Acceptable Loss (13 page)

Rupert nodded. He found it difficult to speak, and when he forced the words out, his tone was uneven.

“I knew he would … help. I … I’m not sure what you can do. The evidence seems to be … to be …” He breathed in and out deeply. “If I were Monk, I would believe as he does. The cravat is mine—no argument.”

Rathbone heard the nervousness in his voice, the tension. He put his hand out and pulled the chair nearest him away from the table. He waved at the other. “Sit down, Mr. Cardew. I need you to tell me as much as you can, from the beginning. It might be simpler if I ask you questions.”

Rupert obeyed, unintentionally scraping the chair legs on the floor. He sat down awkwardly, but his hands on the table were strong and lean, and Rathbone saw with respect that they did not tremble.

“You do not question that it was your cravat?” Rathbone asked.

“No,” Rupert said wryly. “I don’t imagine there are many like that. My father gave it to me. I expect he had it made. His tailor would swear to it.”

“I see.” He was not surprised, but it might have been an advantage if the point could have been argued. “What time did you leave home that evening?”

“I expected you to ask me that. Early. It was a lovely evening.” He gave a twisted grimace, not quite a smile, as if the bitter humor of it were momentarily overwhelming. “I walked down by the river for an hour or more. I lost track of time.…”

Rathbone held up his hand to stop him. “Down by the river where? You don’t live anywhere near Chiswick.”

“Of course not. Who the devil lives in Chiswick? But I didn’t want to wander along the Embankment and run into half a dozen people I know who would want to talk politics, or gossip. I took a boat up the river, and I’ve racked my brain to recall anyone I knew who saw me. But the whole charm of going up on the water is the peace of it, the very fact that you don’t meet anyone you know. I’m sorry.” He shrugged very slightly, with barely a movement of his shoulders.

“You didn’t row yourself!” Rathbone observed.

“Well, actually, I did.”

“You hired a boat? From whom? They’ll have a record of it.”

“No. I have my own. At least, I share it with a fellow I know. But he’s in Italy at the moment. No use, is it!”

“No,” Rathbone agreed. “Where did you go—exactly?”

“Chiswick. I tied it up at one of the mooring posts up there opposite the Chiswick Eyot. Then I went along the Mall and had a drink at the pub off Black Lion Lane. I spoke to a few lads I know, but I doubt they’d remember it. Just stupid remarks about the weather, that sort of thing.”

“Then what?”

Rupert looked down at his hands on the table. “Then I went and visited a woman I know—a girl.”

“Is that a euphemism for a prostitute?” Rathbone inquired.

A dull color marked Rupert’s cheeks. “Yes.”

“Her name?”

“Hattie Benson.”

“You know her? Other than in the carnal sense?”

Rupert looked up quickly. “Yes. But I don’t imagine her word is going to help a lot. I still had my cravat then. I remember taking it off, so it must have been before Parfitt was killed with it. Unless someone killed him with another silk cravat, exactly like mine. That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” There was a flicker of hope in his voice, but he killed it himself, before Rathbone had the chance.

“Yes. I’m afraid it is,” Rathbone replied. “Where did you go after you left Miss Benson?”

“I don’t know. I was pretty drunk. I fell asleep somewhere, I don’t remember where. When I woke up, it was dark, and I felt like hell. I went over to the horse trough, stuck my head into the water, sobered up a bit, and then rowed home.” He looked at Rathbone, waiting for the condemnation he expected.

“The prosecution won’t be able to make a case unless they can prove that you knew Mickey Parfitt, and had some reason to want him dead,” Rathbone told him. “Tell me of all your dealings with him, and don’t lie to me. If they catch you out even once, it will be sufficient to shatter any credibility you might have with the jury.”

Rupert stared at him, the skin tight across his cheeks, his mouth drawn into a line of pain.

“It is too late for discretion,” Rathbone warned him. “I shall not tell anyone anything you can afford for me to hide. Particularly I shall not tell your father. He will suffer quite enough in spite of all I can do.”

Rupert looked as if Rathbone had struck him and bruised his face deeper than the flesh.

“I did not kill Parfitt,” he said clearly.

Rathbone continued exactly as if he had not spoken. “What was your connection with him? When and where did you first meet? If any of this is verifiable, I’d like to know that too.”

