Twisted Root - Anne Perry [50]
Mrs. Whitbread left at a quarter to five. Robb was nowhere to be seen. As Monk followed her at a discreet distance, he felt his weariness suddenly vanish, his senses become keen and a bubble of hope form inside him.
They had not gone far, perhaps a mile and a quarter, before Mrs. Whitbread, a thin, spare woman with a gentle face, turned in at a small house on Kemplay Road and opened the front door with a key.
Monk waited a few moments, looking both ways and seeing no one, then he crossed and went to the door. He knocked.
After a minute or two the door was opened cautiously by Mrs. Whitbread. "Yes?"
He had given much consideration to what he was going to say. It was already apparent Miriam did not wish to be found either by the police or by Lucius Stourbridge. If she had trusted Lucius in this matter she would have contacted him long before. Either she was afraid he would betray her to the police or she wanted to protect him.
"Good evening, Mrs. Whitbread," he said firmly. "I have an urgent message from Mrs. Anderson—for Miriam. I need to see her immediately." Cleo Anderson was the one name both women might trust.
She hesitated only a moment, then pulled the door wider.
"You’d better come in," she said quickly. "You never know who’s watching. I had the rozzers ’round where I work just today."
He stepped inside and she closed the door. "I know. It was I who sent them to you. You didn’t tell them anything?"
" ’Course not," she replied, giving him a withering look. "Wouldn’t trust them an inch. Can’t afford to."
He said nothing, but followed her down the passage and around the corner into the kitchen. Standing at the stove, facing them, eyes wide, was the woman he had come to find. He knew immediately it was Miriam Gardiner. She was just as Lucius had described, barely average height, softly rounded figure, a beautifully proportioned, gentle face but with an underlying strength. At first glance she might have seemed a sweet-natured woman, given to obedience and pleasing those she loved, but there was an innate dignity to her that spoke of something far deeper than mere agreeableness, something untouchable by anything except love. Even in those few moments Monk understood why Lucius Stourbridge was prepared to spend so much heartache searching for her, regardless of the truth of James Treadwell’s death.
"Mrs. Gardiner," he said quietly. "I am not from the police. But nor am I from Mrs. Anderson. I lied about that because I feared you would leave before I could speak to you if you knew I came from Lucius Stourbridge."
She froze, oblivious of the pots on the stove steaming till their lids rattled in the silence that filled the room. Her terror was almost palpable in the air.
Monk was aware of Mrs. Whitbread beside him. He saw the fury in her eyes, her body stiff, lips drawn into a thin line. He was grateful the skillet was on the far wall beyond her reach, or he believed she might well have struck him with it.
"I haven’t come to try to take you back to Bayswater," he said quietly, facing Miriam. "Or to the police. If you would prefer that I did not tell Mr. Stourbridge where you are, then I will not. I shall simply tell him that you are alive and unhurt. He is desperate with fear for you, and that will offer him some comfort, although hardly an explanation."
Miriam stared back, her face almost white, an anguish in it that made him feel guilty for what he was doing, and frightened for what he might discover.
"He does not know what to believe," he said softly. "Except that you could and would do no intentional evil."
She drew in her breath, and her eyes spilled over with tears. She wiped the moisture away impatiently, but it was a moment before she could control herself enough to speak.
"I cannot go back." It was a statement of absolute fact. There was no hope in her voice, no possibility of change.
"I can try to keep the police from you," he replied, as if it were the answer to