The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry [160]
“Oh, beyond Inverness, I think,” Oonagh replied absently. “It is really very far north indeed. Saint Colmac, Port of Saint Colmac, or something like that. Really, it is all rather absurd; the amount cannot be more than a few pounds a year. Hardly worth anyone’s life!”
“People have been killed over a hand of cards,” Monk said bitterly, then as Hester glanced towards him, suddenly wondered how he knew that. He was not conscious of knowing, and yet he had spoken with certainty. It was another of those little jolts of knowledge that returned every so often, utterly without warning and with no surrounding recollection.
“I suppose so.” Oonagh’s voice was little more than a whisper. She looked towards the window. “I shall find the precise address for you, if that is what you wish. Perhaps you would dine with us this evening, and I shall have it for you then?”
“Thank you,” Monk replied, then suddenly was uncertain whether Hester had been included or not.
“Thank you,” Hester accepted, before the question could be answered by anyone else. “That would be most generous of you, especially in the circumstances.”
Oonagh drew in her breath, then decided against arguing, and smiled instead.
It was dismissal, and Monk and Hester were in the hall, waiting for the sepulchral McTeer to let them out, when Eilish came hurrying after them, grasping Monk by the arm, hardly seeming to see Hester.
“Mr. Monk! It wasn’t Baird. He would never have hurt Mother, whatever anyone thinks. He doesn’t even care all that much about money. There has to be another explanation for all this.”
Monk felt acutely sorry for her. He knew only too well the bitterness of disillusion, the moment when one realizes that the man or the woman that one has loved intensely is after all not merely imperfect but flawed, and in a way that is ugly, shallow and alien. It is not that he or she has supped, and needs forgiving, but never was the person one thought. The whole relationship was a mirage, a lie, unwitting perhaps, but still a lie.
“Have you asked him?” he said gently.
She looked very white. “Yes. He simply says that he did not steal anything but it is a subject he cannot speak of. I … I believe him, of course, but I don’t know what to make of it. Why would he not speak of it, when Quinlan accuses him of something so terrible? What is worth pursuing now, when his”—she gulped—“his life may be at stake?”
The only answer that came to Monk’s mind was that it could be some secret even uglier than the accusation, or one that substantiated it. He did not say so to her.
“I don’t know, but I promise you I shall do all I can to find out. And if Baird is innocent then he will be proved so.”
“Kenneth?” she whispered. “I can’t bear to believe that either.”
Hester said nothing, although Monk knew she was aching to speak. Perhaps for once she also could think of no words that would not make it worse.
McTeer appeared, his face set in lines of imminent disaster, and immediately Eilish stepped back and began a formal good-bye.
Monk responded appropriately, and turned to leave, only to find Hester speaking to Eilish with total disregard for McTeer. He could not hear what she was saying, her voice was so low, but Eilish gave her a look of intense gratitude, and then a moment later they were out in the street.
“What did you say to her?” he demanded. “There is no point giving her any hope. It may very well have been McIvor.”
“Why?” she said crisply, her chin coming up. “What on earth would he do such a thing for? He liked Mary, and the rent of one croft is hardly worth killing anyone for.”
He gave up in exasperation and began walking briskly back towards Princes Street and the route to the jeweler’s. She was too naive to understand, and too willful to be told.
That night at dinner, Monk arrived in his usual immaculate dress, and Hester came looking, in his opinion, a complete fright, having nothing with her other than the gray-blue dress in which she had stood trial. They were armed with information