Acceptable Loss (15 page)

She gave him a tiny smile, an echo of the one he had given her. “I will not do anything against my will, Lord Cardew. Thank you for your kindness in receiving me.”

S
HE RETURNED HOME DEEP
in thought, weighing Lord Cardew’s words. He longed to believe in Rupert’s innocence, and yet could not. Perhaps it was his fear that prevented him, like the vertigo that draws one to the edge of a precipice, and would have one plunge over it, simply to be free from the terror.

But according to Monk’s description of the knotted cravat, the crime had not been committed in fear or panic. It takes more than a few seconds to tie half a dozen tight knots in a silk cravat. Who would create such a weapon, thereby ruining a beautiful garment, unless they intended to use it? No argument of self-defense would stand against that kind of reasoning, unless Rupert were held prisoner somewhere, with time unobserved, and with his hands free to do such a thing.

She had offered to help, remembering only his kindness, his wit, the unostentatious generosity with which he’d given so much money. But how well did she really know him? All kinds of people could be charming. It required imagination, understanding, the ability to know what pleases others, and perhaps a certain sense of humor, an ease of wit. It did not need honesty or the will to place others before oneself. And as she looked back now, picturing him in her mind, she also remembered an anxiety in him, a sudden avoidance of her eyes, which she had taken for embarrassment at being in a place like the clinic. But perhaps it had been shame at the memory of his own acts, uglier than anything those women had endured.

What she could not tell Lord Cardew was that, for her own reasons, she needed to know the truth of what had happened to Mickey Parfitt. If some victim such as Rupert had killed him, then his trade was over. But if it were a rival, or even the man who had staked him the original price of the boat, then as soon as Parfitt’s murder was solved, and the hue and cry had died down, the whole hideous business would begin again exactly as before. The only difference would be the men running it for the giant behind the scenes, and probably another site to moor the boat. She needed to know it was over, for Scuff’s sake. The dreams would not leave him until he had seen more than Jericho Phillips dead, or Mickey Parfitt.

Was Rupert Cardew no more than another victim, one who’d struck back and would die for it?

When she reached home, she found Scuff in the kitchen eating a thick slice of bread spread with butter and piled with jam. He stopped chewing when he saw her, his mouth full, the bread held tightly in both his hands.

She tried to hide a smile. At last he was feeling sufficiently at
home to take something to eat when he wanted it. She must watch to make certain it did not extend to more than bread—for example, the cold pie put aside for tonight’s supper.

“Good idea,” she said casually. “I’ll have a piece too. Would you like a cup of tea with it? I would.” She walked past him to fill the kettle and put it on the cooktop.

He swallowed. She heard the gulp.

“Yeah,” he said casually. “Shall I cut it for yer?”

“Yes, please. But I’ll have a little less jam, if you don’t mind.” She did not turn to watch him do it, but concentrated on the task of making tea.

“Where yer bin?” he asked, elaborately unconcerned. She heard the sawing of the knife on the crust of the bread.

She knew he was thinking about Mickey Parfitt. Monk had told him elements of the truth; the details did not matter.

“To see Lord Cardew,” she replied, putting the blue and white teapot on the edge of the stove to warm. “I’m afraid I let my feelings run away with me, and I offered to help him do something for Rupert.” Now she turned to look at him, needing to know how he felt about it. She saw a wince of fear in his face, then the immediate hiding of it. Was he afraid for her, of losing the new, precious safety he had?

“ ’Ow could we ’elp ’im, if ’e done Mickey Parfitt?” he asked, his eyes fixed on hers. “They’ll ’ang ’im, never mind as Parfitt should a bin chucked in the river the day ’e were born.”

“Well, there must have been lots of people who would like to see Parfitt dead,” Hester began. “It is just possible it wasn’t Rupert who actually killed him. But even if he did do it, there might have been something that made it not as bad as straight murder.”

“Like wot?” Scuff was balancing the bread in his hands, ready to cut more when he was free to concentrate on it.

“I’m not quite sure,” she admitted. “Self-defense is one. And sometimes it’s an accident, maybe a real accident, or maybe you’re partly to blame because you were being very careless, not so much that you didn’t mean to kill anyone so much as you just didn’t care.”

