Anne Perry - A Sunless Sea

“No!” Rathbone said quietly. “But I’m beginning to have a rather strong idea that you do.”

Coniston looked grim. “You know better than to ask me that, Rathbone. I can’t reveal anything told me in confidence.”

“That rather depends on by whom,” Rathbone pointed out. “And whether it conceals the truth of Lambourn’s death, and consequently protects whoever murdered and then eviscerated Zenia Lambourn.”

“It doesn’t,” Coniston’s eyes widened. “You know me better than that.”

“Are you sure?” Rathbone asked, meeting Coniston’s gaze and holding it. “What about the effective murder of Dinah Lambourn? And that is what it will be if we deliberately allow her to be hanged for a crime she did not commit. I think you can see as well as I can that there is a great deal more to this case than domestic jealousy between two women who have known about each other for the best part of fifteen years.”

Coniston was silent for several moments, sipping his brandy again. His hand around the glass was white-knuckled.

“Lambourn’s death was the catalyst,” he said finally. “Suddenly his money was at stake, Dinah’s whole life as she knew it, and that of her children.”

“Rubbish,” Rathbone replied. “Her life as she knew it ended with his death because she loved him. He was murdered because of his proposal to add restrictions to the sales of opium because of what he discovered about the effects of taking it by needle. She is willing to risk being hanged in order to clear his name of suicide and professional incompetence, and perhaps even to see his work completed simply because he believed in it. Even though she didn’t, and still doesn’t, know what it really is.”

“For God’s sake, Rathbone!” Coniston exclaimed. “She’s facing the hangman because the evidence says she’s guilty. She lied to Monk and he caught her in it. From the evidence you’ve provided, if Lambourn didn’t kill himself, it’s even possible she killed him also. We have only her own, and her sister-in-law’s, word for it that she knew about Zenia Gadney. There’s a very reasonable case to say that she only learned about Zenia just before Lambourn’s death, and that’s the connection.” He smiled with a bitter irony. “You might just have proved her guilty of both murders.”

Rathbone sat staring at Coniston. He realized now how shallow his knowledge of the man was. Good family; excellent education; good career, improving all the time. Fortunate, if possibly dull marriage. Three daughters and a son. But he knew nothing of the inner man, the hopes or the dreams. What hurt him, or made him laugh? What was he afraid of, apart from poverty or failure? Was he afraid of making a mistake, convicting an innocent person? Was he ever lonely? Did he doubt the best in himself, or fear the worst? Had he ever loved someone, and been proved hideously wrong, as Rathbone had?

He had no idea.

“Do you give a damn what the truth is?” he said quietly.

Coniston leaned forward across the table, his face tense, the skin drawn suddenly tight with his own urgency. “Yes, I do! And I care like hell that we don’t betray our country’s laws and freedoms, the tolerance of individuals’ rights to take whatever medicines they choose, how they choose. Information is one thing, and I’m all for that. But making opium illegal and the sellers of it criminals is quite another. You can’t prove anything at all from this Nisbet woman’s words.”

“We may not be able to affect what the Pharmacy Act says, and whether opium sales are restricted, or not. That is not our decision,” Rathbone argued. “But we can and must affect what happens in the Old Bailey this week. You’d better choose where you stand, Coniston, because you aren’t going to be able to play the middle any longer. Are you sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that what this Nisbet woman says isn’t true, and doesn’t have any bearing on why Lambourn was killed?”

Coniston blinked. “What are you saying? That someone selling pure opium here in London, now, killed Lambourn, and then Zenia Gadney?”

“Are you saying that isn’t a possibility?” Rathbone watched Coniston’s face, and the realization hit him. He drew in his breath and let it out very slowly. His heart was pounding so violently he felt as if it must be making his body shake. “My God. You know who is behind this, don’t you!” It was a statement, not a question, in fact all but an accusation.

“He did not kill either Lambourn or Zenia Gadney,” Coniston said so softly, Rathbone barely heard him. “Do you really think I didn’t make certain of that myself?”

“Did you? Are you saying that out of knowledge or belief?” Rathbone asked. Was it all slipping away from him again, in his grasp, and then gone, like mist from empty hands?

“Knowledge,” Coniston answered. “Give me that much credit. He believes Lambourn’s response to what Agatha Nisbet told him was hysterical and completely disproportionate. He wanted that part of his report excluded. He’s not guilty of this. Lambourn was a fanatic and he took his own life. His wife couldn’t accept that and chose this insane and terrible way of trying to force the government’s hand.” His glance wavered, but only for an instant.

“What?” Rathbone demanded.

“Bring in your witness.” Coniston’s voice was a whisper, all but caught in his throat. He sighed. “Play it out. I imagine you’re going to anyway. But be warned, if you somehow manage to ruin an innocent man, I’ll personally see that you pay for it with your career. I don’t care how damn clever you are.”

“An innocent man? What is he innocent of? Murder of Lambourn and Zenia Gadney, or of selling people a one-way ticket to hell?”

“Just stop dancing around and prove something!” Coniston answered.

“I mean to.” Rathbone finished the last of his brandy. “But don’t forget, reasonable doubt is enough.” He put the empty glass down and rose to his feet. He walked away without looking back.

Rathbone saw no sign of either Monk or Hester in the hallways as he returned. His muscles locked tight with tension.

The court resumed with Agatha Nisbet back on the stand again. The jurors looked pale and unhappy, but not one of them averted his eyes or his attention from her.

“You have described some of the most terrible suffering any of us here has heard,” Rathbone began. “Did you describe these things also to Dr. Joel Lambourn?”

“Yes, I did,” she said simply. “I took ’im an’ I showed ’im.”

“And what was Dr. Lambourn’s reaction?” he asked, looking up at Agatha again.

“ ’E were sick,” she answered. “Looked like a man with the ague. At first ’e were just revolted, like anyone would be, then as we saw more, ’e got gray in the face an’ I were afraid ’e were going to ’ave a seizure or an ’eart attack. I even fetched ’im brandy.”

“And that revived him?”

“Not a lot. ’E looked like a man as ’ad seen death in front of ’im. Reckon as perhaps ’e ’ad, save it weren’t more’n a few days before ’e were found with ’is wrists cut, poor sod.” Her language was coarse, but the pity in her face, even the grief, was too powerful to belittle or ignore.

Rathbone deliberately took a risk, but time was pressing hard on him. “Did he seem to you suicidal?”

“The doctor?” she said incredulously. “Don’t be a fool! ’E were ’ell-bent on stoppin’ it, whatever it cost. Never reckoned as it’d cost ’im ’is life. Not ter even think of ’is wife too.”

“Are you referring to Zenia Gadney?”

“Never ’eard of ’er, till now. I meant Dinah. An’ if yer think she killed ’im yer dafter than them as is in Bedlam chained ter the walls an’ ’owlin’ at the moon.”