Acceptable Loss (12 page)

“No, he did not,” he said, so quietly that Rathbone barely heard him.

Rathbone considered any words of comfort he could offer, and all were inadequate, trite, or the very lies that Cardew so despised.

“What is it you would like me to do?” Rathbone said gently.

Cardew looked up. “Do you know what Parfitt was?”

“I know at least something of it.” Memory assailed Rathbone like a wave of nausea. “I know what Jericho Phillips was. I was there on his boat. I saw his corpse at Execution Dock, and I could look at it without regret. He died obscenely, but I could feel only relief that he was gone. I’m not proud of that. Indeed, it is something I prefer not to recall.”

“Then, you will understand why I have no pity for Mickey Parfitt,” Cardew replied. “Is there not some plea of mitigation you can make for the man who killed him—if only to save him from the gallows?” He said the last word as if sticking a knife into himself.

“I can try,” Rathbone said reluctantly. How often had this man pleaded with someone for leniency toward the son who had let him down with such anguish? Did he never grow tired of it? Did he wonder now whether, if he had made Rupert pay for his errors earlier, pay the full price then when they’d been so much less, might Rupert have learned the lesson, and this would not now be happening? Did he go on, exhausted as he was, because he understood that his gentleness before had been only an evasion of the inevitable? That in that space between, it had grown until now the price would be his life?

Cardew leaned forward, his face tense, his eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “He won’t tell me what happened. I was able to see him only briefly before they took him away. But if he killed Parfitt, then perhaps it was in self-defense. Or the defense of someone else. Is that mitigation in the law?”

“If it was to save the life of someone else who was in immediate danger of being killed, then it is certainly more than mitigation,” Rathbone answered. “If it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is justification. But I’m afraid that might be very difficult to convince a jury of now, when Rupert has been arrested, since an innocent man would have said so at the time.”

Cardew winced. “Of course. Yet I cannot believe that Rupert would kill him without the most terrible compulsion to do so. He has a temper, but he is not a fool.” He swallowed hard, as if he had an obstruction in his throat. “And in spite of his immorality in other directions, he has a sense of honor, in his own way. Killing a man in cold blood, even a man like Parfitt, would not be … acceptable. It is a coward’s way.” Unconsciously his shoulders squared a little as he said this, as though facing some threat himself.

Rathbone smiled slightly, but utterly without pleasure. “I have some difficulty in deciding for myself what ‘cold blood’ really is.”

At that moment the clerk knocked on the door and, with Rathbone’s permission, came in with the tray, of tea in a silver pot, a silver
cream jug and sugar bowl, and silver tongs and teaspoons. The porcelain was plain, delicate, and ornamented only by a small blue crown. In spite of Rathbone’s refusal, the clerk had also brought a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and set it on the sideboard. He poured the tea, then excused himself and withdrew.

“How civilized,” Cardew said with a desperate edge to his voice. “How intensely British. We sit here with tea in German porcelain cups, with French brandy if we need the fire of it, and we talk about murder, justice, and hanging. We would sit exactly like this, with the same tone of voice, if we were speaking of the weather.”

“Because we have to use our intelligence, not our emotions,” Rathbone answered. “The self-indulgence of feelings will not help your son.”

“Self-indulgence,” Cardew said with the first touch of bitterness that Rathbone had heard in him. “Rupert’s sin, which I never curbed in him. I saw it, and I let it pass, as if he would grow out of it. Why is it we still see our sons as children who can be excused, given time and love and patience, even when they are grown men and need to know better? The world will make no such excuses for them, and it is deceit that we do. Unspoken, of course, but a deceit nevertheless.”

“Because we love day by day, inch by inch,” Rathbone replied. “We don’t notice the passing of time and the dangers that we should have prevented, or at least should have warned of. But none of that will help us now.” He looked steadily at Cardew. “You obviously are familiar with Parfitt’s name and reputation. How do you come to know that, sir?”

Cardew was startled, then deeply uncomfortable.

Rathbone had a nightmarish thought that perhaps Cardew himself had once been tempted to such pastimes as Parfitt had provided, and then he dismissed it as ridiculous and repulsive. Nevertheless, the question required an answer, and he waited for it.

