William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

his one half-decent act, poor devil.”
    “But he blamed you.”
    “So you say. Half-decent, but not entirely.” He reached out his hand toward Rathbone. “But I will not say this in court, Oliver. I must clear my name without destroying Cardew. Possibly no one can save Rupert, but leave his father out of it.”
    “How is his father involved?” Rathbone found the words difficult to say. He knew of Lord Cardew only by repute, for his crusade against industrial pollution. The man had apparently found some means to change Lord Justice Garslake’s mind, heaven knew how! Oliver himself had had only one highly emotional meeting with him, over thedanger against Rupert, but he could not imagine Lord Cardew having anything to do with Parfitt or Phillips, unless he were tricked into it. Monk would have no interest in that.
    “You don’t need to know,” Ballinger said softly. “Leave the man a little dignity, Oliver. And if you can, leave his name out of the court proceedings. You can defend me from this without mentioning Phillips, or Sullivan, or any of the others who were dragged down by him. I did not kill Parfitt, nor do I know who did, or specifically why. The man was human filth and must have had scores of enemies. If you can’t find the one who killed him, at least oblige the jury to know what type of person that would be. Don’t ruin Cardew in the process … please.”
    Rathbone felt as if certainty had crumbled in his hands. He was holding a dozen shards, none of which fitted together to make a comprehensible whole.
    “Perhaps you can do it without destroying anyone else,” Ballinger went on. “But if you can’t save Monk from himself, then you must follow the law, and your own sense of right and wrong. You did not do this to him; he did it to himself.”
    “I’ll do everything I can,” Rathbone said gravely. “As it stands at the moment, I will be able to challenge the prosecutor on just about every point. But of course I shall not stop working until the case is thrown out.”
    Ballinger smiled. “Thank you. I knew you would.”

CHAPTER
10
    I T WAS THE EVENING before Arthur Ballinger’s trial began. Rathbone sat in his armchair before a fire not really necessary yet but vaguely comforting. Margaret sat opposite him playing at a piece of needlework, and unpicking as much of it as she sewed.
    “Who will they call first?” she asked, looking at him intently, her face strained. Tiny lines around her eyes were visible in the light shining sideways from the gas bracket at her left. He had never noticed them in the daylight. He felt an intense pity for her, and longed to be able to give her some comfort, but promises that could not be kept were worse than none at all. After they were broken, she would never be able to trust him again, and he could not rob her of that.
    “Oliver!” she prompted. “Who will they call first?”
    “Probably Monk,” he replied.
    “Why? He didn’t find that wretched man’s body. Why not the policeman who did?”
    “Maybe they’ll call him, but it’s rather tedious and adds nothing to the case. It’s a dangerous thing to bore a jury.”
    “For heaven’s sake! It’s not an entertainment!” she said savagely. “The jury is there to do the most important job of their lives, not to be amused.”
    Rathbone tried not to let any emotion sharpen his voice.
    “They are ordinary people, Margaret. They are frightened of making a mistake, awed that the responsibility is theirs for a decision they have had no training to reach. A man’s life hangs in the balance, and they know it. They will find it difficult to concentrate, almost impossible to remember everything, and if either Winchester or I allow their minds to wander from what we are saying, they will forget half of it. Winchester is no fool, believe me. He will not repeat anything that is irrelevant.”
    “What do you mean, irrelevant?” she demanded. “How can the truth be irrelevant? It is somebody’s life … Are they stupid?” Her voice was growing higher, less within the tight effort of control that she had kept up with difficulty since her father’s arrest.
    He leaned forward a little. “The description of the river where they found Parfitt is not important enough for the jury to hear it from both the local policeman and Monk,” he explained. “It has nothing to do with who Parfitt was, or who killed him. They don’t need it twice. They will cease to listen, and that matters.”
    “What