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He ached to be able to touch her, in some manner lend her physical strength. But it would have been an impossible intrusion.
“Would you like me to have someone come with you?” he asked. “Have you a maid? Or shall we collect Mr. Niven on the way? I imagine you would not care for Lord Ravensbrook?” It was a question, but he knew her answer from the stiffening of her neck.
“No … no thank you. I think I prefer to be alone, except for you. If you will be so kind? I have seen dead bodies before, but not of my own husband, nor … damaged … as you say.”
“Of course.” He offered his arm immediately. “Are you ready to come now, or would you prefer to take a sip of brandy first?”
“I do not take spirits, thank you. I shall have my maid bring my cloak, then I shall come. It is better done quickly.”
They rode in silence. There was nothing of relevance to say, and anything irrelevant now would have been both painful and absurd. They clattered through the darkness past the shimmering street lamps reflected on the mist and smoke and the swaying lights of other coaches and carriages passing. There was no sound but the clatter of hooves on stone and the swish of wheels and occasional splatter of water as they struck a particularly bad gutter.
They reached the morgue and pulled up with a jolt. Monk climbed out and helped her alight. They crossed the pavement and went up the steps. A single constable was waiting for them, pale-faced and unhappy. He led them inside.
The place smelled clean and stale, with an indefinable odor that was a mask for something else, the washed and deeply decaying flesh of the dead.
The attendant took them to a small room where a body lay on a wooden table, covered with a sheet. It was customary to remove the sheet and show only the face. In this instance it was the one part of the man most disfigured. Someone had taken the forethought to cover the head sepaarately. The attendant unfolded the cloth from the neck down, showing the shoulders, upper arms, chest and abdomen.
Genevieve stood absolutely still, as if she could not move from the spot. Monk was afraid that if she did she would collapse, and yet from where she was she could not see sufficiently well to know more than that it was the upper torso of a well-built man. Unless there were some major abnormality in Angus, she would have to come closer to know if this were him or not.
He took her arm.
“Mrs. Stonefield?” he said gently. “Your distress is natural, even a revulsion, but we do not know if this is your husband or not. Without your help, we will never know. Please … use all your courage, and look.”
She took a step forward, still with her eyes closed, then another step, and a third. Monk restrained her. She was close enough.
They stood together in the silence, not a sound from outside penetrated the room. There was no motion of breath. Even the lamps seemed to burn without a hiss, as if the air swallowed them.
Genevieve opened her eyes and looked down at the naked chest in front of her.
“No,” she whispered, and the tears spilled over her eyes in both relief and despair. “It is not my husband. Please put back the cover over the poor man. I do not know who he is.”
“It is not Angus?” Monk insisted. “You are quite sure?”
“Yes.” She turned away from the body. “There are no scars on him. Angus had a unique pattern of scars on the side of his chest where he was hurt, a stab wound, once when he was with Caleb. I know exactly where it is. I stitched it myself. It is not there in that man.”
Monk guided her towards the doorway out. “I’m sorry to have brought you here,” he said bitterly. “I would have spared you this, could I have known.” He nodded to the morgue attendant and the constable followed them out.
“I know you would, Mr. Monk,” she answered with a little cough. She put her hand over her face and swayed. He steadied her and the constable came quickly to the other side. He guided her to the entrance and the sharp night air.
“Thank you.” Monk looked at the constable. “I’ll see Mrs. Stonefield home.”
“Yes sir. Good night sir. Ma’am.”
When the trial of Caleb Stone recommenced the following day, Rathbone was aware of the preceding night’s events. He regretted profoundly both Genevieve’s ordeal and the fact that it had not been Angus’s body. He was also moved by it. She could so easily have claimed him. It was extremely unlikely anyone would have challenged her, and the poor man, whoever he was, would almost certainly not be identified by anyone else.
“Surely the temptation crossed her mind?” he said to Monk as they walked in the rain up the steps into the Central Criminal Court. “She could hardly have been prosecuted for such an error, even if it were ever proved. It could have answered all her immediate needs.”
“And ours,” Monk agreed grimly, following Rathbone in through the massive doors and shaking his umbrella before he folded it. “But no. She looked just once and pronounced it not him. She had no doubts. What she thought about in the journey there, or for the few moments before she looked at him, we shall probably never know. If she was tempted, she had overcome it by then.”
“Remarkable woman,” Rathbone said quietly, taking off his hat. “I wish I could feel more certain of an outcome for her.”
“Little hope?” Monk asked.
“Not as it is,” Rathbone replied. “But I shall do my best. We are certainly not beaten yet.”
The first witness of the day was Monk himself. He testified of his search for Angus, which had taken him eventually to finding Angus’s clothes on the beggar in the East India Dock Road, and his exchange of his own in order to obtain them.
Then he told of his pursuit of Caleb, with the police, and the arrest in the marshes. Rathbone did not mention their earlier encounter, since all that Caleb had said was inadmissible, being hearsay, and unwitnessed. Archie McLeish had been out of earshot beyond the other makeshift door.
