Acceptable Loss

CHAPTER

11

“I’M SORRY,” MONK SAID quietly as he and Hester sat in the parlor. “I wanted to have a better answer before I told you. I hoped I could find out enough to say that there was never anything you could have done.”

Hester sat perfectly still, as though she were frozen. Tears prickled in her eyes, and she was furious with herself because they could be out of guilt and an sense of overwhelming failure as much as out of grief for Hattie. Was she too used to the death of street women, even young ones, long before their bloom was gone and they were riddled with disease? They came in injured, and she knew that patching them up was often only temporary.

But Hattie had trusted her. Monk himself had trusted her to keep Hattie safe.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have been able to protect her. I suppose it ruins the case too, and Ballinger will get off. Without Hattie’s testimony, there has to be reasonable doubt, and Rupert’s name will be shadowed again too. Oh, damn! Damn! Damn!” She wanted to cry properly, to let the sobs come, and to swear as she had heard soldiers do, words Monk had never heard, and she would rather he never knew that she had heard them, let alone remembered them.

But there was no time for that now, and there were far more urgent uses for her energy. One of the worst things she would have to do was tell Scuff, because he had been with her when they’d first met Hattie. It was after nine in the evening now, but there would be little time in the morning. She would have to stay with him tonight, judge very carefully how much comfort to offer. She had no idea how he would take it. He had grown up on the dockside and must have seen death many times before, possibly the deaths of people he knew. How she reacted would mark him, perhaps for all his life. She must not show fear, but neither must she ever let him think she did not care.

Monk was saying something. She looked up and saw the anxiety in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said very gently. “I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“Do you want me to tell Scuff? He’ll have to know.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You have enough to do. You need to sleep. I’ll tell him, and stay with him. Besides, if he needs to cry, we can do it together.” She smiled, and the tears slid down her cheeks. “He’ll expect it of me, and it’ll be all right.” She stood up and turned to go.

“Hester!”

She looked back. “Yes?” She thought he was going to thank her, and she did not want to be thanked. It wasn’t as if she’d given him a gift.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

She drew in a shaky breath, using all her strength not to go back and cling to him and let the tears come. “I know. If I didn’t, do you think I could do any of this?” Then, without waiting for him to answer, she went up to waken Scuff and tell him Hattie was dead.

She knocked on the door because she always did. He must have a place where no one else entered without his permission. As she had expected, there was no answer. She turned the handle and went in. The night-light was still burning. He had to have enough to see by if he woke up. He must never have that first moment of terror not knowing where he was, of imagining the bilges of Jericho Phillips’s boat, even for an instant.

“Scuff,” she said quietly.

He did not move. She could see his head on the pillow, hair ruffled, still damp from his bath.

“Scuff,” she repeated, more loudly.

He stirred, and when she spoke a third time, he opened his eyes and sat up, holding his nightshirt around himself with one hand.

She came and sat on the end of the bed, where he could see her face in the light.

“Wos wrong?” he asked, noticing the tears. “Wos ’appened?” His perception of her grief was instant, and it filled him with fear. She realized with a sharp stab how much of his world was bound up in her.

“Hattie’s dead,” she replied, so he would not be afraid that it was something to do with Monk. “She was killed—not an accident, though. William just told me. He wanted to wait until he could find out exactly how it happened, but it came out in court today.”

He blinked. “Somebody killed ’er?” He gulped, then reached forward and put his small, thin hand over hers, so lightly, she saw it rather than felt it. “Don’t cry for ’er,” he whispered. “She were always gonna finish bad. This way it won’t ’urt so much. Quick. Like yer should pull a tooth out, if yer’ve gotter, like.”

She wanted to hug him, but it would be an intrusion too far. Not everyone liked to be hugged.

“You are quite right,” she agreed, angry with herself because her voice trembled. “But I still feel that I need to know how she left the clinic, and who helped her. You understand?”

He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers, still full of fear. If she wavered even slightly, all his doubts would storm back, drowning his courage.

“D’yer reckon as someone took ’er?” he asked.

“No, I think they more likely tricked her, told her she’d be safe, or told her a lie of some sort. I want to know who, because I mustn’t ever trust that person again.” Did that sound too extreme? As if she never forgave a mistake? Would she make him fear that if he made a mistake he would forfeit love forever? “If they did it on purpose, I mean,” she added.

“ ’Ow’d they kill ’er?” he whispered. “Like Mickey Parfitt?”

“Yes, exactly like that. I expect she didn’t even know what happened.”

“Were it the same person wot done ’im?”

“Yes, I expect it was. She was found in the water, as he was, and pretty close to the same place.”

“In’t Mr. Ballinger in jail?” He pulled the bedclothes a little tighter round his body.

“He is now, but he wasn’t when she was killed. But neither was Rupert Cardew.”

His eyes opened wider. “Yer think as ’e done ’er?”

“No, I don’t. But they might try to make it look that way, to get Mr. Ballinger off.”

