Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel Read online

  There was no sound but the birds and the faintest wind occasionally stirring the leaves of the elms. The quiet settled into his bones as heat does, easing out the hurts.

  When Henry woke up he would be delighted to find Oliver here. They would talk of all manner of things, funny and sad, interesting, new, or odd. They always did. Perhaps Henry would have some new jokes. Oliver had a limerick he knew would amuse him. Henry liked dry humor, the more absurd the better. Oliver wanted to talk about what disturbed him most at the moment: the complex moral issues surrounding the idea of loyalty. Henry would advise him without making it personal or emotional, without laying blame. Oliver would speak without having to worry about every word being judged, or misunderstood.

  He looked across at Henry now, still sound asleep. He was well into his seventies. His hair was very gray, his face was getting a little gaunt, but his mind was as strong as ever, except that he repeated himself now and then.

  Oliver never told him so. He received every remark with interest, as if he had not heard it before. Usually he hadn’t.

  But even as he saw the shadows lengthening in the garden and the color deepening in the light to the west, he knew that he would not always be able to come here and find Henry. One day it would be the last.

  This was the most important relationship in his life. Maybe it always would be. If Margaret had loved her father like this, how could he blame her for her inability to cope with the loss? The destruction of everything she had believed she had—the smearing of it, the shattering of the beauty and the safety of that relationship, the pieces laid bare for strangers to tread on—was terrible, perhaps more than anyone could bear. In a way it was worse than if she herself had been the one sitting in the prosecution box.

  How was he going to deal with Henry dying, when it happened? It would be a new loneliness, such as he had never experienced in his life.

  How childish of a man his age to think of such a thing. The great gift of a marvelous father had been given him, and here he was wondering how he would deal with losing it at some time in the future.

  But what faith did he have to nourish him with hope? What did he really believe in? The law. The morality of the Church, more or less, but what about the passion and the faith of it? He did not know the answer to that. Perhaps he should! With the disillusion in her father, and all that she had believed of him, Margaret was alone as Oliver never would be, robbed of the past as well as the present. How had he not seen that before?

  Monk was not alone. As long as Hester was alive he never would be. And if there were a time after that, then the memory of her would sustain him and drive him to be all that he could, all that she had believed of him, even as he would hurt from missing her.

  Henry moved a little and the book slipped out of his grasp. Its fall to the ground woke him up. He reached for it and saw Oliver sitting a few feet away. For an instant he was startled; then his face broke into a smile of pleasure.

  “Didn’t hear you,” he apologized. “Have you been here long? How about a cup of tea? Can you stay for that?” He climbed slowly to his feet, took a moment to adjust his balance, and waited.

  Oliver rose also. “I had intended to stay all evening,” he replied. “I’ve brought some pâté and a plum pie, hoping you’d provide the rest.”

  “Excellent.” Henry started to walk back to the house, going in at the garden door. “Plenty of crusty bread and butter and a little French cheese. I’m not sure about any cream for the pie …”

  “I brought some.” Oliver followed him in through the door and closed it behind him, turning the key, just in case they forgot later.

  “Tea and fruitcake now?” Henry offered. “Or some Madeira cake, if you prefer? I’ve got a nice new little seascape I must show you.” He picked up an art folder of heavy cardboard and unfastened the ties. He laid it flat on the table and lifted the cover. “It’s only amateur, but it’s really very pleasing. Found it in an antique shop the other day.”

  The painting was small, as he had said, but the colors were beautiful. The artist had used the paper in true watercolor style, allowing it to show through and give the whole picture light. The wind-whipped sea seemed almost luminous.

  Oliver wanted to ask Henry his opinion about Ballinger’s photographs, and if he should destroy them. Or if perhaps the information they held was too valuable to be allowed to disappear. Once obliterated, their power could never be used for evil or for good. There was also the question of whether one should destroy evidence of a crime, which the photographs most certainly were. It was hard to find the words to sort through the tangled situation.

  “It’s quite lovely,” he said instead, looking at the little painting. “I think he could well become professional, don’t you?”

  Henry smiled. “Actually it’s a ‘she,’ so I doubt it. But I’m delighted you like it. I’ll have it framed, I think. Now, what kind of cake would you like with tea?”

  “Fruitcake, thank you,” Oliver replied, knowing it was also Henry’s favorite.

  Henry looked up and caught Oliver’s troubled face. “What is it?”

  “Ballinger’s photographs,” Oliver replied. “I … I’m still undecided whether I should destroy them or not.”

  Henry thought for a few minutes before speaking.

  Oliver waited.

  “I presume you have weighed the arguments on either side, and reached no conclusion,” he said finally.

  “I’m not sure that it’s quite that simple,” Oliver answered frankly. “To destroy them would be irrevocable. I suppose I’m reluctant to do that. What if a situation arises where, with them, I could right a great wrong, but I had thrown that opportunity away because I was too cowardly to deal with the responsibility of keeping them? I would have to face the fact that I destroyed a precious means of helping make a difference. Ballinger himself first used them to save countless lives after all.”

  There was no joy in Henry’s face, no light of agreement.

