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“Only what he can read about,
or other people can tell him,” he agreed.
“And San Francisco? Is that the same?”
“Yes. He has flashes of familiarity, but he doesn’t know if it’s memory or imagination. He seems to know how to work a schooner, but knowing that means he could have been across the Atlantic, or simply around the coast of Britain. And up into the North Sea. He knows from the evidence of others that he grew up on the coast of Northumberland.”
“And Astley, you say?” Beata asked. “Can’t he remember him at all?”
“No. But they were wild, rough days in ’49. A world away from here. Gillander and Clive both say Monk was there, but they could be lying. So could anyone else, or even all of them.”
“Oh…” Her mind raced through the chaos of unknown facts, people, possibilities, trying to find something to grasp on to. She would have given anything to be able to remember Monk herself, but she couldn’t. “But he didn’t intentionally kill Pettifer?”
“I’m certain of that. But it isn’t enough.”
“No…of course it isn’t.” She wanted to help, to think of something that would spark hope, but false hope was worse than useless; it was also dangerous. “We need the truth, or as much of it as we can find.” She was used to the law. She had listened to Ingram going on about it for enough years. Sometimes she could still see it in her dreams: the anger in his face, too close to hers, shouting at her. But that did not matter now. Only saving Monk mattered. “And we need to divide the case into what we can prove, and what we believe because we deduce it, or we trust the people concerned,” she finished.
The ghost of a smile touched Rathbone’s face. “If I thought I understood the reason people did whatever they did, then I would know where to look for other facts, proof, connections between things. I could make a line of reasoning and find what is missing, or at least enough of it to be believable to a jury. Nobody does things without some reason.”
“Oh, I know something that perhaps you don’t….”
His eyes widened, but he did not interrupt.
“Miriam and Aaron Clive are about the only people I have spent any time with since Ingram’s death, largely for reasons of propriety. One occasion I was there McNab called. It wasn’t to see Aaron over some business matter, but to see Miriam.”
Rathbone was startled. “How would he even know her?”
“They have some concern together, some interest. I’m trying to remember exactly what I overheard….”
“You were there?” There was surprise in his voice.
“In the hall, just outside the door,” she replied, feeling a heat rise in her face. “I excused myself to allow them privacy. But I waited in the hall. There was no one else there and the sound of their voices carried. There was information they wanted from each other. Monk’s name was mentioned. But even when I didn’t catch the words, I could hear the depth of conviction in their voices. It mattered intensely to Miriam. I think it was to do with San Francisco. So if Monk was there, that would make sense.”
“But why did McNab care about Monk and San Francisco? Do you remember anything he said?” he asked with growing interest.
“I can’t remember why, but I think it was to do with Piers Astley’s death. I remember very clearly wondering if she was relieved….” She felt embarrassed even by the thought, but this was not a time to be concerned with herself. “If perhaps he had been cruel to her and that was why he had been killed.”
There was confusion in his face. Did he know anything of what Ingram had done to her, beyond the little she had said? She must not allow it to matter now. It was the truth, and maybe more of it would have to come out: details rather than generalities with carefully blurred edges. Oliver might have to know. Did she want to live her whole life hiding things from him, skirting around the real words, inventing explanations…at heart, deceiving him? He would know it, wouldn’t he? It was his profession to know other people were lying, half-lying, evading what they could not bear to see.
“So you think Astley’s death was to do with his being cruel?” he said very gently. He made no move to touch her, and yet it was almost as if he had. She often thought what sensitive hands he had, and imagined them holding hers.
“I think Miriam has known terrible pain,” she murmured, trying very hard to grasp the truth. “And it has to do with Astley.”
“Who was responsible for his death?” Rathbone asked.
“They didn’t know at the time, and I’m not sure if they do now. But what if she needs to know, and that’s what she wanted to find from Monk?”
“But Monk doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even know if he was there.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
He bit his lip thoughtfully. “Very interesting, because McNab does know that Monk has no memory.”
“Then he is deceiving Miriam if he is telling her that Monk can help. I wonder why? It is somehow to trap Monk, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. If that is what they were talking about.”
“Is he wanting her somehow to get at Monk?”
