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"I’m very well indeed," she said firmly. "How are you? I hope you are well enough to share a cup of tea with me? I brought some you might like to try, and a few biscuits." She smiled back at him. "Of course, it was all an excuse so you will tell me more stories of your life at sea and the places you have been to. You were going to describe the Indies for me. You said how brilliant the water was, like a cascade of jewels, and that you had seen fishes that could fly."
"Oh, bless you, girl, I have an’ all," he agreed with a smile. "An’ more than that, too. You put the kettle on an’ I’ll tell you all you want to know."
"Of course." She walked across the room and pulled the biscuits and tea out of the bag they were in, filled the kettle from the jug and set it on the stove, then, with her back to him, took out the cordial bottle and placed it on the shelf, half behind a blue bag of sugar. Then she slipped the morphine out of her other pocket and set it underneath the two thin papers that were left from Cleo’s last visit.
"Was it very hot in the Indies?" she asked.
"You wouldn’t believe it, girl," he replied. "Felt as if the sea itself were on the boil, all simmerin’ an’ steamin’. The air were so thick it clogged up in your throat, like you could drink it."
"I think you could drink it here, too, when it gets cold enough!" she said with a laugh.
"Aye! An’ I bin north, too!" he said enthusiastically. "Great walls of ice rising out o’ the sea. You never seen anything like it, girl. Beautiful an’ terrible, they was. An’they’d freeze your breath like a white fog in front of you."
She turned and smiled at him, then began to make the tea. "Mrs. Anderson had to go away for a little while. Someone in her family ill, I think." She scalded the pot, tipped out the water, then put the fresh leaves in and poured the rest of the water from the kettle. "She asked me to come and see you. I think she knew I’d like that. I hope it’s all right with you."
He relaxed, looking at her with undisguised pleasure. "Sure it’s all right. Then you can tell me some o’ the places you’ve bin. About them Turks an’ the like. Although I’ll miss Cleo. Good woman, she is. Nothin’ ever too much trouble. An’ I seen her so tired she were fit to drop. I hope as her family appreciates her."
A lie was the only thing. "I’m sure they will," she said without a shadow in her voice. "And I’ll get a message to her that you’re fine."
"You do that, girl. An’ tell her I was asking after her."
"I will." Suddenly she found it difficult to master herself. It was ridiculous to want to cry now! Nothing had changed. She sniffed hard and blew her nose, then set out the rest of the things for tea and opened the bag of biscuits. She had bought him the best she could find. They looked pretty on the plate. She was determined this should be a party.
She did not broach the subject with Monk until after they had eaten. They were sitting quietly watching the last of the light fade beyond the windows and wondering if it was time to light the gas or if it would be pleasanter just to allow the dusk to fill the room.
Naturally, she had no intention whatever of even mentioning John Robb, let alone telling Monk that she was taking over his care from Cleo. Apart from the way he would react to such information, the knowledge would compromise him. There was no need for both of them to tell lies.
"What can we do to help Cleo Anderson?" she said, taking it for granted that there was no argument as to whether they would.
He lifted his head sharply.
She waited.
"Everything we’ve done so far has made it worse," he said unhappily. "The best service we can do the poor woman is to leave the case alone."
"If we do that she may well be hanged," Hester argued. "And that would be very wrong. Treadwell was a blackmailer. She is guilty of a crime in law, maybe, but no sin. We have to do something. Humanity requires it."
"I discover facts, Hester," he said quietly. "Everything I’ve found so far indicates that Cleo killed him. I may sympathize with her—in fact, I do. God knows, in her situation I might have done the same."
She could see memory of the past sharp in his face, and knew what he was thinking. She remembered Joscelin Grey also, and the apartment in Mecklenburgh Square, and how close Monk had come to murder then.
"But that would not excuse me in law," he continued. "Nor would it alter anything the judge or jury could do. If she did kill him, there may be some mitigation, but she will have to say what it is. Then I could look for proof of it, if there is any."
She was hesitant to ask him about Oliver Rathbone. There was too much emotion involved, old friendship, old love, and perhaps pain. She did not know how much. She had not seen Rathbone since her marriage, but she remembered— with a vividness so sharp she could see the candlelight in her mind’s eye and smell the warmth of the inn dining room—the night Rathbone had very nearly asked her to marry him. He had stopped only because she had allowed him to know, obliquely, that she could not accept, not yet. And he had let the moment pass.
"It’s not only what happened," she began almost tentatively. "It’s the interpretation, the argument, if you like."
Monk regarded her gravely before replying. There was no criticism in his face, but an acute sadness. "Some plea of mitigation? Don’t you think you are holding out a false hope to her?"
That could be true.
"But we must try ... mustn’t we? We can’t just give in without a fight."
"What do you want to do?"
She said what he expected. "We could ask Oliver..." She took a breath. "We could at least set it before him, for his opinion?" She made it a question.
She could see no change in his expression, no anger, no stiffening.