Rupert looked down at the scarred tabletop. “I met him just over two years ago. I was out with a group of friends, at Black Lion Lane again. We were all pretty high and bored. Somebody began telling tall stories about women they’d had, not just in London, but Paris, somebody
said Berlin, and someone else said Madrid. The stories got taller and taller, most of them lies, I expect.” He took a deep breath. “Then someone said he knew of a place a lot more daring than anything mentioned so far. He said danger was the thing that really made your heart beat, and the blood—” He stopped. He was looking at Rathbone’s exquisite suit, his crisp, clean shirt.

“I can imagine,” Rathbone said drily. “You don’t have to fill in the details of what he described. The risk of ruin was the ultimate temptation.”

“Yes,” Rupert said very quietly. “I can’t believe now that I was so stupid!”

“It was a boat on the river?”

“You know what it was.”

“I still need you to tell me.”

Rupert winced. “I went out, with the others. I suppose there were half a dozen of us, something like that. The boat was moored up on the other side of the Chiswick Eyot. Quite a row. With the cooler air I was close to sober when we got there. At first it looked like another brothel, except on a boat. We were made welcome, given some of the best brandy I’ve ever had. Then … then there was a kind of performance, very explicit … men and little boys. Some of them were not more than five or six years old.” His voice cracked, and his face was scarlet.

Rathbone waited.

“It … it was a form of club. There were … initiation rites. We had to … take part … and be photographed. It was a dare—the ultimate risk … in which you could lose everything. We all did it.” His voice sank to a whisper. “I didn’t have the courage to refuse. Afterward I scrambled up the gangway and vomited over the side into the river. I wanted to leave, but there was no way, other than jumping into the water and hoping to survive.” He gulped. “If I’d been worth anything, I’d have done that. Wading out of the river covered in mud and sodden to the skin on the streets of Chiswick would have been better than the hell that followed.”

Rathbone could imagine it more easily than he wished. There
had been some days at university when he himself had been less than sober, less than discreet. He would greatly prefer that his father did not know about those days, even if he might guess. His excesses had never been of this magnitude, but the hot burn of shame was just as real.

“Please go on,” he said more gently.

“I staggered back toward the gangway downstairs again, and one of Parfitt’s men came up behind me. We collided, and somehow the next thing I knew I was falling downward, thumping and bashing myself against the walls, until I landed at the bottom. I can remember faces peering at me in a sort of haze, and I felt dreadful. Then I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew I was lying on a bed in one of the cabins, and Mickey Parfitt himself was looking at me, sneering.

“ ‘Shouldn’t drink so much, Mr. Cardew,’ he said with satisfaction oozing out of him. ‘Fell downstairs, you did. But had your bit of fun first.’ At the time I didn’t remember the staged show with the little boys, or the photograph, so I didn’t feel anything much. He gave me a stiff jolt of brandy and helped me to my feet. I went back over the river with my friends—what a damn stupid word for them!” For a moment bitterness flashed across his face.

Rathbone felt himself sympathizing and, to his amazement, also believing him. “Then what happened?” he asked, although he knew.

Rupert looked down again. “About a week later Parfitt sent a letter to my home, inviting me to join them on the boat again. I burned the letter.”

“But he wrote again?”

“Yes. I ignored it the second time. Burned it without opening it, actually. The third time he sent a letter to my father. I recognized the writing. I burned the one to my father, but I read the one to me. He said that I had entered into a contract with him, and there was a photograph to prove it. Whether I went to the boat again or not, I still owed him the money.”

“Blackmail.” Rathbone nodded. It was cleverer than he had thought, much harder to prove in court. How could he show that
there had been no “gentleman’s agreement”? Such things were often unwritten, especially regarding something like gambling, or the services of a prostitute. No one put those “agreements” in writing.

Rupert nodded. “I realized it only then. God, I was so stupid!” His voice was heavy with self-disgust.

“Did you pay?”

Rupert’s face tightened. “With that photograph? Of course I did. I meant to buy myself a little time, and then think what to do. I knew if I didn’t do something, the bastard would have me paying for the rest of my life.”

