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They were sitting in the parlor. It seemed dark and peculiarly empty. After his initial arrival to support her, Hester had forbidden Scuff to leave his studies to come home, at least until the trial began. His work and other people’s needs were a kind of respite.
Rathbone looked pale and there were lines of tenderness in his face.
“It wouldn’t help to prove that McNab was responsible, even if we could prove that William had never heard of Pettifer,” he said with as much gentleness as he could manage. He would never care as she did, but Monk was his closest friend, and they had fought many battles side by side. It had been Monk who had finally saved Rathbone when he was exhausted, deeply afraid and facing imprisonment, possibly for years.
“Well, what will help?” She heard her own voice slipping out of control. “If McNab were responsible, then why would William have wanted to harm Pettifer, let alone kill him? If he could have been persuaded to testify against McNab, the last thing William would want would be Pettifer dead!”
“Because our proving it doesn’t help,” Rathbone said miserably. “If we prove it now, that doesn’t show that Monk believed it back when Pettifer died. It isn’t really time that counts, it’s what he thought was true then.”
“We’ve got witnesses….” She tailed off without finishing the sentence. They were Monk’s men, friends, colleagues, other River Police. The prosecution would point that out instantly. Hester herself could have testified, but she knew, before Rathbone said anything at all, that she could never be put up for cross-examination. It would be only minutes before a decent prosecution would draw from her that Monk had no memory! With every new thought, the noose closed tighter.
There were others who would help, if they could think of anything to do. Scuff was knotted up so tightly with fear for Monk that he could not concentrate on the work he loved. Both he and Crow spent more and more time scouring the riverbanks for information that could damn McNab. At the clinic in Portpool Lane, Squeaky Robinson was calling in every favor and making every threat that might work, and a few that had no chance whatever. Even Worm, the nine-year-old orphan whom Scuff had found a home for there, was out at all hours, up and down the riverbank, asking and listening.
—
MONK SLEPT LITTLE THE night before the opening of the trial. Every noise seemed to intrude on his thoughts. Men coughed, moaned, cursed; one or two even wept. Like him, they were all alone, cold, and above all, afraid. There was probably little any of them could do to affect their fate now. It lay in the hands of others, sometimes others who did not care.
Was it better or worse to have those supporting you whose lives would also be darkened forever if you were found guilty? It hurt almost beyond bearing to think of Hester, or for that matter of Scuff. What of the men he would let down, if they believed him guilty? What of the River Police themselves, Hooper and all the others, stained by his failure?
The thought of McNab winning was enough to make him almost choke for breath. But neither rage nor pity was now any help. They were barriers in the way of thought. It was only intelligence and self-control that could save him. Or a miracle! Did he believe in miracles?
What did he believe in? It was a little late to decide now.
—
THE TRIAL BEGAN WITH the usual formalities. These they drew out over precise notes, which scraped on Monk’s raw nerve edges.
He stood in the dock of the Old Bailey high above the courtroom and looked sideways at the gallery. It was full. He should have expected that, and yet it was disconcerting. How many of those people hated the police and were here to see one of them brought down? How many had been helped by law or police at one time or another, and would rather see him vindicated?
He searched for Hester, and saw the side of her head, the light shining on the fair streak in her hair. Who would love her, if he were hanged? No one, not as he did! She would be the widow of a hanged man. Would she always believe he was innocent? Or would she, in time, give in to the pressure, the sheer weight of everyone else’s certainty?
They were beginning at last. Sorley Wingfield was prosecuting. He was a lean, very dark man with a cutting sense of humor. He had probably called in a few favors to get this case. His dislike for Rathbone was deep and long lasting, and he was bound to know that this one was personal to Rathbone. It was Rathbone’s first really big case, the first capital case, since his return to the bar after his disgrace.
Monk did not admire Wingfield for taking his revenge for other losses on such an easy win. Like shooting at a sitting target, a living one that could face fear and pain.
The judge was Mr. Justice Lyndon, a man he knew very little about, except that Rathbone had said his reputation was good. But then he would hardly have said otherwise, when the outlook was more than dark enough as it was.
The first witness to be called by Wingfield was Hooper. He climbed the steps up to the witness stand, looking pale-faced and profoundly uncomfortable. He was dressed in River Police uniform and stood a trifle awkwardly, as if the shoulders of the coat were too tight on him. Monk could not remember seeing him in it before. He usually wore an old seaman’s pea coat.
He swore to his name and occupation, facing Wingfield as if he were flotsam clogging up the waterway. He had a gift for conveying contempt with barely the movement of an eyelid.
“You work for the Thames River Police, out of the station at Wapping? Is that correct, Mr. Hooper?” Wingfield asked smoothly.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have been recently promoted, to take the senior position assisting Commander Monk, the accused?”
“Yes, sir.” Hooper’s dislike of Wingfield was in his tone as well.
“The position until recently was held by a Mr. Orme?”
Hooper was wary. “Yes, sir.”
“Would that be the same Mr. Orme who was killed recently in a skirmish on the river involving a gun smuggler?” Wingfield asked with an air of innocence.
Rathbone rose to his feet. “My lord, there is no argument as to Mr. Hooper’s identity
, or that he has an honorable record of service in the River Police and was recently promoted upon the death of Mr. Orme, who had been due to retire. And just in case Mr. Wingfield is disposed to take up the court’s time with the subject, Mr. Hooper has an honorable record in the Merchant Navy. Nothing is known against his character here, or anywhere else, and he has been many times commended for his courage.”
