William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

just beyond his hearing. It was cold, and the air smelled stale. No one had let wind or light inside to disturb the centuries of despair that had settled here.
    This was no place for a man to end his days. Remembering Mickey Parfitt did not help. Rathbone forced himself to think of the children, like Scuff, small, thin, humiliated, and forever afraid. Then he found he could straighten his shoulders and accept the necessity of the situation. Nothing on earth could make him like it.
    The jailer stopped at the cell door, and the sudden jangle of his keys was the first loud noise. He poked one into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door. It swung open inward, with a slight squeak of hinges.
    “There y’are, sir,” he invited.
    Rathbone took a deep breath. This was loathsome. He would not have wished to walk into Ballinger’s bedroom and find him in his nightshirt, half-asleep, expecting privacy, even at the best of times. This was a loss of dignity that was degrading to both of them.
    He stepped in. The light was faint from the single small, barred window high in the opposite wall. It was a moment before he realized that what looked like a heap of bedclothes on the floor was Arthur Ballinger’s body.
    Without even knowing he did it, he let out a cry and stumbled forward onto his knees, grabbing for the flung-out hand. His fingers closed over the flesh, feeling the bones. It was cold.
    “Sweet Jesus!” the jailer said from behind him, his voice shaking. He held the lantern up, whether it was for Rathbone to see, or himself, was unclear.
    The light showed Ballinger in his prison nightshirt, sprawled awkwardly, one leg bent. The back of his head was matted with blood, but from his staring eyes and protruding tongue, it was hideously clear that he had been strangled to death. The bruise marks from hands were darkening on his throat.
    “ ’Ere,” the jailer said. “Yer’d better get up, sir. In’t nothing we can do fer ’im. Best get out of ’ere an’ tell the chief warden. ’E in’t gonna like this.”
    Rathbone was frozen; his legs would not obey him.
    “ ’Ere,” the jailer repeated, suddenly his voice gentle. “Up yer get, sir. Come on, sir, this way.”
    Rathbone felt the man haul at him, taking his weight, and he rose to his feet, trembling.
    “How could this happen?” he asked, still staring at Ballinger.
    “I dunno, sir. There’ll ’ave ter be an inquiry. In’t fer us ter say. We’d better get out of ’ere an’ tell someone. Yer didn’t touch nothin’, did yer?”
    “His … his hand. It’s cold,” Rathbone stammered.
    “Yeah. Must a bin done last night. Come on, sir. We gotta get out of ’ere.”
    Rathbone allowed himself to be led away, stumbling a little, hardly aware of passing through the corridors, crossing a hallway, and being ushered into a warm office. The chair he was put in was soft, and someone brought him a cup of tea. It was hot and too strong, but he was glad of it. He heard footsteps outside, hurrying, anxious voices, but he could catch no words, and for a moment he hardly cared.
    How had this happened? Ballinger was due to be hanged in less than a week. Why would anyone kill him? And how? A jailer had to have helped, colluded. Someone had paid, perhaps a great deal. Surely that was proof that the photographs were real, and all that Ballinger had said of them was true? What fearful irony that all his care to keep his power had actually ended in his own death. Were his secrets dead with him, or simply waiting to be laid bare, one by one? Most likely they would only be guessed at when a trust was betrayed, an inexplicable judgment made, a suicide, a law passed against all expectations.
    How was he going to tell Margaret? How much? He winced as he thought how she would blame him for this too. If he had gained an acquittal, Ballinger would have been at home with his family, safe, and with all the power still in his hands.
    Or perhaps he would have been murdered anyway, just not here?
    And if there had been no danger of an appeal, would he have been left to hang?
    No. If he’d been hanged, then someone had had the instructions to make it all public. He must have been killed by someone who intended either to destroy all the pictures or to use them himself. God, what an unimaginable horror!
    I T WAS WORSE EVEN than Rathbone had expected. When he told her, she stood in the center of the morning room, her face sheet-white, swaying a little on her feet.
    Afraid she