The Silent Cry (41 page)

He regarded Monk soberly, his gaze going from his dripping hair and his exhausted face, hollow eyes, down his wet coat to his sodden and filthy boots. His expression was smug, glowing with rich satisfaction.

"You look on hard times, Monk," he said cheerfully. "You want to come in and warm your feet? Perhaps you'd like a cup of tea?”

"I've had one, thank you," Monk said. Only sharp reminder inside himself of his contempt for cowardice kept him there, and the thought of what Hester would think of him if he were to fail the final confrontation now. "But I'll come in. I want to talk to you.”

"I'm busy," Runcorn replied. "But I suppose I can spare you fifteen minutes. You look terrible!" He opened his office door and Monk followed him in. Someone had already lit the fire and it was extremely pleasant. There was a faint smell of beeswax and lavender polish.

"Sit down," Runcorn offered. "But take your coat off first, or you'll mark my chair.”

"I've spent the night in St. Giles," Monk said, still standing.

"You look like it," Runcorn retorted. He wrinkled his nose. "And, frankly, you smell like it too.”

"I spoke to Bessie Mallard.”

"Who is she? And why are you telling me?" Runcorn sat down and made himself comfortable.

"She used to be a whore. Now she has a small boarding house. She told me about the night they raided the brothel in Cutters' Row, and caught the magistrate, Gutteridge, and he fell downstairs…" He stopped.

There was a tide of dull purple spreading up Runcorn's face. His hands on the smooth desk top were curling into fists.

Monk took a deep breath. There was no evading it.

"Why did I hate you enough to let you do that? I don't remember.”

Runcorn stared at him, his eyes widening as he realised what Monk was saying.

"Why do you care?" His voice was high, a little hurting. "You ruined me with Dora. Wasn't that what you wanted?”

"I don't know. I've told you… I can't remember. But it was a vicious thing to do, and I want to know why I did it.”

Runcorn blinked. He was thrown off balance. This was not the Monk he thought he knew.

Monk leaned forward over the desk, staring down at him. Behind the freshly shaved face, the mask of self-satisfaction, there was a man with a wound to his esteem which had never healed. Monk had done that… or at least part of it. He needed to know why.

"I'm sorry," he said aloud. "I wish I had not done it. But I need to know why I did. Once we worked together, trusted each other. We went to St. Giles side by side, never doubting each other. What changed?

Was it you… or me?”

Runcorn sat silent for so long Monk thought he was not going to answer.

He could hear the clatter of heavy feet outside, and rain dripping from the eaves on to the window sill. Outside was the distant rumble of traffic in the street and a horse whinnying.

"It was both of us," Runcorn spoke at last. "It began over the coat, you could say.”

"Coat! What coat?" Monk had no idea what he was talking about.

"I got a new coat with a velvet collar. You went and got one with fur, just that bit better than mine. We were going out to the same place to dine.”

"How stupid," Monk said immediately.

"So I got back at you," Runcorn replied. "Something to do with a girl.

I don't even know what now. It just went from one thing to another, until it got too big to go back on.”

"That was all? Just childish jealousies?" Monk was horrified. "You lost the woman you loved over a coat collar?”

The blood was dark in Runcorn's face. "It was more than that!" he said defensively. "It was…" He looked up at Monk again, his eyes hot and angry, more honest than Monk had ever seen them before. For the first time he knew, there was no veil between them. "It was a hundred things, you undermining my authority with the men, laughing at me behind my back, taking credit for my ideas, my arrests…”

Monk felt the void of ignorance swallowing him. He did not know whether that was the truth, or simply the way Runcorn excused himself.

He hated it with the blind, choking panic of helplessness. He did not know! He was fighting without weapons. He might have been a man like that! He did not feel it was himself, but then how much had his accident changed him? Or was it simply that he had been forced to look at himself from the outside, as a stranger might have, and seeing himself, had changed?

"Did I?" he said slowly. "Why you? Why did I do that only to you.

Why no one else? What did you do to me?”

Runcorn looked miserable, puzzled, struggling with his thoughts.

Monk waited. He must not prompt. A wrong word, even one, and the truth would slip away from him.

Runcorn lifted his eyes to meet Monk's, but he did not speak immediately.

"I suppose… I resented you," he said at last. "You always seemed to have the right word, to guess the right answers. You always had luck on your side, and you never gave anyone else any room. You didn't forgive mistakes.”

That was the damning indictment. He did not forgive.

