Acceptable Loss (36 page)

“No, of course not. They can’t. She’s dead.” He watched her face, afraid of what he would see in it.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said quietly. “But I’m afraid prostitutes come to a bad end quite often. And she lied. I don’t know why. Maybe he threatened her. But it doesn’t matter now. You have to make sure the jury understands that she was killed, almost certainly by Rupert Cardew. That’s a good thing, for the case. Then they’ll really know Papa was innocent.”

“Do you hear what you are saying, Margaret?” he asked, pushing her a little farther from him, looking into her face. He saw the fear there, tightly controlled, the fierce protection, the urgency. There was no awareness at all that she had said anything to cast a shadow over her integrity.

“That justice will be done, and we’ll be safe again,” she replied.

Should he argue? Was there any point, or would she only be angry, and then push a further wedge between them? He knew he should not say it, and yet the words slipped out of his mouth: “Don’t you care that she’s dead, perhaps murdered?”

“Of course I’m sorry! I’m not heartless,” she retorted with a touch of anger. “But she had a life that was always going to end badly.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We have to fight for complete justice—exoneration for Papa. And then perhaps Monk will put it right by charging Rupert Cardew again. He can, can’t he? I mean, there’s no double jeopardy or anything like that, because he didn’t stand trial. He might even have killed Hattie as well. Then if you can’t prove he killed Mickey Parfitt, you could always hang him for killing her.”

“You said it as if you would like that,” he observed. Why was he provoking a quarrel, pushing her away? All she wanted was for her father to be free from all taint or suggestion of wrongdoing. Was that not natural? Wouldn’t he do exactly the same if it were his father? Wouldn’t Lord Cardew fight just as hard and as ruthlessly for Rupert, when that time came? Would he ask Rathbone again to defend him? Would Rathbone accept?

Would Monk even be in command of the River Police anymore to pursue it? Or by then would it be some new man?

Hester would not have found this loyalty so cut and dried. She was far more complex, more torn by conflicting passions and convictions. And yet at this moment, at least, she was easier for him to understand. She would weep for Hattie; she would not accept that it had been inevitable; and she would weep for Rupert Cardew, and his father. What about for Monk? He was her own. She would fight for him, blindly, without care for injury, weariness, even temporary defeat, just as Margaret fought for her father. But would Hester be sure that Monk was right? He thought not. It would not lessen her love for him, but she would consider the possibility that he had been mistaken, even that the error had been moral as well as factual.

Was that good, or bad?

Margaret was staring at him, her eyes puzzled and angry. “If he’s guilty, then he deserves it,” she replied. “I don’t like it, but I accept it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t find the difference between right and wrong so simple.”

“He murdered Parfitt, and probably Hattie as well, and he was looking to see my father hang for it. What is complicated about that?” There was challenge in her face, a stiffness, nothing anymore that he could reach out and touch.

“Proving it,” he said coolly. “But I will go to see your father tomorrow and ask how hard he wishes me to press the issue. He has until Monday morning to decide. As it is now, I think we have a good chance of reasonable doubt. I could call him to testify, and he can swear his innocence, but that will allow Winchester the opportunity to cross-question him. He may prefer not to do that. It is his choice, not yours or mine.” He put a finality into his voice, closing the subject from any further discussion. He sounded cold, and he knew it, but he felt cold inside, as if a door had been shut, and he did not know how to open it again.

I
N THE MORNING HE
went to see Arthur Ballinger in Newgate Prison. He had to wait some little time before at last Ballinger was brought to see him. In the gray light he looked tired, and for the first
time Rathbone was acutely aware of how afraid he was. Pity twisted inside Rathbone for Margaret, and he wished he had been gentler with her, but he did not know now how to retrace his steps.

“Oliver!” Ballinger said sharply. “Why are you here? I thought it was going well?”

“It is,” Rathbone replied. Why did this man make him feel so uncomfortable? He had spoken to scores of clients in circumstances like these, both the guilty and the innocent. He cleared his throat. “I need to know if you wish to testify yourself or not. You don’t need to make up your mind until Monday morning, but you must give it very serious consideration.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it will give Winchester the opportunity to cross-question you, and I can’t protect you from anything he says, nor can I foresee what it might be. Don’t underestimate him. As it is, I believe we have a very good chance of a verdict of not guilty, because there is more than reasonable doubt.”

