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How easy to say. How trite!
And yet looking up at Rathbone’s face, Monk saw in him a compassion he had not seen before. His own experiences had softened him, and at the same time put a steel into his soul. If it was humanly possible, he would win.
—
THE REST OF THE day passed in total misery for Monk. He tried to assemble the facts he knew for certain, and make sense of them. But there were just too few. Almost everything was capable of more than one interpretation. And all the time he grew colder. Food was brought to him but he could barely force himself to eat it, although he knew he needed to keep up not only his physical strength but his mental concentration as well. His stomach seemed to be clenched in a knot. The only thing he could take easily was the strong, stewed black tea, far too sweet. It was disgusting, but it warmed him and kept him reasonably alert.
He was not yet tried and convicted of anything, so the law allowed him one visitor, apart from Rathbone. Well after dark, at last Hester came. She was treated with bare civility, no more. She was warned that she could not have long.
Monk was too pleased to see her to allow his anger at the police’s attitude to darken the moment. Just the sight of her face was like light in the darkness.
She knew there were only minutes, and she waste
d none of them. Whatever her emotions, no matter what she suffered, Hester was always practical. Her nursing training never left her. It was woven into her nature. She gave him the quickest kiss, on the cheek. That instance’s warmth brought the smell of her skin, and the tickle of a stray hair. Then she sat down in the chair Rathbone had occupied what seemed like an age ago. She looked extremely pale, but she spoke steadily. Her voice was perfectly level, as though she were reassuring a patient who was mortally wounded.
“I have told Scuff, who will tell Crow. Also I have told them at the clinic,” she said calmly. “We will all look into everything we can. We need to gather all possible information on McNab, Pettifer, and any other of the customs men who might be involved. If we can discredit McNab it might help, but we cannot rely on it. It was very much a double-edged sword and the worse he is, the more motive you have for wanting to attack him, possibly through Pettifer.”
“I hit Pettifer; maybe I did kill him,” he said grimly.
“Pettifer behaved like a fool, and brought about his own death,” she replied, almost as if he had not spoken. “He may well have panicked before. Someone will know of it. He was a bully. He’ll have enemies.”
“But it was not they that killed him, Hester….”
She touched his hand gently. “I know that. It would be only to show that he was violent, and given to losing his self-control. It was obvious that you had no choice but to hit him. It becomes no more than an accident, brought on by his own loss of self-control.”
“I’m not sure that this is about Pettifer,” Monk said grimly, trying to pitch his voice so that she could hear him and the guard at the door could not.
“McNab,” she replied. “I know that. And perhaps Miriam Clive as well. I could hate her for it but then I realized how I might feel if you were killed and I never knew who had done it. My grief might make me lose my balance, too.”
He looked at her and saw self-mockery in her face. It was too hideously true. She might very well be about to lose him, only she did know exactly who was doing it. She was watching it happen. There were tears in her eyes, but she refused to weep. There was work to do first.
“Yes, of course McNab,” he agreed. “Gillander knows me from San Francisco. At least he says he does. I can’t argue because I don’t know. I keep getting flashes of memory, here and then gone again. Light on the water, brighter than England, sharper-edged. I can visualize going around Cape Horn. I can see the great rocks looming up out of the fog, and hear the roar of breaking waves and the wind through the rigging. I can feel the pitch of the deck under my feet. Can that all be imagination? Isn’t it the obvious thing to assume I was really there?”
“Yes,” she said. “And you were in Joscelyn Gray’s apartment. But you did not kill him. That is proved beyond doubt, reasonable or not.”
“No one hated me in the Gray case,” he replied. “And Gray was a swine! From what Gillander has told me, Piers Astley was an unusually decent man.”
“Maybe he was,” she conceded. “And maybe not.” She leaned forward a little. “William, we cannot afford to take anybody’s word for anything at all that can’t be proved. We need to count up exactly what we know, what seems to be a sensible assumption from it, and then see what answers are left.”
Her voice was steady; she was being reasonable. But he could see the fear in her eyes, and he noticed how often she swallowed hard and had to steady her breathing before she continued. She was doing it for his sake. He knew that. When she went home she would keep that same composure as long as Scuff was there, and Hester had told him Scuff had returned to his old home as soon as he heard that Monk had been arrested. She would not give in, or cry, until she was alone.
He wanted to reach across the battered wooden table and hold her in his arms, cling on to her. But he knew the guard would come and separate them as soon as he did. He would probably take her away, by force, if necessary. Even hurt her.
“Who was Astley?” she asked. “Why would anyone kill him? All the reasons…”
“Miriam Clive’s first husband,” he started to explain. As he did, he realized how little he knew about Astley’s death, and yet how important it seemed to be, as if it overshadowed everything else.
Hester listened gravely and without interrupting.
“So it was never solved?” she said when he finished at last. “And everybody seems to be lying about it, one way or another.”
“Apparently. Miriam wondered if he was even dead, though according to Gillander, Astley is unquestionably dead. Also he was a good man, unusually so, and loyal to Clive through thick and thin.”
“And then Clive married his widow soon after. Do you like Aaron Clive?”
“What does that matter?” Monk was puzzled.
“I just wondered. He seems, from what you have said of him, a remarkable man, not only talented, but with a grace and intelligence that hold most people’s attention, even regard.”