Cardew avoided his eyes again. “Rupert has caused me a certain embarrassment most of his adult life, let us say the last fifteen years, since he was eighteen. Often I have known in what ways because I … I helped him when necessary.” It was an evasion of the ugliness
of the truth, and they were both embarrassingly aware of it. Even now Cardew could not bring himself to be literal.

Rathbone was not enlightened by euphemisms. “Lord Cardew,” he said grimly, “I cannot do anything useful for your son if I don’t know what I am fighting against. What trouble? He paid for prostitution—unflattering, but not unusual. Certainly not a crime for which any gentleman is punished by the law, especially a man who is not married and therefore does not owe a sexual loyalty to anyone. It is not worth mentioning—and is far better than seducing a young woman of virtue and with expectation of marriage. That is a moral offense of some weight, but still not punishable by law.”

Cardew’s face was ashen, his shoulders so tight that in places they strained the fabric of his jacket, but he said nothing.

“Force would be a different matter,” Rathbone continued. “Rape is a crime, no matter who the victim is, although society would bother little if the woman were of questionable virtue anyway. Unless there were a great deal of violence involved. Is that the case?”

“Rupert has a temper,” Cardew said almost under his breath, his voice cracking with emotional tension, “but so far as I am aware, his quarrels were always with other men.”

“Violent?” Rathbone pressed.

Cardew hesitated. “Yes … sometimes. I don’t know what they were about. I preferred not to.”

“But they were not justified?”

“Justified? How can beating a man nearly senseless be justified?”

“Self-defense … or defense of someone else weaker, already injured, or in some other way helpless.”

“I wish I could believe it was as excusable as that.”

“Is that all—just fighting?”

“Is that not enough?” Cardew said miserably. “The use of prostitutes, drunkenness, brawling until you injure a man for the rest of his life? Good God, Rathbone, Rupert was brought up as a gentleman. He is heir to all I have, the privileges and the responsibilities. How can I ever allow him to marry a decent woman? I couldn’t do that to another man’s daughter.”

Rathbone had seen scores of men sit in this chair in his quiet office, so racked with fear and pain that it filled the room like a charge of electricity. But none deeper than this, perhaps the worse because Cardew’s pain was not for himself but for someone he loved. Had Rupert any idea of the hell he was inflicting? If he could even imagine it, then he was close to inexcusable.

Rathbone thought of Arthur Ballinger, and how loyal his children were, especially Margaret. To torture him like this would have been unthinkable.

How worthless Rupert Cardew was in comparison. What utter selfishness governed him?

Rathbone thought of his own father. Their friendship was perhaps the most precious thing in his life because it was the bedrock on which all else rested. He could not remember a time when Henry Rathbone had not been there to advise, to share a problem, to encourage, and at times to praise.

Would he and Margaret have sons one day, and would he be as good a father?

What had Lord Cardew done, or omitted to do, that had led to this tragedy? Bought his son’s love with a leniency that in the end corroded both of them? Averted the pain of confrontation, the loneliness of the turning away, even if only fleetingly? Rathbone understood it so easily, but as he looked at Cardew’s haunted face, he could also imagine the price.

Was that the guilt that Cardew felt, that somehow he should have prevented this? A word, a silence, a decision carried through, and it might all have been different?

There was nothing left to do now but try to help.

“Why would Rupert kill Mickey Parfitt?” Rathbone asked. “There must be some connection. It wasn’t a crime of rage. Mickey was hit on the head; then, when he was at least dazed, possibly unconscious, he was deliberately strangled with a cravat, which was knotted, to be more effective with pressure on the throat, the windpipe, the veins of the neck. That is not impulse of fury or hot temper. And I don’t see how it could possibly be self-defense.” He found it hard to keep his
eyes on Cardew’s face, but he owed it to the man at least to look at him while he said such things.

Cardew sat motionless.

“No one happens by chance to find his best cravat in his pocket, handily knotted so as to be a more effective weapon,” Rathbone continued. “He carried it with him for the purpose of killing someone. It is not a weapon of self-defense. The bough of a tree might be perhaps, but if he had already struck him senseless with it, and if escape from his own danger were the purpose, he would have left then. But he remained, took off his cravat, knotted it, and then strangled the unconscious man lying at his feet. Not to mention then dropping him into the river.”

