had a rare kind of integrity. Dinah will have told you that, and she was right. But he became fixed on this idea about opium and he got some of his original facts wrong, and from then on it all went bad. He just piled one error on top of another until there was no way out for him.”
Her face was bleak, her concentration total, as if she were forcing herself to override all her inner misery and pain to a place where she could hide it, and continue only with the truth that had to be told. That way she could make Monk understand, and then he would leave. She could pick up the remnants of her life again and pretend normality, allow time to heal at least the surface of the wound.
Still, somehow, Monk did not like her.
“Errors?” he asked.
“His last report was a total failure, and the government rejected it,” she answered. “They had no choice. He was just completely mistaken. He took it very hard. He couldn’t believe he was wrong, in spite of the evidence against him. That was why he killed himself. He couldn’t face his colleagues knowing. Poor Joel …”
“And Mrs. Gadney?” Monk asked more gently.
Amity shrugged. “I really don’t know for certain, but it isn’t hard to guess. Dinah is a beautiful woman, but demanding in … in her requirements.” She said the word delicately, implying a deeper, more personal meaning. “She left him no room to fail. Perhaps he wished for someone who could be a friend, simply listen to him, and share his interests without the incessant need.”
Monk thought about what it would be like to feel an unendurable loneliness, an emotional exhaustion, as the threat of being a disappointment, of having deceived others and let them down, became bigger, more suffocating with every slip, every error retrieved, and each new lie.
An ordinary, pleasant-faced prostitute, just as lonely, just as familiar with the taste of failure, would seem like a godsend. It would at last be someone to laugh and cry with, for once without judgment, without expectation of anything except fair payment.
Would Dinah have even begun to understand that? Probably not. And could she have required other things from him as well, of a physical nature, that he was too tired, anxious, or otherwise unable to provide? Love was a good deal more than a supply of constant praise and belief. Sometimes it was the ease of no expectations, of allowing a person to fail and still loving them the same way.
He thought back to the times he had failed. He had allowed his resentment of Runcorn, his old superior, to distract his attention from the truth more than once. And there had been other slips. Perhaps the worst was the arrogance that had ultimately led to Jericho Phillips being acquitted the previous year. But Hester had not blamed him or reminded him of it since.
When he had been most afraid of his own past, the ghosts that his amnesia had concealed but that had haunted him so badly in the early years, she had not called him a coward for fearing them. She had granted the possibility of his guilt in the murder of Joscelyn Gray, but not of surrender without a fight to the very last stand. Certainly it was the kind of love everyone needed in their darkest moments.
Had Dinah been unable to support Joel Lambourn when the possibility of failure loomed? Was that the reason he had given up?
Monk rose to his feet and thanked Amity Herne, even though what she had told him was so far from what he had wanted to hear.
As he returned home Monk thought about what Amity had said. Her view of Lambourn was so different from Dinah’s that he needed some other opinion to balance them in his mind.
Dinah loved Lambourn profoundly, with a wife’s love, perhaps distorted by a passion she still clearly felt. She was ravaged by the grief of his death and refused to believe it could have been self-inflicted. That was not difficult to understand, particularly since there seemed to have been no anger or despair leading up to his suicide; rather a determination to continue fighting for a cause he believed in deeply.
Or was that just what Dinah wished to believe-even needed to-in order to keep her own faith in all she cared about, and her ability to continue living and looking after her daughters? That would not be hard to understand.
Amity Herne had said that Lambourn was older than her. Seven years was a big gap between children. They would have led rather separate lives. He would’ve been caught up in his education and then his professional life. According to Amity, at that time they had lived sufficiently far apart geographically to have no more communication than letters, and therefore had not developed a friendship even then. Only recently had she learned much of his nature as a man.
Or was that also an emotionally tainted judgment rather than an impartial observation? Did she need to excuse herself from all blame in his suicide by painting him as a fatally flawed man whom she could never have believed in and was never close to?
Who else could Monk ask? Amity’s husband, Barclay Herne, would be too tied by family bonds to answer freely, even if his opinion were more measured. Who had been in charge of the organization that requested Lambourn’s report? They would have at least a professional opinion as to Lambourn’s judgment, if not his personal life. Monk resolved to speak to them.
It did not take more than a few inquiries to learn that the government minister concerned was Sinden Bawtry, a gifted and charismatic man fast rising in political circles. He had a vast personal fortune and donated generously to many causes, especially cultural and artistic ones. His collection of fine paintings, and occasional donations of one or the other of them to museums, earned him much admiration.
But gaining half an hour of his time was less easy. It was late afternoon when Monk was shown into his office. He had had to stretch the truth a little as to the likelihood of Bawtry’s information being able to help solve the murder of the woman on Limehouse Pier. He kicked his heels for three-quarters of an hour in the outer waiting room, growing ever more impatient.
He was expecting Bawtry to be a middle-aged man of austere disposition. But when he was finally summoned into Bawtry’s office, he was met instead by a man whose vitality seemed to fill the room as he came forward and grasped Monk’s hand.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said warmly. “Some people have no idea how to put things briefly. They think the more words they use the more important you will think their business.” He smiled. “What can I do for you, Mr. Monk? Your message said it is to do with the late Dr. Joel Lambourn, and a possible connection with this appalling murder on Limehouse Pier. You have me puzzled as to what that connection could possibly be.”
“There may not be any.” Monk decided instantly not to try any deceit with this man, however slight. His handsome head and ready charm did not mask his intelligence or his consciousness of power. “But it appears that Dr. Lambourn knew the murder victim quite well,” he went on. “I have received differing opinions of Dr. Lambourn from those close to him. I need an informed but more impartial view to balance them, particularly regarding the value of his work, and thus possibly his state of mind in the last year or so of his life.”
“The opium report,” Bawtry said with a slight nod of understanding. “I didn’t know Lambourn personally. But I believe he was an unusually likable man, and affection can distort judgment, no matter how much you intend to be fair.”
“Exactly,” Monk agreed. He found himself relaxing a little. It was so much easier to deal with intellect unclouded by emotion.
Bawtry gave a tiny shrug, in a sort of wordless apology.
“A brilliant man, if a little unworldly,” he continued frankly. “Something of a crusader, and in this case, he allowed his intense pity for the victims of ignorance and desperation to color his overall view of the problem.” He lowered his voice a little. “To be honest, we do need some better control of what is put into medicines that anyone can buy, and certainly more information as to how much opium is in the medicines given to infants.”
He looked bleak. “But that is one of the main reasons we couldn’t accept Lambourn’s report. Some of his examples were extreme, and based more on anecdote than medical histories. It would have done more harm to the cause than good, because it could so easily have been discredited.”
He met Monk’s eyes with a steady gaze. “I’m sure you have the same problem preparing a criminal case for the courts. You must offer only the evidence that will stand up to cross-examination, the physical evidence you can produce, the witnesses whom people will believe. Anyone that the defense can destroy may lose you the jury.” He smiled, the question in his gesture. “He was a liability to us. I wish it had been different. He was a decent
