The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry [52]
Hester looked at him with intense dislike.
“If you are going to Edinburgh to see the Farralines, they are hardly likely to tell you anything other than that they employed me to accompany Mrs. Farraline to London, to give her her medicine night and morning, and see that she was comfortable. And I failed them most dismally. I don’t know what else you would expect them to say?”
“Self-pity doesn’t become you any better than it does most people,” he said sharply. “And we haven’t time.”
She glared at him with loathing.
He smiled back, a twisting of the lips, but still relieved that she was angry enough to fight—not that he wished her to perceive that. “Of course they will say that,” he agreed. “I will ask them a great many questions.” He was formulating his plan as he spoke. “Because I shall tell them that I have come on behalf of the prosecution and wish to make sure of everything in order to have an unanswerable case. I shall pursue every detail of your stay there.”
“I was only there a day,” she said.
He ignored her. “Then in the course of so doing, I shall learn everything else I can about them. One of them murdered her. In some way, however slight, they will betray themselves.” He said it with more certainty than he felt, but he must not allow her to know that. The least he could do was protect her from the bitterest of the truth, the odds against success. He wished desperately he could do more. It was appalling to be helpless when it mattered so intensely.
The anger drained out of her as suddenly as if someone had turned out a light. Fear overtook everything else.
“Will you?” Her voice shook.
Without thinking he reached forward and took her hand, holding it tightly.
“Yes I will. I doubt it will be easy, or quick, but I will do it.” He stopped. They knew each other too well. He saw in her eyes what she was thinking, remembering—that other case they had solved together, finding the truth at last, too late—when the wrong man had been tried and hanged. “I will, Hester,” he said with passion. “I’ll find the truth, whatever it costs, and whoever I have to break to get it.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away suddenly. For a moment she was so frightened she could hardly control herself.
He gritted his teeth.
Why was she so stupidly independent? Why could she not weep like other women? Then he could have held her, offered some kind of comfort—which would have been meaningless. And he would have hated it. He could not bear the way she was, and yet for her to change would have been even worse.
And he hated the fact that he could not dismiss it and walk away. It was not simply another case. It was Hester—and the thought of failure was unendurable.
“Tell me about them,” he commanded gruffly. “Who are the Farralines? What did you think of them? What were your impressions?”
She turned and looked at him with surprise. Then slowly she mastered her emotions and replied.
“The eldest son is Alastair. He is the Procurator Fiscal—”
He cut across her. “I don’t want facts. I can find them for myself, woman. I want your feelings about the man. Was he happy or miserable? Was he worried? Did he love his mother or hate her? Was he afraid of her? Was she a possessive woman, overprotective, critical, domineering? Tell me something!”
She smiled wanly.
“She seemed generous and very normal to me….”
“She’s been murdered, Hester. People don’t commit murder without a reason even if it is a bad one. Somebody either hated her or was afraid of her. Why? Tell me more about her. And don’t tell me what a charming person she was. People sometimes murder young women because they are too charming, but not old ones.”
Hester’s smile grew a little wider.
“Don’t you think I’ve lain here trying to think why anyone would kill her? Alastair did seem a little anxious, but that could have been over anything. As I said, he is the Procurator Fiscal….”
“What is a Procurator Fiscal?” This was not a time to stand on his pride and blunder on in ignorance.
“Something