“Yer like Mr. Cardew, don’t yer?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t have anything to do with it. At least, it shouldn’t.”

He looked puzzled. “You wouldn’t like ’im anymore if ’e done it?”

His hand was still lying on top of hers, as if he had forgotten it. She was careful not to move. “I might still like him. You don’t stop liking people, or even loving them, because they’ve done something horrible. I suppose first you try to understand why. And it makes a difference if they’re sorry—really sorry. But it doesn’t mean they don’t have to pay for it, or put as much of it right as they can. You have to have right and wrong the same for everybody, or it isn’t fair.”

He nodded. “So wot are we gonna do?”

“Find out what happened.”

“Termorrer?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I woke you up to tell you, but there might not be time in the morning … and …”

He waited, eyes shadowed.

“I just wanted to tell you now.”

His mouth tightened. “You thought I were gonna cry.” He was on the very edge of it, and angry with himself.

“No,” she told him. “I thought I was. I still might!”

He smiled at her widely, as if it were funny, and two large tears spilled over and rolled down his cheeks.

This time she did put her arms around him and hug him. At first he merely let her, then quite suddenly he hugged her back, hard, hanging on to her and burying his face in her shoulder, where the hair that had slipped out of its pins was loose.

IN THE MORNING MONK went back to the court, and Hester and Scuff went to the clinic.

“You don’t have to be here,” Squeaky said as soon as she was through the door and into the room where he was working at a table spread with receipts. “Nor you neither,” he added to Scuff.

“Yes, I do,” Hester responded. “And Scuff can help me.” There was no allowance for argument in her voice, and no prevarication. “I want to find out exactly what happened to Hattie Benson, why she left here and who said something to her that prompted her to go.”

Squeaky regarded her dismally. “Won’t do no good. Maybe she lied to you. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes, and I don’t believe it. It came out in court yesterday, Squeaky. She was murdered, exactly the same way as Mickey Parfitt—strangled and put in the river, up at Chiswick.”

“Gawd Almighty, woman!” Squeaky exploded. “What d’you want to go and say that for, in front of the boy? Sometimes you’re a cold-hearted mare, and that’s the truth!”

Scuff charged forward, fists clenched, glaring at Squeaky across the table. “Don’t yer dare talk to ’er like that, yer bleedin’ worm! Yer in’t fit ter clean ’er boots …”

Hester thought of pulling him back, and then decided not to. She could not rob him of the right to defend them both, but she had to bite her lip to hide a weak smile.

Squeaky backed off a little, only a matter of leaning away while still in his chair.

“Y’in’t fit ter …” Scuff went on. Then he drew in his breath and regarded Squeaky with disgust. “D’yer think I’m some kind o’ baby, then, that you can’t tell me the truth? Yer gotta pretend, as if yer think I can ’ear yer?”

Squeaky considered for a moment. “I grant that, pound for pound, you’re worse than a wild cat,” he opined. “Never mind defending you, I should be looking after myself from the pair of you.” He turned to Hester, his eyes bright with a strange, almost embarrassed amusement, as if he were pleased but did not want them to know. “And how are you going to find out who took poor Hattie to the door and pushed her out, then?”

“I’m going to ask,” Hester replied. “We will begin with a full account of who was here, when they arrived, and what they did, exactly.”

“Like the bleeding police,” Squeaky said with disgust.

Hester caught Scuff just as he was about to launch forward at Squeaky again, his fists clenched.

“Yes,” she agreed. “What did you expect? That I would first ask everyone nicely if they’d set Hattie up to be murdered?”

“I s’pose you want me to write it all down?” he said accusingly. “Don’t blame me if they all walk out in a huff.”

Hester thought of several retorts, and bit them all off before she said them. She needed his help.

“Who was in that day?”

“You think I can remember?” he countered.

“I think you will know exactly who was here, what they did that was useful, and how much they ate,” she replied. “I shall be disappointed in my judgment of your skills if you don’t.”

He considered that a moment or two, weighing up her precise meaning. Then he decided to take it as a compliment, and dug his books out of the desk drawer, finding the appropriate pages for the day of Hattie’s disappearance.

Scuff watched him, fascinated.

“Does ’e ’ave it all there, in them little squiggles o’ writing?” Scuff whispered to her.

“Yes. Marvelous, isn’t it?” she replied.

Scuff gave her a sideways look. She had not yet persuaded him of the necessity of learning to read. He could count. He considered that to be enough.

Squeaky read out who was resident and who had arrived that morning and at what time. He also listed what duties they had performed, and if, in his opinion, they had been requisitely appreciated for their efforts.

Hester made a couple of notes on a piece of paper, borrowing his pencil for the task, then set out to question each person in turn.

To begin with the people were defensive, imagining their work was under attack, and frightened of losing the safety of food and a place to sleep.

Scuff followed Hester most of the time, as if he were protecting her, although he had no idea from what.

