A Sunless Sea (36 page)

She believed that he was telling the truth as he had heard it. The fear was written in his face, and the meager instruments and few medicines in the room testified to it. But would Lambourn have had proof of someone creating an addiction in order to feed it? And was that even a
crime? A sin, of course—but a crime punishable by law? And how would Lambourn have used that proof, even if he did have it? It would not have furthered his cause of regulating sales.

Was it not a completely separate issue, to be faced at another time, if at all? Who would listen? People did not want to hear that those they trusted were capable of such brutality and greed, such utter disregard for human destruction. Would they even believe it, or would they say that if a man chose to go to hell, he had the right to do it in his own fashion? It was so much easier, and safer, to condemn the bringer of such news, destroy the words rather than the fearful, indelible acts.

“If he was collecting information on illness and death from ignorance of dosage, how would he learn of the deeper addiction caused by using the needle?” Hester asked. “He was looking at harassed mothers who’d lost children: ordinary people, who’d never been more than a few miles from their homes.”

Doulting looked tired. “I don’t know. I don’t know where he went or who else he spoke to. He probably found it by accident from old soldiers. He didn’t say.”

“Old soldiers?” she said quickly.

He smiled very bitterly. “From the Crimean War, and the Opium Wars: men with injuries that will always pain them. They take opium to ease the ache of old wounds, to sleep through the nightmares of memory. For some it is to take the edge off the fevers and cramps of returning malaria and ague, and other things they don’t even know the names of.”

She felt stupid for not having realized. Her mind had been fixed on Lambourn’s concern for infant mortality.

“You won’t get it into evidence to save Dinah Lambourn,” Doulting said quietly, no hope at all in his eyes. “We won’t admit its evils because we sold it to an entire nation. We robbed, plundered, we murdered civilians, poisoned the men, women, and children of a nation too militarily backward to resist us, and we are barbarians: all of us, those who did it, and those who let them, and we who choose not to admit it now.” He let out a quiet sigh. “If we admit it, then we have to make reparation, and we have to give back the profits. Can you see anyone doing that?”

Hester could think of no answer. “There’s still time to find out who is behind this!” she said, not as a reply but as an admission.

“But who will we help if we die trying to prove it?” he asked.

“All I want at the moment is to save Dinah from being hanged,” she told him.

“And you think knowing what Lambourn found out will help?” He smiled, but there was no belief of it in his eyes.

“Yes! It’s possible,” she insisted. “It will at least make the jury realize that there is a very great deal more to this than domestic jealousy. Tell me where I can find the soldiers Dr. Lambourn saw?” she asked. “I could look for them myself, but I haven’t any time to waste.”

“I’ll write down for you what I know,” Doulting offered. “Then I need to get back to work.”

She finished her tea and set the mug down in one of the few clear spaces. “Thank you.”

R
ATHBONE KNEW THAT THE
case was slipping out of his grasp. He could not help his conviction that Dinah was innocent, yet he wondered if he felt that way because he was drawn to her loyalty to Lambourn by his own inner need to believe in the existence of such a love: deeper than her need for her own survival, deeper even than the evidence. Even Lambourn’s betrayal of her with another woman and his own apparent suicide had not shaken Dinah’s devotion.

He lay awake, alone in his silent bedroom, and came no closer to an answer. The sky was paling in the east, and the light came through the crack in the curtains where he had not closed them properly. It was going to be one of those bright winter days that made the coming of Christmas even more charming, more festive. Soon it would be the shortest day. People were collecting wreaths of holly and ivy and garlanding doors with ribbons. There would be carol singers in the street.

Out in the garden, the very last chrysanthemums were shaggy and drooping, some touched with frost. There was a smell of damp leaves and blue woodsmoke, all the beauty that awoke an awareness of the passing of time and the inability to hold on to even the most precious of things.

This Christmas he would be alone.

Could he even save Dinah? His professional brilliance was the one thing he had believed he could cling to: safe, beyond the ability of even Margaret to take away. Now that too seemed less certain.

If Dinah was innocent, then who was guilty?

Who on earth could he turn to as a witness?

Was it even conceivable that Lambourn’s death and the murder of Zenia were not connected, just two terrible events that afflicted the same family within the space of two months? Was he looking for a pattern that was not there?

If that was true, then Dinah was innocent and Zenia Gadney was the victim of some random lunatic they might never find. Certainly he would not find even the proof of his existence in the next few days. Today was Sunday. He knew that Pendock would want to put the case to the jury before Christmas, which was at the weekend. Otherwise it would have to be carried over to the following week. The jury would hate that, and blame him for it.

He felt the weight of despair as if he were drowning, sinking as the water closed over his head and he could not draw breath. It was absurd. He was lying rigid in his own bed, staring up at the broadening light across the ceiling. His health was exactly the same as always. It was disillusion that weighed him down. He wanted Dinah to be innocent, to be sane, brave, and loyal, and to love Joel Lambourn—even though he was dead—more than she loved herself.

It was at that moment that he made up his mind to go and see Amity Herne, and somehow gain from her a stronger understanding of Lambourn, and his complicated relationships. He might learn things he did not want to, but it was too late now to balk at any truth, if it proved Dinah’s guilt. There was no time left to flatter his own wishes.

S
UNDAY LUNCHEON WAS A
most unseemly time to call upon anyone, especially uninvited, but circumstances left no choice. Moreover, Rathbone admitted to himself, he really did not care how inconvenienced or offended Amity and her husband might be.

