Acceptable Loss - Anne Perry [119]
He looked specifically at the jury.
“I propose in the next day or so to demonstrate to you the violent and deceitful nature of others involved on the edges of this trade, and how easy it would have been for any of them to have killed Parfitt. I shall show you a score of reasons why they might have, primarily involving greed. As has been amply demonstrated, there is a great deal of money to be made and lost in blackmail. Men’s reputations are destroyed, fortunes ruined, and lives ended. Such circumstances breed murder.”
Hester did not stay to listen. Rathbone would carefully lay all kinds of suggestions that would make the issue even less certain. He would probably not try to prove specifically that Rupert Cardew was guilty, but it might not be difficult to create at least sufficient belief that it was possible, so no jury would convict Ballinger. Then it would all begin again, perhaps only to end in more doubt.
She walked out into the late afternoon, the noise of the street, the traffic, almost another world. She tried not to think what it would mean for Monk if the trial ended in acquittal. Margaret would not forgive him. What would the River Police think? That he had charged the wrong man, or that he had been right and had failed to produce the evidence? Either way he had lost.
She forced herself to remember that it was being right that mattered, not looking right. She needed to know what had happened to Hattie. If Margaret had taken her to the door and suggested she leave, why had Hattie obeyed her? Where had she gone? To whom? Who had known where to find her, and had killed her to keep her from testifying? What would she have said? That Rupert was innocent? Or that he was guilty?
Now they would never know to whom Hattie had given the cravat, if indeed she had ever actually stolen it. Was it possible that Rupert had killed Parfitt after all? Why did that thought hurt? Simply the pain of disillusion? Or the humiliation of being wrong? Or the wrenching pity for his father?
THE FOLLOWING MORNING HESTER was at the clinic early, again asking questions, ascertaining as closely as possible what time Hattie had left. It was a still, heavy day, with rain threatening as she stood outside the door on the street and looked right and left. People were passing, as always. Which of them would do so every morning? Who had regular errands, trips to the baker or the laundry, jobs to go to?
It was too late for the Reid Brewery workers; they would have started hours ago. Factories or shops had been open for a couple of hours at least. Was there a peddler? None that she could see.
She tightened her shawl around her and walked down to Leather Lane and then turned north. A hundred yards away there was a running patterer telling the news in his singsong voice. She interrupted him, to his displeasure, and asked him if he had seen Hattie, describing her as accurately as possible. He knew nothing.
She retraced her steps and went south, almost as far as High Holborn, but no one had seen a young woman answering Hattie’s description.
Discouraged that it was now too many days ago, she went back up to Leather Lane, along Portpool Lane again into the shadow of the brewery and all the way along to Gray’s Inn Road at the other end. She walked north and was almost level with St. Bartholomew’s Church when she saw a peddler selling sandwiches. She stopped and bought one, not because she was hungry but in order to engage him in conversation. It must have been desperately boring standing all day, virtually alone, just exchanging a word or two with strangers, hoping to sell them something, needing to.
She ate the sandwich with pleasure. It was actually very good, and she told him so.
He smiled, gap-toothed, and thanked her.
“I work just down the road.” She indicated with her hand, still clutching the last of the sandwich. “Portpool Lane.”
“I know who you are,” he replied.
She was surprised. “Do you?” She was half convinced he had mistaken her for someone