“She’s lyin’,” he said casually as they left one young woman in the laundry, her sleeves rolled up, her hands red from hot water and the caustic soap necessary to clean sheets that had been soiled by body waste from the sick and injured.

“We’ll check with Claudine,” Hester replied. “Mrs. Burroughs to you. She’ll know if Kitty was there or not.”

“She weren’t,” Scuff told her. “I’ll bet she were at the back door, doin’ summink as she shouldn’t. Are yer gonna throw ’er out?”

“No,” Hester said immediately. “Not unless she did something to Hattie.”

“Oh.”

She glanced at him and saw the smile on his face.

She questioned two more women—patients not well enough to leave yet but able to be of assistance in cooking and cleaning. Their accounts contradicted Kitty’s, and one of the other women’s.

They found Claudine in the pantry checking rations. There seemed to be plenty of the staples such as flour and beans of several sorts, barley, oatmeal, and salt. Other things such as prunes and brown sugar were in considerably shorter supply.

Claudine smiled when she saw Hester’s eye on the half-empty pot of plum jam, and then Scuff’s, wide with amazement at what to him was a lifetime’s supply of luxury.

“I’ll give you a slice of toast and jam later, if you’re good,” she told him.

Hester nudged him.

“Thank yer,” he said quickly.

“Unless you would rather have a piece of cake?” Claudine added. Her eyes were bright, as if she were laughing inside.

“Yes,” he said instantly. Then he glanced at Hester. “Yes, I would—please.”

Hester told Claudine of the discrepancy between the accounts of who was working where on the morning Hattie disappeared.

Claudine had already judged that it was important.

“That can’t be right,” she agreed. She turned to Scuff. “If you go to the kitchen, you’ll find Bessie there. Tell her that I said you could have a piece of the plum cake in the third jar along. Don’t forget, the third jar. Then she’ll know that you are telling the truth. No one else knows it is there.”

Scuff drew in his breath, and then let it out again. “I’ll ’ave it later,” he replied, taking a step closer to Hester. “Ye’re gonna tell ’er who opened the door an’ let ’Attie out ter get killed. I gotta be ’ere. Thank yer.”

Claudine looked at him, then at Hester. “Is he right?”

Hester nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so. She had strict instructions not to go out for any reason at all, not even to go into the main rooms where other people come and go. She knew she was in danger, and she was scared stiff that they would kill her.”

Claudine’s face filled with misery. “And did they?”

“Yes. Claudine, I have to know who persuaded her to go out.”

“What good will it do now?” Claudine asked. “The poor girl is beyond help.”

“It seems it was just a piece of stupid behavior. But if she was lured out on purpose, then I need to tie it together. The trial is going badly. It looks as if nothing will be proved, and Ballinger will get off on reasonable doubt. We will be back where we started.” She did not add that the trade in pornography would begin again exactly as before, as soon as the man behind it had replaced Mickey Parfitt. Although, she feared that leaving this unsaid would not deceive Scuff for long.

Claudine looked at her, and her eyes were suddenly tired and bitterly unhappy. “Then you had better ask Lady Rathbone. She was here that morning, working in the laundry and the medicine room, just checking on supplies. She will know who is lying.”

Hester was stunned. “Margaret was here?”

Claudine’s face was unreadable. “Yes.”

“How long?”

“About an hour, that I know of.” Claudine watched her steadily.

“In the laundry?”

“Yes. Hester … I don’t believe any of the women here would lie to you. In addition to their gratitude, and perhaps fear for their future chances of treatment, why would they? They’d lie to anyone else to protect you, as easily as breathing, but not this. They all knew you wanted Hattie protected.”

Hester knew that was true. It was Margaret who’d had every reason to fear Hattie’s testimony. It had just never occurred to Hester that she would do this. In fact, for Hattie to have gone back to Chiswick and ended in the river, Margaret must have done far more than simply getting Hattie to leave.

“She done it?” Scuff asked, looking from Hester to Claudine and back again.

“Not killed her,” Hester said quickly. “But, yes, it does look as if she took her away from here.”

“Then, who killed ’er?” he said, his eyes full of disbelief.

“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what she did, or what she meant to happen. But I’m going to find out.” She turned to Claudine. “Thank you. I think it’s best if you don’t say anything more to people here, even if they ask you. Please?”

“Of course I won’t.”

Claudine seemed about to add something more, then changed her mind. Hester guessed that it was some kind of warning, and from the troubled gentleness of her face, a sympathy. She smiled back, not needing words.

AFTER A SHORT, VERY firm discussion in which she told Scuff he was definitely not coming with her, Hester put him in a hansom and paid the driver to take him to the Wapping police station. She gave him fare for the ferry home, and she went on to the court.

Even the pavement outside was bustling with people, all eager to catch any word about what was going on inside. It was only with the help of an usher who knew her that Hester managed to get in at all. He escorted her through the hallway, and with some use of his authority, into the very back of the courtroom.