“Doubt?” Ballinger said unhappily. “Reasonable doubt is the same as saying they believe I am guilty but they can’t prove it. I need ‘not guilty,’ Oliver, with certainty.” He took a breath. “I need them to believe that someone else killed that wretched creature.”

“They will say ‘not guilty,’ ” Rathbone assured him. “And you cannot be charged again. It is finished.”

“In court, perhaps, but not in the public mind. There I am still ruined. For God’s sake, man, can’t you see that?” Ballinger controlled the panic rising in his voice with obvious difficulty. “Saying that the case was inadequate is not enough.” He fixed Rathbone with an intense gaze. “I need them to know that they had the wrong man, Oliver. I need that! There is another man out there that the police should be pursuing. I imagine it is Rupert Cardew. They must go after him as diligently as they did after me. I don’t give a damn if his father is a decent man that everyone admires, or how sorry for him they might feel. My family is decent too.”

He hesitated for several seconds, and Rathbone was about to speak again when Ballinger seemed to reach some decision, and continued. “And you have no idea what good I’ve done that I don’t boast
about, or seek reward for. But that won’t stay anyone’s hand, or their tongues.”

Rathbone looked at him and felt profoundly sorry for him. He was right. The talk, the suspicion, would remain, the belief that somehow he had escaped justice. He would be saved from the punishment of the law, but not of society.

“Are you sure you want to, Arthur?” he said gently. “This case is still very lightly balanced. Emotions are high. Don’t ever mistake Winchester for a fool because he occasionally makes people laugh. He will go for your throat if he has the chance.”

“Then, I won’t give him the chance,” Ballinger said bitterly. “Rupert Cardew is a dissolute and violent young man, and he should answer to the law like anyone else. Parfitt was a scab on the backside of humanity, but Hattie Benson was simply an ignorant young woman who made her living in the only way she could imagine. She had little alternative but the match factory, or a sweatshop somewhere. Whoever killed her should hang for it, and I can see that in the jurors’ faces, even if you can’t.”

Rathbone knew that he was right, but he was still afraid of the risk. It seemed brutal to warn Ballinger, but it would be a betrayal of Rathbone’s duty not to.

“You would be safer to leave it as it is,” he said gently. “I have to tell you that. The risk is considerable.”

“What does ‘considerable’ mean?” Ballinger said sharply.

“The balance is with us now, but not heavily. That could alter. They could hear something, the mood could change on an attitude, an answer they don’t understand, a witness saying something …”

“I’ll take that chance. I will not leave that courtroom with the world believing I am guilty but I escaped because I had a good lawyer.”

“There is a chance you could be found guilty.” Rathbone said it, and the words all but choked him. “Sometimes it depends on a thing as trivial as a like or dislike. It’s skill and chance as well as justice. For heaven’s sake, Arthur, you know that!”

“Are you advising me against trying to clear myself?”

Rathbone hesitated. He was not sure. If it were he and he knew
himself innocent, the practicality of not seeking more than to escape the noose might not be enough for him. He might believe more deeply than at an intellectual level that truth would prevail. Would he insist on fighting, or would he be cautious, careful, willing to settle for the lesser prize?

Perhaps he would. Monk would not. Hester wouldn’t even consider it. She would always fight for the best, the ultimate—win, lose, or draw—he had no doubt of it. But was she wise?

More to the point, would she do that when giving medical treatment to someone unable to make their own decision, lacking the strength or the knowledge and depending upon her? No. He knew the answer without even considering. She would not take the risk with someone else’s life.

But she would cut off a gangrened limb rather than let the patient’s whole body become infected and die.

“Oliver!” Ballinger said sharply.

“I think you should find another way of clearing yourself. Perhaps do all you can to help Monk, or anyone else, to prove who it was and bring them to trial. It will be slower, but—”

“No,” Ballinger said firmly. “I will do it now. I won’t subject my family to this horror any longer. And for God’s sake, you can’t expect me to leave my fate in the hands of William Monk!”