"I should have," he said gravely. "I was wrong in that. I am sorry about Dora. I can't take it back now, but I am sorry.”

Runcorn stared at him. "You are, aren't you!" he said in amazement.

He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "You did well with the Duff case. Thank you." It was as close as he could come to an acceptance.

It was good enough. Monk nodded. He could not allow the lie to remain. It would break the fragile bridge he had just built at such a cost.

"I haven't finished with it yet. I'm not sure about the motive. The father was responsible for at least one of the rapes in St. Giles himself, and he was in Seven Dials regularly.”

"What?" Runcorn could scarcely believe what he seemed to have heard.

"That's impossible! It doesn't make any sense, Monk!”

"I know. But it is true. I have a dozen witnesses. One who saw him smeared with blood the night before Christmas Eve, when there was a rape in St. Giles, and Mrs. Kynaston and Lady Sandon will swear Rhys Duff was with them at the time, miles away.”

"We're not charging Rhys Duff with rape," Runcorn frowned, now thoroughly disturbed. He was a good enough policeman to see the implications.

Monk did not argue further. It was unnecessary.

"I'm obliged," Runcorn said, shaking his head.

Monk nodded, hesitated a moment, then excused himself and went out to go home and bathe and sleep. Then he must go and tell Rathbone.

The trial of Rhys Duff had commenced on the previous day. The court was filled and an hour before it began the ushers closed the doors. The preliminaries had already been conducted. The jury were chosen. The judge, a handsome man of military appearance and the marks of pain in his face, called the court to order. He had come in with a pronounced limp and sat a trifle awkwardly in his high, carved chair in order to accommodate a stiff leg.

The prosecution was conducted by Ebenezer Goode, a man of curious and exuberant appearance, well known and respected by Rathbone. He was unhappy with proceeding against someone as obviously ill as Rhys Duff, but he abhorred not only the crime with which he was charged, but the earlier ones which had provided the motive. He willingly made concession to Rhys's medical needs by allowing him to sit in the dock, high above the body of the court and railed off, in a padded chair to offer what comfort there was for his physical pain. He also had made no demur when Rathbone had asked that Rhys not be handcuffed at any time, so he might move if he wished, or was able to, and sit in whatever position gave him the least discomfort.

Corriden Wade was in court and could be called should he be needed, and so was Hester. They were both to be allowed immediate access to the prisoner if he showed any need for their attention or assistance.

Nevertheless as the testimony began, Rhys was alone as he faced a bitterly hostile crowd, his accusers and his judges. There was no one to speak for him except Rathbone, standing a solitary figure, black-gowned, white-wigged, a fragile barrier against a tide of hatred.

Goode called his witnesses one after the other: the women who had found the two bodies, Constable Shotts and John Evan. He took Evan carefully step by step through his investigation, not dwelling on the horror but permitting it to be passionately conveyed through Evan's white face and broken, husky voice.

He called Dr. Riley who spoke quietly and in surprisingly simple language of Leighton Duffs terrible wounds and the death he must have suffered.

"And the accused?" Goode asked, standing in the middle of the floor like a great crow, his arms dangling in his gown. His aquiline face with its pale eyes reflected vividly the horror and the sense of tragedy he felt unmistakably deeply.

Hester had liked him ever since first meeting him in the Stonefield case. Staring around the courtroom, more to judge the emotion of the crowd than to note who was present, she was lent a moment's real happiness to see Enid Ravensbrook, her face smoothed of its earlier suffering, her eyes gentle and bright as she watched Goode, a smile on her lips. Hester looked more closely, and saw there was a gold wedding band on her hand, not the one she had worn earlier, but a new one. For an instant she forgot the present ache of fear and tragedy.

But it was brief. Reality returned with Riley's answer.

"He was also very severely injured," he said quietly.

There was barely a sound in the room. There were faint rustles, tiny movements, a sigh of breath. The jurors never took their eyes from the proceedings.

"A great deal of blood?" Goode pressed.

Riley hesitated.

No one moved.

"No…" he said at last. "When a person is kicked and punched there are terrible bruises, but the skin is not necessarily broken. There was some, especially where his ribs were cracked. One had pierced the skin. And on his back. There the flesh had been ripped.”

There was a gasp of indrawn breath in the room. Several of the jurors looked very white.

"But Sergeant Evan said that the accused's clothes were soaked in blood, Dr. Riley," Goode pointed out. "Where did that come from, if not from his injuries?”

