the other. He was glad to get out and pay the driver, then stand for a few minutes in the wind, listening to the sounds of the water until the ferry came.
He went down the stone steps, which were wet and a little slippery. He was very careful. The last thing he wanted was a drenching in the cold, dirty water. He climbed into the boat and sat down.
The river was running fast as the tide ebbed. Choppy little waves made it a rough passage, but he welcomed the sharper wind in his face and the smell of salt and mud, and the scream of the gulls above.
At the far side he enjoyed the walk up from Princes Stairs, across Rotherhithe Street and on up in a few hundred yards and several turnings to Paradise Place.
Hester welcomed him at the door. She looked well. He found himself smiling, although he had nothing to celebrate. He had nothing even to feel certain about, except their friendship.
“Oliver!” she said with pleasure. “Come in. How are you?” They were not empty words. Her eyes searched his face, probing for truth. Did she see the disillusion in him, the loneliness he would very much rather have kept hidden?
“I’m well, thank you,” he replied, stepping inside. “But Monk has given me a near-impossible case. I will need his help. Please don’t tell me he has gone already?”
“He’s here,” she assured him. “Would you like to sit in the parlor where you can be private? I’ll bring you tea, if you wish, or even breakfast. It must be cold on the river.”
“Don’t you know about the case already?” he said with surprise.
She allowed a tiny smile to touch her lips. “He said he had been obliged to arrest Dinah Lambourn. Is that the case you have taken? So soon? How … rash of you.” Now the smile was larger. Long ago, when she had first realized that he was in love with her, she had teased him about his caution, that he was too careful and well ordered to be happy with anyone as impulsive as she was. At the time he had thought she was right. Perhaps at that time it had been true. It was not true now.
“What man who was not rash would even contemplate it?” he said wryly.
“Then come into the kitchen,” she invited him, leading the way down the hall.
Inside, the room was warm, a little untidy, very much the center of the house. Clean linen lay on one of the benches; the kettle was simmering gently just off the top of the stove. Dried herbs hung from hooks on the ceiling, as well as a couple of strings of onions. Blue-rimmed china lay waiting to be put away on the dresser.
Monk was sitting at the kitchen table and rose as soon as he saw Rathbone. He was eating a bowl of porridge and milk, which was presumably why it had been Hester who had answered the door.
Rathbone suddenly realized he had not eaten this morning and was extremely hungry.
Hester saw him glance at Monk’s plate. Without asking, she ladled him a bowl of porridge as well and set a place for him at the other side of the table. She did not ask if he wanted tea, but simply poured it.
“Well?” Monk demanded, his own food forgotten until he knew if Rathbone had accepted the case.
Rathbone gave a tight little laugh and met Monk’s cool gray eyes. He sat down opposite him. “If I hadn’t taken it I would have sent you a message at Wapping, and perhaps one here as well,” he said ruefully. “But I’m going to need your help.”
“I’m not sure what I can do.” In spite of his words, Monk looked pleased.
“Well, to begin with …” Rathbone paused and took a tiny sip of his tea. It was a little too hot to drink, but the fragrance of it soothed him. Hester was right; it had been cold on the river. He had not appreciated it at the time; He had been too eager to get to Monk. “Is there anything you can swear to that can help? What else could there be about Zenia that would mark her out as a victim?”
Monk thought for several moments before he replied. “I suppose the fact that she had never had any other clients but Lambourn, as far as anyone knows, would leave her in a very awkward position, in trying to seek out new business,” he said slowly.
“She was in her mid-forties, at least,” Rathbone added, pouring milk on his porridge and taking the first spoonful.
Monk looked surprised. “How do you know?”
“Dinah said so.”
Monk’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Did Lambourn tell her that?”
Rathbone felt a needle prick of anxiety. “Wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she was, but how did Dinah know? She claims never to have met her,” Monk pointed out.
“Then I suppose Lambourn did tell her. Seems an odd thing for them to have discussed.”
Hester was watching him. “You don’t know whether to believe her or not, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he agreed. “I have a very strong feeling she’s lying about something, if not in fact then in omission. I just don’t think I believe she killed and gutted that poor woman.”
“Well, Lambourn didn’t,” Monk said. “By the time she was killed he was long dead, poor soul.”
“If Lambourn couldn’t have, and Dinah didn’t, who did?” Rathbone asked. “Is it really just a ghastly coincidence that she ran into some murderous madman just at the time that Dinah came looking for her?”
“Did she admit to looking for her?” Monk asked.
“No. But you told me she’d been identified.”
“Only roughly. A woman answering her description,” Monk corrected him. “Tall, dark hair, well-spoken, but beside herself with rage or panic or opium-whatever it was, it made her behave hysterically.”
“Opium makes people dazed, slow, and clumsy,” Hester put in, “but not violent. They’re more likely to fall asleep than attack you.”
Rathbone was puzzled. “Dinah says someone in the government may have killed both Lambourn and Zenia Gadney,” he said, “in order to discredit Lambourn’s report, and then to have Dinah charged with murder and hanged, so the whole subject could never be raised again.” He turned from Monk to Hester and back again. “Is that possible, in your opinion?”
“Yes,” Hester said at the same instant as Monk said, “No.”
“Perhaps possible,” Monk corrected himself. “At least that someone
“That’s what I thought,” Rathbone agreed. He bit his lip. “Which leaves me where I was before; Zenia may have been clumsy and vulnerable because she was out of practice at finding business, and also poor in judgment as to who was dangerous and who was as safe.” He looked at Monk. “Is there any part of Dinah’s story that can be proved?”
“Nothing I can think of that would make a difference to her case,” Monk answered. “No one even imagined she had anything to do with her husband’s death. At first she denied knowing about Zenia Gadney, and then she admitted that she did know of her, and that is what her sister-in-law, Amity Herne, says also. And from her slip to you regarding Zenia’s age, she has to have known at least a few details. After all, even the newspapers didn’t print such facts, because we didn’t know for certain ourselves. Zenia certainly looked quite well for her age, to judge as far as you can by body and texture of skin, hair and so on. Her teeth were very good. One of the people I spoke to put her younger.”
Rathbone remembered Dinah’s face, and her words denying the possibility of Zenia having misjudged Joel Lambourn’s nature. He frowned, setting down his spoon for a moment. “Dinah said that Joel and Zenia had known each other for fifteen years.”
Monk looked up sharply. “How the devil did she know that?”
“I’m wondering myself.” Rathbone was feeling more and more uncomfortable. He had never been confident in his judgment of women, and even less so since Margaret. Had he made a complete fool of himself in taking this case?
Hester touched him very lightly on the shoulder. “She’s likely to lie, or at least evade, regarding her husband’s affair with this woman,” she observed. “She must feel like a complete fool. She’ll try to find a way to explain it to herself, and not admit she was duped. I think anyone would, in her place.”
“Do you believe her?” Rathbone asked, turning a little to look at her as she walked around behind him.
“I believe her regarding Lambourn’s research,” she replied, sitting down in the third chair at the table. “I spoke to an excellent doctor I know, and he agreed with it entirely. He said the number of deaths among children is appalling, and could very easily be mitigated with a degree of control and more information made available to the public.”
