Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [111]
In the afternoon he used the permission Rathbone had obtained for him and went again to the prison to see Alexandra. Even as he was going in the vast gates and the gray walls towered over him, he had little idea what he could say to her beyond what he or Rathbone had already said, but he had to try at least one more time. It was June 11, and on June 22 the trial was to begin.
Was this history repeating itself—another fruitless attempt with time running out, scrambling for evidence to save a woman from her own acts?
He found her in the same attitude, sitting on the cot, shoulders hunched, staring at the wall but seeing something in her own mind. He wished he knew what it was.
“Mrs. Carlyon …”
The door slammed behind him and they were alone.
She looked up, a slight flicker of surprise over her face as she recognized him. If she had expected anyone, it must have been Rathbone. She was thinner than last time, wearing the same blouse, but the fabric of it pulled tighter, showing the bones of her shoulders. Her face was very pale. She did not speak.
“Mrs. Carlyon, we have only a short time left. It is too late to deal in pleasantries and evasions. Only the truth will serve now.”
“There is only one truth that matters, Mr. Monk,” she said wearily. “And that is that I killed my husband. There are no other truths they will care about. Please don’t pretend otherwise. It is absurd—and doesn’t help.”
He stood still in the middle of the small stone floor, staring down at her.
“They might care why you did it!” he said with a hard edge to his voice, “if you stopped lying about it. You are not mad. There was some reason behind it. Either you had a quarrel there at the top of the stairs, and you lunged at him and pushed him over backwards, and then when he fell you were still so possessed with rage you ran down the stairs after him and as he lay on the floor, tangled in the suit of armor in its pieces, you picked up the halberd and finished him off.” He watched her face and saw her eyes widen and her mouth wince, but she did not look away from him. “Or else you planned it beforehand and led him to the stairs deliberately, intending to push him over. Perhaps you hoped he would break his neck in the fall, and you went down after him to make sure he had. Then when you found he was relatively unhurt, you used the halberd to do what the fall had failed to.”
“You are wrong,” she said flatly. “I didn’t think of it until we were standing at the top of the stairs—oh, I wanted to find a way. I meant to kill him some time, I just hadn’t thought of the stairs until then. And when he stood there at the top, with his back to the banister and that drop behind him, and I knew he would never …” She stopped and the flicker of light which had been in her blue eyes died. She looked away from him.
“I pushed him,” she went on. “And when he went over and hit the armor I thought he was dead. I went down quite slowly. I thought it was the end, all finished. I expected people to come, because of the noise of the armor going over. I was going to say he fell—overbalanced.” Her face showed a momentary surprise. “But no one came. Not even any of the servants, so I suppose no one heard after all. When I looked at him, he was senseless, but he was still alive. His breathing was quite normal.” She sighed and the muscles of her jaw tightened. “So I picked up the halberd and ended it. I knew I would never have a better chance. But you are wrong if you think I planned it. I didn’t—not then or in that way.”
He believed her. He had no doubt that what she said was the truth.
“But why?” he said again. “It wasn’t over Louisa Furnival, or any other woman, was it?”
She stood up and turned her back to him, staring at the tiny single