Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

Monk grunted. “What kind of victory? Achievement of something or escape from some danger? Is it elation or relief?”

Henry shook his head, his face troubled. The darkness of it touched him, both for Mary Farraline and for whichever of her children, or children by marriage, had killed her.

“Pressure,” he said, continuing to shake his head. “The process of the law may reach them, you know. That is what Oliver would do. Question. Probe. Play on their doubts of each other. I hope Argyll will do the same.”

Neither of them said anything about Hester, but Monk knew Henry Rathbone was thinking of her too. There was no need to talk of winning or losing. It was always just below the surface of their words anyway, too painful to touch. They walked on together in silence up the Lawnmarket.

Hester felt uniquely alien as she stood in the cage in the cells waiting to be drawn up through the extraordinary trapdoor affair which would bring her into the courtroom without the necessity of passing through the crowd. The day was bitterly cold and here below the courtroom there was no heat at all. She shivered uncontrollably, and told herself with a flash of mockery that it had nothing to do with fear.

But when the rime came and she was winched up into me packed court, even the warmth of the two coal fires and the expectant crowd of people crammed together to fill every space did not reach inside her and stop the shaking or ease the locked muscles.

She did not search their faces to see Monk, or Callandra, or Henry Rathbone. It was too painful. It reminded her of all she valued and might so very soon have to leave. And that was looking more and more likely with every witness who spoke. She had seen Argyll’s tiny victories-and was not deceived. They were not enough to light hope in anyone but a fool. They kept the battle alive, futile as it was so far. They prevented surrender-but not defeat.

The first witness of the day was Connal Murdoch. The last time she had seen him had been in the railway station in London. He had been stunned with the news of Mary’s death, confused by it, and anxious for his wife and her state both of health and of mind. Now he looked quite different. The frantic, slightly disheveled air was totally gone. He was neatly dressed in plain black, well cut but unimaginative. It was expensive without being elegant, probably because the man himself had no conception of grace, only of what was fitting.

But she could not deny the intelligence in his face with its hooded eyes, nervous mouth and slightly receding hair.

“Mr. Murdoch,” Gilfeather began with an amiable air. “Allow me to take you through the events of that tragic day, as you are aware of them. You and your wife were expecting to meet Mrs. Farraline on the overnight train from Edinburgh?”

Murdoch looked grim and nodded slightly as he replied.

“Was it Mrs. Farraline herself who wrote to you of her visit?”

“Yes.” Murdoch looked a trifle surprised, although presumably Gilfeather had taken him through the questions before the session began.

“Was there any indication in her letters that she was anxious or concerned for her safety?”

“Of course not.”

“No mention of a family difficulty, a quarrel of any sort, any kind of ill feeling whatsoever?”

“None at all!” Murdoch’s voice was growing sharper. The idea was repellent to him and the fact that Gilfeather had raised it clearly displeased him.

“So you had no sense of foreboding as you traveled to the station to meet her, no thought whatever that there could be anything wrong?”

“No sir, I have said not.”

“What was the first intimation you received that all was not well?”

There was a stir in the room. Interest was awoken at last.

In spite of herself Hester looked at Oonagh and saw her pale face with its lovely hair. She was sitting next to Alastair again, their shoulders almost touching. For a moment Hester felt sorry for her. Absurdly she remembered quite clearly opening the letter from Charles which told her of her own mother’s death. She had been standing in the sharp sunlight on the quayside at Scutari. The mail boat had come in while she had a few hours off duty, and she and another nurse had walked down to the shore. Many of the men were already embarking on the homeward journey. The war was all but over. The heat had gone out of the battle. It was the time when the cost could so clearly be seen, the wounded and the dead counted, the victory shabby and the whole fiasco pointless. One day the heroism would be remembered, but then it had all seemed only a matter of pain.

England had been a dream of such strangely mixed values: all the calm of old culture, a land at peace, quiet lanes and rich fields with trees bending low, people going quietly about their undoubting business. And at the same time old buildings of ineffable grace housing men whose bland, entrenched stupidity had sent untold young men to their deaths with a complacency that was still without the guilt she felt it should have had.

She had torn the letter open eagerly, and then stood with the black words dazzling on the white paper, reading them over and over as if each time there were some hope they might change and say something different. She had grown cold in the wind without realizing it.

Was that how Oonagh Mclvor had felt when the letter had come telling her that Mary was dead?

From her face now it was impossible to tell. All her concentration seemed to be on supporting Alastair, who looked ashen pale. They were the two eldest. Had they been peculiarly close to Mary? She remembered Mary saying how they had comforted each other in childhood.

Connal Murdoch was relating how the news had been broken to him first, and how he had then told his wife. He was a good witness, full of quiet dignity and understated emotion. His voice quivered only occasionally, and no one could have told whether it was grief or anger, or any other powerful emotion.

Hester looked for Kenneth Farraline but could not see him. Had he embezzled from the company? And when his mother found out, murdered her? Weak men had done such things before, especially if they were besottedly in love, and then, afraid of the consequences of a rash action, done something even more panic-stricken in trying to conceal it.

Would Oonagh conceal it for him?

Hester stared at her strange powerful face and could not even guess.

Connal Murdoch was talking about meeting Hester in the stationmaster’s office. It was an extraordinary thing to stand and hear it recounted through someone else’s eyes and be unable to speak to correct lies and mistakes.

“Oh certainly,” he was saying. “She appeared very pale, but quite composed. Of course we had no idea then that she herself was responsible for Mother-in-law’s death.”

Argyll rose to his feet.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Argyll,” the judge said impatiently. He turned to the witness stand. “Mr. Murdoch, whatever your own convictions, we in the court presume a person is innocent until the jury has returned a verdict of guilty. You will please remember that in your replies.”

Murdoch looked taken aback.

Argyll was obviously aching to put the criticism in his own words, far more decisively than the judge, and he was not to be permitted. Behind him Oliver Rathbone was sitting rigidly, motionless except for the fingers of his left hand, drumming on a sheaf of notes.

Hester looked at the rest of the Farralines. One of them had killed Mary. It was absurd that she should stand here fighting for her life, and be able to stare at their faces one after another, and not know which one it was, even now.

Did they know, all of them-or only the one who had done it?

Old Hector was not there. Did that mean he was drunk as usual, or that Argyll intended to call him? He had not told her.