She had not long to wait—just a few minutes of Winchester’s argument—and then the judge adjourned the court for luncheon. Hester was buffeted by the crowd pouring out, first from the back of the gallery, and then at last from the front. She saw Lord Cardew, pale-faced, looking a decade older than he had just a few weeks ago. She was ashamed of being so relieved that he did not see her. What could she say to him that would even touch the pain he must be feeling? How much courage did it cost just to come out of the house, let alone to sit here and listen as the horror grew deeper, and the doubt ate into all that had once been so bright and safe?

Then she saw Margaret and her mother, side by side, just behind two other couples, pale-faced and tense. They also looked neither to right nor left, as if they could see no one. The resemblance in the women—something in the angle of the head, a shape of eyebrow—made Hester believe that they were Margaret’s sisters and their respective husbands.

But it was Margaret she needed to speak to, and alone.

She stepped forward, blocking Mrs. Ballinger’s way. It was discourteous, to say the least, but she had no better alternative.

Mrs. Ballinger stopped abruptly, her face filled with alarm. But Margaret hesitated only an instant, then, grasping the elements of the situation, turned to her mother.

“Mama, it seems Mrs. Monk needs to speak to me. Something must have occurred at the clinic.”

“Then, it can wait!” Mrs. Ballinger said between her teeth. “It is not even imaginable that anything there could be of importance to us now.”

“Mama—”

“Margaret, I do not care if the place has burned to the ground! Does she expect us to pass buckets of water?” She swiveled away from Margaret to glare at Hester.

“It is regarding evidence, Mrs. Ballinger,” Hester replied, needing a considerable effort to keep her voice level and polite. “I would prefer not to take it to Mr. Winchester, but that is my alternative.”

The last vestiges of color drained from Mrs. Ballinger’s face. “Are you threatening me, Mrs. Monk?”

Hester felt the anger brew inside her. “I am trying to gain your attention, Mrs. Ballinger. Or to be more accurate, Margaret’s attention. The matter in hand is more important than our personal feelings.”

Margaret took her mother’s arm briefly. “I shall find you when court resumes, Mama. Go with Gwen and Celia.” And without waiting for her mother’s reply, she let go of her and faced Hester. “We had better go to Oliver’s rooms. Whatever you have to say need not be made a spectacle of out here. Come.” Then, walking as briskly as possible through the last few people still in the corridors, she led the way to the room where Rathbone was permitted, for the duration of the trial, to keep his papers and to speak with anyone he might need to. The clerk recognized Margaret and, without question, allowed her in, and Hester because they were clearly together.

Margaret swung round as soon as the door was closed.

“Well, what is it? After your husband’s accusations against my father, you can hardly expect me to be pleased to see you, or to imagine you have my welfare in mind.”

It was not so long since they had been close friends, sharing laughter, dreams, even the excitement of Margaret’s courtship with Rathbone, and her anxieties that he would never actually propose to her. She had not said so in as many words, but there had been a time when Margaret had feared that he would always love Hester, and had secretly imagined that Hester would have made him happier. It had been some time before she had realized that was not true.

Now they faced each other, several feet apart in the small room with its table, chairs, and bookcases, a world apart in emotion.

There was no time to waste in prevarication, or in an attempt to smooth the way to any kind of understanding.

“You were at the clinic the morning Hattie Benson left,” Hester stated.

Margaret was stiff, her shoulders high and straight, a very faint color in her cheeks.

“You came here to tell me that?” she said with surprise. “You’ve lost your evidence. I know that. She won’t testify to save your friend. Although how you can be a friend to Rupert Cardew is beyond my imagination. But, then, you have not been in court, and perhaps that is some excuse. I assure you, your loyalty is misplaced.”

All kinds of bitter retorts rose to Hester’s lips, especially as Margaret herself had not been in court the previous day, but Hester did not speak them. It would break the frail thread of contact between them, and she needed to know the truth.

“I want to know what happened to Hattie, Margaret; that’s all I’m concerned with at the moment. I promised to look after her. I want to know why I failed, regardless of what she might have said on the stand.”

“What she might have said is that she lied to you,” Margaret answered. “You were kind to her, and she wanted to please you. I imagine she also had a very good idea of where her best future interests lay, should she ever be sick or injured, or need your help for any kind of problem. And she wouldn’t be the first who lied to please the police, out of fear, or for revenge, or simply because it’s easier than keeping up a resistance. You know as well as I do that street women survive by pleasing others, frequently those they are afraid of.” She made a slight gesture, half pity, half disgust. “They know what people want, and they give it to them. It’s their trade.”

Hester shook her head fractionally, as if to rid herself of something. “Is that how you think of her, as someone who lies to please, that’s all?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hester, don’t be so self-righteous. This is the time for truth. Yes, that is what I think of girls like Hattie. Maybe if I had had the misfortune of being born into her lot in life, I would be the same. I wasn’t. I had fine parents, good health, good examples to follow, and I married a fine man. I show my gratitude for it in service to those less fortunate, but I’m not blinded by sentimentality regarding their nature, or their weaknesses. Sometimes I think you are.”

