Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel (25 page)

He had gone over and over what he needed to say in this meeting. Regardless of Monk’s warning to not attempt to defend himself, he had still imagined what course Brancaster would take. But each time he did, he felt only more despair—the facts were undeniable, and he was too easy a target. They would make an example out of him, he was certain, no matter what argument Brancaster made.

He had dreaded the guard coming to escort him to the meeting, which was ridiculous because it would be far worse for him if Brancaster did not arrive. Was the man really the fighter that Henry believed him
to be? Even if he was … not even the best could win without weapons, ammunition.

He did not want to hurt his father. He must accept Brancaster, however futile the battle seemed. He must be courteous, helpful, appear to have trust in him.

The guard marched him along the corridor to the same small, stone-floored cell, and Rathbone found himself face-to-face with a very dark gentleman, no more than forty at the most. He was about Rathbone’s height but perhaps a little broader in the shoulder. His features were strong. He was handsome in a mercurial sort of way, and there was a sense of confidence in him almost as if he imagined himself invulnerable.

As soon as the door was closed and locked Brancaster inclined his head in acknowledgment, then indicated the chair for Rathbone.

“We have a reasonable amount of time,” he began without preamble, “but there is a great deal to sort through. I imagine you would prefer to discuss the details of the case before deciding whether you wish to retain my services beyond today. I have offered to take your case as a favor to your father, for whom I have the deepest respect—should you agree, of course. When we have discussed the situation, I shall tell you what I believe we may reasonably hope for.”

Rathbone found his manner blunt, almost brutal. He would not have spoken to a client that way. But then he had never defended another lawyer, one with more experience and a greater reputation than his own. He looked steadily into Brancaster’s slightly hooded, unblinking eyes and had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.

“Agreed,” he said simply, not trusting his voice to remain steady for much more.

Brancaster sat back and studied him carefully. His face was unsmiling; yet there was nothing hostile in attitude.

“You are charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice,” he said after a moment or two. “But they are actually blaming you indirectly for Taft’s murder of his family and then his own suicide. And you can be certain the prosecution will make sure the court hears all the
details. They will most likely have read it in the newspapers, and he will remind them at every opportunity. People hear what they want to hear. But I imagine you know that!”

“Of course I do,” Rathbone rejoined. “But it was Drew in the photograph, not Taft. I don’t see how the connection between Drew’s behavior and Taft’s death can be so close-knit that I can be blamed, in a way that will hold up in court, anyway.”

Brancaster raised his eyebrows.

“Was Taft in any of the other photographs? There are more, aren’t there?”

“Yes, there are. I haven’t counted them,” Rathbone answered, “but there are at least fifty. I don’t remember Taft in any of them, so I assume not, but I could be wrong.”

“He’s an arrogant man,” Brancaster smiled drily. His eyes were fixed directly on Rathbone’s; even so it was a second or two before Rathbone saw the flicker of irony in them, not even enough to be called amusement.

Rathbone felt it keenly. If ever a man could be accused of arrogance, it was himself.

“We may be able to win the legal argument, then,” Brancaster went on, “or maybe not, depending on if they amend the charge before we get to court. This, as it stands, is enough to hold you, and for now that is all they need. But we must also win the moral argument. I’ve looked into the case against Taft. From what I read, until the moment Warne produced the picture, Taft was definitely winning. He was a very plausible liar, and Drew even more so. You should have recused yourself. The picture changed the course of justice, whether it perverted it or not. I assume Gavinton was so taken aback that he had not even considered demanding that you prove the authenticity of it?”

Rathbone was beginning to regain a little of his composure. Brancaster was nothing like the dry and rather otherworldly academic he had been expecting. He owed his father an apology for his lack of faith in him. And for a little while it was good to engage his brain in his familiar profession. It was a brief escape back into his own world.

“I doubt Gavinton wanted the jury’s mind on the thing any longer than necessary,” he said drily. “And he certainly wouldn’t want them to have to look at it.”

Brancaster smiled for the first time. “I’m sure. Did you think of that at the time?”

“No. I gave it to Warne and let him do with it as he thought right, under legal privilege, of course. I actually began to think he wasn’t going to use it at all. Which makes me wonder—who brought the prosecution against me? Why me and not Warne? He is really the one who used the picture, in the end.”

“A lot of interesting questions, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster agreed. “How did anyone know it was you who gave it to Warne? Who else did you tell?”

“No one but Warne himself,” he replied. “And if he thought it was wrong enough to turn me in, why did he use it?”

“As I said, a lot of questions,” Brancaster repeated. “What did you tell Warne about where you got the pictures in the first place?”

“The truth!”

“Which is?”

Rathbone felt his throat tighten and a certain sense of shame fill him with unwelcome heat. “They were bequeathed to me by my father-in-law.” He saw Brancaster’s amazement flash before he masked it, but he did not interrupt.

“He had used them for blackmail,” Rathbone went on. He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else. “I tried, unsuccessfully, to defend him on a charge of murder. He was to be hanged, from which I could not save him. He threatened to use the photographs to bring down half the establishment if I did not mount an appeal …” He found himself breathless, his chest tight.

“How did you prevent him from doing that?” Brancaster asked. “I think I prefer not to know, but I have to ask. This case appears to have some uglier possibilities than I had assumed.” It was a thundering understatement, and Rathbone was as aware of that as Brancaster.

“I didn’t,” Rathbone answered, wondering if Brancaster would believe
him—indeed, if anybody would. “He told me the photographs were safe. That they would be in the hands of someone else who could use them. Then he was murdered.”

