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Hester thought of a dozen things to say. She wanted to excuse Rathbone. He had undertaken an impossible case because she had prevailed upon him. She had persuaded him to see Rhys, to feel some of her own pity and protectiveness for him. She felt guilty for it, and she admired him for not placing his own reputation, and the failure he faced, before it.
She wanted Monk to feel the same compassion and accept the case, not for her but for Rhys. No … that was not wholly true. She wanted him to accept it for her also, as Rathbone had. And she would be ashamed of herself if he did.
And all that ought to matter was Rhys. It was his life.
“You were finding out about the rapes,” she said to Monk. “Now you could find out about Rhys himself, and his father. Discover if Leighton Duff did know what Rhys was doing and followed him to try to stop him.”
“That will hardly help your case,” Monk pointed out bitterly. “Not that I can think of anything that will.”
“Well, try!” Suddenly she was shouting at him, helplessness, anger and pain welling up inside her. “I don’t believe Rhys is wicked or mad. There has to be something else … some pain, some … I don’t know … just something. Look for it.”
“You’re beaten, Hester,” Monk said, surprisingly gently. “Don’t go on fighting anymore. It is not a kindness to anyone.”
“No, I’m not …” She wanted to cry. She could feel tears prickling in her eyes and throat. It was ridiculous. “Just … try. There has to be something more we can do.”
He looked at her steadily. He did not believe it, and she could see it in his face. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.
“All right, I’ll try,” he acceded with a little shake of his head. “But it won’t help.”
“Thank you,” Rathbone said quickly. “It is better than doing nothing.”
Monk let out his breath in a sigh. “Stop dripping on the floor and tell me what you know.…”
11
Monk was convinced that any attempt to find mitigating circumstances to explain Rhys Duff’s behavior was doomed to failure. Rhys was a young man whose lack of self-control—first of his appetites, then of his temper—had led him from rape to the situation of murder which he now faced. Curiously, it was the beatings for which Monk could not forgive him. They, of all the crimes, seemed a gratuitous exercise of cruelty.
Nevertheless, he would try—for Hester’s sake. He had said he would, perhaps in the emotion of the moment, and now he was bound.
Still, as he set out for St. Giles, it was more at the edge of his mind than at the center. He could not rid himself of the memory of the expression of contempt he had seen in the eyes of the people who had known him before—and liked Runcorn better, felt sorry for him in the exchange. Runcorn, as he was now, irritated Monk like a constant abrasion to the skin. He was pompous, small-minded, self-serving. But perhaps he had not always been like that. It was imaginable that whatever had happened between them had contributed to a warping of his original nature.
If anyone had offered this thought to Monk as an excuse for his own behavior, he would have rejected it as precisely that—an excuse. If he did not have the strength, the honesty or the courage to rise above it, then he should have. But he would soften the judgment towards others where he could not for himself.
He was in Oxford Street and going south. In a moment or two the hansom would stop and let him down. He would walk the rest of the way; he was not yet sure precisely to what goal. The traffic around him was dense, people shouting in all directions, the squeal of horses, rattle of harness and hiss of wheels in the rain.
He should turn his attention to Rhys Duff. What could he look for? What might a mitigating circumstance be? Accident was impossible. It had to have been a deliberate and sustained battle fought until both men were incapable even of moving. Provocation? That was conceivable for Leighton Duff, in the rage and horror of discovering what his son had done. It was not believable the other way around.
Unless there was something else, some other quarrel which happened to have reached a climax in Water Lane. Would that excuse anything? Were there any circumstances in which such violence ending in murder could be understood? He could imagine none. Leighton Duff had not died of a blow to the head which could have been one dreadful loss of control. He had been beaten to death, blow after blow after blow.
The hansom stopped and Monk alighted and paid the driver, then turned and walked in the rain towards the first alley opening. The smell of dirt was becoming familiar, the narrow grayness of the buildings, the sloping, leaning walls, the sense of imminent collapse as wood creaked, wind flapped in loose canvas or whistled thinly in broken glass.
The Holy Land had been like this twenty years before, only more dangerous. He turned his collar up, then pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. It was useless trying to avoid stepping in puddles; everywhere the gutters overflowed. The only answer was to keep old boots specifically for this purpose.
What had made Leighton Duff follow Rhys on that particular evening? Had he discerned something which, with a horrifying shock, made him realize what his son was doing? What could that be, and why had Evan not found it? Had Leighton Duff destroyed it, or taken it with him in order to confront Rhys? If so, then why had it not been found on his body? Rhys had not left. Then had Arthur or Duke Kynaston taken it with them, and presumably destroyed it?
Or did it not exist, and Leighton Duff had known before, or at least suspected? What had decided him that night to follow Rhys?
Was it possible he had followed him before?
Monk crossed a narrow yard with a smithy in the building on the far side. He could feel the warmth from the furnace yards away, and smell the fire, the burning metal and the damp hide and flesh of horses.
A new idea occurred to him as he hurried past before the warmth could ensnare him. Might Leighton Duff also have used prostitutes, and that was how he had learned of Rhys’s behavior? And to reason on the subject, how had he learned? Had Rhys returned injured and been obliged to explain to his father the blood on him, or scratches, or bruises? Surely not. He would have sufficient privacy for that not to be necessary—or for another simple explanation to be given. He could pass it off as a bout of boxing taken a little too far, a riding mishap, a scuffle in the street, a fall, a dozen things. Monk should check with Sylvestra Duff and see if any such thing had happened.
But what if Leighton had been there himself, perhaps with one particular prostitute? That could at one stroke explain his knowledge of both Rhys’s presence in St. Giles and the series of rapes and beatings; and also perhaps explain something of Rhys’s rage at being chastised by his father. The sheer hypocrisy of it, in his eyes, might infuriate him.
And on a darker no
te, if he knew of his father’s association with such women, might it explain his own violence towards prostitutes, a sense of the violation of his family, especially his mother? That would be the beginning of some kind of mitigation … if it were true … and provable.