Hester was overtaken by an anger that astounded her. She stood for a moment, trembling a little.

“I imagine we both have thoughts about others that are less than flattering,” she said almost between her teeth. “Or even downright unkind. I want to know why you took Hattie at least as far as the door, and watched her go outside, when you knew that I had her in the clinic to keep her safe so she could testify at the trial. Why did you?”

“You sound like a policeman,” Margaret said with a slight curl of her lip. “You are giving yourself airs to which you have no right. I gave my time to help at the clinic because I believe in the work you do there. I am not your servant to answer your questions.”

“Either I ask you or William does,” Hester said grimly.

“Then, William may try,” Margaret snapped back. “I do not have to account to you for where Hattie went, even did I know.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Hester began, furious with herself because her voice was shaking.

“That is what I just said,” Margaret told her.

“Because I already know!” Hester snapped. “She went back to Chiswick, where she was strangled and her body thrown into the river!”

Now it was Margaret’s turn to blanch, and to find herself gasping for breath.

“Now perhaps you can see my concern,” Hester added tartly. “Also why William may very well ask you where she went, and why you took her to the door.”

Margaret regained her control with difficulty. “Obviously Rupert killed her! So she would not be called to the stand and say that she’d lied before, and she’d no more taken his cravat than I had. He kept it, as everyone supposes, and later strangled Mickey Parfitt with it, because he could not go on paying him blackmail. If you were a little less blinded by your own crusades, you would have seen that in the first place. I’m sorry Hattie had to die for you to face reality.”

Hester could feel her fingernails dig into the palms of her hands. “The reality throughout is that Hattie was the one person who could have cleared Rupert,” she answered. “And you took her to the door and let her out into the street, out of the place where she was safe, and someone killed her. It might have been Rupert Cardew. It might just as easily have been your father. He was the one her testimony would have hurt. And you were the one who sent her out.”

Margaret stared at her, her face white to the lips, her eyes glittering. “Are you likening my father—my father—to Rupert Cardew? Rupert is dissolute, weak, and perverted … a … a vile man, who, for some unknown reason, in your own morality, your memory, or your need, you don’t seem able to see for what he is.”

“Of course I can see he’s weak!” Hester’s voice was rising in spite of her efforts to keep it level. “I don’t know how dissolute he is, and neither do you. But your loyalty to your father blinds you from seeing that he too could be just as greedy, as cruel, and in his own way as dissolute. He may not watch little boys being raped and abused, but is he any better if he imprisons them and causes it to happen, so he can blackmail the wretched men who do it? Is corrupting others any better, any nobler than being corrupt yourself? I think it’s worse!”

“My loyalty makes me know it could not be true,” Margaret said between her teeth. “But you wouldn’t understand that. You were in the Crimea being noble, saving strangers when your own father needed you. He died alone in despair while you were off glory-hunting. And if that weren’t enough, who supported your mother in her grief? Not you! You didn’t even come home for his funeral.”

Hester was speechless. She could not catch her breath. Her whole body hurt as if she had been beaten.

“You don’t know what loyalty is,” Margaret went on, seeing her advantage and forcing it home. “I used to be sorry for you that you don’t have any children of your own, only that little urchin you’ve picked up from the dockside to fill your emptiness. When it comes down to it, you don’t understand what family is. You’re too selfish, too absorbed with the image of love to know what the reality is.” She took a gulp of air, then pushed past Hester and went out into the hallway again, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.

Was it true? Only part of it! Hester had had no idea of her father’s despair, no idea he had been cheated, lied to, and betrayed. She heard of his suicide only after it had happened. Letters to and from the Crimea took weeks, and often she was away from Scutari when the ships from England landed.

Could she have known? Should she have? Her brother James had kept it from her. Her younger brother had already been killed in action. Was there something else she should have done? Should she have stayed at home in the first place?

No! She had followed not only her heart but her beliefs, in joining the nurses in the hellhole of Scutari, and even on the blood-soaked battlefields. She had eased pain, saved lives. And she had loved her father more than Margaret could ever know.

And she loved Monk. She would have wanted children to please him, to give him everything love can ever give, but she did not ache for them for herself. Yes, she loved Scuff. Why should she deny that? But for who he was, not to ease an emptiness within herself. Monk alone was sufficient—companion, ally, lover, and friend.

Had she made mistakes, perhaps even profound ones? Yes, of course. But never through indifference.

She stood still, dizzy, the room blurring in her vision, and waited until she was sufficiently composed to return to the courtroom and observe the afternoon’s trial.

RATHBONE WAS FIGHTING FOR the defense as Hester had known he must do. He had no choice, legally or emotionally.

He called witnesses who, one by one, painted a picture of the trade Parfitt had run, and its patrons among the rich and dissolute, including, most pointedly, Rupert Cardew.

“Only the rich?” He pressed the witness, an oily, devious-looking man who stood very straight in the witness box, his hands by his sides.

