Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel (24 page)

Rathbone heard the words with a surge of anger then, looking into Monk’s eyes, a sudden horrifying clarity. Monk was right. He had seen what the legal system was going to see: their desperate need to protect themselves by cutting off the gangrenous limb—himself.

Monk was watching him quietly, as if he could see past all the protective masks into the desperately vulnerable heart inside.

“What motive would they ascribe to me, do you think?” Rathbone said, his voice shaking for the first time.

“Arrogance to think yourself above the law and to retrieve what you lost in the Jericho Phillips trial,” Monk answered him. “To give Hester the chance to show people that she has all the courage and judgment that she failed to show then. To turn back the clock.”

Rathbone sat silently. Had he wanted to do that? Was exposing Drew only the excuse? He had not thought so at the time. The hot anger in the front of his mind had surfaced on behalf of the same victims
Hester had wished to save. But would he have done it if the person involved had been somebody else, somebody he did not know? Or over whom he had not still felt such corrosive guilt?

“I’ll find out all I can,” Monk was saying. “I think there may be a lot about this that we don’t know yet.”

Rathbone jerked his attention back to the moment. There was no time to waste—perhaps only minutes left for this meeting. He was a prisoner. He stood up and sat down when other people commanded him to. He ate what he was given, and only at their pleasure. In time perhaps he would wear only their clothes. He would look like any other convict. Would the time come when he would feel like that—seem like that, to others?

His father would never abandon him, no matter how bitterly disappointed he might be.

The thought of his disappointment was so painful it tightened around Rathbone’s heart like a closing fist. He could hardly draw in his breath.

Monk was talking again. There was a sudden, intense compassion in his face, burning a moment and then vanishing.

“You must get someone to represent you, as soon as possible.”

Rathbone started.

“Don’t even imagine you can speak for yourself,” Monk said sharply. “You can’t do it any more than a surgeon can remove a bullet out of his own back. You must find someone you trust and, more to the point, who trusts you.”

Rathbone was shaken. The second of Monk’s conditions was something he had not even thought of. Who would trust him? Who would be prepared to jeopardize his own career by speaking up for Rathbone, in these circumstances?

“But I don’t even know who to trust because I have no idea who started this prosecution,” he said wearily. “I’m as blind as a bat stumbling about at the bottom of a hole.”

“I’ll do what I can to find out who is behind this,” Monk replied
without even the flicker of a smile at the absurdity of the picture evoked. “But I think, then, your father is the man to find you a lawyer. With the respect he’s earned he’ll be able to employ the best person, someone to trust no matter what he thinks of this issue.” He smiled now, with both pity and friendly jest. “And whatever he thinks of you in general.”

Rathbone wished to protest, but he felt too vulnerable to fight.

Monk must have seen the pain in his face. He leaned forward a little across the scarred and stained table. “You’ve fought far too many cases for anyone to be impartial about you, and won too many of them. Don’t drown in self-pity now. You chose what you wanted to do, and you did it extremely well … well enough to have got yourself noticed by the winners, and the losers. It is too late for you to seek solace in anonymity. That door shut a long time ago.”

Rathbone had always known Monk had a ruthless streak, but this was the first time he could remember being at the painful end of it. And yet what use to him was a man who flinched at anything or who would step aside from the truth to save a temporary injury?

He had been robbed of a shield, but it was a worthless one, and perhaps he was stronger for the glimpse of reality.

Then the other thing that Monk had said reached him and he was forced to face it.

“I haven’t told my father yet. I wanted to have some kind of an answer before I did, so I could soften the blow, tell him what was behind it, and …” He stopped. There was no understanding in Monk’s face at all, only disgust.

“Rubbish!” Monk said curtly. “You’re not protecting him, you’re protecting yourself. You’re shutting him out from helping you because you don’t want to face his pain. Sort out your thoughts right now, and then tell him. To keep him out of this would be both cowardly and selfish. He might forgive you for it because he wouldn’t pile his anger on top of what you already have for yourself—but I would damn well be angry! And more to the point to you, so would Hester.”

