Acceptable Loss (32 page)

He was sworn in, and Winchester asked him with considerable courtesy to state his occupation and describe his relationship with Mickey Parfitt. When that was answered, Winchester asked him about finding Mickey’s body with Tosh Wilkin, calling the police, and later the arrival of Monk and Orme.

It was all very predictable, and there was nothing for Rathbone to object to, and nothing for him to add.

Winchester obtained an account from ’Orrie of the entire evening of Parfitt’s death, complete with reasonably accurate times. ’Orrie had an extensive knowledge of tides, and that was included, as well as the skills of rowing and general management of all river craft.

The jury’s attention might have been lost, were it not for ’Orrie’s remarkable appearance and the occasional wry observation that Winchester put in, which made people laugh.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones,” he said at length. “You have given us an excellent account.” He invited Rathbone to question the witness.

Rathbone looked up at ’Orrie. “So you were deeply involved in Parfitt’s affairs? He relied on you for much, especially personally. You
rowed him when he was on the river. Was that necessary because of his withered arm?”

“Yes, sir,” ’Orrie replied, his tone indicating his contempt for such a foolish question.

“Was it always you, or did other people row him also?”

’Orrie looked indignant, grasping on to the rail till his knuckles gleamed.

“It were always me. Wot for’d ’e want anyone else?”

“No reason at all,” Rathbone assured him. He did not care what ’Orrie thought, but he was aware already of antagonizing the jury. Winchester had been scrupulous in avoiding any mention of Parfitt’s occupation, as if ’Orrie could have been unaware of it. If Rathbone raised it now, he would prejudice the jury against ’Orrie, and therefore his testimony.

“Mr. Jones, in the course of your assistance to Mr. Parfitt, did you ever meet Mr. Arthur Ballinger?”

“No, I didn’t,” ’Orrie said vigorously.

“Or hear his name mentioned?” Rathbone suggested. “Perhaps Mr. Parfitt might have had other meetings with him?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Did you ever hear any of your colleagues speak of him?”

“No! ’Ow many times do I ’ave ter tell yer? I in’t got nothin’ ter do wif ’im at all!” ’Orrie said indignantly.

“I quite believe you, Mr. Jones,” Rathbone assured him. “I am certain your path and Mr. Ballinger’s never crossed, as neither did Mr. Parfitt’s. Thank you.”

Winchester next called the police surgeon, who testified to all the more lurid details of the corpse, the injuries, exactly what had caused Parfitt’s death and how it was most likely that it had been accomplished, including the surgeon’s removal of the cravat imbedded in the swollen flesh.

“Struck on the head with a blunt instrument, such as a log of wood, a piece of a branch?” Winchester repeated.

“Yes.”

“And then when he was lying there unconscious, his killer looped Mr. Cardew’s silk cravat around his neck—”

“After having tied the knots in it,” the surgeon corrected him.

Winchester looked as if he had been caught in an error, although Rathbone knew that he had done it on purpose. “Of course. I apologize. After having tied the knots, either then or earlier, the assailant looped the cravat around Mr. Parfitt’s neck and then tightened it until he choked to death.”

“Yes.”

“Why the knots, sir?”

“To exert a greater pressure on the windpipe, I assume,” the surgeon replied. “It would be much more effective.”

“But take time?”

“Not if you did it in advance.”

“Of course. Then hardly a crime of impulse, would you say?”

“Impossible. Vandalism to do that to a good piece of silk.”

Winchester nodded. “A premeditated act. Thank you, sir.”

There was nothing Rathbone could do except not call more attention to the doctor’s testimony by going over it again. He declined to cross-examine.

A
FTER LUNCHEON
W
INCHESTER CALLED
Stanley Willington, the ferryman who had taken Ballinger from Chiswick to the Lonsdale Road on the south shore and then back again at about twelve-thirty in the morning. All the times were exactly as Ballinger had told Rathbone, and there was nothing to add, nothing to doubt.

Winchester then called Bertram Harkness, who was a very different proposition. He was both nervous and angry. He clearly wanted very much to account for Ballinger’s time in such a way as to make it clear that he could not possibly have killed Parfitt, and yet he was not aware of what the ferryman had said, since being a later witness, he had not been permitted in court at that time.

