The Twisted Root

Let me tell you while you get breakfast," Monk offered.
    Robb accepted reluctantly.
    Monk excused himself to the old man, then, sitting down, recounted what he had discovered over the previous two days. As he did so, and Michael prepared bread and tea and assisted his grandfather, Monk’s eyes wandered around the room. He noticed the cupboard door open and the small stack of medicines, still well replenished, and that there were eggs in a bowl on the table by the sink and a bottle of sherry on the floor. Michael did very well by his grandfather. It must cost him every halfpenny of his sergeant’s wages. Monk knew what they were and how far they went. It was little enough for two, especially when one of them needed constant care and expensive medicines.
    Michael cleared away the plate and cup and washed them in the pan by the sink, his back to the room.
    The old man looked at Monk. "Good woman, your wife," he said gently. "Never makes it seem like a trouble. Comes here and listens to my tales with her eyes like stars. Seen the tears running down her cheeks when I told her about the death o’ the admiral an’ how we came home to England with the flags lowered after Trafalgar."
    "She loved hearing it," Monk said sincerely. He could imagine Hester sitting in this chair, the vision so clear in her mind that the terror and the sorrow of it moved her to tears. "She must have been here some considerable time to hear such a long account."
    "Seen a good bit o’ battle herself, she has," the old man said with a smile. "Told me about that. Calm and quiet as you like, but I could see in her eyes what she really felt. You can, you know. People who’ve really seen it don’t talk that much. Just sometimes you need to, an’ I could see it in her."
    Was that true? Hester needed to speak of her experiences in the Crimea, even now. She shared it with this old man she barely knew rather than with him, or even Callandra. But then, they had not seen war. They could not understand, and this man could. Most of the time horror was best forgotten. Occasionally, it broke the surface of the mind and had to be faced. He knew that himself, sensing the ghosts of his past who were no more than shadows to him.
    "She must have come several times," he said aloud.
    The old man nodded. "Drops by every day, maybe just for half an hour or so, to see how I am. Not many people care about the old and the sick if they’re not their own."
    "No," Monk agreed with a strangely sinking knowledge that that was true. It had not been said in self-pity but as a simple statement. He could imagine Hester’s anger and her pity, not just for John Robb but for all the untold thousands he represented. When he spoke it was from instinct. "Did she ask you about other sailors and soldiers?"
    "You mean old men like me? Yes, she did. Didn’t she tell you?"
    "I’m afraid I wasn’t paying as much attention as perhaps I should have been."
    Robb smiled and nodded. He, too, had not always listened to women. He understood.
    "She would care," Monk continued, hating himself for the thoughts of missing medicines and blackmail that were in his mind and that he could not ignore. "She’s a good nurse. Puts her patients before herself, like a good soldier, duty first."
    "That’s right." The old man nodded, his eyes bright and soft. "She’s a real good woman. I seen a few good nurses. Come around now and again to see how you are."
    Monk was aware of what he was doing, but he had to do it.
    "And bring medicines?"
    "Of course," Robb agreed. "Can’t go an’ get ’em myself, and young Michael here wouldn’t know what I needed, would he!"
    He was unaware of anything wrong. He was speaking of kindness he had received. The darkness was all in Monk’s mind.
    Michael finished cleaning and tidying everything so he would have as little as possible to do if he managed to slip home in the middle of the day. He left a cup of water where the old man could reach it, and a further slice of bread, and checked once more that he was as comfortable as he could make him. Then he turned to Monk.
    "I must go to the police station. I’ll consider what you said. There could have been somebody else there when Treadwell was killed, but there’s no evidence of it or of who it was. And why did Miriam Gardiner run? Why doesn’t she tell us the truth now?"
    Monk could think of several answers, but they were none of them convincing, nor did they disprove her guilt. The fear that was forming in his own