Rathbone looked at him, searching his eyes. He saw desperation, profound embarrassment, even shame, but curiously, no awareness of having just admitted to the perfect motive for murder. Was that because he felt himself justified? And if he did, could Rathbone disagree with him? If ever a man deserved to be gotten rid of, it was Mickey Parfitt. Thinking of him, it was as if Jericho Phillips had risen from the dead.

“Well, you’re rid of him now,” he said with asperity.

“Hardly,” Rupert said bitterly. “He’ll take me down to the grave with him. It almost makes me wish I had killed him!”

“Didn’t you?”

Rupert’s head jerked up, his eyes hot. “No, I didn’t!”

Rathbone was used to denial. Almost everyone claimed either that they did not do it at all or that, if they did, it was either an accident or the victim deserved it. And yet he was on the brink of believing Rupert Cardew, which was totally unreasonable. Every scrap of evidence pointed to him.

“Then, who did?” he said grimly. “With your cravat?”

“I don’t know. Whoever found it, I suppose.”

Rathbone opened his eyes wide. “They chanced on your cravat, lying wherever it was, and thought, ’Ah, I know what I’ll do with this. I’ll tie a few knots in it, and then I’ll strangle someone. What about Mickey Parfitt? We’d all be better off without him.’ ”

Rupert flushed hotly. “I don’t know who killed him, or why. There could be a dozen reasons, and fifty men with one at least as good as mine. I only know that I didn’t. I’ve never been so drunk that I
couldn’t remember what I’d done—just not always where, or with whom.” He gave a slight shrug, and a flicker of humor lit his eyes for an instant, then vanished.

Rathbone’s mind raced. Was it conceivable that Rupert really was innocent, at least of the murder? A reasonable doubt would prevent his conviction, but not remove from people’s minds the belief that he was guilty. Some might praise him for it, but the stain would still be indelible. The only good answer would be to prove someone else’s guilt.

“What do you know about Parfitt?” he asked. “Apart from what you have told me. Where did he come from? Who are his partners in the boat? He didn’t find the money to buy it in the first place without help. Who was it? Who else shares the profit? Who are his other clients whom he might have pushed over the edge into ruin? And did he blackmail only for money, or for favors also?”

“Favors?” Rupert blinked. “You mean—”

“Political favors,” Rathbone corrected him. “Or worse, perhaps, judicial favors?”

“Judicial …?” Rupert began, and then stopped as understanding swept over him. “God, I never thought of that. Would he really?”

“I don’t know. But you see the possibilities?”

Rupert was pale now. Was he thinking of his father, and the power he had in the House of Lords, the influence on members who fought for reform? If Rupert’s own reputation were in the balance, what might Cardew have been coerced into doing to save him?

“What made you think of that?” he asked. “Do you know something?” There was fear in his voice now, no anger left.

“No,” Rathbone said truthfully. “But that is what Jericho Phillips did, and it seems an obvious thing.”

“Phillips?” Rupert asked.

“Yes.”

“Then Parfitt would too. He learned all his skills from Phillips. He started by working for him, downriver from Chiswick, nearer Westminster and that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you know more about him than the one visit you’re telling me about.”

Rupert paled. “Look … I went three times, and I’m ashamed of it. The first time, it wasn’t so bad. Or the second. Young men, but we all know that kind of thing goes on. A bit of gambling, and a hell of a lot to drink. If I’d had any sense, I’d have known that wasn’t all there was to it, but I didn’t think. I … I wanted to stay in with the friends I had. I haven’t been back, ever.”

Against all his experiences of frightened men lying when accused, Rathbone believed him. But at the same time, it robbed him of a defense that he could hope to succeed with, or at least use to mitigate the sentence sufficiently to avoid the rope. He shrank from telling Rupert this now. He could not work with him paralyzed with fear. He had to have as much of the truth as possible in order to defend against the evidence the Crown would bring. Mickey Parfitt’s death was not a cause célèbre, but Rupert Cardew in the dock most certainly would be.

“Do you know who has been?” Rathbone asked.

Rupert was stunned. “I can’t tell you the names of my friends who were there! For God’s sake, that would be a despicable thing to do.”

“Even if one of them murdered Mickey Parfitt?”

“Betray them all because one of them might have killed him? Is that what you would do, Sir Oliver?” Suddenly the challenge was sharp and very personal.