A Sunless Sea (23 page)

They were in the small, comfortable parlor with the fire burning well and fresh tea and slices of cold chicken pie on the table between them. This time Melisande was also there. She had initially come in simply to bring the food, but Runcorn had signaled her to stay. Considering the firmness with which he did so, Monk did not raise any objection. He did not want to distress her. He had little knowledge of her personality, except for the courage with which she had insisted on giving evidence during the case they were investigating when they had first met her. He glanced at her face once or twice, and saw only pity and intense concentration.

“That’s the same as they told me,” Runcorn said when Monk had finished his account. “I went back over the instructions I was given.” He looked faintly embarrassed. “I thought at the time they were to protect Lambourn’s reputation, and his widow’s feelings. Now they look a good deal more as if they were to conceal the truth. And if someone went to that much trouble to conceal the truth, we have to wonder why.”

“He walked up there in his shirtsleeves,” Monk reasoned aloud. “Or else he had a jacket and someone removed it. But Petherton said that the evening before was mild. He was out in his own garden. The night turned cold and by morning it was definitely chill. It looks as if Lambourn might not have intended to go so far, and definitely not to stay there.”

Runcorn nodded but did not interrupt.

“Petherton was certain there was no knife, and nothing with which to carry liquid—unless it was very small indeed, and in his trouser pocket. Watkins agreed, except he was also certain there was nothing in Lambourn’s pocket. I don’t think they are both lying. And you can’t swallow those things dry.”

“Someone else was there, then, and at best took away the knife and whatever Lambourn drank the opium with after Lambourn had committed suicide,” Runcorn concluded. “Or at worst, Mrs. Lambourn was right, and he was murdered.” He looked at Monk, his brow furrowed.

“And they expected to be able to conceal it,” Monk thought aloud. “But they were careless. No knife. Nothing to take the opium with. No jacket to walk that distance on an October evening. Was that because
they were caught by surprise and had to act quickly, without preparation? Or was it just arrogance?”

Melisande spoke for the first time. “It seems very stupid,” she said slowly. “The knife should have been there beside him. He should’ve been wearing a jacket. Why didn’t they leave those items there, even if it was murder?” She looked from one to the other of them. “Was there something in the knife or the vial that would have made it obvious who the killer was?”

No one needed to answer her. Runcorn looked at Monk intently. “Is it really possible someone killed him to silence him, and bury his report? But why?”

Monk answered, his voice a little hoarse. “Yes, I am beginning to think it is possible. And there has to be a reason, something deeper than just wanting to delay his report, and thus the bill.”

They sat without speaking for several moments. The fire burned gently in the hearth, creating a warm light and a soft, whispering sound.

“What are you going to do?” Melisande said at last, looking at Runcorn. There was fear both in her voice and in her face.

Runcorn looked back at her. Monk had never before seen emotion so naked or so intensely readable in his face. It was as if he and Melisande were alone in the room. He cared intensely what she thought of him, yet he knew he must make the decision alone.

Monk barely drew breath, willing Runcorn to give the right answer.

Ash collapsed in the fireplace and the coals settled.

“If we do nothing, we become part of this … conspiracy, if there is one,” Runcorn said at last. “I’m sorry, but we must learn the truth. If Lambourn was murdered then we must find out and prove who did it, and who concealed it, and why.” He put out his hand gently and touched hers. “It may be very dangerous.”

She smiled at him, her eyes bright with fear and pride. “I know.”

Monk had no need to answer her question for himself. He had come to Runcorn in the first place because this was precisely what he feared. He admitted to himself now that if he had truly believed Dinah Lambourn was guilty, he would not have taken the case to Rathbone, let alone pursue the evidence himself.

Runcorn stood up and stoked the fire.

They talked a little more, making further plans to report to Rathbone. Then Monk said good night and went outside into the dark street. The rain had stopped, but it was colder. At this late hour, it might be difficult to get a cab. He would have a better chance if he went toward the lamplit streets in the center of the town, where there were clubs and theaters with other people looking for transport, perhaps even a place where cabbies ate, or waited for fares.

He was walking briskly along the footpath, seeing clearly enough in the light from a few lamps at front doors, when he was aware of someone behind him. His first thought was that it might be another person hoping to find a hansom. Their steps were quiet and they seemed to be moving very rapidly. He stepped aside to let them pass. It was at that instant that he felt the blow on his shoulder, so hard it numbed his whole left arm. Had it landed on his head it would have knocked him senseless.

His assailant regained his balance and swung again, but this time Monk lashed out with his foot hard and high. He caught the man in the groin and the attacker pitched forward. Monk raised his knee under the man’s jaw as he collapsed, snapping his head back so hard Monk was afraid he might have broken his neck. The cudgel clattered away across the pavement and into the gutter.

Monk’s own left arm was still paralyzed.

The man rolled over, gasping, struggling to get up onto his hands and knees.

Relieved that he was alive, Monk kicked him again, hard, in the lower chest where it would knock the wind out of him.

The man coughed and retched.

Monk straightened up. There was another figure on the far side of the street, not running toward him, as someone might do if he meant to help, but moving easily, carrying something in his right hand.

Monk swung round. There was a dense shadow ahead of him also, maybe the bulk of someone half concealed in a doorway. He turned on his heel, his left arm still leaden and throbbing with pain. He ran as fast as he could back the way he had come.

He was less than a mile from Runcorn’s house. He did not know
how many more attackers there might be. He was in an area he did not know, and it was close to midnight. His left arm was useless.

