William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

and saw their expressions. One man was white, his eyes blinking fiercely, not knowing where to look. Another kept rubbing his face with his hands, as if embarrassed. One man coughed, then blew his nose hard. Others were looking around the room, staring at the judge, fidgeting, breathing rapidly.
    “Sir Oliver!” the judge said sharply, as if he had said it before and Rathbone had not heard him.
    Rathbone rose to his feet. “Yes, my lord?”
    “Are you content that the jury does not need to look at this … material?”
    Rathbone knew he must answer immediately. He must be right. Had the suggestion, the emotional charge in the room, made the pictures seem worse than they really were? Perhaps the reality would be an anticlimax.
    “If I may see them, my lord? And I presume Mr. Winchester will demonstrate to us how he knows beyond doubt that they we taken on the boat belonging to the victim.”
    “Naturally.”
    The judge’s face tightened, but he beckoned the usher over and gave him the packet to pass to Rathbone.
    Rathbone took it and looked at the first two pictures. They were pathetic and obscene beyond anything he had expected, but what had not even occurred to him was the worst of all: He recognized the man in the second one with a shock that brought the sweat out on his body, burning and then cold. Should the jury see it? Would it work in their favor, raise a reasonable doubt as to Ballinger’s guilt, because surely a man who would do this to a child, for pleasure, would stoop to anything at all, even murder?
    But the man in the photo was a public figure. How would the jurors respond to having their illusions so terribly crushed, torn apart, soiled forever? Rathbone could not know.
    “Sir Oliver?” The judge’s voice cut across his racing thoughts.
    “I feel …” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I feel, my lord, that because of the men also depicted here, and the ruin it would bring upon them, and their families, that that is a separate issue, and not one I wish to pursue—at least not here. I would ask only that your lordship would inform the jury that, hideous as they are, none of them, in any way whatsoever, involve Mr. Ballinger.”
    The judge nodded slowly, and turned to the jury. “That indeed is so, gentlemen. And, no doubt, Sir Oliver will reaffirm that when he questions Mr. Monk. Please proceed, Mr. Winchester. I think you have more than adequately established for the jury that Mr. Parfitt was occupied in a trade vile beyond the imagination of a sane man. Although that fact seems to some to serve the defense rather more than the prosecution.”
    Winchester smiled ruefully, as though he had been caught out. “Perhaps I have not served my own interests as well as I hoped.” He gave a very slight shrug. “I am obliged to go where the facts lead me.” He looked up at Monk.
    “Where did you find these photographs, Mr. Monk? Indeed, how do you know they have anything to do with Mr. Parfitt? Is he shown in any of them?”
    “No. It is possible he was behind the camera,” Monk replied. “Wefound that on the boat, but not immediately. It was very carefully concealed in what looked like a piece of nautical equipment.”
    “Would these men be likely to know that they were being photographed?” Winchester asked.
    “Not unless they were told,” Monk answered.
    “Where did you find the photographs that you have shown us?”
    “With the equipment.”
    “I see. And do they depict the inside of the boat you saw?”
    “Yes.”
    “To your knowledge, Mr. Monk, was Mickey Parfitt alone in this ghastly trade?”
    “No,” Monk replied, his mouth tight. “He had at least three men we have been able to question, who worked quite openly for him, but of course there may be many others that we have not found.”
    “Really? What brings you to that conclusion, Mr. Monk?” Winchester continued to look innocent.
    Rathbone felt himself stiffen in his seat. This was what Winchester had been leading up to, and Monk even more so. Rathbone had to make an intense effort to look unconcerned. Any anxiety, confusion, or surprise they saw could be read as guilt.
    The silence of strain in the room was palpable.
    “The photographs,” Monk replied to Winchester.
    “But you said you thought Parfitt took them himself?” Winchester sounded surprised.
    “Probably,” Monk conceded. “But not merely for his own pleasure.”
    “He sold them?” Winchester asked with a gesture of distaste. “I suppose