William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

waiting to see what either of them thought, he turned on his heel and went out, leaving the door swinging behind him.
    Rathbone looked at Hester standing in the center of the floor.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said quietly. “But I’m going to do something. What
you
must do”—she smiled very slightly to soften the arrogance of what she was saying—“is keep the trial going as long as you can.”
    “How?” His eyebrows shot up. “I’ve finished!”
    “I don’t know! Call more character witnesses to say what a fine man he is.”
    “I don’t need them,” he protested.
    “I know you don’t. Call them anyway.” She waved a hand wildly. “Do something, anything—just don’t let the jury bring in a verdict yet.”
    “There’s no point—”
    “Do it!” she exploded, her voice tight with fury and exasperation. “Just don’t give up.”
    He smiled very slightly, merely a touch at the corners of his lips, but there was a shining admiration in his eyes, even if there was no hope at all.
    “For a while,” he conceded. “But there isn’t any point.”
    Callandra knew how the trial was progressing. She had been there on that last afternoon, and she saw Sir Herbert’s face, and the way he stood in the dock, calm-eyed and straight-backed, and she saw that the jurors were quite happy to look at him. There was not one who avoided his glance or whose cheeks colored when he looked toward them. It was plain they believed him not guilty.
    So someone else was—someone else had murdered Prudence Barrymore.
    Kristian Beck? Because he performed abortions and she knew it, and had threatened to tell the authorities?
    The thought was so sickening she could no longer keep it at the back of her mind. It poisoned everything. She tossed and turned in bed until long after midnight, then finally sat up hunched over with her hands around her knees, trying to find the courage to force the issue at last. She visualized facing him, telling him what she had seen. Over and over again she worded it and reworded it to find a way that sounded bearable. None did.
    She played in her mind all the possible answers he might give. He might simply lie—and she would know it was a lie and be heartsick. The hot tears filled her eyes and her throat at the thought of it. Or he might confess it and make some pathetic, self-serving excuse. And that would be almost worse. She thrust that thought away without finishing it.
    She was cold; she sat shivering on the bed with the covers tangled uselessly beside her.
    Or he might be angry and tell her to mind her own business, order her to get out. It might be a quarrel she could never heal—perhaps never really want to. That would be horrible—but better than either of the other two. It would be violent, ugly, but at least there would be a certain kind of honestly in it.
    Or there was a last possibility: that he would give her some explanation of what she had seen which was not abortion at all but some other operation—perhaps trying to save Marianne after a back-street butchery? That would be the best of all and he would have kept it secret for her sake.
    But was that really possible? Was she not deluding herself? And if he did tell her such a thing, would she believe it? Or would it simply return her to where she was now—full of doubt and fear, and with the awful suspicion of a crime far worse.
    She bent her head to her knees and sat crumpled without knowledge of time.
    Gradually she came to an understanding that was inescapable.She must face him and live with whatever followed. There was no other course which was tolerable.
    “Come in.”
    She pushed the door open firmly and entered. She was shaking, and there was no strength in her limbs, but neither was there indecision, that had been resolved and there was no thought of escape now.
    Kristian was sitting at his desk. He rose as soon as he saw her, a smile of pleasure on his face in spite of very obvious tiredness. Was that the sleeplessness of guilt? She swallowed, and her breath caught in her throat, almost choking her.
    “Callandra? Are you all right?” He pulled out the other chair for her and held it while she sat down. She had intended to stand, but found herself accepting, perhaps because it put off the moment fractionally.
    “No.” She launched into the attack without prevarication as he returned to his own seat. “I am extremely worried, and I have decided to consult you about it at last. I cannot