William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

eat when he wanted it. She must watch to make certain it did not extend to more than bread—for example, the cold pie put aside for tonight’s supper.
    “Good idea,” she said casually. “I’ll have a piece too. Would you like a cup of tea with it? I would.” She walked past him to fill the kettle and put it on the cooktop.
    He swallowed. She heard the gulp.
    “Yeah,” he said casually. “Shall I cut it for yer?”
    “Yes, please. But I’ll have a little less jam, if you don’t mind.” She did not turn to watch him do it, but concentrated on the task of making tea.
    “Where yer bin?” he asked, elaborately unconcerned. She heard the sawing of the knife on the crust of the bread.
    She knew he was thinking about Mickey Parfitt. Monk had told him elements of the truth; the details did not matter.
    “To see Lord Cardew,” she replied, putting the blue and white teapot on the edge of the stove to warm. “I’m afraid I let my feelings run away with me, and I offered to help him do something for Rupert.” Now she turned to look at him, needing to know how he felt about it. She saw a wince of fear in his face, then the immediate hiding of it. Was he afraid for her, of losing the new, precious safety he had?
    “ ’Ow could we ’elp ’im, if ’e done Mickey Parfitt?” he asked, his eyes fixed on hers. “They’ll ’ang ’im, never mind as Parfitt should a bin chucked in the river the day ’e were born.”
    “Well, there must have been lots of people who would like to see Parfitt dead,” Hester began. “It is just possible it wasn’t Rupert who actually killed him. But even if he did do it, there might have been something that made it not as bad as straight murder.”
    “Like wot?” Scuff was balancing the bread in his hands, ready to cut more when he was free to concentrate on it.
    “I’m not quite sure,” she admitted. “Self-defense is one. And sometimes it’s an accident, maybe a real accident, or maybe you’re partly to blame because you were being very careless, not so much that you didn’t mean to kill anyone so much as you just didn’t care.”
    He looked at her, biting his lips anxiously. “ ’E could a done that? I mean, killed ’im by accident, like?”
    “No,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. Actually, his father said that he claimed he didn’t do it at all. And lots of people must have hated Parfitt.”
    “D’yer believe ’im, then?”
    “I don’t know. His father said he has behaved pretty badly in the past, but not as badly as that. I need to know more about him, perhaps things his father doesn’t know about because Rupert was too ashamed to say. I’ll be out for quite a while, I think.”
    “ ’Oo are ye gonna ask, then? Other toffs, an’ the like? Will ’is friends tell yer? I wouldn’t tell on a friend, specially not to a copper’s wife.” Then he realized that was silly. “ ’Ceptin’ I don’t s’pose you’ll tell ’em ’oo yer are.”
    She smiled, taking the now steaming kettle off the stove and warming the teapot before putting the leaves in. “Of course not. I’m going to the clinic first to ask a few questions of the women we’ve got in at the moment. There, at least, I have something of an advantage. Then tomorrow I’ll move a little farther afield.”
    He nodded. “Yer think as mebbe ’e done a good thing, killin’ Mickey Parfitt, an’ all?”
    “I wouldn’t push it quite that far,” she said cautiously. “But not totally bad.”
    “Ye’re right.” Scuff nodded again, more vehemently. “We gotter chip in. Yer gonna make that tea? It’s steamin’ its ’ead off. An’ there’s more jam.”
    W HEN H ESTER ARRIVED AT the clinic, she began by going over the books with Squeaky Robinson.
    “We’re doing well,” he said with considerable satisfaction. He pointed to the place on the page where the final tally was. Even his lugubrious nature could not but be pleased by it. “And we don’t need much,” he added. “Just new plates as they got broke. We’ve got sheets, even spare nightshirts, towels. Got medicines—laudanum, quinine, brandy, all sorts.”
    Hester avoided his eyes. “I know. It’s excellent.”
    “What are you going to do, then?” he asked.
    She thought of pretending that she did not know what he meant. “Use it wisely,” she replied.
    “Yeah, you better,” he agreed. “In’t no more where that come from. Poor bastard’s gonna hang, by all accounts. ’Less, of course,