William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

intense emotion and he stared at Rathbone unblinkingly. “But I have to keep this power. There is so much still to be done, not just about pollution, but slum clearances, child labor …” His eyes were brilliant, feverish, watching Rathbone’s every flicker of expression. “What can you do, Oliver, with all your brilliant arguments in court? Can you move those men one inch from their comfort and their power?”
    Rathbone did not bother to reply—the question was rhetorical. They both knew he could do nothing.
    “I can,” Ballinger went on. “But I knew that Monk would never let it go. He believed I was behind Jericho Phillips, and he was determined to get me hanged. Parfitt’s death, in the same trade, would draw him like a magnet. If he hanged Rupert Cardew for it, wrongly, it would finish him in the police forever.”
    “God almighty!” Rathbone swore incredulously. “It was to get Monk?”
    “No, you fool!” Ballinger snarled with sudden savagery. “It was to save me. Monk is like a rat: he would never let go. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life looking backwards over my shoulder to see what new plan he has to ruin me.”
    “And poor Hattie was going to testify that she stole Cardew’s cravat and gave it to … whom? Someone of yours?”
    “Tosh Wilkin, if it matters.”
    “No, not really.” Rathbone knew the moment he said it that Tosh would not have the photographs.
    “Find a way, Rathbone,” Ballinger said between his teeth. “You have too much to lose if you don’t.”
    Rathbone did not move. His limbs felt heavy, his chest as if there were a tight band around it.
    “Don’t stand there like a damn footman,” Ballinger said with a sudden blaze of fury. “You haven’t got time to waste!”
    Wordlessly Rathbone turned and banged on the door to be released.
    H ESTER HAD COME HOME from the clinic a little earlier than usual, but Monk was barely through the door when Rathbone arrived at Paradise Place. He looked so ashen, Hester was frightened for him. His hollow eyes and the dragging lines of his face made it clear that he was almost at the end of his strength. She offered him tea immediately, and went to put the kettle on without waiting for his answer. Also without asking him, she put in a stiff dash of brandy.
    When she returned with it already poured out in a large kitchen mug, Rathbone was sitting next to the fire in Monk’s usual seat, and he was still shivering. Monk sat on a hard-backed chair.
    Hester put the tray down on the table between them, with Rathbone’s mug nearest to him, and then she looked at Monk. His face was pale too, and the lines in it were more than those of tiredness.
    Monk gestured to her chair, opposite Rathbone, and she sat obediently.
    “Ballinger has photographs,” Monk said simply. “They’re with somebody who’ll make them public if Ballinger is hanged. We don’t know who’s in them, but what they’re doing is obvious. Ballinger said they’re all kinds of people: in government, judiciary, business, even the royal household. He blackmails them, not for money but for power, to bring about the reforms he believes are just. At least that’s what he told Rathbone. Any of that might be true, or might be lies, but we can’t afford to take the risk.”
    “He wants me to mount an appeal.” Rathbone looked at her. “That’s the condition for his silence. But I can’t. There are no grounds.”
    For a moment Hester was stunned. It was monstrous. Then the more she thought of it, the more it made sense. It might all be true. It would be a passionate and almost understandable reason for all he had done. She could see the temptation. If she had had such power to use in the reform of nursing, she would have played with the idea, and please God, discarded it, but perhaps not? But, then, it could also be a brilliant way of defending himself, because they could not afford to ignore him.
    “I’m surprised he trusted someone else with the pictures. How do you know they are all together, with one person?” Hester asked.
    Rathbone stared at her, horror in his face.
    “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But I wouldn’t give everything to one person, would you?”
    “Oh, God!” he said in utter wretchedness. There was no hope in his voice.
    “You are certain that Ballinger killed Parfitt? It was not one of Parfitt’s other victims who did it?” Monk asked.
    “Oh, yes. He told me as much.” A painfully bitter smile touched