Acceptable Loss - Anne Perry [81]
“Winchester,” he introduced himself. “Sit down.” He gestured toward a well-worn, comfortable-looking leather chair. He himself half sat on the edge of the desk.
“Tell me your evidence,” he invited.
Monk detailed it meticulously, and only what he could prove.
“Good,” Winchester said, pursing his lips. “I can see that you’re remembering the last time you faced Oliver Rathbone, and got mauled.” He said it without apology, a rueful amusement in his eyes. “We need to do better this time.”
“I intend to,” Monk assured him. He told him detail by detail how he had copied Ballinger’s trip up to Mortlake, exactly as he had sworn to, leaving time to kill Parfitt, and then back again.
Winchester did not laugh, but his eyes betrayed that inside he was highly amused.
“Ballinger was an excellent oarsman in his youth,” Monk went on. “But of course you will need to find testimony that he is still perfectly capable of rowing the distances now, and of climbing up the rope ladder at the side of Parfitt’s boat.”
“Thank you,” Winchester said wryly. “I had thought of that.”
Monk did not apologize.
“And I have a great deal of evidence as to exactly what trade Parfitt carried on,” Monk added. He recounted that as well, hating the words, even more the pictures they conjured in his mind.
Now all the light was gone from Winchester’s face, and he looked almost bruised. His anger was palpable. “I’ll call whoever I believe may help the case,” he said grimly. “I cannot promise to spare anyone. I hope you haven’t made any guarantees, because I will not keep them.”
“I haven’t.”
“Not to your wife? Or Margaret Rathbone?”
“Not to anyone.”
“Cardew? Are you prepared to crucify Cardew, if it’s unavoidable?”
Wordlessly Monk passed him a copy of the list of names Rupert had given him, including Tadley, with a note of his suicide.
Winchester read it, his mouth pulled tight and crooked with revulsion. “Thank you. That cannot have been easy.”
“I don’t intend to spare anyone either,” Monk told him.
“For the love of heaven, take good care of Hattie Benson!” Winchester said grimly. “She is the one thing preventing them from blaming it all on Cardew. The only question I have to ask you is, are you certain in your own mind that it was Ballinger? Could it not have been a business rivalry—pure greed on the part of Tosh Wilkin, for example? He’s a particularly nasty piece of work. All Rathbone has to do is raise a reasonable doubt.”
Monk realized that Winchester was watching him extremely closely. Memory rose up in him, hot and powerful, of having lost the trial against Jericho Phillips, and how ashamed he had been, how naked he had felt as the entire courtroom had stared at him and his failure, his mistakes.
“No, I’m not certain,” he said. “I believe it was Ballinger, because Sullivan said so before he died. It had to be someone of Ballinger’s social standing to see the weakness of men like Sullivan, pander to it, and feed it until it was out of control, and then blackmail them for it. Tosh Wilkin hasn’t the imagination or the connections to do that. And if he were the one taking the blackmail money, I don’t believe he would have the self-control not to spend it. And that he hasn’t done.”
“But could he have killed Parfitt, on Ballinger’s instructions?” Winchester insisted.
“He could have. I don’t believe Ballinger, a master at blackmail, would give such power over himself into the hands of a man like Tosh, who would certainly use it.”
Winchester’s long fingers touched the list that Monk had given him. “What about someone on this list? They would have much to gain if Parfitt were dead. The end of paying blackmail has been motive for more than one murder. The jury wouldn’t have much difficulty believing that. Reasonable doubt—more than reasonable.”
“You don’t bite the hand that feeds your addiction,” Monk replied. “Then you have to find a new supplier, and where would you do that?