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“I don’t know,” Runcorn admitted. “Lots of things were suggested. You questioned him alone, which was foolish, especially with your reputation.”
“There must have been proof. Not just my word. If it was a fight gone too far…”
“It was more than that, Monk. There was a girl. That’s what the fight was about. She was dead. Her throat was cut, too. It was pretty horrible. Nairn said the other man did it. It was your evidence that tipped the balance.”
“But was I wrong?” Monk asked, leaning forward, his body clenched tight. “Was there any doubt in the facts? Why would I lie?” Had he really changed so much? The thought of lying to convict a man was repellent, and worse, it was an offense against the law, and against everything that honor stood for. It was too easy to come to the wrong conclusion. All the evidence had said that Monk had killed Joscelyn Gray. He had even thought so himself! It was only Hester and John Evan, his new assistant after the accident, who had believed in him. And yet they were right. He had never harmed Joscelyn Gray, in spite of all that he had done.
But that was after the accident. After the terror and confusion of losing all he knew of himself. What about before?
“What did I do to Nairn?” he asked again. “And what was it to McNab?”
“Nairn was his half brother,” Runcorn answered quietly. “Same mother. Grew up together. McNab went the right way, Nairn the wrong.”
“And he holds me responsible?” Monk said incredulously. “Did Nairn kill the woman, too? Was that what it was about?”
“It was never proved, but the jury took it that way.”
“Did I claim that he did?” Monk insisted.
“No. You didn’t say one way or the other. Nairn denied it, and McNab believed him. He begged you to ask for mercy for Nairn. You wouldn’t.”
“What happened?” Monk had to ask, although from the misery in Runcorn’s face, he already knew the answer.
“They hanged him,” Runcorn said. “After the usual three Sundays. McNab did everything he could, begged and pleaded everywhere, but to no effect.”
“So I wasn’t the only one who didn’t—”
“You were the officer on the case.” Runcorn cut across him. “The judge might have listened to you, and given him life in prison instead. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
“Would that have been better?” Monk thought he might have preferred to be hanged than spend the rest of his life in one of the vast, wretched prisons around England. It was a slow death, inch by inch.
Runcorn stared at Monk, deliberately meeting his eye.
“McNab always believed that in time he would have been proved innocent. Not much point in an appeal if you’re dead. Added to which, if they’ve hanged someone, Her Majesty’s judiciary are a lot less willing to consider that they might have made a mistake.”
There was no argument to that. Monk sat in aching silence.
“He wasn’t innocent,” Runcorn said at last. “There were other charges we couldn’t bring against him, but we knew he was guilty. He had a bad reputation with women. Beaten a few, and got away with it. McNab didn’t know, and didn’t want to. Couldn’t use any of it in the trial, but we knew.”
“I knew?” Monk grasped at the straw.
“Of course.”
Monk had to test the last possibility. If he left it, it would haunt him.
“Did I judge him on the past cases? I mean…could I have tilted the evidence a bit, to make sure he paid this time?” He said it with loathing. It was an arrogant, despicable thing to do. But could the man he had been have excused it to himself? He was not stupid—he had never been that—but he was arrogant enough, convinced of his own rightness.
“No,” Runcorn said with a twisted smile. “You were important, but not enough for a jury to have taken your word without proof. And if you’d been stupid enough to try, the judge at least would have slapped you down. In fact, the defense lawyer would have made mincemeat of you.”
“Are you sure?”
Runcorn nodded slightly. “Certain. Nairn was convicted on the evidence.”
“But I could have asked for mercy? Why? He killed the woman and then the other man. What could I have said on his behalf?”
“It could have been the other man who killed the woman, and Nairn killed him for it,” Runcorn said.
“But it wasn’t,” Monk insisted.
