William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

comfort in being with someone so quick to grasp the essential facts—and the nuances that might in the end matter even more. There were times when he loathed Hester, but she never bored him, nor had he ever found her trivial or artificial. Indeed, sometimes to quarrel with her gave him more satisfaction than to be agreeable with someone else.
    “No,” he said candidly. “I think she is afraid they may blame a Dr. Beck because he is a foreigner, and it may well be easier than questioning an eminent surgeon or dignitaryWith luck it may turn out to have been another nurse”—his voice was hard-edged with contempt—“or someone equally socially dispensable, but it may not. And there are no men in the hospital who are not eminent in some way, either as doctors, treasurers, chaplains, or even governors.”
    “What does she think I can offer?” Hester frowned, leaning a little against the windowsill. “I know less of the people of the hospital than she does. London is nothing like Scutari! And I was hardly in any hospital here long enough to learn much.” She pulled a rueful face, but he knew the memory of her dismissal still hurt.
    “She wishes you to take a position at the Royal Free.” He saw her expression harden and hurried on. “Which she will obtain for you, possibly even as soon as tomorrow. They will require someone to take Nurse Barrymore’s place. From that position of advantage, you might be able to observe much that would be of use, but you are not to indulge in questioning people.”
    “Why not?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I can hardly learn a great deal if I don’t.”
    “Because you may well end up dead yourself, you fool,” he snapped back. “For Heaven’s sake, use your wits! One outspoken, self-opinionated young woman has already been murdered there. We don’t need a second to prove the point.”
    “Thank you for your concern.” She swung around and stared out of the window, her back to him. “I shall be discreet. I did not say so because I had assumed that you would take it for granted, but apparently you did not. I have no desire to be murdered, or even to be dismissed for inquisitiveness. I am perfectly capable of asking questions in such a way that no one realizes my interest is more than casual and quite natural.”
    “Are you,” he said with heavy disbelief. “Well, I shall not permit you to go unless you give me your word that you will simply observe. Just watch and listen, no more. Do you understand me?”
    “Of course I understand you. You are practically speakingin words of one syllable,” she said scathingly. “I simply do not agree, that is all. And what makes you imagine you can give me orders, I have no idea. I shall do as I think fit. If it pleases you that is good. If it does not, as far as I am concerned that is just as good.”
    “Then don’t come screaming to me for help if you’re attacked,” he said. “And if you are murdered I shall be very sorry, but not very surprised!”
    “You will have the satisfaction, at my funeral, of being able to say that you told me so,” she replied, staring at him with wide eyes.
    “Very little satisfaction,” he retorted, “if you are not there to hear me.”
    She swung away from the window and walked across the room.
    “Oh do stop being so ill-tempered and pessimistic about it. It is I who have to go back and work in the hospital, and obey all the rules and endure their suffocating incompetence and their old-fashioned ideas. All you have to do is listen to what I report and work out who killed Prudence, and of course why.”
    “And prove it,” he added.
    “Oh yes.” She flashed him a sudden brilliant smile. “That at least will be good, won’t it?”
    “It would, it would be very good indeed,” he admitted frankly. It was another of those rare moments of perfect understanding between them, and he savored it with a unique satisfaction.

4
    M
ONK BEGAN
his investigation not in the hospital—where he knew they would still be highly suspicious and defensive, and he might even jeopardize Hester’s opportunities—but by taking the train on the Great Western line to Hanwell, where Prudence Barrymore’s family lived. It was a bright day with a gentle breeze, and it would have been a delightful walk from the station through the fields into the village and along Green Lane toward the point where the river Brent met the Grand Junction Canal, had he not been going to see people whose daughter had just been