He blustered. He did not like Winchester, and Winchester was clever enough to play on it. He was charming, even amusing in a mild way, as if to give them all a respite from the seriousness of the crime. Some people in the audience even laughed, although possibly more out of nervous relief than humor.

Harkness was furious. “You find this amusing, sir?” he demanded, his face scarlet. “You drag a good man here, blacken his name in front of all and sundry, accuse him of murder, and by implication God knows what else. Then you stand around in your elegant suit … and make jokes! You are a nincompoop, sir! An irresponsible nincompoop!”

Winchester looked startled, then embarrassed.

Rathbone swore under his breath. It was Harkness who looked ridiculous, not Winchester. The crowd in the gallery was already on Winchester’s side; now they were all but rising to defend him.

“I apologize if I have hurt your feelings, Mr. Harkness,” Winchester said gently. “Perhaps you would explain to me again exactly what happened, and the lie of the land around the area in which you live, so the jury may have that uppermost in their minds, and not some frivolous remark of mine.”

But Harkness had lost the thread of the story he had been trying to concoct, somewhere between the truth as he guessed it and a later and longer version that would protect Ballinger.

“I understand your predicament,” Winchester said softly. “You would have had no idea that you would be called upon to account for every minute of your time with such precision. Let us agree that your judgments are approximate.”

“Ballinger did not kill that wretched creature!” Harkness said tartly. “If you knew him as I do, you wouldn’t even have entertained the idea. Look among Parfitt’s own ghastly confederates, or some miserable victim of his disgusting trade.”

“Your loyalty does you credit, sir,” Winchester replied.

“It’s not loyalty, you damn fool!” Harkness shouted at him. “It’s simply the truth, man. If you can’t see that, you should be occupied in some trade where you can do no harm.”

Winchester smiled patiently and turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”

Rathbone considered for only a moment, weighing, judging, deciding. “Thank you, Mr. Winchester, but I believe Mr. Harkness has already told us exactly what happened.” He drew in his breath and plunged on. “This witness of yours, Miss Benson, is apparently reluctant
to testify as to the theft of the cravat that Mr. Cardew was wearing that afternoon. You have conclusively proved it to be the instrument with which Mr. Parfitt was strangled to death. Without this witness’s testimony, it seems to me, as it must to the jury, that there is every reasonable doubt of Mr. Ballinger’s involvement with any part of this unhappy matter, let alone his guilt in Parfitt’s death. Surely the answer is exactly what it appears to be? The man was killed by some victim of his revolting trade.”

For once Winchester was genuinely startled. “My lord,” he began, “that … that is an unjust conclusion regarding Miss Benson’s reluctance—”

“Whether it is doubt, remorse, or fear that some punishment will be visited on her for lying,” Rathbone responded, now suddenly sure that Winchester was hiding something, “that is surely irrelevant. She is not here to tell us about the cravat, or to suggest that it ever left Rupert Cardew’s possession!”

Now Winchester was pale, the tension in him palpable. “Hattie Benson is not here to testify because her dead body was carried out of the Thames at Chiswick, three days before Mr. Ballinger was arrested,” he said hoarsely. “Strangled exactly the same way as Mickey Parfitt!”

A woman in the gallery screamed. Someone else muffled a cry, and a man let out a gasp.

One of the jurors lurched forward as if to rise to his feet.

The judge banged his gavel and demanded order, and was ignored.

Rathbone felt himself go cold, as if there were ice water in the pit of his stomach. His mind was numb, darkness at the edges of his vision. How in God’s name had that happened? No wonder Monk looked like a ghost. He must have known.

Suddenly Rathbone was overwhelmed with pity—and a profound and terrible fear.

“I’
M SORRY,”
M
ONK SAID
quietly as he and Hester sat in the parlor. “I wanted to have a better answer before I told you. I hoped I could find out enough to say that there was never anything you could have done.”

