William Monk 19 - Blind Justice

all yer ’igh and mighty airs, yer just a bleedin’ snitch.”
    She pushed past him and went as quickly as she could toward the wide-open doors at the far end of the hall.
    Scuff stood staring after her, not sure now what to do with the piece of information he had. It would hurt Sir Oliver if he knew that, yet how safe were you if you didn’t even know who your enemies were, especially if they weren’t who you expected?
    And if he told Monk or Hester, he would also have to tell them how he knew. Well, that was a bitter medicine he would just have to swallow.
    He made his way to where Margaret had gone out through the big doors onto the steps, then down into the busy street. He had enough money to get an omnibus. He would probably have the best part of an hour in which to make up his mind how he was going to explain himself when he got home.

CHAPTER
15
    M ONK WAS BACK IN his home just before midday, sitting at the kitchen table with Hester, a pot of tea between them and a crusty loaf of bread with butter and crumbly Wensleydale cheese, and of course homemade chutney. Hester had discovered, to her surprise, that she was rather good at making it.
    Monk had told Hester about the commissioner’s warning. He would much rather not have, but if she did not know, it was much more likely that she might make some slip that would eventually get back to the commissioner. Then Monk might be dismissed, or at the very least, severely reprimanded. Possibly Byrne’s warning had not so much meant “don’t do it” as “do it discreetly enough that I can pretend I don’t know about it.”
    “We’ve got to find out something,” she said urgently. “Oliver doesn’t have a chance without it.”
    Monk looked bleak. “I’m not sure he has a chance, even if we do,” he warned her, his face filled with unhappiness.
    She knew he was trying to help soften the blow of defeat, if it came, but she did not want to hear that. She was being childish, and Monk was allowing her to be.
    “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s time I grew up, isn’t it? You don’t have to think how to protect me. I know Oliver was wrong, even if he did it for the right reasons.”
    He reached across the table and put his hand over hers gently.
    “I still think there’s got to be something we can do. Have you been able to get permission to enter Taft’s house?” she went on quickly, in case he got the idea that she was giving up gracefully.
    “I’m trying, but I have to be pretty devious about it.” He smiled slightly in spite of himself. “We don’t even know who our enemies are in this, Hester. There are some very important people looking to convict Rathbone because they need to show that you can’t expose people the way he’s done with the photograph of Drew. And it’s not only that, it’s what else Rathbone could do. If you go out hunting something really dangerous, you either kill it with your first blow or you run like hell without firing, because you know that if you give it the chance to fight back, it would finish you. They see Oliver as that dangerous animal, and they just want to feel safe again.”
    She felt the cold ripple through her as if no heat could ever quite get rid of it. “So what are we going to do?” Her voice wavered a little. “Sit here paralyzed? Isn’t that just what they want?”
    He pulled a face of disgust, but it vanished after an instant. “Yes, but we don’t know who else is drawn into this.” He lifted his shoulders a fraction; it was barely a movement at all. “Not Byrne, I don’t think, but what if he has a brother in one of the photos? Or his favorite sister’s husband? Or his father, or son … people do terrible things when they’re afraid.”
    “Or they do nothing at all,” Hester said very quietly. “And they let innocent people go to the wall.”
    “Oliver
isn’t
innocent,” he said gently, watching her face to see howdeeply he had cut into her emotions, her intense and at times unreasoning loyalty.
    She knew that.
    “He is guilty of being stupid! I’ve done lots of stupid things, and I didn’t have to pay for all of them like this. It shouldn’t be so easy to punish people when you know you’ve deserved worse yourself.”
    He took her hand gently. “I love you.”
    She smiled at him.
    “That doesn’t make you right about this,” he added.
    In spite of herself, in spite of the twisting sense of fear inside her, she laughed. “I know.”
    He stood up. “I’m