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“I will not deny the truth of it,” Rathbone cut across him. “I can’t, and neither can you. And if that is what he said to Lambourn, then it is relevant, whether it is true or not. It is what Lambourn then believed.”
“You don’t know whether Lambourn believed it or not!” Coniston protested, his face flushed. “You have only Winfarthing’s word for any of it. This seller of opium, if he exists at all, could be … anybody! This is totally irresponsible, and terrifies the public for no good reason at all.”
“What is irresponsible is to condemn Dinah Lambourn without giving her the best possible defense,” Rathbone retorted. “And hearing every argument and witness who-”
“Enough!” Pendock held up his hand. “This issue of needles is irrelevant to the murder of Zenia Gadney. She was beaten and disemboweled. Whatever Winfarthing thinks he knows, or has heard about opium selling or addiction, it has nothing to do with the obscene murder of one woman on Limehouse Pier. She was not buying or selling opium, and you have not proved that she had any connection to this mystery seller, or any other buyer, whatsoever.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Coniston said gratefully, his face at last ironed smooth of anxiety. He did not look at Rathbone.
Pendock’s face was pinched, but he acknowledged Coniston’s thanks. He turned to Rathbone. “Tomorrow you will begin closing arguments and we will put the matter to the jury. Is that understood?”
Rathbone felt crushed. “I have two more witnesses, my lord,” he began.
Coniston jerked upright, almost to attention. “Witnesses to what?” he asked sharply. “More horrors of degradation in our backstreets by those who choose to addict themselves?”
“Are there more?” Rathbone snapped back at him. “Then it seems you know more of it than I do!”
“I know there’s a lot of loose talk and scandalmongering,” Coniston replied. “A lot of sensationalism and seeking to frighten the public and drag their attention from the murder of Zenia Gadney, poor woman. You talk about justice! What about justice for her?”
“Justice for her would be finding the truth,” Rathbone said equally angrily. When he swung round to face Pendock again, for the first time he noticed the framed photograph on the table a little to his right, normally in the judge’s line of sight, not his visitor’s. It was of a woman and two young men, one not unlike Pendock himself. It might have been him, thirty-five years earlier. The other boy bore a resemblance also, but far less so. Brothers?
But the woman’s fashionable gown was modern. And when Pendock had been twenty-two or — three, as the young man was, it would have been 1832, or thereabouts. There was no such photography as this then. They had to be Pendock’s wife and sons. Rathbone was almost certain he had seen one of them, the son who did not look like Pendock, in a photograph before, in a very different setting from this elegant pose with his mother. In the other photograph he had been wearing far fewer clothes, his nakedness had been erotic, and the other person in the image had been a small, narrow-chested boy, perhaps five or six years old.
Coniston was talking. Rathbone turned to face him, waiting for him to speak again. He felt numb, as if he were at sea and the room were swaying around him. His face was hot.
Coniston was staring at him, his eyes narrowed in concern.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
“Yes …” Rathbone lied. “Thank you. Yes. I’m … I’m quite well.”
“Then you will begin your closing argument tomorrow morning,” Pendock said stiffly.
“Yes … my lord,” Rathbone answered. “I’ll … I’ll be here.” It was a dismissal. He glanced one more time at the photograph in its ornate silver frame, then excused himself and walked out of the office, leaving Coniston and Pendock alone.
Rathbone went home in a daze. The hansom could have taken him almost anywhere and he might not have been aware of it. The driver had to call out to him when he reached his own door.
He alighted, paid the man, and went up the steps. He spoke only briefly as he went in, thanking Ardmore and asking him not to allow anyone to disturb him until he should call.
“Dinner, sir?” Ardmore asked with some concern.
Rathbone forced himself to be polite. The man more than deserved that much. “I don’t think so, thank you. If I change my mind, I’ll send for a couple of sandwiches, or a slice of pie, whatever Mrs. Wilton has. I’ll hav
e a glass of brandy. In an hour or two. I need to think. I doubt anyone will call, but unless it is Mr. Monk, I cannot see them.”
Ardmore was in no way comforted. “Are you quite well, Sir Oliver? Are you certain there is nothing else I can do for you?”
“I am perfectly well, thank you, Ardmore. I have to make a very difficult decision about this case. I need time to consider what the right thing to do is, for a woman accused of a murder she did not commit-at least I don’t believe she did-and for the woman who was very brutally killed, I think merely to serve a purpose. For a man or men who committed these crimes, and for the sake of a larger justice altogether.”
“Yes, sir.” Ardmore blinked. “I shall see that you are not disturbed.”
Rathbone sat alone for nearly an hour, weighing up in his mind if he even wished to be certain that the young man in Ballinger’s photograph was Pendock’s son. If he did not use it then it did not really matter who it was.
If it was Hadley Pendock, then how would he use it? Not to get a particular verdict. There was no question in his mind that that would be irredeemably wrong. But Grover Pendock had ruled against Dinah all the way through the trial where it had mattered. Now he was attempting to end the trial before Agatha Nisbet could testify, and even if she did come on the following day, she would then not be allowed to say anything that could expose Herne, or Bawtry, or whoever it was who had brought about the murder of Joel Lambourn, Zenia Gadney, and thus also the murder of Dinah Lambourn.
That must not be allowed to happen.
There was a knock on the door.