Cardew winced each time Rathbone spoke. “Parfitt was an abomination,” Cardew said with loathing. “The most degraded of human beings, scarcely fit to walk upright. He preyed upon the weaknesses of others, indulging them until his victims became almost as depraved as he was. Then he blackmailed them. And if you think that was the depth to which he sank, think of the children he used to do this. They were blameless, and they suffered the most, and without escape. Any man who killed him has done a service, as a doctor who has rid us of a filthy disease.” He took a deep breath. “And don’t bother to tell me that that does not justify murder. I am perfectly aware of it. I need help, Sir Oliver, not a sermon on the sanctity of all human life.”

Rathbone smiled bleakly. “I have no intention of offering you one, Lord Cardew. I totally agree with you. And believe me, if it is I who stand in court before a judge and jury to plead Rupert’s case, I will draw such a portrait of Mickey Parfitt that they will see him for what he was. But I will need more than his depravity to justify his death. The jury will require to know why Rupert in particular, of all his victims, was the one who actually killed him. I must tell it from his point of view, in particulars, not generalities. They must walk in his shoes, feel his fear, outrage, whatever it was that drove him to such an act. The prosecutor will be clever and articulate also, and will defend Parfitt’s right to live as he would that of any of us.”

“Of course. I understand. We cannot allow any one of us to be the unappointed judge and executioner of another. The simple answer is that I don’t know why Rupert killed him. I didn’t have the chance to ask him. And to tell you the truth, I am not sure whether he would tell me …” He struggled for a moment to find words for what he could hardly bear to say.

Rathbone put an end to it, as one would put an animal out of its pain. “Of course,” he said, cutting across him, “it is often easier to speak to someone whose opinion does not touch your emotions. It happens to many of the people I see in my office. With your permission, I shall go to the prison and speak to Rupert immediately.” He rose to his feet. “I think we should address this as soon as possible. I will see that he is being reasonably treated, and that he has all that he is permitted for his comfort. I will speak to you as soon as I have something of value to say.” He held out his hand.

Cardew rose to his feet slowly. It seemed to cost him some effort, but when he clasped Rathbone’s hand, it was with surprising power. A drowning man, reaching for help amid the overwhelming waves.

B
Y EARLY AFTERNOON
R
ATHBONE
was in the entrance of Newgate Prison. The huge iron doors closed behind him, and a sour-faced warden beckoned him along the narrow corridors toward the cell where he would be permitted to interview Rupert Cardew. His footsteps sounded hard on the floor, but the echo died almost immediately, as if the stone of the walls suffocated it. The place was a curious mixture of life and death. Rathbone was acutely conscious of emotional pain, of fear, remorse, the dread of physical extinction and what might lie beyond in the nightmares of the soul. And yet the place stifled life. There was no energy, nothing could breathe here, nothing could grow or have will.

The warden walked ahead of him without ever turning to ascertain if he was following. But, then, who would wish to wander alone in this maze of corridors, all the same and all leading nowhere?

The man stopped, took a key from the chain at his belt, and unlocked the iron door, swinging it open with a squeal of unoiled hinges.

“Thank you,” Rathbone said curtly, walking past him. “I’ll knock when I’m ready to leave.”

The man acknowledged with a silent nod and slammed the door shut. The sound of the lock going home on the outside was as loud as the clang of iron on stone had been.

The cell was bare except for two wooden chairs and a small table, which was scarred and dented. One leg was shorter than the other three, so that when Rathbone touched it, the table wobbled before settling back to its place.

Rupert Cardew stood in the center of the small space. He was wearing the shirt and trousers in which he must have been arrested, and he was crumpled and unshaven. However, he held himself upright and met Rathbone’s eyes without wavering.

“I’m here at your father’s request,” Rathbone began. He was used to meeting accused men or women in circumstances like these, but it never grew any easier. For almost all of the major cases he dealt with, it was the person’s first time in prison, and the sheer shock of it caused either numbness or a panic that was close to hysteria. All too often, the shadow of the hangman’s noose darkened all reason and hope. Even the innocent were terrified. There was no trust in the judgment of the law when it was your own life in the balance.