He looked at her, biting his lips anxiously. “ ’E could a done that? I mean, killed ’im by accident, like?”

“No,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. Actually, his father said that he claimed he didn’t do it at all. And lots of people must have hated Parfitt.”

“D’yer believe ’im, then?”

“I don’t know. His father said he has behaved pretty badly in the past, but not as badly as that. I need to know more about him, perhaps things his father doesn’t know about because Rupert was too ashamed to say. I’ll be out for quite a while, I think.”

“ ’Oo are ye gonna ask, then? Other toffs, an’ the like? Will ’is friends tell yer? I wouldn’t tell on a friend, specially not to a copper’s wife.” Then he realized that was silly. “ ’Ceptin’ I don’t s’pose you’ll tell ’em ’oo yer are.”

She smiled, taking the now steaming kettle off the stove and warming the teapot before putting the leaves in. “Of course not. I’m going to the clinic first to ask a few questions of the women we’ve got in at the moment. There, at least, I have something of an advantage. Then tomorrow I’ll move a little farther afield.”

He nodded. “Yer think as mebbe ’e done a good thing, killin’ Mickey Parfitt, an’ all?”

“I wouldn’t push it quite that far,” she said cautiously. “But not totally bad.”

“Ye’re right.” Scuff nodded again, more vehemently. “We gotter chip in. Yer gonna make that tea? It’s steamin’ its ’ead off. An’ there’s more jam.”

W
HEN
H
ESTER ARRIVED AT
the clinic, she began by going over the books with Squeaky Robinson.

“We’re doing well,” he said with considerable satisfaction. He pointed to the place on the page where the final tally was. Even his lugubrious nature could not but be pleased by it. “And we don’t need much,” he added. “Just new plates as they got broke. We’ve got sheets, even spare nightshirts, towels. Got medicines—laudanum, quinine, brandy, all sorts.”

Hester avoided his eyes. “I know. It’s excellent.”

“What are you going to do, then?” he asked.

She thought of pretending that she did not know what he meant. “Use it wisely,” she replied.

“Yeah, you better,” he agreed. “In’t no more where that come from. Poor bastard’s gonna hang, by all accounts. ’Less, of course, someone does something about it?”

“What did you have in mind, Squeaky?” Then immediately she regretted asking. Whatever he had was probably illegal. He had not lost his connections in the criminal underworld, nor had his nature changed, only his loyalties. He had not needed to go looking for Claudine Burroughs when she had gone on the wild adventure that had ended with her seeing a man she thought was Arthur Ballinger, in the alley outside a shop that sold pornography, but he had done so out of loyalty to Claudine. Because Ballinger had been looking at a picture so obscene it had horrified her, she had fled into the deeper alleys, finally to become totally exhausted and lost. Only Squeaky’s perseverance had saved her.

He had never been a hero before. He loved it.

“Well?” Hester pressed him.

“D’you reckon Cardew was framed?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know,” she said frankly. “There are certainly plenty of other people who might have wanted Parfitt dead.”

“Yeah,” Squeaky agreed. “Thing is, how come Parfitt didn’t know that? What kind of an idiot stands alone on the deck of a boat and lets a man get on board he knows hates him? I wouldn’t! And believe me, if you’ve got a nice little business in the flesh trade, you know who your rivals are. You’re prepared. You keep folks around you as you can trust, to take care of your back, like.” He was watching her, waiting to see her reaction.

“Yes, I suppose you would. So he must have been attacked by someone he thought was safe.”

“Yeah. Like someone what had come to pay him money for something they’d want more of in another little while. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

She let out her breath slowly. “Unless you have a temper you can’t control and you don’t think very far ahead. And also you are
used to having someone else clean up behind you so you get out of paying the consequences. I think I had better find out a lot more about Rupert Cardew, if I can.”

“And help him,” Squeaky confirmed. “I don’t mind dealing in women what wants to be in the business anyway, but kids is another thing. And blackmail’s bad for business. Charge a fair price, and when it’s paid, you’re square, I say.”

She gave him a weary look.

He shrugged. “Fair’s fair,” he retorted. “You save Mr. Cardew for any reason you like. I say save him because Mickey Parfitt needed putting away anyhow. He gives the business a bad name, and ’cos Mr. Cardew was very generous to us. We could get used to living this way. Does a lot of good to them that can’t get nobody else to help them.”