Rathbone winced. Momentarily he wanted to lash back at Monk,
hurt him just as much. But it was more than his own vulnerability that stopped him. He remembered Monk’s fears in the past. He too had spent time in prison, falsely accused, more falsely than Rathbone was now. He knew what it was like to have all judgment against you. He also knew that the only way out was to fight, to gather your wits and your courage and marshal your thoughts.

And yes, Rathbone must tell his father properly, before Henry heard it from someone else.

“I have nothing with which to write a letter,” he said, “and no one to send with it before news of my arrest will be in the newspapers …”

“I’ll tell him for you,” Monk replied. “But it might be better if I ask Hester to. She always got along well with Henry. He’ll know that if she’s on your side you’ll survive it, one way or another.”

Before Rathbone could reply the jailer returned and Monk was told that his time was up.

Rathbone was returned to his cell, weary and confused. He had wanted desperately to find some hope before his father found out what had happened. But Monk was right, of course. He would find out soon enough by seeing it in the newspaper, or else some busybody would tell him assuming he already knew, wanting to commiserate with him. The hurt of finding out the details from anyone except Rathbone himself would be the same: the shock, even the humiliation that he had not been told, would add to his father’s grief. Telling Henry would be worse for Rathbone than the arrest, the physical discomfort, and the indignity of this wretched prison, but it must be faced. Hester would share only the bare minimum, he knew. Then Henry would come, and by the time he did, Rathbone must be prepared with courage and a plan.

I
T WAS ALMOST THREE
hours later when he was called to the interview room again. Henry Rathbone was standing beside the table, tall and lean, though a little stooped now. His face was calm, completely composed, but the grief was unmistakable in his eyes.

The jailer was by the doorway, watching, his expression unreadable. It could have been respect or contempt, a prurient curiosity, or complete indifference.

Rathbone indicated the chair and Henry sat down in it. Rathbone took the other, with the table between them.

“Fifteen minutes,” the jailer warned, and went outside, clanging the door behind him and turning the key so the falling of the tumblers was audible.

“Hester told me what happened in court, and that you’d been arrested, but not much else,” Henry said immediately. “I assume it
was
you who gave the photograph of Robertson Drew to Warne?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Henry asked. “Why did you give it to Warne? What did you want him to do with it?”

That was the question Rathbone had known he would ask, and he had tried to prepare an answer.

“Because he was losing the case,” he said. “I meant him to do exactly what he did. Drew and Taft between them destroyed the credibility of every witness against them, even Hester. Taft was going to be acquitted and set free to do exactly the same thing again, vindicated and with an even wider audience to fleece, even more people whose faith he could destroy.”

“An evil man,” Henry agreed. “But were you sure that was the only way to deal with him?”

To anyone else Rathbone might have protested that it was, even that Drew deserved nothing but to be disgraced in front of the many people he had tried so thoroughly to destroy. However, he knew that was not the point now, and Henry would not be sidetracked.

“It was the only way I could think of at the time,” Rathbone replied. “And it was certain. Just raising a slight doubt wouldn’t have achieved anything. He’d been ruthless and the jury believed him.” He looked down at his hands on the table. “If you don’t lie yourself, you don’t have that instinctive feel for other people’s weaknesses. You can’t manipulate people’s faith or gullibility, so you can’t see when other people
do it because it just doesn’t occur to you. Most of the parishioners were like that, and most of the jury.” He raised his head again and met Henry’s eyes. “For heaven’s sake,” he said urgently, “we pick our jurors from men of property, men who don’t know what it’s like to be poor, disadvantaged, ill educated, and on the border of survival. It’s supposed to be a jury of your peers, but by definition it isn’t.”

Memory of the trial was sharp in his mind. He could see Drew on the stand and hear his confident, slightly unctuous voice.

“Drew was very persuasive,” he went on. “If I hadn’t seen that photograph I might have believed him myself. And if he hadn’t savaged Hester, I might not even have looked for the photograph.”

