Anne Perry - The Twisted Root

"Of course," he replied. "Thank you, Morris." He turned and was a dozen yards along the corridor when Hester caught up with him. He had no idea what to say to her. There was no comfort to offer, no next line of attack to suggest.

She fell into step with him and said nothing.

He glanced at her, then away again, grateful for her silence. He had not seen Monk, and assumed he was on some other business.

Cleo was waiting in the small room with the jailer outside. She was standing facing them, and she stepped forward as soon as Rathbone closed the door.

"He’s lying," she said, looking from one to the other of them.

He was embarrassed. It was futile to protest now, and he had not the emotional strength to struggle with her. It was over.

He shook his head. "I’m sure you want to believe-"

"It has nothing to do with belief! I saw her then. She wasn’t aborted. She’d gone full term." She was angry now with his lack of understanding. "I’m a nurse. I know the difference between a woman who’s given birth and one who’s lost her child or done away with it in the first few months. That child was born-dead or alive. The size of her-and she had milk, poor little thing." She swallowed. "How she wept for it…"

"So Campbell is lying!" Hester said, moving forward to Cleo. "But why?"

"To hide what he did to her," Cleo said furiously. "He must have raped her, and when she was with child he threw her out." She looked from Hester to Rathbone. "Though he didn’t even notice her condition. Who looks at housemaids, especially ones who are barely more than children themselves? Perhaps he’d already got tired of her-moved on to someone else? Or if he thought she’d had it aborted, and only then realized she hadn’t, to avoid the scandal."

"It wouldn’t be much of a scandal," Hester said sadly. "If she was foolish enough to say it was his, he would simply deny it. No one would be likely to believe her… or frankly, care that much even if they did. It isn’t worth murdering anyone over."

Cleo’s face crumpled, but she refused to give in. "What about the body?"

"Which body?" Rathbone was confused. "The baby?"

"No-no, the woman!"

"What woman?"

"The woman Miriam saw murdered the night her baby was born. The woman on the Heath."

Rathbone was still further confused. "Who was she?"

Cleo shook her head. "I don’t know. Miriam said she had been murdered. She saw it-that was what she was running away from."

"But who was the woman?"

"I don’t know!"

"Was there ever a body found? What happened? Didn’t the police ask?"

Cleo waved her hands in denial, her eyes desperate. "No- no body was ever found. He must have hidden it."

It was all pointless, completely futile. Rathbone felt a sense of despair drowning him as if he could hardly struggle for breath, almost a physical suffocation.

"You said yourself that she was hysterical." He tried to sound reasonable, not patronizing or offensive to a woman who must be facing the most bitter disillusion imaginable, and for which she would face disgrace she had not deserved, and a death he could not save her from. "Don’t you think the loss of her baby was what she was actually thinking of? Was it a girl?"

"I don’t know. She didn’t say." Cleo looked as if she had caught his despair. "She seemed so-so sure it was a woman… someone she cared for… who had helped her, even loved her… I-" She stopped, too weary, too hurt, to go on.

"I’m sorry," Rathbone said gently. "You were right to tell me about the baby. If Campbell was lying, at least we may be able to make something of that. Even if we do no more than save Miriam’s reputation, I am sure that will matter to her." He was making wild promises and talking nonsense. Would Miriam care about such a thing when she faced death?

He banged on the door to be released again, and as soon as they were outside he turned to Hester.

But before he could begin to say how sorry he was, she spoke.

"If this woman really was killed, then her body must still be there."

"Hester-she was delirious, probably weak from loss of blood and in a state of acute distress from delivering a dead child."

"Maybe. But perhaps she really did see a woman murdered," Hester insisted. "If the body was never found, then it is out there on the Heath."

"For twenty-two years! On Hampstead Heath! For heaven’s sake…"

"Not in the open! Buried-hidden somewhere."

"Well, if it’s buried no one would find it now."

"Perhaps it’s not buried." She refused to give up. "Perhaps it’s hidden somehow, concealed."

"Hester…"

"I’m going to find Sergeant Robb and see if he will help me look."

"You can’t. After all this time there’ll be nothing…"

"I’ve got to try. What if there really was a woman murdered? What if Miriam was telling the truth all the time?"

"She isn’t!"

"But what if she was? She’s your client, Oliver! You’ve got to give her the benefit of every doubt. You must assume that what she says is true until it is completely proved it can’t be."

"She was thirteen, she’d just given birth to a dead child, she was alone and hysterical…"

"I’m going to find Sergeant Robb. He’ll help me look, whatever he believes, for Cleo’s sake. He owes her a debt he can never repay, and he knows that."

"And doubtless if he should forget, you will remind him."

"Certainly!" she agreed. "But he won’t forget."

"What about Monk?" he challenged her as she turned to leave.

"He’s still busy trying to find out more about Treadwell and the corpses," she said over her shoulder.

"Hester, wait!"

But she had walked off, increasing her pace to a run, and short of chasing after her there was nothing he could do- except try to imagine how he was going to face the court the next morning.

Michael Robb was sitting alone in the room where until recently his grandfather had spent his days. The big chair was still there, as if the old man might come back to it one day, and there was a startling emptiness without him.

"Mrs. Monk," Robb said with surprise. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Everything is wrong," she answered, remaining standing in spite of his invitation to sit. "Cleo is going to be convicted unless we can find some sort of evidence that Miriam also is innocent, and our only chance of that is to find the body of the woman…"

"What woman? Just a minute!" He held up his hand. "What has happened in court? I wasn’t there."

With words falling over each other, she told him about Rathbone’s calling Cleo to the stand and her story of how she had first met Miriam, and then Aiden Campbell’s denial and explanation.

"We’ve got to find the woman that Miriam said was murdered," she finished desperately. "That would prove what she said was true! At least they would have to investigate."

"She’s been out there for twenty-two years," he protested. "If she exists at all!"

"Can you think of anything better?" she demanded.

"No-but…"

"Then, help me! We’ve got to go and look!"

He hesitated only a moment. She could see in his face that he considered it hopeless, but he was feeling lonely and guilty because Cleo had helped him in the way he valued the most and he could do nothing for her. Silently, he picked up his bull’s-eye lantern and followed her out into the gathering dusk.

Side by side they walked towards Green Man Hill and the row of cottages where Cleo Anderson had lived until her arrest. They stopped outside, facing the Heath. It was now almost dark; only the heavy outlines of the trees showed black against the sky.

"Where do you think we should start?" Robb asked.

She was grateful he had spoken of them as together, not relegating the search to her idea in which he was merely obliging her.