Acceptable Loss (42 page)

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.

“ ’Ere,” the jailer said. “Yer’d better get up, sir. In’t nothing we can do fer ’im. Best get out of ’ere an’ tell the chief warden. ’E in’t gonna like this.”

Rathbone was frozen; his legs would not obey him.

“ ’Ere,” the jailer repeated, suddenly his voice gentle. “Up yer get, sir. Come on, sir, this way.”

Rathbone felt the man haul at him, taking his weight, and he rose to his feet, trembling.

“How could this happen?” he asked, still staring at Ballinger.

“I dunno, sir. There’ll ’ave ter be an inquiry. In’t fer us ter say. We’d better get out of ’ere an’ tell someone. Yer didn’t touch nothin’, did yer?”

“His … his hand. It’s cold,” Rathbone stammered.

“Yeah. Must a bin done last night. Come on, sir. We gotta get out of ’ere.”

Rathbone allowed himself to be led away, stumbling a little, hardly aware of passing through the corridors, crossing a hallway, and being ushered into a warm office. The chair he was put in was soft, and someone brought him a cup of tea. It was hot and too strong, but he was glad of it. He heard footsteps outside, hurrying, anxious voices, but he could catch no words, and for a moment he hardly cared.

How had this happened? Ballinger was due to be hanged in less than a week. Why would anyone kill him? And how? A jailer had to have helped, colluded. Someone had paid, perhaps a great deal. Surely that was proof that the photographs were real, and all that Ballinger had said of them was true? What fearful irony that all his care to keep his power had actually ended in his own death. Were his secrets dead with him, or simply waiting to be laid bare, one by one? Most likely they would only be guessed at when a trust was betrayed, an inexplicable judgment made, a suicide, a law passed against all expectations.

How was he going to tell Margaret? How much? He winced as he thought how she would blame him for this too. If he had gained an acquittal, Ballinger would have been at home with his family, safe, and with all the power still in his hands.

Or perhaps he would have been murdered anyway, just not here?

And if there had been no danger of an appeal, would he have been left to hang?

No. If he’d been hanged, then someone had had the instructions to make it all public. He must have been killed by someone who intended either to destroy all the pictures or to use them himself. God, what an unimaginable horror!

I
T WAS WORSE EVEN
than Rathbone had expected. When he told her, she stood in the center of the morning room, her face sheet-white, swaying a little on her feet.

Afraid she was going to faint, he took a step toward her. She backed away sharply, almost as if she feared he was going to strike her.

“Margaret!” he said hoarsely.

“No!” She shook her head and put her hands up to ward him off.

“No. You’re lying.”

“I’m sorry—,” he began.

“Sorry! You’re not sorry. You made this happen,” she accused. “If you hadn’t put your career before your family—”

“I couldn’t defend him.” He was burning with a sense of the injustice of her charge. “He was guilty, Margaret. He killed Mickey Parfitt.”

“Parfitt was vermin,” she retorted. “He should have been killed.”

“And Hattie Benson?”

“She was a prostitute, a whore who was going to lie to protect Rupert Cardew.”

“Protect him from what? He didn’t kill Parfitt. And you’ve just said Parfitt needed killing. You can’t have it both ways.”

The tears were running down her cheeks, and she was gasping for breath. “My father’s been murdered, and you’re standing there justifying yourself! You’re disgusting. I used to love you so much, because I thought you were brave and loyal and you fought for the truth. Now I see you’re just ambitious. You don’t even know what love is!”

He felt as if he had been slapped so hard that his flesh was bruised. He stood without moving as she turned away and walked to the door. When she was in the hall she looked back at him. “I’m going home to look after my mother. She will need me. I will send for my belongings.” With a rustle of silk and the sound of her footsteps on the floor, she was gone.

Rathbone could not measure how grieved he was or how deep the wound, or how, and if ever, it would heal.

T
HE OVERCAST WAS SO
heavy that it was dusk before five in the afternoon. Monk came home to find a fire, bright and warm in the parlor, and Hester and Scuff sitting beside it. There was a pot of tea on the table between them, and they were eating hot crumpets with
butter. Scuff had crumbs on his chest. He was sitting in Monk’s chair and looked a little guilty when Monk opened the door, but he did not move. He was waiting to see what would happen, maybe how much he belonged here.

