William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

grow ’em, wot kind o’ soil they liked, that sort o’ thing, ’cos she used ter talk about it sometimes. Wot month they was out, an’ the like. Don’ get no flowers round ’ere. She used ter stand on the pier sometimes an’ look over the water, like mebbe she were from south o’ the river.” She shrugged. “Could a’ bin just ter be by ’erself, like; think a bit. Dream as yer could get on one o’ them boats an’ go somewhere. I think that, sometimes.”
    Again Hester waited before she broke the moment.
    Gladys looked up at her and smiled a little self-consciously. “Daft, eh?”
    “No,” Hester replied. “We all need to dream of things, now and then. Who else knew her? What was Dr. Lambourn like? Did she ever talk about him?”
    “No. But then I reckoned as she knew ’e were worth keepin’ for ’erself, like. Couldn’t share nothin’. Weren’t enough to go round.”
    “Jealous?” Hester said quickly.
    “Course we was, but Gawd, we wouldn’t do that ter nobody! Wot the bleedin’ ’ell d’yer think we are?” Gladys was indignant, even hurt.
    “I didn’t think so,” Hester retracted. She really did not know what to ask next. Since finding Gladys and talking to her, she began to believe that perhaps Dinah had lost her sanity, temporarily, and maybe it was she, after all, who had ripped Zenia apart. Could an otherwise normal woman feel so betrayed that she would indulge the darkest, bloodiest side of her nature? Had the wounds been so deep—failure, self-disgust, hatred—that they drove her beyond sanity?
    It no longer seemed unimaginable.
    She changed the subject. “The shopkeeper said Mrs. Lambourn came to Limehouse looking for opium. Dr. Lambourn did, too, didn’t he? Asking questions, I mean.”
    “I ’eard. ’E never asked me, but ’ow would I know anything?”
    “Did you meet him?”
    “Yeah, couple o’ times. I told yer, ’e were askin’ all sorts o’ things o’ people.”
    “About opium?”
    “Yeah. ’E wanted ter find Agony.”
    Hester was taken aback. “What?”
    “Agony Nisbet. Least I reckon ’er name is really Agatha, or summink like that, but everyone calls ’er Agony, ’cos she ’elps folks wot got real terrible pain.”
    “With opium?” Hester said quickly.
    “O’ course. You know anything else wot’ll ’elp when pain is that bad?”
    “No,” Hester admitted, “I don’t. Did he find her?”
    “Dunno. S’pose, ’cos ’e didn’t come back lookin’.”
    “What was he like?” She asked more from curiosity than because she thought it would help. And she was not sure what she was trying to gain anymore; she had begun with the idea of finding some explanation for Zenia Gadney’s murder that would prove Dinah innocent. Now her own emotions were disturbed to the depth where she could imagine getting lost in a madness of grief, where acts of violence might be quite possible, and she was no longer certain there
was
another explanation to find.
    Could she take that back to Monk, and to Rathbone? Would that be surrender, or just realism?
    Gladys gave the characteristic lift of one shoulder again. “Not like I’d ’ave thought,” she said with surprise still lingering in her face. “ ’E were soft-spoken, real gentle. ’E treated me like I were … someone instead of no one. I guess yer can’t always tell about folks, can yer?”
    Hester remained a little longer, but Gladys did not know anything more except the places where Hester might begin to look for “Agony” Nisbet. So she thanked her and left.
    S HE SPOKE TO SEVERAL other people in Copenhagen Place, including the shopkeeper that Monk had visited, and heard his account of Dinah’s visit, which added nothing new to what they already knew.
    Then she went out into the cold, gusty thoroughfare. As the eaves dripped on her and people jostled her on the wet footpath, she tried to put herself in Dinah’s shoes. Apparently Dinah had known for years that her husband had visited Zenia Gadney, and paid her. What had happened that had changed her from a compliant wife, tolerating the fact, even agreeing to it, into a woman who had lost all hold on humanity?
    If Hester had discovered something like that about Monk, it would have defiled her love for him. But would it have destroyed her own values of compassion and honor?
    She might have been hurt beyond bearing. She might have wept herself exhausted, unable to eat or sleep, but if her despair had been complete she would have taken