William Monk 19 - Blind Justice

action short of violence—a reaction born out of desperation, because the so-called criminal was terrified, exhausted, and at wits’ end. It did not justify murder, but it raised complicated questions of self-defense, where no answer was fair to all.
    Many cases had come to him through Monk, and of course through Hester. Some of those from the time when she was a nurse for private patients had tested him to what he had believed were his limits, showing him tragedies with no simple or just answer. Nature and society between them created Gordian knots impossible to unravel.
    The case of Phillips, which had seemed at the beginning a simple matter of serving the law, had become so entangled in violence and in Rathbone’s own conflicted emotions that even the death of Phillips had been only a brief respite before the continuation of the crimes connected to his life.
    It had ended in the destruction of Arthur Ballinger, and of Rathbone’s marriage. Even that was not as simple as it appeared. For a while Ballinger had seemed to Rathbone an irredeemable man. Then, in that final encounter, he had told Rathbone not only what had happened, but why; he had explained his slow descent from idealism, step by step downward to the conscienceless brutality that marked his character at the end of his life.
    It all made a case of a clergyman embezzling money seem cut-and-dried—the evidence would be complex, full of detail that would need to be explained with great clarity—but essentially, it was a matter of simple greed. He certainly would not attempt to pass the case off to anyone else.
    H ESTER WAS ALSO LOOKING forward to the trial of Abel Taft. She had worked extraordinarily hard to bring it about. It was extra-good news toher that it was Oliver Rathbone who had been appointed to try the case.
    “What a good thing I didn’t say anything to him. I had thought about it, a few weeks ago,” she said as she and Monk walked under the trees in Southwark Park, a mere stone’s throw from their own house. “I suppose that could have compromised him so he wouldn’t have been allowed to hear the case, couldn’t it?”
    “Possibly,” he agreed, smiling in the evening sun. Below them in the distance the light was mirror-bright on the water, making the ships stand out almost black. “Is that why you didn’t tell him? In case he was chosen to hear it?”
    “Not really,” she admitted. “I rather thought he wouldn’t approve.”
    “When on earth has that ever stopped you?” he asked incredulously, turning to look at her with amusement and a sudden surge of affection.
    “Since he was placed in a position to be able to stop me,” she said frankly.
    How very practical. How like her—a mixture of the wildly idealistic and the totally pragmatic. He put his arm around her and walked a little closer.
    “Of course,” he agreed.
    A PPROXIMATELY TWO WEEKS LATER the trial of Abel Taft began. It was a hot, almost windless day in mid-July, and the courtroom of the Old Bailey was uncomfortably warm. Even though the public gallery was not full, the atmosphere seemed airless.
    The proceedings began as usual. The court had been called to order, the jurors were sworn in. As always the gravity of it gave Rathbone a sudden sharpening of his awareness of exactly who he was, and—more importantly—what his responsibilities were toward the people in this old, beautiful, and frightening chamber. Lives had been ripped apart here; dreams shattered, guilt and tragedy exposed, and, please God, justice done.
    He should never forget that sometimes it could be the opposite. Lies had covered truth, oppression had crushed freedom, and violence beyond the walls had reached inside and silenced protest.
    He looked at the participants today. As he already knew, Blair Gavinton represented the accused. He was slender, graying a little. Everything about him was smooth, immaculately tailored. He smiled easily, as if he believed it were charming. To Rathbone, he seemed to have too many teeth. He was sitting very calmly today. The expression suggested that he knew something that the rest of them did not.
    On the other side of the room Dillon Warne represented the prosecution. He was a good height, perhaps an inch or two taller than Gavinton, and his hair was dark. He had an elegance that did not look as if he had struggled to attain it. Indeed he gave one the feeling that he was not even aware that he had a certain grace. Rathbone was always surprised to notice