"I assume from the dead man," Riley replied. "His wounds were more severe, and there were several places where the skin was broken. But I am surprised he bled so badly.”

"And there were no wounds on the accused to account for such blood?”

Riley pressed.

"No, there were not.”

"Thank you, Dr. Riley.”

Rathbone rose. It was a forlorn hope, but he had nothing else. He must try anything, no matter how remote. He had no idea what Monk would produce, and there were always the possibilities that involved Arthur and Duke Kynaston.

"Dr. Riley, have you any way of knowing whose blood it was on Rhys Duffs clothes?”

"No, sir," Riley answered without the least resentment. The smooth expression of his face suggested he had no conviction in the matter himself, only a sadness that the whole event should have happened at all.

"So it could belong to a third, or even a fourth person, whom we have not yet mentioned?”

"It could… were there such a person.”

The jury looked bemused.

The judge watched Rathbone anxiously, but he did not intervene.

"Thank you," Rathbone nodded. "That is all I have to ask you, sir.”

Goode called Corriden Wade, who reluctantly, pale-faced, his voice barely heard, admitted that Rhys's injuries could not have produced the blood described on his clothes. Not once did he look up to the dock where Rhys sat motionless, his face twisted in an unreadable expression, a mixture of helpless bitterness and blazing anger. Nor did Wade appear to look towards the gallery where Sylvestra sat next to Eglantyne, both of them watching him intently. He kept his eyes undeviatingly on Goode, confirming that the events of that night of his father's death had rendered Rhys incapable of communication, either by speech or by writing. He was able only to nod or shake his head. He expressed the deepest concern for his well-being, and would not commit himself to any certainty that he would recover.

Goode hesitated, as if to ask him further as to his knowledge of Rhys's personality, but after the vaguest of beginnings, he changed his mind.

There was nothing for him to prove but the facts, and to explore the growth of motive only opened the way for Rathbone to suggest insanity.

He thanked Wade and returned to his seat.

Rathbone took his place. He knew Wade was as sympathetic a witness as he would get, apart from Hester, whom he could find no excuse to call.

And yet he had nothing to ask Wade which would not do more harm than good. He needed something from Monk as desperately as he ever had, and he did not even know what to hope for, let alone to seek, or to suggest. He stood in the middle of the floor feeling alone and ridiculous. The jury were waiting for him to say something, to begin to fight back. He had done nothing so far except make a gesture about the blood, one which he knew no one believed.

Should he ask Wade about the deterioration of Rhys's character, and lay grounds for a plea of insanity… at least in mitigation? He thought it was what Sylvestra wanted. It was the only thing which was comprehensible for such an act.

But it was not a defence in law, not for Rhys. He may be evil, acting from a different set of moral beliefs from anyone else in this crowded room, but he was not insane in any sense that he did not understand either the law, or the nature of his acts. There was nothing whatever to suggest he suffered delusions.

"Thank you, Dr. Wade," he said with confidence he was far from feeling. "I believe you have known Rhys most of his life, is that correct?”

"I have," Wade agreed.

"And been his physician, when he required one?”

"Yes.”

"Were you aware of there being a serious and violent disagreement with his father, and if so, over what subject?”

It was a question to which Wade would find it extremely difficult to answer in the affirmative. If he admitted it, it would seem incompetent that he had not done anything to forestall this tragedy. It would seem like wisdom after the event, and Sylvestra would see it as a betrayal, as indeed so might some of the jury.

"Dr. Wade?" he prompted.

Wade raised his head and stared at him resolutely.

"I was aware of a certain tension between them," he answered, his voice stronger, full of regret. "I thought it the normal resentment a son might have for the discipline a father naturally exerts." He bit his lip and drew in a deep breath. "I had no idea whatever it would end like this. I blame myself. I should have been more aware. I have had a great deal of experience with men of all ages, and under extreme pressure, during my service in the Navy." A ghost of a smile touched his mouth and then vanished. "I suppose closer to home, in people for whom one has affection, one is loath to recognise such things.”

It was a clever answer, honest and yet without committing himself. And it earned the jury's respect. Rathbone could see it in their faces. He would have been wiser not to have asked, but it was too late now.

"You did not foresee it?" he repeated.

"No," Wade said quietly, looking down. "I did not, God forgive me.”

Rathbone hesitated on the brink of asking him if he thought Rhys insane, and decided against it. No answer, either way, could help enough to be worth the risk.