  “To begin with, yes,” he said. “But I think it’s more important to remember where he ended up.”

  “Are you saying I should destroy them?” Oliver asked.

  Henry regarded him slightly critically. “No, I’m not. It is too big a decision for you to allow anyone else to make for you. You are dealing with an immense power. Be very careful.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Whatever you do there is a terrible risk. That is no doubt what Ballinger intended.” He smiled bleakly; then his face lifted with gentleness. “I’m sorry.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  THE SUMMER WEATHER WAS beautiful. Rathbone stood by the window in his chambers and watched the traffic pass below him. The sun glinted on harnesses and the shining coats of the horses as a brougham went by, coachman sitting upright. In the carriage two ladies held colored parasols, the frilled edges fluttering in the breeze.

  There was a brief knock on the door. As he turned to respond, the door opened and his clerk came in, his face somber.

  “Yes, Patmore?” Rathbone said, curious. Usually Patmore would begin to speak as soon as he had closed the door. Obviously this was a matter of some gravity.

  “There is a new case added to your docket, Sir Oliver,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat. “I think you might like some warning before it actually comes to court.”

  Rathbone was intrigued already. “Scandal?” he asked. “Something we need to handle delicately?” He was used to such things.

  “Yes, sir, but not in the usual way,” Patmore replied. “It’s … it’s really very nasty.”

  “Things usually are if they find their way to the Old Bailey,” Rathbone observed a little drily. “Murder?”

  “No, sir. As far as I know, nobody was physically harmed. It’s all quite literally about money.”

  Rathbone almost lost interest immediately. Greed was one of the most boring motives for breaking the law. “Then why do you think I ought to be warned before I consider it more seriously?” he asked.
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  “You might wish to find a way to pass it on to someone else, sir,” Patmore replied, explaining it as if to someone slow of understanding. “I think it will get very ugly, and whatever the verdict, it will offend people we would prefer not to.”

  Rathbone’s attention was fully engaged now. He recalled the conversation at Ingram York’s dinner table. “What on earth is so sensational in a case of greed?” He said carefully, not wanting to assume the case was anything too extraordinary. “We see them every day.”

  “Not when the accused is a churchman and the victim is apparently his flock, sir.”

  Patmore had a sense of irony that had not escaped Rathbone, but he was still far from used to it.

  “I see.” Rathbone exhaled slowly.

  “It will be unpleasant and require a great deal of tact,” Patmore continued. “I rather fancy you have been handed it because everyone else would prefer to watch from the sidelines, preferably far enough away for flying mud not to attach itself to them.”

  “If anyone can counsel you to curb your opinions, Patmore, you might consider it seriously, for your own survival—but please never do it for mine. I should miss your frankness. Now tell me more specifically what the accusation is against this churchman.”

  Patmore inclined his head, by way of accepting what he took to be a compliment, as indeed it was. “Mr. Abel Taft has been accused of defrauding his congregation out of several thousands of pounds, sir,” he answered. “In fact, the amount named would be sufficient to buy a row of quite respectable houses. Half a street of them.”

  “Several thousands?” Rathbone said in disbelief. “How on earth could he swindle his congregation out of so much without their knowledge? And where on earth is his church that his parishioners had that much to give?” He was quite certain now that this was the case that York had mentioned.

  “That is rather the issue, sir,” Patmore remarked. “It has been given, allegedly, by ordinary men and women, out of their savings, in the belief that it was going to the starving and the homeless.”

  “And it was not?” Rathbone felt his anger rising.

  “Allegedly not, sir. Rather more than stated was going to a very nice savings account, not to mention a high standard of living for Mr. Taft himself, and of course his young and very appealing family.”

  “I begin to see what you mean about the possibility of this getting ugly,” Rathbone conceded. “We had better ensure that the evidence is more than good and that both lawyers know what they are doing. Mr. Taft is represented, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. By Mr. Blair Gavinton. Having him appear in your court will be quite an experience for you.”

  “I don’t like the way you say that, Patmore.”

  “I could say it a lot worse, sir, I promise you.”

  “Exactly what is wrong with Mr. Gavinton?”

  “Greasy, sir. There’s just something about him, but the minute you put your finger on it, it slips away.”

  “Indeed. And what do you know about Mr. Abel Taft? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Does very well, sir,” Patmore replied, all expression very carefully ironed out of his voice. “I’ve taken the liberty of looking him up. He has a nice house, very handsome wife, two young daughters just about the right age to be looking for husbands. Dresses very well, does Mr. Taft, at least so I hear. Dines even better. Belongs to some good clubs too. I wouldn’t care to pay his tailor’s bill.”

  “Interesting,” Rathbone conceded. “Do you know who is prosecuting this case?”

  “No, sir, not yet. But I have made discreet inquiries. He’ll have to be very good indeed to catch Mr. Gavinton out.”

  “We must assume the police have concrete evidence, or they would not be wasting everyone’s time or risking looking incompetent.”

  Patmore inclined his head very slightly. “Precisely, sir. I shall keep you informed. I believe we have three weeks yet before the trial begins. Rather depends on the Warburton case, and how long that takes.”

