make whoever did it look pretty grubby, and spiteful, but it wouldn’t help Rathbone.”
Monk acknowledged that. He wanted to know out of anger rather than for any practical purpose. However, one never knew what information might turn out to be of value. He smiled bleakly. “I understand that, but I’m desperate. I’ll try any avenue.”
“Rathbone has been one of the best lawyers in the country,” Warne said ruefully. “Kind of the standard we all measure ourselves against. But some people don’t take it well when they’re beaten, especially if they thought they were definitely going to win. Punctured arrogance hurts pretty badly.” He shook his head. “Honestly, it would be hard to find out, and almost certainly a waste of time.”
“I don’t have time to waste, that’s true,” Monk admitted. “I need to know the full extent of your case against Taft. I could read through all the court transcripts and try to assess it myself, but it would more efficient if you told me. I’m not asking for confidential information, it’s just that I would prefer to have your opinion, the outline of the case.”
“Of course …” Warne hesitated.
“What is it? Am I asking you to betray anyone else’s interest?” Monk asked him. “Or your own?”
“No,” Warne’s response was instant. “I’d … I’d like to help, as I was the one who used the photograph. Rathbone gave it to me openly and honestly. He left it up to me what I did with it. And yet they are not doing anything more to me than giving me a fairly sharp slap on the wrist for not having shown Gavinton the photograph immediately.”
“Don’t you have to use it, once you’ve seen it?” Monk asked.
“No, not legally. Morally I believe I did. But morally I’m not impartial,” Warne explained. “And really, I’m not even legally impartial, nor am I meant to be. Rathbone is. He should have recused himself, not kept on with the case, even though I’m pretty sure charges wouldn’t have been brought again. Taft was nine-tenths of the way to being acquitted. Personally I think he was one of the most despicable criminals I’ve ever prosecuted.”
There was anger and hurt in Warne’s face that made Monk think of him in a new light. Perhaps in his own way he was as much a crusader as Rathbone had been. He was now seeing the downfall of a man he had spent years trying to emulate. Perhaps he also had known people like the victims of Taft: simple, ordinary people who went to church every Sunday and gave what they could to the charities that helped others, people whose faith was central to their lives. It was trust in those who led them that made the losses and injustices of life bearable.
“It was a just case,” Monk agreed. “Was it a good one legally?”
Warne sighed. “I thought it was, to begin with. I had no doubt that for all his smoothness, Taft was guilty. But as it went on, and Robertson Drew made my witnesses look pathetic and then ridiculous, I felt it slip out of my grasp. I think without the photograph Taft would have been acquitted. Somehow I didn’t even consider not using it. The only question in my mind was how to get it in without putting Rathbone in a place where he had to grant a mistrial. I couldn’t risk that; they might not have brought the case again. It wasn’t as if anyone had died, at that time.”
“But now they have,” Monk pointed out. “That makes it different, in the public perception, if not in law.”
Warne gritted his teeth. “The jury is drawn from the public,” he pointed out. “And that will play into the hands of whoever tries the case against Rathbone. There isn’t going to be much mercy for him among their lordships on the bench. He’s brought them into public disrepute. They’ll all be watched a good deal closer from now on.” He gave his head a little shake, a sharp jerky movement. “What can I do to help?”
Monk was surprised at Warne’s eagerness. He was beginning to realize how deeply Warne felt, not only because of his past admiration for Rathbone. Warne’s feelings were also fueled by his contempt for Taft and perhaps a certain conviction that emotion, as much as legal knowledge, was an integral part of prosecution.
“Tell me as much as you can about the evidence,” Monk replied. “Including your opinions of the people.”
“With pleasure,” Warne replied. “Please heaven you can see something in it that will provide a way out. With all the people Rathbone has convicted in his career, I’d be surprised if he lasted more than a few months in prison.”
Monk caught his breath. For a moment he was not certain what Warne meant, then he saw the fear in his eyes, and he understood. It was his own worst dread put into words. He did not reply, simply took out his notebook ready to write down anything he might forget. He knew the violence in prison, the accidents, the deaths that no one saw happen. There was never proof, only tragedy.
Scuff also knew violence, and how suddenly and easily it could occur. He knew what could happen to Oliver Rathbone, and he had no belief at all that he could be protected if he went to prison. He knew, too, that if they were to help him, they needed to be very careful.
Nevertheless he left Paradise Place with a spring in his step. He did not have to go to school. Not that he didn’t like it. It could even be interesting, but it was a bit cramping at times. Do as everybody else does, listen, and remember. We’ll question you on it later. You can’t just answer. You’ll have to write it down, and spell properly. There is only one right way.
Now he was going to do what really mattered: help Monk and Hester-and Sir Oliver, of course. There might be only one right way for that too. He must not make even the smallest mistake. It was not as if he were the only one who would pay.
He had already thought to leave his good jacket at home. His boots were better than many people’s, but he could scuff them a bit, get them dusty, and no one would notice. He needed to step back into the person he had been two years ago, cunning, hungry, willing to do most things for a cup of tea and a bun.
Monk had asked him to find out about the Taft family, specifically the wife and daughters. That was what he was going to do. He thought about it hard as he took a ferry across the river and sat in the stern, like a grown-up, and watched the sun bright on the water. As usual, the breeze was a bit chilly. He had known the river smell all his life, and he was used to cold.
How was he going to find out about the Tafts? Obviously he’d ask someone who knew things about them, things the family didn’t realize they’d given away. Who would know such things?
He thought about that for quite a long time, even after getting to the other side, paying the ferryman, and walking all the way to the main road and the omnibus stop. The street was busy. There were peddlers, men loading brewers’ drays, costermongers, shoppers at the vegetable carts, butchers’ boys, newspaper sellers. That was the answer: the invisible people saw things because no one noticed them. Delivery boys, scullery maids, postmen, street sweepers, lamplighters, the people you saw every day and didn’t remember. You realized they mattered only when they weren’t there and you went without something you were used to having.
The omnibus drew up and stopped. Scuff jumped on eagerly. He knew exactly where he was going, and what for. He knew how to be charming, how to ask questions without seeming to and make people think he liked them and wanted to hear what they had to say. He had watched both Hester and Monk do it often. And girls always liked to talk about other girls, and clothes, and romance. He might not find out much about Mrs. Taft, but he would hear all sorts of things about her daughters. He was going to detect. He would learn something valuable first, and then he would tell Monk and Hester how he had done it. He would help them save Sir Oliver.
From time to time Monk had done certain favors for men from police forces other than those under his own jurisdiction. Perhaps in the distant past, before his accident and resulting amnesia, that might not have been true. Evidence he found suggested he had been grudging to share back then if he could avoid it. Now he thought such an attitude not only mean-spirited but also tactically shortsighted. He saw the wisdom in not only doing favors now and then, but also in being seen to return a favor done for him.
He was grateful to be owed a few that he could now collect. He chose them very carefully. Inspector Courtland was a lean, middle-aged man who had worked his way up the ranks to a position of some power, but he never forgot the great, decent family that had nurtured him. Monk knew that his mother was a churchgoing woman who had raised five children after her husband was killed in an industrial accident. Courtland spoke of her in such a way that Monk had envied him a family childhood, which, if he had had such a thing himself, he could remember nothing of now.
He did not insult Courtland by pretending he was doing anything other than collecting a favor. He would not have appreciated such condescension himself.
“Not my case personally,” Courtland explained as they shared a couple of pints of ale and remarkably good