Hester sat perfectly still, as though she were frozen. Tears prickled in her eyes, and she was furious with herself because they could be out of guilt and an sense of overwhelming failure as much as out of grief for Hattie. Was she too used to the death of street women, even young ones, long before their bloom was gone and they were riddled with disease? They came in injured, and she knew that patching them up was often only temporary.

But Hattie had trusted her. Monk himself had trusted her to keep Hattie safe.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have been able to protect her. I suppose it ruins the case too, and Ballinger will get off. Without Hattie’s testimony, there has to be reasonable doubt, and Rupert’s
name will be shadowed again too. Oh, damn! Damn! Damn!” She wanted to cry properly, to let the sobs come, and to swear as she had heard soldiers do, words Monk had never heard, and she would rather he never knew that she had heard them, let alone remembered them.

But there was no time for that now, and there were far more urgent uses for her energy. One of the worst things she would have to do was tell Scuff, because he had been with her when they’d first met Hattie. It was after nine in the evening now, but there would be little time in the morning. She would have to stay with him tonight, judge very carefully how much comfort to offer. She had no idea how he would take it. He had grown up on the dockside and must have seen death many times before, possibly the deaths of people he knew. How she reacted would mark him, perhaps for all his life. She must not show fear, but neither must she ever let him think she did not care.

Monk was saying something. She looked up and saw the anxiety in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said very gently. “I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“Do you want me to tell Scuff? He’ll have to know.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You have enough to do. You need to sleep. I’ll tell him, and stay with him. Besides, if he needs to cry, we can do it together.” She smiled, and the tears slid down her cheeks. “He’ll expect it of me, and it’ll be all right.” She stood up and turned to go.

“Hester!”

She looked back. “Yes?” She thought he was going to thank her, and she did not want to be thanked. It wasn’t as if she’d given him a gift.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

She drew in a shaky breath, using all her strength not to go back and cling to him and let the tears come. “I know. If I didn’t, do you think I could do any of this?” Then, without waiting for him to answer, she went up to waken Scuff and tell him Hattie was dead.

She knocked on the door because she always did. He must have a place where no one else entered without his permission. As she had expected, there was no answer. She turned the handle and went in.
The night-light was still burning. He had to have enough to see by if he woke up. He must never have that first moment of terror not knowing where he was, of imagining the bilges of Jericho Phillips’s boat, even for an instant.

“Scuff,” she said quietly.

He did not move. She could see his head on the pillow, hair ruffled, still damp from his bath.

“Scuff,” she repeated, more loudly.

He stirred, and when she spoke a third time, he opened his eyes and sat up, holding his nightshirt around himself with one hand.

She came and sat on the end of the bed, where he could see her face in the light.

“Wos wrong?” he asked, noticing the tears. “Wos ’appened?” His perception of her grief was instant, and it filled him with fear. She realized with a sharp stab how much of his world was bound up in her.

“Hattie’s dead,” she replied, so he would not be afraid that it was something to do with Monk. “She was killed—not an accident, though. William just told me. He wanted to wait until he could find out exactly how it happened, but it came out in court today.”

He blinked. “Somebody killed ’er?” He gulped, then reached forward and put his small, thin hand over hers, so lightly, she saw it rather than felt it. “Don’t cry for ’er,” he whispered. “She were always gonna finish bad. This way it won’t ’urt so much. Quick. Like yer should pull a tooth out, if yer’ve gotter, like.”

She wanted to hug him, but it would be an intrusion too far. Not everyone liked to be hugged.

“You are quite right,” she agreed, angry with herself because her voice trembled. “But I still feel that I need to know how she left the clinic, and who helped her. You understand?”

He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers, still full of fear. If she wavered even slightly, all his doubts would storm back, drowning his courage.

“D’yer reckon as someone took ’er?” he asked.

“No, I think they more likely tricked her, told her she’d be safe, or told her a lie of some sort. I want to know who, because I mustn’t ever trust that person again.” Did that sound too extreme? As if she never
forgave a mistake? Would she make him fear that if he made a mistake he would forfeit love forever? “If they did it on purpose, I mean,” she added.

“ ’Ow’d they kill ’er?” he whispered. “Like Mickey Parfitt?”