  “Not three weeks, please heaven!” Rathbone exclaimed.

  “Indeed not, sir.”

  Rathbone gave him a wry look, and Patmore withdrew, his expression unreadable.

  After the door had closed Rathbone stood still for quite some time. This had to be the case York had been referring to. He had said it would require considerable legal skill to keep it under control and make it clear enough for justice to be truly served. Was there a reason York had brought it up in the first place? Had he wanted the church exonerated? Or did he consider this to be a sect richly deserving a setback?

  Rathbone wondered who would be prosecuting. It certainly would have been decided already. There would be a great deal of paperwork to go through, many witnesses. Presumably the victim was the entire body of the congregation, or at the least, all those who had contributed. There would be bookkeepers and accountants as witnesses of bank records and whatever financial proof of donation the various parishioners had kept—if any.

  The more Rathbone thought about it, the more he agreed with Patmore that presiding over such a trial was an unenviable task. His task was to see justice prevail, but in order to do that he would have to make certain that the jury understood exactly what had happened. One could very easily become exhausted with detail, confused by the sheer weight of facts and numbers, and fall back on the faith that a churchman couldn’t possibly be guilty of such a crime.

  Was there any way Rathbone could control the testimony without denying due process of law to either side?

  The defense would fight hard. A man’s freedom and his reputation were in the balance. It was not quite his life, but it was his way of life that was at stake.

  Would the prosecutor try equally hard? He had less to gain, or lose.

  What about the religious loyalties of either of the lawyers? Would that matter? Would anyone be angry that the name of religion in general was being blackened in the public eye?

  Rathbone would have to be very careful not to overstep the boundaries of his discretion if his own prejudices were attacked.

  He thought of the cases he had defended in his long career. Some of the criminals had been accused of appalling acts; some of tragic ones, painfully understandable. In certain cases he had thought that in the same circumstances, he might have made the same judgments and ended up in the same disastrous position.

  He had always cared a little too much, and he had not always been right in his judgment. One of the worst villains he had ever defended was Jericho Phillips, a fearful man accused of blackmail, child pornography, and murder. He winced as he recalled it now, standing in this old wood-paneled chamber with its rows of leather-bound books and its rich rugs on the floor.

  It was in Newgate Prison that he had first met Phillips, alive and well, his vulpine face full of satisfaction, all but certain that he would escape the rope. The last time he had seen him had been months later, after the acquittal, and after Monk had hunted him down again. It was as the Thames tide receded, leaving the hideous iron cage of Execution Dock naked above the water. Inside it had been the drowned corpse of Jericho Phillips, his mouth stretched wide in his final scream.

  Should Rathbone have defended him? There was no serious doubt in his mind about that. He had thought Phillips guilty, but he had also thought other men guilty in the past and been proven wrong.

  If someone harms a stranger, then it is usually the fault of the thief and the misfortune of the victim. But if the victim and the perpetrator know each other, both of them need to be considered carefully in order to find justice. Extortion, bullying, and consistent cruelty are so often practiced that sometimes there is no course of action short of violence—a reaction born out of desperation, because the so-called criminal was terrified, exhausted, and at wits’ end. It did not justify murder, but it raised complicated questions of self-defense, where no answer was fair to all.

  Many cases had come to him through Monk, and of course through Hester. Some of those from the time when she was a
nurse for private patients had tested him to what he had believed were his limits, showing him tragedies with no simple or just answer. Nature and society between them created Gordian knots impossible to unravel.

  The case of Phillips, which had seemed at the beginning a simple matter of serving the law, had become so entangled in violence and in Rathbone’s own conflicted emotions that even the death of Phillips had been only a brief respite before the continuation of the crimes connected to his life.

  It had ended in the destruction of Arthur Ballinger, and of Rathbone’s marriage. Even that was not as simple as it appeared. For a while Ballinger had seemed to Rathbone an irredeemable man. Then, in that final encounter, he had told Rathbone not only what had happened, but why; he had explained his slow descent from idealism, step by step downward to the conscienceless brutality that marked his character at the end of his life.

  It all made a case of a clergyman embezzling money seem cut-and-dried—the evidence would be complex, full of detail that would need to be explained with great clarity—but essentially, it was a matter of simple greed. He certainly would not attempt to pass the case off to anyone else.

  HESTER WAS ALSO LOOKING forward to the trial of Abel Taft. She had worked extraordinarily hard to bring it about. It was extra-good news to her that it was Oliver Rathbone who had been appointed to try the case.

  “What a good thing I didn’t say anything to him. I had thought about it, a few weeks ago,” she said as she and Monk walked under the trees in Southwark Park, a mere stone’s throw from their own house. “I suppose that could have compromised him so he wouldn’t have been allowed to hear the case, couldn’t it?”

  “Possibly,” he agreed, smiling in the evening sun. Below them in the distance the light was mirror-bright on the water, making the ships stand out almost black. “Is that why you didn’t tell him? In case he was chosen to hear it?”

  “Not really,” she admitted. “I rather thought he wouldn’t approve.”