“In prison?” There was a raw edge of incredulity to Brancaster’s voice.

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“They never found out.”

“And the pictures … who had them?”

“His lawyer, I assume. That’s who delivered them to me.”

Brancaster took a deep breath. “Who else knows this? And please be careful to give me an honest answer. Believe me, you can’t afford to protect anyone else at this point.”

“I don’t know who else Ballinger told. I told Monk, and Hester Monk, and recently my father.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“I said don’t lie to me, Sir Oliver,” Brancaster’s eyes were hard, his voice grating. “I should have included ‘don’t lie by omission.’ And, don’t be naïve. Did you not mention such an extraordinary event to your wife? She was Ballinger’s daughter, after all.”

Rathbone noticed the curious use of the past tense, as if Margaret were dead. As far as love was concerned, or loyalty, perhaps she was. That still hurt. Why? Why did he allow it to? He did not know her now.

“She never believed her father guilty.” Rathbone said quietly. “I could not shatter what was left of her faith in him by telling her more than she needed to know. And I would not have shown them to her anyway. And without the physical evidence, I know she could have gone on disbelieving me, even if I had told her the truth.”

“But you did not feel such a need to protect Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster questioned.

For the first time Rathbone laughed, a hard, jerky sound torn out of him. “Hester saw the live victims,” he said witheringly. “She would hardly be thrown into a fit of the vapors by photographs. She was an
army nurse. She has seen men blown to bits on the battlefield and gone in to help those who were left alive. For any man I know to protect her from the truth is a laughable idea. Perhaps that’s why Warne chose her to identify Drew in court.”

“That was rather well done,” Brancaster remarked with respect in his voice. “I shall be very sorry if I find it was he who brought you to the attention of the authorities. Have you any connections with Drew or Taft that I should know about?”

Rathbone tried to think of anything. He realized how much he was impressed with Brancaster. It would be a very hard blow indeed if Brancaster declined to take the case.

“Only that Hester—Mrs. Monk—decided to investigate Taft, and it was her inquiries, employing her bookkeeper from the Portpool Lane clinic, that uncovered the main details of Taft’s fraud. But I didn’t know anything of that at the time.”

“And your acquaintance with Mrs. Monk?” Brancaster asked. He did not need to explain his precise meaning; it was perfectly clear from his expression.

“Friends,” Rathbone replied, not avoiding his eyes. “At one time I was in love with her. I decided she was not the right sort of wife for me, and she was in love with Monk, whom she married not long after that. We have remained friends.”

Brancaster waited for him to add more, perhaps to justify himself, to insist that there was nothing inappropriate in the relationship. Rathbone knew that to do so would be a mistake. Explaining, protesting too much always was. He knew that from his own experience in questioning witnesses.

Brancaster relaxed with a smile. It lit his face and made him look quite different: younger and more vulnerable.

“I cannot promise victory, Sir Oliver, but I can promise an exceedingly good fight.” He stood up. “I don’t have anything more to ask you at the moment, but I expect I will soon think of things.” He walked the short distance to the door and called for the guard. He straightened his suit jacket, and, with the very slight inclining of his head, he went out
as the door opened. He did not ask if Rathbone wished to keep his services or not. That was a degree of hubris not unlike his own, Rathbone thought. Perhaps Brancaster was exactly the lawyer he needed.

As he walked back to his cell with the guard at his side, he thought how short a time ago it was that he had sat at Ingram York’s dinner table in his magnificent house and celebrated his own handling of another, infinitely different case of fraud.

He had looked at Beata York and thought how beautiful she was, not the superficial loveliness of regular features or delicate coloring, but the deep, inner beauty of humor, gentleness, vulnerability, and the power to understand and forgive.

He was sure she would not understand or forgive this if she could see him now!

9

A
SSISTANT COMMISSIONER
B
YRNE OF
the Metropolitan Police stood by the window of his office and regarded Monk unhappily.

“I didn’t say abandon him entirely,” he said with patience. “Just keep a reasonable distance. Dammit, Monk, the man has let the power of his office go to his head.”

Monk wanted to argue, but Byrne was right, at least on the surface of things.

“It’s when you are actually in the wrong, or at least in part, that you need your real friends.” Monk framed his answer carefully. “That’s the time they’re probably the only people who’ll stand by you.”

“He perverted the course of justice,” Byrne repeated, his face puckered in distaste. “He has delusions of grandeur we can’t permit. If judges don’t keep the law, precisely what standard can you hold the rest of us to? You cannot afford to be associated with him.”

“And if he’s not guilty?” Monk asked. “Wouldn’t I then be doing
exactly what you say he did—taking the law into my own hands and prejudging a man before he’s tried?”

Byrne’s eyebrows rose, making his face look oddly imbalanced. “Isn’t that what you’re doing anyway, deciding he’s not guilty before you have the evidence?”

“I’m deciding he’s innocent until proven guilty,” Monk retorted. He was being argumentative, and he knew he was on thin ice. “Personally I think he’s behaved like an idiot—but an idiot who wanted to see an evil man brought to account for his greed and his manipulations of people’s gullibility. I think he very possibly used poor judgment in the means he employed. I don’t have to debate or weigh and measure whether he’s a friend or not. He has been for years, and the fact that that is currently a trifle inconvenient for me has nothing to do with anything.”

“I don’t know whether you find that easy to say,” Byrne observed, “but you may find it harder to live up to. It’s inconvenient now; I promise you it is going to get a great deal more so.” He shook his head. “Be careful, Monk. I admire your loyalty, but not everyone will. Oliver Rathbone has made a great many enemies, and most of them would be very well pleased to see him brought down.”