Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

She glared at him with loathing.

He smiled back, a twisting of the lips, but still relieved that she was angry enough to fight-not that he wished her to perceive that. “Of course they will say that,” he agreed. “I will ask them a great many questions.” He was formulating his plan as he spoke. “Because I shall tell them that I have come on behalf of the prosecution and wish to make sure of everything in order to have an unanswerable case. I shall pursue every detail of your stay there.”

“I was only there a day,” she said.

He ignored her. “Then in the course of so doing, I shall learn everything else I can about them. One of them murdered her. In some way, however slight, they will betray themselves.” He said it with more certainty than he felt, but he must not allow her to know that. The least he could do was protect her from the bitterest of the truth, the odds against success. He wished desperately he could do more. It was appalling to be helpless when it mattered so intensely.

The anger drained out of her as suddenly as if someone had turned out a light. Fear overtook everything else.

“Will you?” Her voice shook.

Without thinking he reached forward and took her hand, holding it tightly.

“Yes I will. I doubt it will be easy, or quick, but I will do it.” He stopped. They knew each other too well. He saw in her eyes what she was thinking, remembering-that other case they had solved together, finding the truth at last, too late-when the wrong man had been tried and hanged. “I will, Hester,” he said with passion. “I’ll find the truth, whatever it costs, and whoever I have to break to get it”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away suddenly. For a moment she was so frightened she could hardly control herself.

He gritted his teeth.

Why was she so stupidly independent? Why could she not weep like other women? Then he could have held her, offered some kind of comfort-which would have been meaningless. And he would have hated it. He could not bear the way she was, and yet for her to change would have been even worse.

And he hated the fact that he could not dismiss it and walk away. It was not simply another case. It was Hester- and the thought of failure was unendurable.

“Tell me about them,” he commanded gruffly. “Who are the Farralines? What did you think of them? What were your impressions?”

She turned and looked at him with surprise. Then slowly she mastered her emotions and replied.

“The eldest son is Alastair. He is the Procurator Fiscal-”

He cut across her. “I don’t want facts. I can find them for myself, woman. I want your feelings about the man. Was he happy or miserable? Was he worried? Did he love his mother or hate her? Was he afraid of her? Was she a possessive woman, overprotective, critical, domineering? Tell me something!”

She smiled wanly.

“She seemed generous and very normal to me…”

“She’s been murdered, Hester. People don’t commit murder without a reason even if it is a bad one. Somebody either hated her or was afraid of her. Why? Tell me more about her. And don’t tell me what a charming person she was. People sometimes murder young women because they are too charming, but not old ones.”

Hester’s smile grew a little wider.

“Don’t you think I’ve lain here trying to think why anyone would kill her? Alastair did seem a little anxious, but that could have been over anything. As I said, he is the Procurator Fiscal…”

“What is a Procurator Fiscal?” This was not a time to stand on his pride and blunder on in ignorance.

“Something like the Crown Prosecutor, I think.”

“Hmm.” Possibilities arose in his mind.

“And the youngest brother, Kenneth, was bound on an appointment the family knew little of. They assumed he was courting someone and they had not met her.”

“I see. What else?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Quinlan, that is Eilish’s husband-”

“Who is Eilish? Did you say Eilish? What kind of a name is that?”

“I don’t know. Scottish, I presume. She is the middle daughter. Oonagh is the eldest. Griselda is the youngest.”

“What about Quinlan?”

“He and Baird Mclvor, Oonagh’s husband, seemed to dislike each other. But I don’t see how any of that could lead to murder. There are always undercurrents of likes and dislikes in any family, most particularly if they all live under one roof.”

“God forbid!” Monk said with feeling. The thought of living so closely with other people appalled him. He was jealous of his privacy and he did not wish to account for himself to anyone at all, least of all someone who knew him intimately.

She misunderstood him.

“No one would murder for the freedom to leave.”

“Wasn’t the house hers?” he asked instantly. “What about the money? No, don’t bother to answer. You wouldn’t know anyway. Rathbone will find that out. Tell me exactly what you did from the time you arrived at the house until you left. When were you alone? Where was the dressing room or wherever the medicine case was left?”

“I’ve already told Oliver all that,” she protested.

“I want it from you,” he said coldly. “I can’t work on secondhand evidence. And I’ll ask you my own questions, not his.”

She complied without further argument, sitting on the edge of the cot, and carefully in exact detail, telling him all she could remember. From the ease of her words, and the fact that she did not hesitate, he knew she had rehearsed it many times. It made him acutely aware of how she must have lain in the cell in the dark, frightened, far too intelligent not to be fully aware of the magnitude of the danger, even of the possibility they might never learn the truth, or that if they did it would be too late to save her. She had seen it happen. Monk himself had failed before.

By God he would not fail this time, no matter who it cost.

“Thank you,” he said at length, rising to his feet. “Now I must go. I must catch the train north.”

She stood up. Her face was very white.

He wanted to say something which would ease her fear, something to give her hope-but it would be a lie, and he had never lied to her.

She drew in her breath to speak, and then changed her mind.

He could not leave without saying something-but what?

What was there that would not be an insult to her courage and her intelligence?

She gave a little sniff. “You must go.”

On impulse he took her hand and raised it to his lips, and then let it go and strode the three steps to the door. “I’m ready!” he shouted, and the next moment the key clanged in the lock and the door swung open. He left without looking backwards.

When Monk left the office, Oliver Rathbone hesitated only a few moments before making his decision that he would, after all, go and see Charles Latterly. Hester had begged him not to tell her family when it had been only a charge of theft, which they had both hoped would be dealt with, and dismissed, within a matter of days at the very most But now it was murder, and the evening newspapers would carry the story. He must reach him before that, in common humanity.

He already knew the address, and it was a matter of five minutes to find a hansom cab and instruct the driver. He tried to think of some decent way to break the news. Even though his intelligence told him there was none, it was an easier problem to consider than what he would do next to prepare for Hester’s defense. He could not possibly allow anyone else to conduct it, and yet the burden of such a responsibility was already heavy on him, and not twelve hours had passed yet since Daly’s arrival in his office with the news.

It was ten minutes past five in the afternoon. Charles Latterly had just arrived home from his day’s business. Rathbone had never met him before. He alighted from the cab, instructed the driver to wait however long was necessary until he should be ready to leave, and went up to the front door.