“Very pious, Squeaky,” Hester said.

“Thank you,” he replied. It had indeed been a compliment, rather than sarcasm, but there was a gleam in his eye that was definitely understanding, and might even have been humor.

There was a brief knock on the door, and before Hester could reply, it opened and Margaret Rathbone came in. She was dressed in very smart deep green, but there was little color in her face, and her eyes were cold.

“Good morning, Hester. Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” Hester assured her. “I was about to leave.” She felt more awkward than she could explain to herself, as if she were being devious in intending to help Rupert Cardew as much as was possible. Why? It had nothing to do with Margaret’s father, except that in her mind she still at least half believed that he had some interest in the boat, even if only to find the vulnerable men who would participate.

“I wouldn’t consider buying any more new crockery than necessary,” Margaret continued. “I’m afraid our source of funds has been radically reduced.” There was a look in her face that might have been pity, but Hester felt it was distaste.

“I am aware of that,” she responded as expressionlessly as she could manage, but there was still a touch of asperity in her voice. “But it is only an accusation so far. It has yet to be proved.”

Margaret’s brows rose. “Surely you don’t think Mr. Monk is mistaken?” She too was trying to keep the irony from her tone, and like Hester was not entirely successful.

“I don’t think he is mistaken,” Hester retorted. “But I am aware, as he is, that it is always a possibility. Evidence can be interpreted more than one way. New facts emerge. Sometimes what people say proves to be untrue.”

Margaret gave a tight little smile. “I’m sorry, Hester, but you are deluding yourself. I understand that you found Rupert charming, but I’m afraid he is a thoroughly dissolute young man. If you could see him as he really is, I cannot believe that you would have such pity for him. It belongs far more to his victims.”

“Like Mickey Parfitt?” Hester snapped back. “I cannot agree with you.” She turned briefly to Squeaky Robinson. “However, Lady Rathbone is quite correct about the funds. In the meantime we shall spend only as necessary, and then with due caution.” She swept past Margaret on the way out, without inquiring whether it was she or Squeaky whom Margaret had come to see, disliking herself for her anger, and unable to control it.

She went first to the kitchen for a mug of tea, then back upstairs into the first room along the corridor. In it was Phoebe Weller, a woman somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, with lovely auburn hair, a lush body, and a face disfigured by the scars of pox.

“How are you, Phoebe?” Hester said conversationally.

Phoebe was lying back in the bed, her eyes half closed, a tiny smile on her face. She was not in a half coma, as a casual observer might have thought, but was half-asleep, dreaming that she might always sleep alone, in a clean bed, and need do nothing hard or dangerous to assure the next cup of hot tea or slice of bread and jam.

She woke up when she heard Hester saying her name. “Oh … I don’t think as I’m well yet,” she whispered.

“Probably not,” Hester agreed, tongue in cheek. “Would a fresh cup of tea help?”

Phoebe opened her eyes and sat up smartly, ignoring the bruised leg and wrenched ankle and the heavily dressed wound on her leg that had brought her here. “Ye’re right, an’ all, so ’elp me, it would.”

Hester passed it to her, and she took the tea with both hands.

Hester sat down in the chair next to the bed and made herself comfortable, smoothing her gray skirts, as if she meant to stay.

“I’m gonna get better!” Phoebe said. “I just need another few days.”

“I’m sure you are,” Hester agreed amiably. “You’ve worked in one or two different places, haven’t you?”

“Yeah …” The answer was guarded.

“In some of the posh areas, Chelsea way, and farther up the river?”

“Yeah …”

“Ever heard anything about Rupert Cardew, Lord Cardew’s son? I need to know, Phoebe, and I need the truth.”

Phoebe stared at her.

“Just a friendly warning,” Hester went on. “I don’t care what the truth is, good or bad, but if you lie to me and I catch you, next time someone beats you, you’ll be in the street, and the cabs’ll run over you before I stretch out a hand to help. Do you understand? The truth is what I need.”

Phoebe considered it, clearly weighing one possibility against the other.

Hester waited.

“Wot d’yer wanna know?” Phoebe said at last.

“Do you know girls who’ve slept with him, for money?”