"Thank you, Dr. Wade. That is all.”

Goode had already established the violence of the fight, and the fact that Leighton Duff and Rhys had been involved, and there was no reason to suspect anyone else being there. He called the Duff household servants, deeply against their will, and obliged them to testify to the quarrel the evening of Leighton Duffs death, and the time both men had left the house. At least he spared Sylvestra the distress of testifying.

All the time Rhys sat propped up in the dock, his skin ashen pale, his eyes seeming enormous in his haggard face, a prison warder on either side of him, perhaps more to support him than to restrain. He did not look capable of offering any resistance, let alone an attempt to escape.

Rathbone forced himself to put the thought of him out of his mind. He must use intelligence rather than emotion. Let anyone else feel all the compassion they could, his brain must be clear.

There seemed no way of casting the slightest doubt, reasonable or unreasonable, on Rhys's physical guilt, and he was struggling without a glimmer of hope to think of any mitigation.

Where was Monk?

He dared not look at Hester. He could imagine too clearly the panic she must be feeling.

Through the afternoon and the next day Goode brought on a troop of witnesses who placed Rhys in St. Giles over a period of months. Not one of them could be cast doubt upon. Rathbone had to stand by and watch. There was no argument to make.

The judge adjourned the court early. It seemed as if there was little left to do but sum up the case. Goode had proved every assertion he had made. There was no alternative to offer, except that Rhys had been whoring in St. Giles, and his father had confronted him, they had quarrelled and Rhys had killed him. Goode had avoided mentioning the rapes, but if Rathbone challenged him that the motive for murder was too slender to believe, then he would undoubtedly bring in the beaten women, still bearing their scars. He had said as much. It was only Rhys's desperate condition which stayed his hand. Fortune had already punished him appallingly, and the conviction for murder would be sufficient to have him hanged. There was no need for more.

Rathbone left the courtroom feeling he had been defeated without offering even the semblance of a fight. He had done nothing for Rhys.

He had not begun to fulfill the trust Hesterand Sylvestra had placed in him. He was ashamed, and yet he could think of nothing to say which would do Rhys the slightest service.

Certainly he could harass witnesses, object to Goode's questions, his tactics, his logic, or anything else; but it would serve no purpose except to give the effect of a defence. It would be a sham. He knew it, Hester would know it. Would it even be of comfort to Rhys? Or offer him false hope?

At least he should have the courage to go to Rhys now, and not escape, as he would so much rather.

When he reached Rhys, Hester was already there. She turned as she heard Rathbone's step, her eyes desperate, pleading for some hope, any hope at all.

They sat together in the grey cell below the Old Bailey. Rhys was in physical pain, muscles clenched, broken hands shaking. He looked hopeless. Hester sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders. Rathbone was at his wits end.

"Rhys!" he said tensely. "You have got to tell us what happened! I want to defend you, but I have nothing with which to do it!" His own muscles were knotted tight, his hands balled into fists of frustration.

"I have no weapons! Did you kill him?”

Rhys shook his head, perhaps an inch in either direction, but the denial was clear.

"Someone else did?”

Again the tiny movement, but definitely a nod.

"Do you know who?”

A nod, a bitter smile, trembling-lipped.

"Has it anything to do with your mother?”

A very slight shrug of the shoulders, then a shake. No.

"An enemy of your father's?”

Rhys turned away, jerking his head, his hands starting to bang on his thighs, jolting the splints.

Hester grabbed his wrists. "Stop it!" she said loudly. "You must tell us, Rhys. Don't you understand, they will find you guilty if we cannot prove it was someone else, or at least that it could have been?”

He nodded slowly, but would not face her.

There was nothing left but the violence of the truth.

"They will hang you," Rathbone said deliberately.

Rhys's throat moved as if he would say something, then he swung away from them again, and refused to look at them any more.

Hester stared at Rathbone, her eyes filled with tears.

He stood still for a minute, then another. There was nothing to say or do. He sighed, and left. As he was walking along the passage he passed Corriden Wade going in. At least he might be able to offer some physical relief, or even a draught of some sort strong enough to give a few hours' sleep.

Further along he encountered Sylvestra, looking so distraught she seemed on the verge of collapse. At least she had Fidelis Kynaston with her.

Rathbone spent the evening alone in his rooms, unable to eat or even to sit at his fire. He paced the floor, his mind turning over one useless fact after another when his butler came to announce that Monk was in the hall.