He did not go directly back to Runcorn’s house. Whoever was after him would expect that. He kept to the broader streets, going as fast as he could, around the back, through other people’s gardens, and eventually arrived at Runcorn’s kitchen door, searching desperately for a sign someone was still up.

He saw nothing. He crouched in the back garden, trying to be invisible among rows of vegetables and a potting shed. He could not imagine Runcorn doing anything as domestic as gardening. He smiled to himself, in spite of the fact he was beginning to shiver. He could not stay out here. For one thing it was extremely cold and beginning to rain again, and he was hurt. More urgently, sooner or later they would think to look here for him. Very likely, it would be sooner!

He picked up a handful of small stones out of the earth and tossed them at one of the upstairs windows.

Silence.

He tried again, harder.

This time the window opened and Runcorn put his head out, just visible as a greater darkness against the night sky.

Monk stood up slowly. “They’re after us,” he said in the dark. “I was attacked.”

The window closed and a moment later the back door opened and Runcorn came out, a jacket over his nightshirt. He said nothing but helped Monk in, locked the back door again, and shot the bolt home, then looked Monk up and down.

“Well, at least we know we’re right,” he said drily. “We’ve got a spare room. Are you bleeding?”

“No, just can’t move my arm.”

“I’ll fetch you a clean nightshirt, and a stiff whisky.”

Monk smiled. “Thank you.”

Runcorn stood still for a moment. “Like the way it used to be, isn’t it?” he said with a bleak satisfaction. “Only better.”

O
LIVER
R
ATHBONE SAT IN
his chamber in the Old Bailey trying to compose his mind to begin the defense of Dinah Lambourn, on the charge of murdering Zenia Gadney. It was the highest-profile case he had appeared in for some time. He had already received considerable criticism for taking it at all. Of course, the remarks had been oblique. Everyone knew that all accused persons had the right to be represented in court, whoever they were and whatever they were charged with, regardless of the certainty of their guilt. That was the law.

Personal revulsion was an entirely different matter. Acknowledging mentally that somebody should represent her was quite different from actually doing it yourself.

“Not a wise move, Rathbone,” one of his friends had said, shaking his head and pursing his mouth. “Should have let some hungry young beggar take it, one who has nothing to lose.”

Rathbone had been stung. “Is that who you’d want defending your wife?” he had demanded.

“My wife wouldn’t hack a prostitute to death and dump her in the river!” the man had replied with heat.

“Maybe Dinah Lambourn didn’t, either,” Rathbone had responded,
wishing he had not been foolish enough to allow himself to be drawn into this discussion.

Perhaps the man had been right. As he sat in the big, comfortable chair and looked at the papers spread out on his desk, he wondered if he had been rash. Had he accepted this as a sort of suicide of his own, a self-inflicted punishment for failing Margaret?

The newspapers were running banner headlines about the trial. Some journalists had described Dinah as a woman consumed with hatred toward her own sex. They suggested she was insanely jealous, given to delusions, and had driven Lambourn to suicide with her possessiveness.

Another paper’s editorial pointed out that if the jury sanctioned a woman committing a hideous and depraved murder because her husband had resorted to a prostitute, there was no end to the slaughter that that might lead to.

And of course Rathbone had heard some women siding with Dinah, saying that men who consorted with prostitutes defiled the marriage bed, not only by the betrayal of their vows, but more immediately and physically by the possibility of returning to a loyal wife and bringing to her the diseases of the whorehouse, and thus of course to their children. And what about the money such men lavished on their own appetites, even while in the act of denying their wives household necessities?

To some men whom Rathbone had overheard at his club, Dinah was the ultimate victim. To others she was the symbol of a hysterical woman seeking to limit all a man’s freedoms and to pursue his every move.

One writer had presented her as the heroine for all betrayed wives, for all women used, mocked, and then cast aside. The heat of emotion carried away reason like jetsam on a flood tide.

Rathbone had prepared everything he could for this defense, but he knew he had far too little. Neither Monk nor Orme had been able to find a witness who had seen Zenia with a man near the time of her death. The one person she had been seen with, briefly on the road by the river, was unquestionably a woman. He had no wish to draw attention to that.

All he really had to defend Dinah with was her past loyalties to both Lambourn and Zenia, and her character. He would rather not put her on the witness stand to testify. She was too vulnerable to ridicule because of her belief in a conspiracy for which there was no proof. But in the end he might have to.

Monk and Hester were still searching for solid evidence, as was Runcorn, when he had the chance. The trouble was, everything they had found so far could just as easily be interpreted as evidence of her guilt as her innocence.

The attack on Monk had been brutal, and well organized, but there was nothing to tie it to the murder of Zenia Gadney. There had been no second attack, so far.

Rathbone was glad when the clerk came to interrupt his growing sense of panic and call him to the courtroom. The trial was about to begin.

All the usual preliminaries were gone through. It was a ritual to which Rathbone hardly needed to pay attention. He looked up at the dock, where Dinah sat between two wardens, high above the floor of the court. On the left-hand wall, under the window, were jury benches, and ahead was the great chair in which the judge sat, resplendent in his scarlet robes and full-bottomed wig.

Rathbone studied them one by one while the voices droned on. Dinah Lambourn looked beautiful in her fear. Her eyes were wide, her skin desperately pale. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back a little severely to reveal the bones of her cheeks and brow, the perfect balance of her features, her generous, vulnerable mouth. He wondered if that would tell against her, or for her. Would the jury admire her dignity, or misunderstand it for arrogance? There was no way of knowing.