Hester stood up and walked over to Monk. She kissed him on the cheek, gently, then on the mouth. He slid his arms around her and held her until she pulled back.

“I know,” she said softly. “Crow came and told us. Someone murdered Ballinger in his cell.”

Monk looked past her at Scuff. The boy was watching him, waiting, the crumpet held in his hand, dripping butter onto his clothes. His eyes were wide.

“It isn’t the way I would have chosen,” Monk replied. “But maybe that’s an end of it. It’s hideous for Rathbone, and for Margaret, but there was never anything we could have done to change that.”

Scuff was still watching Monk.

Monk smiled at him. “No more river trade on those boats,” he said.

“What about them pictures yer was lookin’ fer?” Scuff asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re destroyed, maybe not. But they’re only pictures. If the people in them get blackmailed, we’ll worry about that if we ever get to know. Finish your crumpet before it’s cold.”

Scuff grinned and took a big bite of it, scattering crumbs onto the floor, and onto Monk’s chair.

“Next time the chair’s mine,” Monk said with a nod.

Scuff hitched himself a little farther back against the cushions and continued smiling.

Codicil to the last will and testament of Arthur Hall Ballinger.

For more murder and mystery on the river Thames,
turn the page to sample

A SUNLESS SEA

The next installment in the William Monk series

T
HE SUN WAS RISING
slowly, splashing red light across the river. The drops thrown from Monk’s oars glowed momentarily in the air, like wine, or blood. On the other seat, a yard or so in front of him, Orme leaned forward and threw his weight against the drag of the current. They worked in perfect rhythm, used to each other now; it was the last week of November 1864, nearly two years since Monk had taken command of the Thames River Police at the Wapping Station.

That was a small victory for him. Orme had been part of the River Police all his adult life. For Monk it was a big adjustment after working first for the Metropolitan Police and then for himself.

The peace of his satisfaction was shattered by a scream, which was piercing even above the creak of the oarlocks and the sound of the wash from a passing string of barges breaking on the shore. Monk and Orme both turned toward the north bank and Limehouse Pier, which was no more than twenty yards away.

The scream came again, shrill with terror, and suddenly a figure appeared, black against the shadowy outline of the sheds and warehouses on the embankment. It was someone in a long coat, waving their arms and stumbling around; it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman.

With a glance over his shoulder at Monk, Orme dug his oars in again and swung the boat round toward the shore.

The low clouds were parting and the light became stronger; the figure materialized into a woman in a long skirt, standing on the pier, waving her arms and crying out to them, her words so jumbled in terror they were unintelligible.

The boat bumped at the steps and Orme tied it up.

Monk grasped the closest wooden beam and clambered out, going up the steps as fast as he could. When he got to the top he saw that the woman was now sobbing and putting her hands to her face as if to block out all possible vision.

Monk looked around. He could see no one else, nothing to cause such hysterical fear. Nor could he immediately see any evidence of a threat to the woman. The pier was empty except for her and Monk, and then Orme, coming up the steps.

Monk took her arm gently. “What is it?” he asked, his voice firm. “What’s wrong?”

She pulled away from him and swung round, jabbing her finger toward a heap of rubbish, which was slowly becoming more visible in the spreading morning light.

Monk walked over to it, his stomach clenching when he realized that what he had taken for torn canvas was actually the sodden skirt of a woman, her body so mutilated it was not instantly recognizable as human. There was no need to wonder if she was dead. She was twisted over, half on her back, her blue, sightless eyes turned up to the sky. Her hair was matted, and blood-soaked at the back. But it was the rest of her body that made his gorge rise and choked the breath in his throat. Her belly was ripped open, and her entrails were torn out and laid like pale, skinless snakes across her loins.

Monk heard Orme’s step behind him.

“Dear God!” Orme breathed out the words, not as a blasphemy but a cry for help, for what he saw not to be real.