The Twisted Root

busy with matters at the hospital and with whatever might be done for Cleo Anderson. That was immeasurably more important, even if they ate sandwiches from a peddler!
    "Cleo Anderson!" Callandra said. "Are you sure?" It was a protest against the truth rather than a real question. Hester was alone with Dr. Beck and Callandra for a few moments in the surgeons’ waiting room.
    Kristian stood a yard away from Callandra, but any careful observer would have seen the silent communication between them. There was never a meeting of eyes—almost the opposite, an awareness on a deeper level.
    "I had no idea," he said softly. "What risks she was taking ... all the time. How long have you known?" He was looking at Hester.
    "I don’t really know." She was still being overcareful, as if Sergeant Robb were just beyond the door. "At least ... not with evidence."
    "Of course not," Kristian said, twisting his lips a little. "No one wishes to find evidence. You were quite right not to tell anyone of it. Poor woman." His hands clenched more tightly by his sides. "It is profoundly wrong that any person should have to take such risks to assist the poor and the sick."
    "It’s monstrous!" Callandra agreed without looking at him. "But we must help. There has to be a way. What does William say?"
    Hester had no intention of repeating the conversation, merely the conclusion, and that slightly altered. "That we should be extremely careful in making any enquiries," she replied.
    "More than careful," Kristian agreed. "Thorpe would be delighted to brand all nurses as thieves—"
    "He will do!" Callandra cut across him, her face pinched with unhappiness. "He’ll know soon enough. No doubt the police will be here to ask questions."
    "Is there anything we can conceal?" Hester looked from one to the other of them. She had no idea what good it would do, it was instinctive rather than rational. If they convicted Cleo Anderson of murdering Treadwell, a bottle or two of morphine one way or another was hardly going to make a difference. She knew the moment the words were out that it was foolish.
    "What proof do they have that it was she?" Kristian asked more levelly. The first shock was wearing off. "Possibly he was blackmailing her, but then he may have blackmailed others as well. She was hardly on an income to provide him with much."
    "Unless she gave him morphine," Callandra said with quiet sadness. "And he sold it. That would be worth a great deal more:’
    Hester had not even thought of that. She did not believe Cleo would sell morphine herself, but she could understand the necessity if Treadwell had been pressing her for money. But what had made the difference that suddenly, on that particular night, that she had resorted to murder? Desperation ... or simply opportunity?
    Why was she accepting Cleo’s guilt, even in her own mind?
    "But what evidence?" Kristian repeated. "Did anyone see her? Did she leave anything behind at the scene? Is there anything which excludes another person?"
    "No ... simply that his body was found on the path near her house, and he had crawled there from wherever he was attacked." Hester could see the reasoning all too clearly. "It was assumed at first that he had been trying to get help. Now they will be thinking it was no coincidence, but he was deliberately pointing towards her."
    Kristian frowned. "You mean they met somewhere close by, she attacked him, left believing him dead, but, still conscious, he crawled after her?"
    Callandra’s face pulled tight with distress.
    "Why not?" Hester loathed saying it, but it was there in the air between them. "He came to blackmail her, and she had reached the point of desperation—perhaps she had nothing more to pay him—and either she intended it before she went to kill him, or it happened on the spur of the moment."
    "And where was Miriam?" Callandra asked. Then her expression quickened. "Or did he drop Miriam wherever she wished to be and go back to Cleo Anderson? That would explain why Miriam did not know he was dead."
    Hester shook her head. "Whatever the answer is, it does not help Cleo now."
    They looked at each other grimly, and none could think of anything hopeful to say.
    Matters only seemed worse when, an hour or so later, Hester and Callandra were summoned to the office of an extremely angry Fermin Thorpe and were ordered by him to assist Sergeant Robb in his enquiries.
    Robb stood uncomfortably to the side of Thorpe’s desk, looking first at Thorpe himself, then