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“Naturally,” he agreed. “Of course you haven’t. You are quite right, Oonagh. A man with a wife as beautiful as mine must expect the world to look at her and envy him. Isn’t that right, Baird?”
Baird said nothing. His face was unreadable.
Oonagh turned to Monk.
“Is there anything further we could do to assist you, Mr. Monk?” she asked, leaving Baird and coming towards him. “Perhaps you may think of something in a day or two … that is, if you will still be in Edinburgh?”
“Thank you,” he accepted quickly. “I shall certainly remain a little longer. There are other things to look into, proof I might find that would place it beyond question.”
She did not ask him what he had in mind, but walked gracefully towards the door. Accepting the gesture of parting, he followed her, bidding good-night to the others and thanking them for their hospitality.
Outside in the hall Oonagh stopped and faced him, her expression grave. Her voice when she spoke was low.
“Mr. Monk, do you intend to continue investigating this family?”
He was uncertain how to answer. He searched for fear or anger in her face, for resentment, but what he saw was that same curious interest and sense of challenge, not unlike the emotion she stirred in him.
“Because if you do,” she continued, “I have something to ask of you.”
He seized the chance.
“Of course,” he said quickly. “What is it?”
She looked down, masking her thoughts. “If—if in your … discoveries, you learn where my sister-in-law manages to spend so much money, I would … we would all be much obliged if you would advise us … at least advise me.” She looked up at him suddenly, and yet there was neither candor nor anxiety in her eyes. “I may be able to speak to her privately and forestall a great deal of unpleasantness. Could you do that? Would it be unethical?”
“Certainly I can do it, Mrs. McIvor,” he said without hesitation. It was a gauntlet thrown down, whether she cared for the answer in the slightest, and it was precisely the excuse he needed. He liked Deirdra, but he would sacrifice her in an instant if it would help him find the truth.
She smiled, humor and challenge under the cool tones of her voice and behind the composure of her features. “Thank you. Perhaps in two or three days you will return and dine with us again?”
“I shall look forward to it,” he accepted, and as McTeer appeared and handed him his hat and coat, he took his leave.
It was quite by chance as he was hesitating on the footpath, deciding whether to walk the entire distance to the Grassmarket or go east and down to Princes Street to look for a hansom, that he glanced back towards the Farraline house and saw a small, neat figure in wide skirts emerge from near the side entrance and run down to the carriageway. He knew it must be Deirdra; no maid would have such a sweeping crinoline, and it was too small to be either Eilish or Oonagh.
The next moment he saw the other figure, coming across the road. As he passed underneath the gas la
mp the light fell on him and Monk saw his rough clothes and dirty face. He was intent on the silhouette of Deirdra, going towards her eagerly.
Then he saw Monk. He froze, turned on the spot, hesitated a moment, then loped off up the way he had come. Monk waited nearly fifteen minutes, but he did not come back again, and at last Deirdra returned alone into the house.
6
ON THE TRAIN northwards Monk had comforted himself with the thought that Hester had endured the Crimea, so a time in Newgate would not be beyond her experience, or even markedly worse than that with which she was already familiar. Indeed, he had thought in many ways it would even be better.
He was mistaken. She found it immeasurably worse. Certainly there were elements that brought back memory so sharply her breath caught in her throat and her eyes prickled. She was intensely cold. Her body shook with it, her extremities lost sensation, and at night she was unable to sleep except for short spells because the cold woke her.
And she was hungry. Food was regular, though it was minimal, and not pleasant. That was like the Crimea, but rather better: she had no fear of being allowed to starve. The chance of disease was present, but it was so slight she gave it no thought. The fear of injury did occur to her once or twice, not from shell or bullets, of course, simply of being beaten or knocked down by wardresses who were quite open in their loathing for her.
If she became ill, she treasured no illusions that anyone would care for her, and that thought was far more frightening than she had foreseen. To be ill alone, or with malicious eyes looking on and enjoying your distress, your weakness and indignity, was a horror that brought out the cold sweat on her skin, and her heart beat faster in near panic.
That was the greatest difference. In the Crimea she had been respected by her colleagues, adored by the soldiers to whom she had dedicated so much. Such love and purpose can be food to the hungry, warmth in the hardest winter, and anesthetic to pain. It can even blind out fear and spur on exhaustion.
Hatred and loneliness cripple everything.
And then there was time. In the Crimea she had worked almost every moment she was awake. Here there was nothing to do but sit on the cot and wait, hour after hour, from morning till night, day after day. She could do nothing herself. Everything rested with Rathbone or Monk. She was endlessly idle.
She had resolved not even to think of the future, not to project her mind forward to the trial, to picture the courtroom as she had seen it so many times before from the gallery when watching Rathbone. This time she would be in the dock, looking down on it all. Would they try her in the Old Bailey? Would it be the same courtroom she had been in before, feeling such compassion and dread for others? She rolled her fear around in her mind, although she had sworn she would not, testing it, trying to guess how different the reality would be from the imagining. It was like touching a wound over and over again, to see if it really hurt as much as you had thought, if it was any better yet, or any worse.
How often had she criticized injured soldiers for doing just that? It was both stupid and destructive. And here she was doing exactly the same. It was as if one had had to look at one’s own doom all the time, deluding oneself that it might change, that it might not have been as it had seemed.
