Anne Perry - The Sins of the Wolf

There was still nothing in her face to betray her.

“Good heavens’. Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

“I wonder how long it has been there. Since my father’s time, I imagine, if Uncle Hector says it was his secret room.”

Alastair shifted his weight with an almost imperceptible sound.

Monk glanced at him for an instant, and then back at Oonagh.

“Almost certainly,” he agreed. “But it is also in present use. Some of the plates are as recent as last year.”

“How can you tell?” A flash of amusement lit Oonagh’s eyes. “Was the ink still wet?”

“Bank notes change, Mrs. Mclvor. There are new designs brought in.”

“I see. You are saying someone is still using the room to forge money?”

“Yes. You should be pleased.” There was a black laughter underlying his voice now. “It will remove some of the burden from your husband. It makes another excellent motive for murder.”

“Does it, Mr. Monk? I fail to see how.”

“If your mother discovered it-”

This time it was she who laughed.

“Don’t be absurd, Mr. Monk! Do you imagine Mother didn’t know?”

Hector made a strangled noise, but he did not move.

“You affected not to,” Monk pointed out.

“Certainly, but only before I realized that you are aware it is still in use.” Her face was cold and implacable now. She no longer concealed her enmity.

Alastair stood rooted to the spot. Quinlan’s hand had closed around a bright paper knife on the desk and he was balanced so as to move with violence.

“Not, of course, that this is the only motive for murder,” Monk went on, his voice cutting harsh with anger and stinging, bottomless contempt. “There is also the Galbraith case, and God knows how many others.”

“The Galbraith case? What in hell are you talking about?” Quinlan demanded.

But Monk was watching Alastair, and had he ever doubted the charge, he could no longer. The blood fled from Alastair’s face, leaving him ashen, his eyes terrified, his mouth slack. Instinctively, almost blindly, he looked at Oonagh.

“She knew,” Monk said with a depth of emotion that startled him. “Your mother knew, and you murdered her to keep it silent. You were trusted by your fellow men, honored, held above the ordinary citizens, and you sold justice. Your mother could not forgive that, so you killed her and tried to get her nurse hanged for it in your place.”

“No!”

It was not Alastair who spoke, he was beyond speech. The voice came from behind him. Monk half turned to see Hector push his way forward, staring at Alastair. “No,” he said again. “It wasn’t Alastair who made the list of Mary’s clothes for Griselda. It was you! You put that brooch in Hester’s bag. Alastair wouldn’t have known even where to find it. Alastair, God help him, killed her, but it was you who would have hanged Hester in his place.”

“Rubbish,” Oonagh said sharply. “Hold your tongue, you old fool!”

A spasm of pain crossed Hector’s features so sharp it was beyond all proportion to the insult, which he must have heard a hundred times before, even if only in his mind.

Surprisingly it was Hester who spoke, from just behind Monk’s elbow.

“It couldn’t have been Alastair who put the pin in my case,” she said slowly. “Because Mary wore it with only one dress, and he knew she hadn’t packed that dress to take with her. He was the one who damaged it so it had to be cleaned.”

“Couldn’t it have been mended before she took it?” Monk asked.

“Don’t be absurd. It takes days to unpick and clean a silk gown and then stitch it back together again.”

As one they turned to Oonagh.

She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t know she’d marked the dress. I wanted to protect him,” she said very quietly.

Alastair looked at her with a ghastly smile filled with despair.

“But she didn’t know,” Monk said very softly, almost under his breath. The words fell in the room like stones. “She was afraid, because she saw Archie Frazer in the house, but you could have explained that. You killed her for nothing.”

Very slowly, as if in a nightmare, Alastair turned to Oonagh, his face like a dead man’s, aged and yet with the helplessness of a lost child. “You said she knew. You told me she knew. I didn’t have to kill her! Oonagh-what have you done to me?”

“Nothing, Alastair! Nothing!” she said quickly, putting out both her hands and gripping his arms. “She would have ruined us, believe me.” Her voice was desperate, urgent that he should understand.

“But she didn’t know!” His voice was rising, shrill with betrayal and despair.

“All right! She didn’t know that, or the forgery.” The gentleness vanished and her features were suddenly ugly. “But she knew about Uncle Hector and Fatfier, and she’d have told Griselda. That is what she was on the way south to do. Griselda and her stupid obsession with health and her child. She’d have told Connal, and then it would have been all over the place.”

“Told him what? What are you talking about?” He was utterly lost. He seemed to have forgotten everyone in the room except Oonagh. “Father’s been dead for years. What did it have to do with her child? It doesn’t make any sense…”

Oonagh’s face was as white as his, but with fury and contempt. There was still no fear in it, and no weakness.

“Father died of syphilis, you fool! He was riddled with it! What did you think his blindness was, and his paralysis? We kept him in the house and said it was a stroke… what else were we to do?”

“B-but… syphilis takes years to get to…” He stopped. There was a funny little choking sound in his throat, as if he could not breathe. He was horrified beyond movement, except for his dry lips. It almost seemed as if she were holding him up. “That means… that means we are all… Griselda… her child, all our children… Oh sweet Jesus!”

“No it doesn’t,” she said between clenched jaws. “Mother knew it from the beginning. That is what she was going to tell Griselda. What she had just told me… Hamish was not our father… not any of us.”

He looked at her as if she had spoken to him in an incomprehensible language.

She swallowed. Now the words seemed to choke her as much as him. Her face was white with pain.

“Hector is our father… every one of us… right from you to Griselda. You are a bastard, Alastair. We are all bastards… our mother was an adulteress, and that drunken sot is our father! Do you want the world to know that? Can you live with it… Procurator Fiscal!”

But Alastair was beyond speech. He was stricken as if dead.

The only sound in the whole place was Quintan’s laugh, a wild, hysterical, bitter sound.

“I loved her,” Hector said, staring at Oonagh. “I loved her all my life. She loved Hamish to begin with, but after we met, it was me… it was always me. She knew what Hamish was… and she never let him touch her.”

Oonagh looked back at him with utter, indescribable loathing.

Tears were running down Hector’s face. “I always loved her,” he said again. “And you killed her, more surely than if you’d done it yourself.” His voice was rising, getting stronger. “You sold my beautiful Eilish to that creature… to get his services for forgery.” He did not even look at Quinlan. “You sold her like a horse or a dog. You used flattery and deceit on all of us… using our weaknesses against us… even me. I wanted to stay here, to be part of you. You are all the family I have, and you knew that, and I let you use it.” He gulped. “Dear God, but what you’ve done to Alastair…”

It was Quinlan who reacted at last. He picked up the heavy paper knife and lunged-not at Hector, but at Monk.