“Course,” the man replied. “No point in blackmailin’ the poor!”

There was a faint snicker around the gallery, which died immediately.

“And the fashionable?” Rathbone continued. “The socially prominent?”

The witness regarded him witheringly. “In’t no need ter pay if yer got no position to lose. If yer nobody, yer tell ’im ter sod off an’ sell the pictures to whoever ’e wants.”

“Quite,” Rathbone agreed succinctly. “Thank you, Mr. Loftus.” He turned to Winchester. “Your witness, sir.”

Winchester rose to his feet. He moved just as elegantly as before, but Hester noticed the pallor of his face, and that the hand resting at his side was clenched.

“Mr. Loftus, you seem to be very well informed about this whole business. Far more, for example, than I am, even though I have had to learn as much about it as I can, for this trial. How is that, sir?”

“Oh, I know all sorts.” Loftus tapped the side of his nose, as if to suggest some extraordinary sensory awareness.

“I accept that you do, sir, but how?” Winchester pressed. He smiled very slightly. “For example, how much are you involved in it yourself?”

Loftus drew in his breath, then caught Winchester’s eye and apparently changed his mind. “Well … I see things.”

“ ‘See things,’ ” Winchester repeated dubiously. “What things, Mr. Loftus? Well-dressed men coming from and going to a boat moored on the river, would you say?”

“That’s right. Late at night, an’ believe me, they in’t there ter fish.”

There was another titter of laughter around the gallery. A juror raised his hand to hide a smile.

“Late at night?” Winchester said gently. “In the dark, then?”

“O’ course,” Loftus sneered. “You don’t think they’re gonna be about when folks can recognize ’em, do yer? Yer in’t bin listenin’, sir.” He exaggerated the “sir” slightly. “They in’t there for any good.”

“Too dark to be recognized. And yet you know who they were?” Winchester smiled back at him, eyebrows raised inquiringly.

Loftus knew he had been trapped. “All right!” he said angrily. “I ’elped now an’ then. On the outside only! I never done nothing to those boys!”

“You helped on the outside,” Winchester echoed him. “Out of the goodness of your heart? Or you were paid in kind, perhaps? A few pictures to sell on to others? After you’d had a good look at them yourself? Perhaps to sell back to the miserable wretches in them, caught in acts that would ruin them if their friends knew? Is that how you were so sure that Rupert Cardew was involved?”

Rathbone rose to his feet. “Might we have no more than two questions at a time, my lord? I am going to have trouble working out which answer fits which question.”

There was another nervous ripple of laughter around the room.

“I’m sorry,” Winchester apologized. “My confusion must be contagious.” He looked back at Loftus. “Your reward for this help, sir? What nature did it take?”

“Money!” Loftus said indignantly. “Pure money, like you own, sir.”

“You have none of my money, Mr. Loftus,” Winchester responded with a smile. “But since you know Mr. Cardew was there, you must surely know the names of others. Who else attended those … parties?”

Loftus made a movement across his mouth. “Code o’ silence, sir. You understand? All kinds o’ gents like their excitement a bit on the spicy side. Ruin ’alf o’ London if I were to speak out o’ turn, I could.”

“Not to mention your own future income, and that of the man behind the business, who will have to find another manager, now that Parfitt is dead. Could that be you, Mr. Loftus?”

Suddenly the courtroom was silent. All the small rustles of movement stopped. One could almost hear the rasp of breathing.

Rathbone rose to his feet. “My lord, Mr. Winchester is assuming facts that no one has proved. He keeps making suggestions as to this gray presence behind Parfitt, but no one has shown that he exists, let alone is going to pay Mr. Loftus for anything.”

“My lord, someone sent the letter of instruction to Mickey Parfitt, so that he was alone on his boat the night he was killed,” Winchester pointed out. “Someone put forward the money to buy and to furnish the boat. Someone found, watched, and then tempted the men susceptible to this kind of indulgence. Someone blackmailed them and drove at least one to suicide, and it appears, one to murder. And since Mr. Loftus has sworn that Rupert Cardew was a victim of this trade, and other witnesses have told us very graphically of his descent from bystander and gullible friend to witness of degraded and revolting scenes, it cannot have been him. One does not blackmail oneself.”

The judge considered for a moment, then lifted one heavy shoulder in a gesture of resignation.

“Mr. Winchester appears to be right, Sir Oliver. You cannot have it both ways with Mr. Cardew. Either he was the blackmailer or he was the victim who struck back.”

“My lord,” Rathbone bowed. “It seems to me beyond a reasonable doubt that Mickey Parfitt was a vile man who provided a ready path to total degradation, a depravity that must disgust all decent people. He charged his victims for it twice over: once to purchase it, and then a second time to keep themselves from the disgrace of having it known to their friends and to society in general. How he was able to target those vulnerable to such weakness we do not know. Many answers are imaginable. If there was indeed a mastermind behind it, we do not know who that is. Personally, I should like to see him hang, as I dare say so would you. But it is repulsive to me that in our disgust we should vent our anger by hanging the wrong man!”

