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“She is very…sensible,” Hooper said slowly. “If you met her, you would know what I mean. She understands that truth is the only thing that helps.”
“Are you sure?”
Hooper thought for a moment and then answered, “Yes, I am.”
Hooper was a good judge of character. Monk had come to rely on him more and more. He thought of the trust he had placed in Orme, when he was alive. That was a loss they all still felt. Sometimes Monk remembered a familiar phrase that Orme had used or passed a place on the river he had loved, and a shadow would pass over his face.
“Who betrayed us, Hooper?” he said suddenly. “Could Lister have told us, and that was why he was killed?”
Hooper’s eyes widened a fraction. Perhaps because it had not occurred to him? Or because he realized Monk must trust him to ask him that?
“I don’t know,” Hooper replied. “I knew it wasn’t you or me. And I trust Laker. He’s a cheeky devil, and ambitious, but I trust him. He wants to be like you,” he smiled. “Or even better. And that means being straight with everybody, whether they like it or not.”
Monk winced and felt the heat climb up his face. He had not done much to deserve that kind of praise lately, and he realized with surprise how valuable it was to him. “What about Bathurst?” he asked. “Are you satisfied about him?”
“Yes,” Hooper replied. “That leaves Marbury and Walcott. But so much about this case isn’t how it looks, and everything is to be questioned. Exeter even tried to make me doubt Miss Darwin’s identification.”
Monk waited. He could see that Hooper was fighting some emotion. Whatever Exeter had said, it disturbed and also angered him. Was that because he felt something for the woman? It looked like that, from his expression.
Hooper lifted his head. “He half suggested that she wasn’t a reliable witness, that she was likely to be overcome with horror or emotion, and her judgment affected.”
“Isn’t that fair?” Monk asked, surprised that Hooper should not see that himself.
“Because she’s a woman?” Hooper said with disbelief. “What, and confused, overemotional? Like Hester?” He used her first name quite naturally, as if this was how he thought of her. “Or the other women who work with her at the clinic, or did in the Crimea?”
Again, Monk felt the heat rise up in his face. “So, Exeter views women as weak and suggestible? I wonder if that was how he saw Kate.” He found that hard to believe when he remembered Exeter’s face when he spoke of her, or the few incidents he had recalled in Monk’s company. Did he have conflicting ideas? Kate, and then other women? Did he even know other women, apart from Celia Darwin, who was family and of little more interest to him than a servant? He had spoken of her dismissively before.
“He tried to make me doubt Miss Darwin’s identification of Lister,” Hooper repeated.
“Perhaps he wants to believe the kidnapper is still alive, either to get information or to feel the pain of punishment,” Monk suggested.
“I think Doyle’s part of it.” Hooper picked up the other thread of the conversation. “He wants to be something he can’t be without a lot more money than he’ll ever earn at the bank. Exeter took him to a gentlemen’s club, according to the woman at the public house where he drinks.”
“Exeter or Doyle?”
“Doyle, although I gather Exeter’s been in there a couple of times. Slumming, showing he’s one of the men!” The expression on Hooper’s face was a mixture of derision, disgust, and pity. “Fool,” he said under his breath.
They stayed and turned over every possibility again, but no new thought arose. Eventually Hooper left, and a few moments later Monk took the ferry home across the river.
He was pleased to see Hester and glad of the warmth of the sitting room, but he wished he had progress to tell her, or at least that someone had proved conclusively that he could not have been the one to betray them to the kidnappers. But with Hester, Monk could not even try to pretend. It was not for her sake, but mainly for his own. He had to have one relationship without even the smallest lies, no shifting of position to make himself look better, no wondering if she would find out this or that. Everything would be different, shallower, without the shadows that made it real.
He went to bed early, too tired to think of anything to say. Sleep might repair some of the frayed edges of his temper.
But he did not sleep. He lay stiff and awkward, listening to Hester’s breathing become deeper, softer, as she drifted off. Somewhere outside and far away a church clock chimed midnight, then one, then two. The wind rose a little and whined round the ridges of the roof. It would be freezing out there, a few yards away, above the slates. It seemed all the warmer in here. He wanted to wake Hester and hold her in his arms, have her tell him none of his men had betrayed him. That good things in the world were still as he had believed. How infinitely childish! He turned over and put his back to her, to stop himself from doing anything so self-absorbed.
“William?” she said quietly.
Damn! He had woken her anyway. Should he pretend to be asleep?
“William?” she repeated.
He did not answer. He felt her moving beside him, pushing the covers back and climbing out of bed. She walked across the floor and took her robe off the peg on the back of the door. She put it on and, hugging it around herself, went outside onto the landing.
He waited, but she seemed gone for ages. He would not go to sleep until she returned.
When she did, the light was on on the landing. She came in and put the bedroom light on, too. She was carrying a small tray with two mugs of tea.
“We’ll talk it through,” she said, as if picking up a conversation they had left in the middle.