“But—”

“Are you refusing to take my instructions, Oliver?”

“No. I am advising you, but in the end I will do as you wish.” He felt like a coward saying it, as if in some oblique way he had betrayed Ballinger, but he had no choice.

They spoke only a little longer, and he left. Outside, a fine rain soaked him thoroughly before he was able to get a hansom, and it perfectly suited his mood.

He was unable to let the matter go. He went straight to Portpool Lane, to the clinic, on the chance that—in spite of the fact that it was Saturday—Hester might be there. He might learn more about exactly what had happened to Hattie Benson. He felt guilty as he walked in through the familiar, shabby entrance. One of the girls who had seen him before greeted him cheerfully.

He was guilty because he wished to see Hester, even if she was abrasive, unsympathetic, or told him things he would prefer not to know. There was something clean, even astringent, about her beliefs. He could not remember a time in all their friendship when she had tried to manipulate him. Heaven knows there had been some uncomfortable times, some quarrels, many differences of opinion. He had thought her outrageous, and he had said so. She had thought him pompous, and had said that too. But they had been honest, not only in word but in intent. Just at the moment, he would welcome that.

He realized, as he spoke to Squeaky Robinson—who lived here and so was always around—that he also felt a different guilt. This one was edged with acute discomfort; he was afraid of what he might learn here.

“Upstairs,” Squeaky said, pointing a finger over his shoulder. “Can’t leave it alone. Should be at home, that one. But the boy’s off with Monk, boating or some such.”

“Thank you,” Rathbone said quickly, and walked on past him before he could be ensnared in conversation. He went up the stairs two at a time, in spite of their narrowness. He knew every turn and creak, every unevenness, and did not miss his step.

He found Hester making beds in one of the larger rooms, which was unoccupied. She heard the creak of the door as he pushed it wider, and turned to see him, surprise widening her eyes.

“Oliver?” She dropped the sheet, and it fell on the bed in white folds, and he smelled the pleasant cleanliness of fresh cotton. “Is something wrong?” She looked at him more closely. “What is it?”

There was no point in trying to approach it obliquely, with her, of all people. “I need to know more about how Hattie Benson left here, and anything else you can tell me about her.”

She studied his face. “Why?”

That was the one response he had not foreseen. “What do you mean, why? She was going to testify. Then she left here and was found later that day floating in the river. She was unquestionably murdered, and almost as certainly by whoever murdered Parfitt. You know all this.”

“If I knew who killed her, Oliver, I would say so, whoever it was,”
she replied. “I have the confidences of no one, and no loyalties other than to pursue the truth. I had a duty to protect her, and I failed. I have no duty to protect whoever killed her. You might have.” She did not fill in the rest of the thought; it was unnecessary.

It made him hesitate for a moment. “I … I believe the only way I can best serve my client is by knowing as much of the truth as I can,” he said slowly. “You may find it hard to believe it was Rupert Cardew who killed her, but if it was—and it is possible—it would not only gain an acquittal for Arthur Ballinger, but it would restore his reputation, without which he is ruined.” He hesitated again, seeking a way of saying what he had to more gently. There was none. “And I appreciate that an acquittal for Ballinger means that Monk was wrong, and you cannot separate your emotions from that. I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“It’s loyalties again,” she said with a twist of irony in her smile. “Yours is to Ballinger, because he is Margaret’s father. Mine is against him, because that would make William wrong. But it’s hardly the same depth of importance, is it?” It was not a question so much as a reproof. “Do you think I would see an innocent man hanged rather than have my husband shown up in a mistake? What would that make me? Or him?”

“Nor would I see a guilty man go free because he is my father-in-law,” he responded.

“He is your client,” she corrected him. “That binds you to give him the best defense you can, unless you actually know that he is guilty. Then you would have a problem with which I could not help you. But you don’t know that, or you wouldn’t be here asking me about Hattie.”

“Don’t chop logic with me, Hester,” he pleaded. “You don’t know who is guilty either, or you would have told Monk and it would be all finished, except for the sentencing.”