There were smiles of approval in the gallery. One voice even cried out in agreement.

The judge looked around, but did not reprove him.

Rathbone allowed a moment for them to settle down again. Then he resumed. “We are here to try Arthur Ballinger on the charge of murdering Mickey Parfitt. I put it to you that for all Mr. Winchester’s elegance and his masterly exposure of the deeply vile nature of Mickey Parfitt’s trade, he has not shown us that Mr. Ballinger had anything to do with it, either as investor or as victim.”

He looked specifically at the jury.

“I propose in the next day or so to demonstrate to you the violent and deceitful nature of others involved on the edges of this trade, and how easy it would have been for any of them to have killed Parfitt. I shall show you a score of reasons why they might have, primarily involving greed. As has been amply demonstrated, there is a great deal of money to be made and lost in blackmail. Men’s reputations are destroyed, fortunes ruined, and lives ended. Such circumstances breed murder.”

Hester did not stay to listen. Rathbone would carefully lay all kinds of suggestions that would make the issue even less certain. He would probably not try to prove specifically that Rupert Cardew was guilty, but it might not be difficult to create at least sufficient belief that it was possible, so no jury would convict Ballinger. Then it would all begin again, perhaps only to end in more doubt.

She walked out into the late afternoon, the noise of the street, the traffic, almost another world. She tried not to think what it would mean for Monk if the trial ended in acquittal. Margaret would not forgive him. What would the River Police think? That he had charged the wrong man, or that he had been right and had failed to produce the evidence? Either way he had lost.

She forced herself to remember that it was being right that mattered, not looking right. She needed to know what had happened to Hattie. If Margaret had taken her to the door and suggested she leave, why had Hattie obeyed her? Where had she gone? To whom? Who had known where to find her, and had killed her to keep her from testifying? What would she have said? That Rupert was innocent? Or that he was guilty?

Now they would never know to whom Hattie had given the cravat, if indeed she had ever actually stolen it. Was it possible that Rupert had killed Parfitt after all? Why did that thought hurt? Simply the pain of disillusion? Or the humiliation of being wrong? Or the wrenching pity for his father?

THE FOLLOWING MORNING HESTER was at the clinic early, again asking questions, ascertaining as closely as possible what time Hattie had left. It was a still, heavy day, with rain threatening as she stood outside the door on the street and looked right and left. People were passing, as always. Which of them would do so every morning? Who had regular errands, trips to the baker or the laundry, jobs to go to?

It was too late for the Reid Brewery workers; they would have started hours ago. Factories or shops had been open for a couple of hours at least. Was there a peddler? None that she could see.

She tightened her shawl around her and walked down to Leather Lane and then turned north. A hundred yards away there was a running patterer telling the news in his singsong voice. She interrupted him, to his displeasure, and asked him if he had seen Hattie, describing her as accurately as possible. He knew nothing.

She retraced her steps and went south, almost as far as High Holborn, but no one had seen a young woman answering Hattie’s description.

Discouraged that it was now too many days ago, she went back up to Leather Lane, along Portpool Lane again into the shadow of the brewery and all the way along to Gray’s Inn Road at the other end. She walked north and was almost level with St. Bartholomew’s Church when she saw a peddler selling sandwiches. She stopped and bought one, not because she was hungry but in order to engage him in conversation. It must have been desperately boring standing all day, virtually alone, just exchanging a word or two with strangers, hoping to sell them something, needing to.

She ate the sandwich with pleasure. It was actually very good, and she told him so.

He smiled, gap-toothed, and thanked her.

“I work just down the road.” She indicated with her hand, still clutching the last of the sandwich. “Portpool Lane.”

“I know who you are,” he replied.

She was surprised. “Do you?” She was half convinced he had mistaken her for someone else.

“Yeah! Yer takes in street women wot are sick, or beat up.”

She had no idea from his expression whether he thought that was good or bad. But there was no point in denying it.

“That’s right. I’m looking for one now who left Tuesday of last week and is now missing. She’s still pretty sick, and I’m worried about her.” Hester was not sure how much of the truth she should tell. Panic was rising inside her, and she had to force it down, refuse to follow the fears of what would happen if she failed. Perhaps she was almost as afraid of what knowledge success would bring, things she would not be able to ignore.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, love,” the sandwich man said kindly. “She’ll come back fast enough, if she needs ter.”

Hester was momentarily at a loss. She fished out two threepenny pieces. “May I have another sandwich, please? That ham’s extremely good.” Actually, she did not want it; she had eaten enough.

He gave her one with pleasure, and tuppence change.

“I don’t think she knows how ill she is,” she improvised. “Some of those things are catching. I think she wasn’t alone. She could give it to others.” The story was getting wilder as she tried to interest him. “Maybe someone with children. Children get sick so quickly.”

He shook his head. “Well, I dunno ’ow yer gonna find ’er. The street is full o’ girls.”

