William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

her loyalty to Lambourn by his own inner need to believe in the existence of such a love: deeper than her need for her own survival, deeper even than the evidence. Even Lambourn’s betrayal of her with another woman and his own apparent suicide had not shaken Dinah’s devotion.
    He lay awake, alone in his silent bedroom, and came no closer to an answer. The sky was paling in the east, and the light came through the crack in the curtains where he had not closed them properly. It was going to be one of those bright winter days that made the coming of Christmas even more charming, more festive. Soon it would be the shortest day. People were collecting wreaths of holly and ivy and garlanding doors with ribbons. There would be carol singers in the street.
    Out in the garden, the very last chrysanthemums were shaggy and drooping, some touched with frost. There was a smell of damp leaves and blue woodsmoke, all the beauty that awoke an awareness of the passing of time and the inability to hold on to even the most precious of things.
    This Christmas he would be alone.
    Could he even save Dinah? His professional brilliance was the one thing he had believed he could cling to: safe, beyond the ability of even Margaret to take away. Now that too seemed less certain.
    If Dinah was innocent, then who was guilty?
    Who on earth could he turn to as a witness?
    Was it even conceivable that Lambourn’s death and the murder of Zenia were not connected, just two terrible events that afflicted the same family within the space of two months? Was he looking for a pattern that was not there?
    If that was true, then Dinah was innocent and Zenia Gadney was the victim of some random lunatic they might never find. Certainly he would not find even the proof of his existence in the next few days. Today was Sunday. He knew that Pendock would want to put the case to the jury before Christmas, which was at the weekend. Otherwise it would have to be carried over to the following week. The jury would hate that, and blame him for it.
    He felt the weight of despair as if he were drowning, sinking as the water closed over his head and he could not draw breath. It was absurd. He was lying rigid in his own bed, staring up at the broadening light across the ceiling. His health was exactly the same as always. It was disillusion that weighed him down. He wanted Dinah to be innocent, to be sane, brave, and loyal, and to love Joel Lambourn—even though he was dead—more than she loved herself.
    It was at that moment that he made up his mind to go and see Amity Herne, and somehow gain from her a stronger understanding of Lambourn, and his complicated relationships. He might learn things he did not want to, but it was too late now to balk at any truth, if it proved Dinah’s guilt. There was no time left to flatter his own wishes.
    S UNDAY LUNCHEON WAS A most unseemly time to call upon anyone, especially uninvited, but circumstances left no choice. Moreover, Rathbone admitted to himself, he really did not care how inconvenienced or offended Amity and her husband might be.
    He dressed with conservative elegance, as if he had just come from church, although he had not. This morning he would have found theritual assurance of it, and the rather pompous certainty of the minister, anything but soothing. He needed to think, to plan, to face the ugliest and worst of possibilities.
    At half-past twelve he was on Barclay Herne’s doorstep. A few moments later, the butler somewhat reluctantly showed him into the morning room and asked him to wait while he informed his master that Sir Oliver Rathbone had called.
    Actually it was Amity Herne that Rathbone wished to see, but he would take the opportunity to speak with both of them. If it could be arranged, he would like to observe their reaction to each other. He had wondered if it was possible Amity was being influenced by Barclay and by his ambition, to distance herself from Lambourn. Rathbone was perfectly willing to put every emotional pressure on her that he could in order to learn anything that would change the jury’s perception of Dinah, even long enough to stretch out the trial beyond Christmas and give Monk a chance to find something more.
    As the thoughts went through his head, he moved restlessly in the rather pretentious morning room. Its shelves held matching leather-bound books and there was a large, flattering painting over the fireplace of Amity, about twenty years younger, with blemishless face and