William Monk 19 - Blind Justice

they won’t take much to Drew, I’m sure.”
    He pulled a very slight grimace. “If you turn over a very large, very wet stone, you are going to find a lot of slugs underneath it, plus a few creeping things with too many legs, that you weren’t prepared for. Are you ready for that?”
    Hester answered him. “Of course not. But if you mean would we prefer to let it go, then, no, we wouldn’t. If we try, at least we have a chance of success.”
    “I dare say they’ll attempt to have him imprisoned, simply to seize his property and try to find the original plates of the pictures,” Brancaster warned.
    “If they’re bent on appearing to remain within the law,” Monk agreed with a bitter smile. “If not, they’ll simply burn the house down. I dare say Rathbone himself thought of that. If not, I’ll make sure his father does.”
    “Would he preserve them?” Brancaster asked dubiously. He knew Henry Rathbone.
    “At least for the time being,” Monk said wryly. “It’s too good a weapon to throw away just yet.”
    “You’d use it?” Brancaster said curiously. “Even after what you’ve seen it do to others?”
    “I don’t know,” Monk admitted. Without Hester or Scuff to think of, if he were still the man he had been before, he would not have hesitated. He had often been ruthless, and it was not easy to admit it now. How much of that man was still left in him, if pushed far enough?
    Brancaster was thinking. From his face it appeared he was anxious. “It isn’t wise for other people to find out that anyone else has access to the photos, or the motive to use them, aside from Oliver,” he warned. “He is tucked behind bars, but if they realize you are equally capable of making those images public, it might drive him into a kind of panic, drive him to something dangerous, badly misjudged. Fear has different effects on people. For the moment, be careful to say nothing.”
    “I will,” Monk agreed grimly. “It is ironic that these men resent Rathbone for going outside the bounds of gentlemanly conduct, when they have done things that are far outside human decency. Why the hell do they think Rathbone should guard their secrets, at the price of other people’s lives?”
    “Because they have no empathy,” Brancaster replied. “No conception at all of how other people feel. They don’t see any further than their own appetites. As I said, we are in for a long battle.”
    “We have to face it,” Hester said quietly. “We can’t let Oliver lose. And”—her whole body tightened—“we can’t let them win either. That would be a step into the darkness.”

CHAPTER
10
    P RISON WAS APPALLING . E VERY night Rathbone sank into sleep as an escape from the noise, the discomfort, the stale smell of the blanket, and, in his imagination, the fidgeting, scurrying, and scratching of whatever skittered across the stone floor.
    He slept badly, unable to relax, most of the time half awake, drifting in and out of dreams. Often he was finally oblivious of his surroundings only just before the sound of boots on the stone jerked him back into reality. There was a moment when he was still mercifully confused, then opening his eyes brought it all back to him: the physical discomfort, the aching in his body, the scratching on his skin, then the memory that there would be no hot shave, just a scraping of his cheeks with soap and cold water from a bucket. There would be no fresh toast, sharp marmalade, hot fragrant tea. There would be porridge and then tea, dark and stewed, acrid. Still, it was better than hunger or thirst.
    Would he have to get used to this? Might it be like this for years? As far ahead as he could see? As a judge he had sentenced men to that. As a lawyer he had pleaded for it, and against it, as he was hired to do, taking whichever side he was offered.
    Did that mean he was without conviction, doing anything he was paid for? Or that he believed in the system? And did this adversarial—almost gladiatorial—system produce justice? The system did not look the same from here. It was frightening, offering no certainty of good to come.
    He sat in the miserable cell with the noise of other men living around him; he was turning the case over in his mind for the thousandth time to no end, when the chief jailer came. He had the keys in his hands.
    “Someone’s paid bail for you, Mr. Rathbone,” he said, his voice expressionless, except to emphasize the “Mr.,” but his eyes were bright and sharp.