Henry smiled very slightly. “And that was the turning point, not the reason?”

Rathbone thought for a moment. It
was
the turning point because without that there would have been no excuse for Warne to raise the picture in evidence at all. But was it also his reason for taking such a monumental risk with his own career? Would he have done exactly the same had Drew not attacked Hester? Had his mind really been totally focused on delivering justice only within this particular case? He had lain awake and thought hard about it before making his decision, but had he thought clearly? Had he been completely honest? With all the disgust, the outrage, did he even know how to be?

Would he have done it at all if he had been with Margaret still, comfortable and happy? Perhaps not.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I thought so at the time, but now I don’t know anymore. I certainly don’t know how to offer any defense.”

“Of course you don’t,” Henry agreed. “But then you aren’t going to. I have considered whom to approach to represent you, and in my opinion Rufus Brancaster would be best. However, if you have someone you prefer, please let me know and I shall have him come to you.”

Rufus Brancaster. Rathbone tried to place the name and failed. As far as he could think, he had never faced him in court. Certainly in the short time he had been a judge Brancaster had not been before him.

“I don’t know him,” he said tentatively. The decision was his, everything
that mattered in his future rested on it, but he did not want to challenge his father, or sound distrustful of his judgment. Heaven help him, his own had been fatally flawed.

“I know,” Henry said with a bleak grimace of humor. “He is from Cambridge …”

Rathbone’s heart sank. He was probably a friend of his father’s, a decent man, elderly, a professor or something of that sort. Either way, a man completely unfit to battle it out in the ruthless courtrooms of London. How could he refuse politely? He looked at his father’s face and saw gentleness in it, and beneath that, the fear.

At that moment, Rathbone would’ve given anything he had to undo his own arrogant stupidity—but it was too late.

He thought about his mother, and what she would think of his betrayal of the family if she were still alive. She had believed in him so intensely as a child, unwaveringly. She had told him he could do anything. She had even sent him away to school, smiling as she hugged him for what she knew would be the last time, and watched him walk away, cheerfully ignorant. She had not clung to him for that extra moment, nor called him back.

What if Henry were doing his best, but Brancaster was useless? How he would blame himself afterward!

“Please ask him to come,” Rathbone said, then instantly wondered how big a mistake that was going to be. “He might not be willing to act for me when he knows more of the case. If he can’t, then I will have to reconsider …”

“I doubt he’ll refuse. He’s a good man and never gives up a fight. But if he does, then I’ll continue to look,” Henry answered. There was a shadow of disappointment in his eyes. “Is there anything I can do for you? Do you wish me to see if Margaret is all right?” It was an awkward question, one put only tentatively.

Rathbone smiled, self-mockingly. “No, thank you. There is no help you can offer her, and I would prefer you didn’t leave yourself open to her comments.”

“Is it finished?” Henry said quietly. There was no way in his face to tell what he felt.

“I think so,” Rathbone admitted. “It was more of a mistake than I had realized before. I’m sorry.” He was sorry, but the failure of his marriage was only a small part of many other larger and more urgent things he had to grieve over now.

The guard returned and told Henry it was time for him to leave.

Henry stood up slowly, swaying for a moment and then catching his balance by putting his hand on the table.

“I’ll come again … soon,” he said a little huskily. “Keep your heart up.” Then without looking back he walked to the door, past the guard, and out. He didn’t say anything about his feelings; he never did. But it was not necessary. Of all the things in the world that Rathbone knew, or thought he knew, he had never doubted his father’s love. What he felt now was the terrible, choking weight of having let him down.

I
T WAS ANOTHER ENDLESS
, painful day in the prison, before Rathbone heard that his lawyer had come to see him. He had spent the time grateful to be alone in the cell, although jeered at now and then by the inmates close enough to see through the bars of both their cells and his. He would be no match for them physically. Even the puniest of them would be wiry and quick on his feet, used to fighting for anything he could get. Rathbone had no weapon but his wits.