Markham would think him witless, or making an obscure joke. He felt hot all over, sweat breaking out on his body and then turning cold.
“Mrs. Ward?” Markham asked with surprise. “Yes, Mrs. Ward!” Monk gulped hard. She must be alive, or Markham would not have phrased it that way. He could still find her!
“You didn't keep in touch, sir?” Markham frowned. Monk was so overwhelmed with relief his voice caught in his throat. “No.” He swallowed and coughed. “No-did you expect me to?”
“Well, sir.” Markham colored faintly. “I know you worked on the case so hard as a matter of justice, of course, but I couldn't help but see as you were very fond of the lady too-and she of you, it looked like. I 'alf thought, we aU thought…” His color deepened. “Well, no matter. Beg-gin' your pardon, sir. It don't do to get ideas about people and what they feel or don't feel. Like as not you'll be wrong. I can't show you the files, sir; seein' as you're not on the force any longer. But I ain't forgot much. I can tell you just about all of it. I'm on duty right now. But I get an hour for luncheon, leastways I can take an hour, and I 'm sure the duty sergeant'll come for me. An' if you like to meet me at the Three Feathers I'll tell you all I can remember.”
“Thank you, Markham, that's very obliging of you. I hope you'll let me stand you to a meal?”
“Yes, sir, that's handsome of you.”
And so midday saw Monk and Sergeant Markham sitting at a small round table in the clink and chatter of the Three Feathers, each with a plate piled full of hot boiled mutton and horseradish sauce, potatoes, spring cabbage, mashed turnips and butter; a glass of cider at the elbow; and steamed treacle pudding to follow.
Markham was as good as his word, meticulously so. He had brought no papers with him, but his memory was excellent. Perhaps he had refreshed it discreetly for the occasion, or maybe it was sufficiently sharp he had no need. He began as soon as he had taken the edge off his appetite with half a dozen mouthfuls.
“The first thing you did, after reading the evidence, was go back over the ground as we'd already done ourselves.” He left out the “sir” he would have used last time and Monk noted it with harsh amusement.
“That was, go to the scene o' the crime and see the broken window,” Markham went on. “O' course the glass was all cleaned up, like, but we showed you where it 'ad lain. Then we questioned the servants again, and Mrs. Ward 'erself. Do you want to know what I can remember o' that?”
“Only roughly,” Monk replied. “If there was anything of note? Not otherwise.”
Markham continued, outlining a very routine and thorough investigation, at the end of which any competent policeman would have been obliged to arrest Hermione Ward. The evidence was very heavy against her. The great difference between her and Alexandra Carlyon was that she had everything to gain from the crime: freedom from a domineering husband and the daughters of a previous wife, and the inheritance of at least half of his very considerable wealth. Whereas, on the surface at least, Alexandra had everything to lose: social position, a devoted father for her son, and all but a small interest in his money. And yet Alexandra had confessed very early on, and Hermione had never wavered in protesting her total innocence.
“Go on!” Monk urged.
Markham continued, after only a few more mouthfuls. Monk knew he was being unfair to the man in not allowing him to eat, and he did not stop himself.
“You wouldn't let it rest at that,” Markham said with admiration still in his voice at the memory of it. “I don't know why, but you believed 'er. I suppose that's the difference between a good policeman and a really great one. The great ones 'ave an instinct for innocence and guilt that goes beyond what the eye can see. Anyway, you worked night and day; I never saw anyone work so 'ard. I don't know when you ever slept, an' that's the truth. An' you drove us till we didn't know whether we was comin' or goin'.”
“Was I unreasonable?” Monk asked, then instantly wished he had not. It was an idiotic question. What could this man answer? And yet he heard his own voice going on. “WasI… offensive?”
Markham hesitated, looking first at his plate, then up at Monk, trying to judge from his eyes whether he wanted a candid answer or flattery. Monk knew what the decision would have to be; he liked flattery, but he had never in his life sought it. His pride would not have permitted him. And Markham was a man of some courage. He liked him now. He hoped he had had the honesty and the good judgment to like him before, and to show it.
“Yes,” Markham said at last. “Although I wouldn't 'ave said so much offensive. Offense depends on who takes it. I don't take it. Can't say as I always liked you-too 'ard on some people because they didn't meet your standards, when they couldn't 'elp it. Different men 'as different strengths, and you weren't always prepared to see that.”
Monk smiled to himself, a trifle bitterly. Now that he was no longer on the force, Markham had shown a considerable temerity and put tongue to thoughts he would not have dared entertain even as ideas in his mind a year ago. But he was honest. That he would not have dared say such things before was no credit to Monk, rather the reverse.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Monk.” Markham saw his face. “But you did drive us terrible 'ard, and tore strips off them as couldn't match your quickness.” He took another mouthful and ate it before adding, “But then you was right. It took us a long time, and tore to shreds a few folk on the way, as was lying for one reason or another; but in the end you proved as it weren't Mrs. Ward at all. It was 'er ladies' maid and the butler together. They were 'avin' an affair, the two o' them, and 'ad planned to rob their master, but 'e came down in the night and found them, so they 'ad to kill 'im or face a life in gaol. And personally I'd rather 'ang than spend forty years in the Coldbath Fields or the like-an' so would most folk.”
So it was he who had proved it-he had saved her from the gallows. Not circumstance, not inevitability.
Markham was watching him, his face pinched with curiosity and puzzlement. He must find him extraordinary. Monk was asking questions that would be odd from any policeman, and from a ruthless and totally assured man like himself, beyond comprehension.
Instinctively he bent his head to slice his mutton, and kept at least his eyes hidden. He felt ridiculously vulnerable. This was absurd. He had saved Hermione, her honor and her life.
Why did he no longer even know her? He might have been keen for justice, as he was for Alexandra Carlyon- even passionate for it-but the emotion that boiled up in him at the memory of Hermione was far more than a hunger for the right solution to a case. It was deep and wholly personal. She haunted him as she could have only if he loved her. The ache was boundless for a companionship that had been immeasurably sweet, a gentleness, a gateway to his better self, the softer, generous, tender part of him.
Why? Why had they parted? Why had he not married her?
He had no idea what the reason was, and it frightened him.
Perhaps he should leave the wound unopened. Let it heal.
But it was not healing. It still hurt, like a skin grown over a place that suppurated yet.
Markham was looking at him.
“You still want to find Mrs. Ward?” he asked.
“Yes-yes I do.”
“Well she left The Grange. I suppose she had too many memories from there. And folk still talked, for all it was proved she 'ad nothing to do with it. But you know 'ow it is-in an investigation all sorts o' things come out, that maybe 'ave nothing to do with the crime but still are better not known. I reckon there's no one as 'asn't got something they'd sooner keep quiet.”
“No, I shouldn't think so,” Monk agreed. “Where did she go, do you know?”
“Yes-yes, she bought a little 'ouse over Milton way. Next to the vicarage, if I remember rightly. There's a train, if you've a mind to get there.”
“Thank you.” He ate the treacle pudding with a dry mouth, washed it down with the cider, and thanked Mark- ham again.
It was Sunday just after midday when he stood on the step of the Georgian stone house next to the vicarage, immaculately kept, weedless graveled path, roses beginning to bloom in the sun. Finally he summoned courage to knock on the door. It was a mechanical action, done with a decision of the mind, but almost without volition. If he permitted his emotions through he would never do it.
