Twisted Root - Anne Perry [87]
"Did you kill Treadwell?" Hester said abruptly.
Cleo hesitated, was about to speak, then changed her mind and said nothing. Hester had the powerful impression that she had been going to deny it, but she would never know, and asking again would be useless. The mask was complete.
"Was he blackmailing you?" she asked instead.
Cleo sighed. "Yeah, ’course he was. Do most things for money, that one."
"I see." There did not seem much else to say. She had resolved without question or doubt that she would do all she could to help Cleo, it was a matter of thinking what that would be. Already, Oliver Rathbone’s name was in her mind.
Cleo grasped her wrist, holding hard, startling her. "Don’t tell the sergeant!" she said fiercely. "It can’t change what he does, and ..."—she blinked, her face bruised with hurt— "and don’t tell old Mr. Robb why I’m not there. Tell him something else ... anything. Perhaps by the time they try me, and ... well, he may not have to know. He could be gone his-self by then."
"I’ll tell him something else," Hester promised. "Probably that you’ve gone to look after a relative or something."
"Thank you." Cleo’s gratitude was so naked, Hester felt guilty. She was on the edge of saying that she intended to do far more, but she had no idea what it could be, and to raise hope she could not fulfill was thoughtlessly cruel.
"I’ll come back with the soap," she promised. "And the spoon." Then she went to the door and banged for the jailer to let her out.
The next thing she did she expected to be the most difficult, and it was certainly the one of which she was most afraid. She felt guilty even as she walked up the steps and in through the hospital door. She returned the stare of two young medical students too directly, as if to deny their suspicion of her. Then she felt ridiculous, and was sure she was blushing. She had done nothing yet. She was no different from the person she had been yesterday or this morning, when she had been perfectly happy to confront Fermin Thorpe in his office and rack her brain to defend Cleo Anderson. Would Callandra in turn have to rack her brain tomorrow to defend her?
And yet she could not escape it. Quite apart from her fondness for John Robb, she had given Cleo the promise. She had tried to form a plan, but so much depended upon opportunity. It was impractical to try stealing Phillips’s keys, and unfair to him. Added to which, he really was extremely careful with them, and might be the more so now.
How long would she have to wait for a crisis of some sort to present a chance, the apothecary’s room open and unattended, or Phillips there but his back turned? She was suddenly furious with herself. She had been alone with Cleo and not had the wits to ask her how she had accomplished it. She had just blithely promised to do the same, without the faintest idea how to go about it. It was very humbling to realize her own stupidity.
She stood in the middle of the passage and was still there when Kristian Beck reached her.
"Hester?" he said with concern. "Are you all right?"
She recalled herself swiftly and began speaking with the idea only half formed in her mind. "I was wondering how Cleo Anderson managed to steal the morphine. Phillips is really very careful. I mean, how do you think it happened, in practical detail?"
He frowned. "Does it matter?"
Why did he ask? Was he indifferent to the thefts? Was he so certain Cleo was guilty that the details did not matter? Or was it even conceivable that he had some sympathy with her?
"I don’t want to prove it," she answered steadily, meeting his eyes with complete candor. "I would like above all things to disprove it, but failing that, at least to understand."
"She is charged with murdering Treadwell,"