Anne Perry - The Twisted Root

She stood in the middle of the passage and was still there when Kristian Beck reached her.

"Hester?" he said with concern. "Are you all right?"

She recalled herself swiftly and began speaking with the idea only half formed in her mind. "I was wondering how Cleo Anderson managed to steal the morphine. Phillips is really very careful. I mean, how do you think it happened, in practical detail?"

He frowned. "Does it matter?"

Why did he ask? Was he indifferent to the thefts? Was he so certain Cleo was guilty that the details did not matter? Or was it even conceivable that he had some sympathy with her?

"I don’t want to prove it," she answered steadily, meeting his eyes with complete candor. "I would like above all things to disprove it, but failing that, at least to understand."

"She is charged with murdering Treadwell," he said softly. "The jury cannot excuse that, whatever they privately feel. There is no provision or law for murdering blackmailers or for stealing medicine, even if it is to treat the old and ill for whom there is no other help." The lacerating edge in his voice betrayed his own feelings too clearly.

"I know that," she said in little above a whisper. "I should still like to know exactly how she did it."

He stood in silence for several moments.

She waited. Part of her wanted to leave before it was too late. But escaping would be only physical. Morally and emotionally, she was still trapped. And that was trivial compared with Cleo-or John Robb.

"What do you think she took?" Kristian asked at length.

She swallowed. "Morphine, for an old man who has consumption. It won’t cure him, but it gives him a little rest."

"Very understandable," he answered. "I hope she gave him some sherry in water as well?"

"I believe so."

"Good. I need a few things from the apothecary myself. I’ll go and get the keys. You can help me, if you would." And without waiting for her answer, he turned sharply and strode off.

He came back a few minutes later with the keys and opened the door. He went inside and left her to follow him. He started to unlock various cupboards and take out leaves for infusions, cordials and various powders. He passed several of them to Hester while he opened bottles and jars, then closed them again. When he had finished he ushered her out, relocked the door, took some of the medicines back from her, then thanked her and left her standing in the corridor with a small bottle of cordial and a week’s dosage of morphine, plus several small paper screws of quinine.

She put them quickly into her pockets and went back towards the front door and out of it. She felt as if dozens of eyes were boring holes in her back, but actually she passed only one nurse with a mop and bucket, and Fermin Thorpe himself, striding along with his face set, hardly recognizing her.

John Robb was delighted to see her. He had had a bad night but was a trifle better towards late afternoon, and the loneliness of sitting in his chair in the empty house, even with the sun slanting in through the windows, had made him melancholy. His face lit with a smile when he recognized her step, and even before she entered the room he was tidying the little space around him and making ready for her.

"How are you?" he said the moment she came through the door.

"I’m very well," she answered cheerfully. He must never know about Cleo if there was any way it could be prevented.

She could not warn Michael without explaining to him the reason, and that would place him in an impossible situation. He would then have either to benefit indirectly from the thefts, which he would find intolerable, or else have to testify against Cleo from his own knowledge. That would also be unbearable, for the old man’s sake as well as his own. Such disillusion and sense of betrayal might be more than his old and frail body could take. And then Michael’s guilt would be crippling.

"I’m very well indeed," she said firmly. "How are you? I hope you are well enough to share a cup of tea with me? I brought some you might like to try, and a few biscuits." She smiled back at him. "Of course, it was all an excuse so you will tell me more stories of your life at sea and the places you have been to. You were going to describe the Indies for me. You said how brilliant the water was, like a cascade of jewels, and that you had seen fishes that could fly."

"Oh, bless you, girl, I have an’ all," he agreed with a smile. "An’ more than that, too. You put the kettle on an’ I’ll tell you all you want to know."

"Of course." She walked across the room and pulled the biscuits and tea out of the bag they were in, filled the kettle from the jug and set it on the stove, then, with her back to him, took out the cordial bottle and placed it on the shelf, half behind a blue bag of sugar. Then she slipped the morphine out of her other pocket and set it underneath the two thin papers that were left from Cleo’s last visit.

"Was it very hot in the Indies?" she asked.

"You wouldn’t believe it, girl," he replied. "Felt as if the sea itself were on the boil, all simmerin’ an’ steamin’. The air were so thick it clogged up in your throat, like you could drink it."

"I think you could drink it here, too, when it gets cold enough!" she said with a laugh.

"Aye! An’ I bin north, too!" he said enthusiastically. "Great walls of ice rising out o’ the sea. You never seen anything like it, girl. Beautiful an’ terrible, they was. An’they’d freeze your breath like a white fog in front of you."

She turned and smiled at him, then began to make the tea. "Mrs. Anderson had to go away for a little while. Someone in her family ill, I think." She scalded the pot, tipped out the water, then put the fresh leaves in and poured the rest of the water from the kettle. "She asked me to come and see you. I think she knew I’d like that. I hope it’s all right with you."

He relaxed, looking at her with undisguised pleasure. "Sure it’s all right. Then you can tell me some o’ the places you’ve bin. About them Turks an’ the like. Although I’ll miss Cleo. Good woman, she is. Nothin’ ever too much trouble. An’ I seen her so tired she were fit to drop. I hope as her family appreciates her."

A lie was the only thing. "I’m sure they will," she said without a shadow in her voice. "And I’ll get a message to her that you’re fine."

"You do that, girl. An’ tell her I was asking after her."

"I will." Suddenly she found it difficult to master herself. It was ridiculous to want to cry now! Nothing had changed. She sniffed hard and blew her nose, then set out the rest of the things for tea and opened the bag of biscuits. She had bought him the best she could find. They looked pretty on the plate. She was determined this should be a party.

She did not broach the subject with Monk until after they had eaten. They were sitting quietly watching the last of the light fade beyond the windows and wondering if it was time to light the gas or if it would be pleasanter just to allow the dusk to fill the room.

Naturally, she had no intention whatever of even mentioning John Robb, let alone telling Monk that she was taking over his care from Cleo. Apart from the way he would react to such information, the knowledge would compromise him. There was no need for both of them to tell lies.

"What can we do to help Cleo Anderson?" she said, taking it for granted that there was no argument as to whether they would.

He lifted his head sharply.

She waited.

"Everything we’ve done so far has made it worse," he said unhappily. "The best service we can do the poor woman is to leave the case alone."

"If we do that she may well be hanged," Hester argued. "And that would be very wrong. Treadwell was a blackmailer. She is guilty of a crime in law, maybe, but no sin. We have to do something. Humanity requires it."