Anne Perry - The Twisted Root

"And was he?"

She hesitated. Something inside her seemed to crumple. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Yes."

He waited for her to say more, but she remained silent.

"How did he find out about the medicines?" he asked.

"I suppose it wasn’t hard." She stared ahead of her, a shadow of self-mockery in her expression. "Lot o’ people could have, if they’d wanted to think about it, and watch. I took stuff to about a score o’ the old ones who were really in a bad way. I don’t know why I talk about it in the past-they still are, an’ here’s me sittin’ here useless." She looked up at him. "There’s nothing you can do, Mr. Rathbone. All the questions in the world aren’t going to make any difference. I took the medicines, and it’ll be easy enough to prove. Treadwell worked it out. I don’t know how."

There was no argument to make. He heard footsteps along the corridor outside, but they continued on and no one disturbed them. He wondered briefly if the jailers here sympathized with her; even were it possible, they might sooner have had the law turn a blind eye to her thefts. Maybe they had little time for a blackmailer.

It was academic, only a wish. The power was not in their hands. Maybe it was a thought each would have had individually and never dared voice.

She was regarding him earnestly, her eyes anxious.

"Mr. Rathbone-don’t let them go talking to all the people I took medicines to. It’s bad enough they won’t get any help now. I don’t want them to know they were part of a crime- even though they never understood it."

He wished there was some way he could prevent that from happening, but it would soon enough become common knowledge. The trial would be written up in all the newspapers, told and retold by the running patterers, and in the gossip on every street corner. What should he tell her?

She was waiting, a flicker of hope in her face.

He regarded her almost as if he had not seen her before, not been speaking to her, forming judgments those last ten minutes. She had risked her own freedom, taken her own leap of moral decision in order to help the old and ill who could not help themselves. She had faced the most painful of realities and dealt with it. She did not deserve the condescension of being lied to. She would know the truth eventually anyway.

"I can’t stop them, Mrs. Anderson," he said gently, startled by the respect in his own voice. "And they’ll know anyway when it comes to trial. That is perhaps the only good thing about this whole affair. All London will hear of the plight of our old people to whom we owe so much-and choose not to pay. We may even hope that a few will take up the fight to have things changed."

She looked at him, hope and denial struggling in her face. She shook her head, pushing the thought away and yet unable to let go completely.

"D’you think so?"

"It is worth fighting for." He smiled very slightly. "But my first battle is for you. How long have you been paying Treadwell, and how much?"

Her voice hardened, and the pity vanished from her eyes. "Five years-an’ I paid him all I had, except a couple of shillings to live on."

Rathbone felt a tightening around his heart.

"And he asked you for more the night of his death. How much?"

Her voice sank to a whisper. She hesitated a moment before answering at all. "1 never saw him the night he died. That’s God’s truth."

He asked the question whose answer he did not want to hear and possibly he would not believe.

"Do you know who did?"

She answered instantly, her voice hard. "No, I don’t! Miriam told me nothing, except it wasn’t her. But she was in a terrible state, frightened half out of her mind an’ like the whole world had ended for her." She leaned towards him, half put out her hand, then took it back, not because the emotion or the urgency was any less, simply that she dared not touch him. "Never mind about me, Mr. Rathbone. I took the medicines. You can’t help me. But help Miriam, please! That’s what I want. If you’re my lawyer, like you said, you’ll speak up for her. She never killed him. I know her-I raised her since she was thirteen. She’s got a good heart an’ she never deliberately hurt anyone, but somebody’s hurt her so bad she’s all but dead inside. Help her-please! I’d go to the rope happy if I knew she was all right…."

He met her eyes and felt his throat choke. He believed her. It was a wild statement. She might have no real conception of what it would be like when the moment came, when the judge put on his black cap, and later when she was alone in the end, walking the short corridor towards the trap in the floor, and the short drop. Then it would be too late. But he still believed her. She had seen much death. There could be little of loneliness or pain that she was not familiar with.

"Mrs. Anderson, I am not sure there is anything I can do, but I promise I will not secure any leniency-or indeed, any defense-for you at Miriam Gardiner’s expense. And I will certainly do all I can to secure her acquittal, if she wishes it, and you do-"

"I do!" she said with fierce intensity. "And if she argues with you-for me-tell her that is my wish. I’ve had a good life with lots of laughter in it and done the things I wanted to. She’s very young. It’s your profession to convince people of things. You go and convince her of that, will you?"

"I can only work within the facts, but I will try," he promised. "Now, if there is anything more of that night you can tell me, please do."

"I don’t know anything else of that night," she protested. "I wish I did, then maybe I could help either one of us. I knew nothing until the police came because someone had reported finding a body on the pathway."

"When was that, what time?" he interrupted her.

"About an hour after dark. I didn’t look at the clock. I suppose Miriam must have left the party in late afternoon, and it would be close on dark by the time the carriage got as far as the Heath. I don’t know where he was attacked, but I heard say he crawled from there to where they found him."

"And when did you see Miriam Gardiner?"

"Next morning, early. About six, or something like that. She’d been out on the Heath all night and looked like the devil had been after her."

"Like she’d been in a fight?" he asked quickly. "Were her clothes torn, dirty, stained with mud or grass?"

Something inside her closed. She was afraid he was trying to implicate Miriam. "No. Only like she’d been running, p’raps, or frightened."

Was that a lie? He had no way of knowing. He recognized that she was not going to tell him any more. He rose to his feet. The fact that she had withdrawn her trust, at least as far as Miriam was concerned, did not alter his admiration for her or his intent to do all he could to find some way of helping.

"I shall go and speak with Mrs. Gardiner," he told her. "Please do not discuss this with anyone else. I shall return when I have something to tell you or if I need to ask you anything further. You have my word I shall take no steps without your permission."

"Thank you," she answered. "I–I am grateful, Mr. Rathbone. Will you tell Mrs. Monk that, too … and…"

"Yes?"

"No-nothing else."

He banged on the door, and the jailer let him out. He walked away along the dim corridor with a fluttering fear inside him as to what else she might have been going to say to Hester. She was a woman prepared to go to any lengths, make any sacrifice, for what she believed to be right and to save those she loved. No wonder Hester was keen in her defense. In the same place she might so easily have done the same things. He could picture Hester with just this blind loyalty, sacrificing herself rather than denying the greater principle. Was that what Cleo had been going to say-some instruction or warning to Hester about the medicines? Was it a request, or was Hester already doing it even now?