“This one was unusual-looking. She had very fair hair, almost white, and a lovely skin. She wasn’t terribly pretty, but sort of … innocent-looking. Very clean, if you know what I mean.” She looked at him hopefully.

“Tuesday last week, yer said?”

“Yes. Did you see her? About this time of day, or a little earlier.”

“Who did yer say she were with?”

“I don’t know. Another woman, maybe …”

“Older, eh? Sort o’ respectable-lookin’. Bit dumpy. Brown ’air.”

“Yes! Yes, that could be right.” She had no idea who it could have been, but she had nothing else to follow. “You saw them? Where did they go?”

“ ’Ow do I know? Up that way?” He pointed north again, past the church.

“To the church? To St. Bartholomew’s?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, sweet ’eart, to the cabbies wot usually wait around there. Best place ter get one.”

“Oh.” She felt the heat rush up her face. “Yes, of course. What did the other woman look like, did you say? Can you remember? What was she wearing?”

“Wot d’yer think I am? Course I can’t remember. It weren’t nothing special, I can tell yer that. ’Cept ’er gloves. She ’ad real good gloves on. Leather. ’And-stitched, wi’ a little piece o’ toolin’ on the cuff, about ’ere.” He pointed to his wrist. “Must a lifted ’em, or ’ad a customer wi’ a lot o’ money.”

“Can you describe her a bit more? What was her skin like? Her teeth?”

“Wot?”

“Her skin? Her teeth?” Hester repeated.

“ ’Ow do I know?” the peddler said indignantly. “ ’Er teeth were just like … teeth! Kind o’ good, come ter think of it.”

Hester felt her heart racing. “Little bit crooked at the front, but nice?”

“Yeah. That’s right. Yer know ’er? She one o’ yours, then?”

“Perhaps.” Was he right, or had she put the idea into his mind and he was simply trying to please her, and get rid of her questions? “Thank you.” She finished the sandwich and thanked him again, then walked quickly toward the place he had pointed to for the hansom cabs.

The description he had given fitted one of the women who had been in the courtroom with Margaret and her mother. Or any other woman in London with pretty and slightly crooked teeth, and enough money to buy good gloves. But Margaret’s sister was the one who would help her, and her father, by taking Hattie Benson away to—where? Had Margaret’s sister known it was to her death, or had she imagined it would be simply a house where Hattie could be kept until it was too late to testify?

It took Hester the rest of the day—and more money than she could really spare in cab fares, sandwiches, cups of tea, and petty bribes—before she found as many of the answers as she was going to so long after the event. Two women, answering the descriptions of Hattie and Gwen, or Celia, had taken a hansom from near St. Bartholomew’s to Avonhill Street in Fulham, just short of Chiswick, almost half an hour after Margaret had shown Hattie out of the door of the clinic in Portpool Lane.

Another hour of tedious questions and invented excuses, and by the time it was growing dark, Hester had found the house where Hattie had been for a few hours.

“Yeah,” the woman said grudgingly after Hester questioned her. She wiped her wet hands on her skirt. “Wot’s it ter you, then? This is a respectable ’ouse, an’ there ain’t no ’oring goes on ’ere. It were a right lady as brought ’er ’ere an’ said as she’d be stayin’ fer a few days.”

“But she didn’t stay for a few days, did she?” Hester pressed. “She was gone in a matter of hours.”

“So she changed ’er mind. She still were paid fer, so why should I care?”

“Who did she go with?” Hester felt her throat tight, her hands clammy.

“Said ’is name were Cardew. Didn’t see ’is face, but real nice-spoken, ’e were.”

Hester thanked her and turned to leave, stumbling against the doorpost but barely feeling the bruise to her hand.

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE,” Monk said gently as they sat in front of the fire late that evening, the clock nearing midnight. Hester was exhausted, and still cold in spite of the warmth of the room. “Why would Margaret help Rupert Cardew in anything?”

“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “Maybe he lied to her?” She knew as soon as she had said it that it didn’t make sense. She looked up and saw it in Monk’s eyes. “Maybe Hattie lied, and she didn’t steal the cravat at all. Perhaps Rupert paid her to say she did. Then she lost her nerve and wasn’t going to go through with it.”

“That explains why he would kill her, if he killed Parfitt in the first place,” he agreed. “But why would Margaret take her to the door? Wouldn’t Margaret want to keep her there, and have her take back her story?”

“Perhaps Hattie was afraid to do that. Maybe she just wanted to escape, and say nothing at all.”

Monk nodded slowly. “That’s possible. She couldn’t face you—or me—so she ran away. As far as defending Ballinger is concerned, her failure to appear comes to much the same result. Her first story would be disbelieved. So Margaret helps her, and then probably her sister Gwen. It sounds more like her than like Celia. Hattie goes to a house where she believes she’ll be safe. But Rupert finds her anyway. How?”

“Perhaps she’s been there before.” Hester buried her head in her hands. “William, what have we done?”