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‘Possibly. But why are you so certain her killer is Rand?’
‘Who else? Don’t tell me it was some passing vagabond killed her. According to the first police reports, she did not fight him. She was muddy and her hair tangled, but there was no sign of a woman fighting for her life.’
‘So, someone she knew,’ Beata said very softly. ‘Someone she was not afraid of, at least not physically. What about her father?’
Rathbone was startled, not so much by the idea itself, but that Beata, who had not met Radnor, should come to it so quickly.
‘She looked after him all through his illness,’ he replied. ‘In fact, she has been his companion since her mother died. No one could have been more loyal. Now that he is in almost full health again, and, I gather, keen to resume his travels abroad, she has regained the freedom to have her own life. To marry, if she wishes.’
‘You mean if she ever found someone suitable, of whom her father approved, and who was willing to accept a slightly older bride,’ she said. ‘And, of course, whom she found agreeable.’
He looked at her, uncertain of the quality of pain he heard in her voice. Was it sympathy for a young woman she had never met? Looking at her, he believed it was something far more personal, something she knew rather than was guessing at.
He waited for her to make light of it, dismiss the remark as only an idea, but she did not.
‘Do you think he really would?’ he asked. ‘Why? She had been devoted to him. Hester said she sat up with him night after night, without once asking for relief for herself.’ He shook his head. ‘He would hardly kill her rather than let her go!’
‘From the way you describe it, he is intending to travel without her,’ she said, biting her lip a little, her eyes not moving from his face.
Was she thinking of Ingram? Had he been possessive, domineering, demanding attention from her all the time? Surely that was only his courtroom manner in latter years, and then only when he was challenged, or perhaps felt proceedings slipping out of his control. Had his mind been failing slowly, a hair’s breadth at a time, for years? That would terrify anyone. When people were deeply afraid they lashed out sometimes, did anything but acknowledge the truth they feared the most deeply.
Ingram York was an arrogant and selfish man, but for a moment Rathbone felt a whisper of pity for him. He had had so much, and the love of such a woman! The loss of it all would be beyond most men to bear with any attempt at grace.
But all this was an assumption. He couldn’t know for certain.
Beata leaned forward a little. ‘Oliver, you said Hester described him as a man of huge appetite for life, one who wanted every taste, every smell, and every touch of beauty he could grasp.’
Rathbone winced as he recalled Hester’s exact words.
‘Yes.’
‘Would such a man wish to take his daughter with him into the new journeys he plans? She has done so much for him, been his constant companion through his hardest times. He owes her his companionship now, don’t you think?’
‘Most certainly,’ he agreed.
‘And do you think he is a man who pays his debts willingly?’ Her fine brows arched and her eyes were shadowed, unfathomable beneath them.
Now he saw a picture far uglier, and he was afraid of how she knew such things. There was pain inside her. He could feel it because it was only just beyond his reach. Maybe he would never touch it. Maybe he shouldn’t, but she had allowed him to know it was there. He must, above everything else in the world, be gentle, leave everything unsaid. He had to allow her to tell him, or not tell him, but let him understand without ever saying so.
‘You think he could have killed her to free himself of every obligation to her?’ he said carefully. ‘Cancel the debt, now that he doesn’t need her? That’s monstrous!’
‘Don’t you believe in monsters, Oliver?’ she asked. Now there was a shadow in her eyes that he knew perfectly well was doubt, and the memory of sadness, perhaps even disillusion.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered quickly. ‘But I wish I didn’t. I suppose especially this one, because I let him go.’ That was more honest than he had intended to be.
She smiled, and then moved a little away again, only inches. ‘You won’t make a very good St George if you don’t believe in dragons,’ she said, something of a certain lightness coming back into her voice.
‘I don’t know how to get this one. And I have a strong feeling the police don’t either.’
‘I don’t suppose it is Monk’s case, is it?’ she said doubtfully.
‘No. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to him about it.’
‘Good. I think dinner is nearly ready. Shall we go to the dining room?’
He rose and offered his arm, feeling a little self-conscious. There was no one else present, and it was her home. But it was a very nice feeling when she laid her hand on his sleeve, so lightly he saw it rather than felt it.
He visited Monk the following evening, convinced that Monk would by now know as much as the local police investigating the matter. He found him pacing the floor and Hester sitting in her usual chair. Her face was pale and he could even see, in the strange accents created by the lamplight, the marks of tears on her cheeks.
