she showed for the thief and the prostitute caught in a sudden act of violence against a violent world. With the envy and frustration of the ignorant and oppressed, she would hate Hester for being a lady. And at the same time she would hate her also for not having lived up to the privilege with which she was born. To have been given it was bad enough, to have betrayed it was beyond excusing. Monk’s fear for Hester condensed into a cold, hard sickness inside him.
The wardress kept her back to him all the way along the corridor until she came to the cell door, where she inserted the heavy key into the lock and turned it. Even now she did not look at Monk. It was a mark of her utter contempt that it extended to him. Even curiosity did not alleviate it.
Inside the cell Hester was standing. She turned slowly as she heard the bolt draw back, a look of hope lighting her face. Then she saw Monk. The hope died, and was replaced by pain, wariness and a curious flicker between expectancy and distress.
For a moment Monk was torn with emotion, familiarity, a desire to protect her, and anger with events, with Rathbone, most of all with himself.
He turned to the wardress.
“I’ll call when I want you,” he said coldly.
