William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

the benches; the kettle was simmering gently just off the top of the stove. Dried herbs hung from hooks on the ceiling, as well as a couple of strings of onions. Blue-rimmed china lay waiting to be put away on the dresser.
    Monk was sitting at the kitchen table and rose as soon as he saw Rathbone. He was eating a bowl of porridge and milk, which was presumably why it had been Hester who had answered the door.
    Rathbone suddenly realized he had not eaten this morning and was extremely hungry.
    Hester saw him glance at Monk’s plate. Without asking, she ladled him a bowl of porridge as well and set a place for him at the other side of the table. She did not ask if he wanted tea, but simply poured it.
    “Well?” Monk demanded, his own food forgotten until he knew if Rathbone had accepted the case.
    Rathbone gave a tight little laugh and met Monk’s cool gray eyes. He sat down opposite him. “If I hadn’t taken it I would have sent you a message at Wapping, and perhaps one here as well,” he said ruefully. “But I’m going to need your help.”
    “I’m not sure what I can do.” In spite of his words, Monk looked pleased.
    “Well, to begin with …” Rathbone paused and took a tiny sip of his tea. It was a little too hot to drink, but the fragrance of it soothed him. Hester was right; it had been cold on the river. He had not appreciated it at the time; He had been too eager to get to Monk. “Is there anything you can swear to that can help? What else could there be about Zenia that would mark her out as a victim?”
    Monk thought for several moments before he replied. “I suppose the fact that she had never had any other clients but Lambourn, as far as anyone knows, would leave her in a very awkward position, in trying to seek out new business,” he said slowly.
    “She was in her mid-forties, at least,” Rathbone added, pouring milk on his porridge and taking the first spoonful.
    Monk looked surprised. “How do you know?”
    “Dinah said so.”
    Monk’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Did Lambourn tell her that?”
    Rathbone felt a needle prick of anxiety. “Wasn’t she?”
    “Yes, she was, but how did Dinah know? She claims never to have met her,” Monk pointed out.
    “Then I suppose Lambourn did tell her. Seems an odd thing for them to have discussed.”
    Hester was watching him. “You don’t know whether to believe her or not, do you?”
    “No, I don’t,” he agreed. “I have a very strong feeling she’s lying about something, if not in fact then in omission. I just don’t think I believe she killed and gutted that poor woman.”
    “Well, Lambourn didn’t,” Monk said. “By the time she was killed he was long dead, poor soul.”
    “If Lambourn couldn’t have, and Dinah didn’t, who did?” Rathbone asked. “Is it really just a ghastly coincidence that she ran into some murderous madman just at the time that Dinah came looking for her?”
    “Did she admit to looking for her?” Monk asked.
    “No. But you told me she’d been identified.”
    “Only roughly. A woman answering her description,” Monk corrected him. “Tall, dark hair, well-spoken, but beside herself with rage or panic or opium—whatever it was, it made her behave hysterically.”
    “Opium makes people dazed, slow, and clumsy,” Hester put in, “but not violent. They’re more likely to fall asleep than attack you.”
    Rathbone was puzzled. “Dinah says someone in the government may have killed both Lambourn and Zenia Gadney,” he said, “in order to discredit Lambourn’s report, and then to have Dinah charged with murder and hanged, so the whole subject could never be raised again.” He turned from Monk to Hester and back again. “Is that possible, in your opinion?”
    “Yes,” Hester said at the same instant as Monk said, “No.”
    “Perhaps possible,” Monk corrected himself. “At least that someone
could
do it, but it wouldn’t work, and anyone but a fool would know that. It would bury Lambourn’s report, certainly, but not the Pharmacy Act in total. It would delay it, that’s all.”
    “That’s what I thought,” Rathbone agreed. He bit his lip. “Which leaves me where I was before; Zenia may have been clumsy and vulnerable because she was out of practice at finding business, and also poor in judgment as to who was dangerous and who was as safe.” He looked at Monk. “Is there any part of Dinah’s story that can be proved?”
    “Nothing I can think of that would make a difference to