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Monk looked at him witheringly. ‘Reality, Dr Rand. That is a chance he won’t take. Once she is gone, with the children safe, why would he trust her to remain silent? Or the children either, for that matter?’
‘You’re speaking as if he’s a monster!’ Rand almost choked on his own words. ‘He’s not! He’s a brilliant man, brave enough to take the risks one has to, to discover new cures, new procedures to save uncountable lives in the future. Can’t you see that? It’s like . . . it’s like setting sail alone across the ocean and finding a new continent.’ The wonder in his eyes was momentarily like that of the child he must have been when Edward died, and Hamilton gave up his dreams to care for his family.
Monk put his hand in his pocket again and pulled out Squeaky’s mock newspaper article.
‘I don’t think they’ll see him as the discoverer of a new continent,’ he said gravely, looking at Rand. ‘I think it will be more like this.’ He put the paper down on the desk and smoothed it out.
Rand saw it and frowned. ‘What the devil is this?’ he demanded.
‘How I think the future will see your brother,’ Monk replied. ‘Read it.’
Rand read it slowly, and every vestige of blood drained from his face. For seconds he was too stunned to speak, too appalled.
‘It’s time to face reality,’ Monk said more gently. ‘Hamilton cannot afford to let them go. Whether Radnor lives or dies, he will be exposed if they live. As soon as he doesn’t need Hester, he’ll kill her. The children he may save for longer, or if not them, at least their blood. He’ll keep them imprisoned as long as they survive. It’s likely none of them will attempt to escape because they’d have to leave the smallest one behind. He’s only four. He wouldn’t make it.’
Rand started to shake his head, to deny it all, but his whole body was trembling.
‘And that alone will hang your brother,’ Monk continued. He loathed what he was doing but Hester’s life depended on it, as well as those of the three children, and the happiness, perhaps even the sanity of their mother.
‘Is that his legacy to the future, Dr Rand? A man who bleeds children to death for his experiments, and murders the nurse who tries to save them? Tried and hanged, by common consent of the public . . .’
Rand jerked to his feet. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted furiously, his voice blurred with pain. ‘That’s not who he is. You’re wrong – terribly wrong. He’s a great man.’
‘Then you have no need to conceal him,’ Monk replied, standing up as well. ‘Where is he? Please God it is not already too late.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know! He didn’t tell
me!’ Rand was close to losing all control of his emotions. He was ash-pale and swaying on his feet.
‘Sit down and think,’ Monk commanded him. ‘You’ve known him all your life. Where would he go? Where have you gone in the past? Does he know anyone with property he could use?’
Rand put his hands over his face.
‘Stop it! I can’t think . . .’
‘Yes you can,’ Monk insisted. ‘You have the intelligence and the self-command. You don’t faint at the sight of blood. You don’t panic when people are injured and need you. Now use your mind, your memory. Have you friends with a house in the country? We’ve looked and can find nothing under your name. But that means little. Where do you have relatives? Take holidays? Where does your family come from?’
Rand stared at Monk as if he had risen out of the ground in a stench of sulphur.
‘My aunt Betty had a cottage on the Estuary. She left it to us—’
‘Where exactly? Kent side, or Essex?’
‘Kent. Little village called Redditch. It’s outside the centre. It used to be a farm.’
‘Name of the farm?’
‘Long Meadow,’ Rand replied so softly it was almost inaudible. ‘Don’t hurt him . . .’
Monk took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘Not willingly,’ he answered, hoping it was a promise he could keep. If Hamilton Rand had hurt Hester, he would kill him.
Chapter Nine
‘WE NEED to get a cart of some kind that doesn’t look like we come from the city,’ Scuff said thoughtfully. ‘One o’ them they take stuff in to the market.’
They were in the sitting room in Paradise Row: Monk, Scuff, and Hooper, who was still aching from his recent injury. As the summer faded it was getting dark earlier every day. Monk looked at Scuff with surprise that he should imagine he was coming on this mission.
‘It could be rough,’ he told him quietly. ‘I don’t know how many people Rand will have there, and they may be armed.’
