Anne Perry: Acceptable Loss

Rathbone raised his hand. “Who else could we trust?”

“The people at the clinic,” she replied, thinking as she answered. “Squeaky Robinson, perhaps Claudine?”

“What on earth could she do?” Rathbone said incredulously.

“Make inquiries in society,” Hester replied. “I don’t mix with the sort of people who would be worth blackmailing for power, and you can hardly ask.”

Rathbone blushed very faintly, and she knew he was thinking that at any other time they would have asked Margaret to help, but now it was impossible. But Hester would not say so, or even that he himself would hardly be wishing to move in his usual social circle. He had not even considered how life would be after his father-in-law was hanged. There would be no waking up from this nightmare.

“And Crow,” Monk added. “I’ll ask Orme. His knowledge of the river is better than mine.”

“I’ll ask Rupert Cardew,” Hester said, looking at Monk, then at Rathbone. She expected them to argue, and she had her rebuttal ready.

“He could be putting his life at risk, after what he’s already done,” Monk warned her.

“I know. And I’ll remind him of it. But I have to ask. It’s a long path back from where he was, and I believe he means to take it.”

“If he stays in London, he’s ruined,” Rathbone said grimly. “Doesn’t he understand that? He’ll never be forgiven for what will be seen as betraying his own.”

“He knows,” she assured him, remembering Rupert’s ashen face when she had asked him to testify. “He’s ruined anywhere in England. I expect he’ll go to Australia, or somewhere like that. Start again.”

“What hell for his father,” Rathbone murmured. “Poor man.”

“Better he go having made amends than stay here as he was.” Hester shook her head a little. “He hasn’t left himself such a lot of choices. This is the bravest thing, the cleanest. But he can do this one thing more before he leaves. He may be the only one who knows some of the people Ballinger knew. And Ballinger probably gave the pictures to someone who was in them himself. It would be the best way to make sure he obeyed.”

Monk swore under his breath, but he did not argue. He stood up. “Then we’d better start. Where’s Scuff?”

She was horrified. “You’re not taking him?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course I am. You think he’d be better off staying here alone? You think he would stay? At least if he’s with me, I’ll know where he is.”

She let out her breath slowly. He was right, but it was not good enough, not safe enough. But, then, probably it never would be. Life wasn’t safe.

They worked for six days, starting before dawn and stopping only late at night. Monk and Orme went up and down the river. Rathbone went through every social acquaintance and business connection of Ballinger’s that he could trace. Claudine listened to society gossip and asked inquisitive and even intrusive questions. Squeaky Robinson put out inquiries among all the brothel-keepers, prostitutes, and petty criminals that he knew. Crow sought all the dubious medical sources, procurers, and abortionists. Rupert Cardew risked his safety, and even his life, asking questions. Once he was beaten, and was lucky to escape with no more than severe bruising and a cracked rib.

Every lead fizzled out, and they were left with no more than fears and guesses as to who had the photographs, or even if they were real.

Rathbone decided to try one more time to plead with Arthur Ballinger, for the sake of his family, if nothing else, to tell them where the photographs were, and allow them to be destroyed.

He would go in the morning. At midnight he stood in the drawing room of his silent house and stared out through the French windows into the autumn garden. The smell of rain and damp earth was sweet, but he was barely aware of it. The wind had parted the clouds, and the soft moonlight bathed the air, making the sky milky pale, the black branches of trees elaborate lace against it.

The room was not cold, but he was chilled inside.

There was nothing else left but to go back to Ballinger, and he must do it in the morning.

He finally closed the curtains and went upstairs, creeping soundlessly, as if he were in a strange house and did not wish to disturb the owners. He changed into his nightclothes in the dressing room and walked barefoot to the bedroom. The lights were out. He could not hear Margaret move, or even breathe. It was a curiously sharp feeling of isolation, because he knew she was there.

He woke at six and rose immediately, washing, shaving, and dressing silently, and going downstairs in a house still chilly from the night. The maid had lit the fires, but they had not burned up sufficiently to warm the air.

The maid boiled the kettle for him and made a cup of tea and two slices of toast. He had to force himself to eat it, standing at the kitchen table, making the girl uncomfortable. The master had no business alone and miserable in her territory. It was not the way houses were supposed to be run.

He thanked her and left, catching a hansom a block away from the house, and finding himself all too quickly outside the cold gray walls of the prison. It was only twenty minutes before eight, and the sky was so overcast it seemed still shadowed by the retreating night.

As the lawyer of a condemned man he was admitted immediately.

“Mornin’, sir,” the jailer said cheerfully. He was a large, square-shouldered man with a ready smile and a gap between his front teeth. “Don’t often get folks ’ere this time o’ the day. Mr. Ballinger, is it? Not long for ’im now. Best it’s over, I say. Longest three weeks in the world.”

Rathbone did not argue. The man could not know Ballinger was Rathbone’s father-in-law, or anything of the bitter and complicated relationship between them. Rathbone followed obediently along the stone corridors. He could hear no voices, no footfalls, because he walked carefully. Yet the silence seemed restless, as if there were always something just beyond his hearing. It was cold, and the air smelled stale. No one had let wind or light inside to disturb the centuries of despair that had settled here.

This was no place for a man to end his days. Remembering Mickey Parfitt did not help. Rathbone forced himself to think of the children, like Scuff, small, thin, humiliated, and forever afraid. Then he found he could straighten his shoulders and accept the necessity of the situation. Nothing on earth could make him like it.

The jailer stopped at the cell door, and the sudden jangle of his keys was the first loud noise. He poked one into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door. It swung open inward, with a slight squeak of hinges.

“There y’are, sir,” he invited.

Rathbone took a deep breath. This was loathsome. He would not have wished to walk into Ballinger’s bedroom and find him in his nightshirt, half-asleep, expecting privacy, even at the best of times. This was a loss of dignity that was degrading to both of them.

He stepped in. The light was faint from the single small, barred window high in the opposite wall. It was a moment before he realized that what looked like a heap of bedclothes on the floor was Arthur Ballinger’s body.

Without even knowing he did it, he let out a cry and stumbled forward onto his knees, grabbing for the flung-out hand. His fingers closed over the flesh, feeling the bones. It was cold.

“Sweet Jesus!” the jailer said from behind him, his voice shaking. He held the lantern up, whether it was for Rathbone to see, or himself, was unclear.

The light showed Ballinger in his prison nightshirt, sprawled awkwardly, one leg bent. The back of his head was matted with blood, but from his staring eyes and protruding tongue, it was hideously clear that he had been strangled to death. The bruise marks from hands were darkening on his throat.