He dressed with conservative elegance, as if he had just come from church, although he had not. This morning he would have found the
ritual assurance of it, and the rather pompous certainty of the minister, anything but soothing. He needed to think, to plan, to face the ugliest and worst of possibilities.

At half-past twelve he was on Barclay Herne’s doorstep. A few moments later, the butler somewhat reluctantly showed him into the morning room and asked him to wait while he informed his master that Sir Oliver Rathbone had called.

Actually it was Amity Herne that Rathbone wished to see, but he would take the opportunity to speak with both of them. If it could be arranged, he would like to observe their reaction to each other. He had wondered if it was possible Amity was being influenced by Barclay and by his ambition, to distance herself from Lambourn. Rathbone was perfectly willing to put every emotional pressure on her that he could in order to learn anything that would change the jury’s perception of Dinah, even long enough to stretch out the trial beyond Christmas and give Monk a chance to find something more.

As the thoughts went through his head, he moved restlessly in the rather pretentious morning room. Its shelves held matching leather-bound books and there was a large, flattering painting over the fireplace of Amity, about twenty years younger, with blemishless face and shoulders.

The door opened and Barclay Herne came in, closing it behind him. He was quite casually dressed, in a loose cravat rather than a more formal tie, and a smoking jacket mismatched with his trousers. He looked puzzled and ill at ease.

“Good afternoon, Sir Oliver. Has something happened to Dinah? I hope she has not collapsed?” It was definitely a question and he searched Rathbone’s face anxiously for the answer.

“No,” Rathbone assured him. “As far as I know, her health is still at least moderate. But I am afraid I cannot offer much hope that it will remain so.”

Herne flinched. “I don’t know what to do for her,” he said helplessly.

Rathbone felt uncomfortable, aware that he was embarrassing both of them, possibly to no purpose. He plunged on. “I feel that there is something vital that I don’t understand. I would appreciate it very much if I am allowed to speak to you and Mrs. Herne frankly. I am aware that
it is Sunday afternoon, and you may well have other plans, especially this close to Christmas. However, this is the final opportunity for me to find any cause whatever to raise reasonable doubt as to Mrs. Lambourn’s guilt, or even to ask for mercy.”

The last vestige of color drained from Herne’s face, leaving him pasty, a fine beading of sweat on his brow. “Perhaps if you would come through to the withdrawing room … We have not yet eaten. You may care to join us.”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you,” Rathbone apologized, following Herne out of the door and across the handsome hallway into the withdrawing room. This was lush with burgundy velvet curtains and rich, dark wine-colored furniture with carved mahogany feet. The low, matching tables had shining surfaces, and were as immaculate as if they were never used.

Amity Herne was sitting in one of the chairs by the side of the fire, which was already burning vividly, even this early in the afternoon. Beyond the windows, the winter sun lit a small garden. All the perennial plants had been clipped back and the fresh, black earth weeded and raked.

She did not rise to her feet. “Good afternoon, Sir Oliver.” She was surprised to see him, and clearly not pleased. She glanced at her husband and read his expression, then looked back at Rathbone.

Herne answered her implicit question.

“Sir Oliver would like to speak with us to see if there is anything we can tell him that might help Dinah,” he explained.

Amity looked at Rathbone. Her hazel eyes were cool, guarded. She must dislike everything he had reminded her of on this quiet Sunday when perhaps she had hoped for a day’s respite from the inevitable.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “Were it possible to choose a better time, I would.” She had not invited him to sit down, but he preempted her and did anyway, choosing the chair diagonally across from her. Deliberately he made himself comfortable, indicating his intention to stay. He saw from the slight change in her expression that she understood.

“I don’t know what you think I can tell you that would be of any assistance whatever,” she said a little coolly. “Isn’t it a trifle late now?” It was a brutal question, but honest.

“It is,” he agreed. “But I have a strong feeling that there is something of importance that I don’t know, and any defense may rest upon it.”

“What defense can there be for killing a woman … like that?” Herne interrupted, walking past Rathbone to sit in the chair on the other side of the fireplace, opposite his wife. “There can be no cause on earth to justify doing that to someone. She … she cut her open, Sir Oliver. She did not merely fight with her and hit her too hard. That, one might understand, but not this … atrocity.” He breathed in quickly, as if to change his choice of word, mumbling something unintelligible.

“You do not need to explain yourself, Barclay,” Amity said quickly. “Zenia Gadney may have been a woman of loose morals, and an embarrassment to the family, but she did not deserve to be gutted like a fish.”

Again Herne opened his mouth to protest; then again he fell silent instead.

“Of course you are perfectly right,” Rathbone agreed. “There doesn’t seem to be anything that would make sense of such complete barbarity. You say, and Dinah has admitted it, that she was always aware of Zenia Gadney’s existence, of her relationship to Dr. Lambourn, and that he had supported her for over fifteen years. Indeed, the money came out of the housekeeping account and was noted in the household ledger, on the twenty-first day of every month. Dinah says that she admired Dr. Lambourn for caring for Mrs. Gadney in that way, and when the will was probated she intended to continue doing so.”

Amity’s eyes widened. “And you believe her? Sir Oliver, perhaps there is something you are unaware of. I would not mention it, even now—I find it distasteful, a discredit to my brother, and it is something I would much rather remain a family secret. But in light of what you just said, I feel it is my responsibility to tell you. Zenia Gadney, or should I say Zenia
Lambourn
, was my brother’s widow, legally. She was entitled to his entire estate, not a few pounds every month, bestowed on her at the discretion of a woman who was actually no more than his mistress.”

Rathbone stared at Amity. “So you do know the truth, then,” he said grimly.