A Sunless Sea wm-18

by Anne Perry

  He picked up a handful of small stones out of the earth and tossed them at one of the upstairs windows.

  Silence.

  He tried again, harder.

  This time the window opened and Runcorn put his head out, just visible as a greater darkness against the night sky.

  Monk stood up slowly. “They’re after us,” he said in the dark. “I was attacked.”

  The window closed and a moment later the back door opened and Runcorn came out, a jacket over his nightshirt. He said nothing but helped Monk in, locked the back door again, and shot the bolt home, then looked Monk up and down.

  “Well, at least we know we’re right,” he said drily. “We’ve got a spare room. Are you bleeding?”

  “No, just can’t move my arm.”

  “I’ll fetch you a clean nightshirt, and a stiff whisky.”

  Monk smiled. “Thank you.”

  Runcorn stood still for a moment. “Like the way it used to be, isn’t it?” he said with a bleak satisfaction. “Only better.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Oliver Rathbone sat in his chamber in the Old Bailey trying to compose his mind to begin the defense of Dinah Lambourn, on the charge of murdering Zenia Gadney. It was the highest-profile case he had appeared in for some time. He had already received considerable criticism for taking it at all. Of course, the remarks had been oblique. Everyone knew that all accused persons had the right to be represented in court, whoever they were and whatever they were charged with, regardless of the certainty of their guilt. That was the law.

  Personal revulsion was an entirely different matter. Acknowledging mentally that somebody should represent her was quite different from actually doing it yourself.

  “Not a wise move, Rathbone,” one of his friends had said, shaking his head and pursing his mouth. “Should have let some hungry young beggar take it, one who has nothing to lose.”

  Rathbone had been stung. “Is that who you’d want defending your wife?” he had demanded.

  “My wife wouldn’t hack a prostitute to death and dump her in the river!” the man had replied with heat.

  “Maybe Dinah Lambourn didn’t, either,” Rathbone had responded, wishing he had not been foolish enough to allow himself to be drawn into this discussion.

  Perhaps the man had been right. As he sat in the big, comfortable chair and looked at the papers spread out on his desk, he wondered if he had been rash. Had he accepted this as a sort of suicide of his own, a self-inflicted punishment for failing Margaret?

  The newspapers were running banner headlines about the trial. Some journalists had described Dinah as a woman consumed with hatred toward her own sex. They suggested she was insanely jealous, given to delusions, and had driven Lambourn to suicide with her possessiveness.

  Another paper’s editorial pointed out that if the jury sanctioned a woman committing a hideous and depraved murder because her husband had resorted to a prostitute, there was no end to the slaughter that that might lead to.

  And of course Rathbone had heard some women siding with Dinah, saying that men who consorted with prostitutes defiled the marriage bed, not only by the betrayal of their vows, but more immediately and physically by the possibility of returning to a loyal wife and bringing to her the diseases of the whorehouse, and thus of course to their children. And what about the money such men lavished on their own appetites, even while in the act of denying their wives household necessities?

  To some men whom Rathbone had overheard at his club, Dinah was the ultimate victim. To others she was the symbol of a hysterical woman seeking to limit all a man’s freedoms and to pursue his every move.

  One writer had presented her as the heroine for all betrayed wives, for all women used, mocked, and then cast aside. The heat of emotion carried away reason like jetsam on a flood tide.

  Rathbone had prepared everything he could for this defense, but he knew he had far too little. Neither Monk nor Orme had been able to find a witness who had seen Zenia with a man near the time of her death. The one person she had been seen with, briefly on the road by the river, was unquestionably a woman. He had no wish to draw attention to that.

  All he really had to defend Dinah with was her past loyalties to both Lambourn and Zenia, and her character. He would rather not put her on the witness stand to testify. She was too vulnerable to ridicule because of her belief in a conspiracy for which there was no proof. But in the end he might have to.

  Monk and Hester were still searching for solid evidence, as was Runcorn, when he had the chance. The trouble was, everything they had found so far could just as easily be interpreted as evidence of her guilt as her innocence.

  The attack on Monk had been brutal, and well organized, but there was nothing to tie it to the murder of Zenia Gadney. There had been no second attack, so far.

  Rathbone was glad when the clerk came to interrupt his growing sense of panic and call him to the courtroom. The trial was about to begin.

  All the usual preliminaries were gone through. It was a ritual to which Rathbone hardly needed to pay attention. He looked up at the dock, where Dinah sat between two wardens, high above the floor of the court. On the left-hand wall, under the window, were jury benches, and ahead was the great chair in which the judge sat, resplendent in his scarlet robes and full-bottomed wig.

  Rathbone studied them one by one while the voices droned on. Dinah Lambourn looked beautiful in her fear. Her eyes were wide, her skin desperately pale. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back a little severely to reveal the bones of her cheeks and brow, the perfect balance of her features, her generous, vulnerable mouth. He wondered if that would tell against her, or for her. Would the jury admire her dignity, or misunderstand it for arrogance? There was no way of knowing.

  The judge was Grover Pendock, a man Rathbone had known for years, but never well. His wife was an invalid and he preferred to remain away from the social events to which she could not come. Was that in deference to her, or an admirable excuse to avoid a duty in which he had no pleasure? He had two sons. The elder, Hadley Pendock, was a sportsman of some distinction, and the judge was extremely proud of him. The younger one was more studious, it was said, and had yet to make his mark.

  Rathbone looked up at Grover Pendock now and saw the general gravity of his rather large face, with its powerful jaw and thin mouth. This was a very public trial. He must know all eyes would be on his conduct of it, expecting-indeed, requiring-a swift and completely decisive conclusion. The sooner it was ended, the sooner the hysteria would die down and the newspapers turn their attention to something else. There must be no doubt as to justice being done, with no unseemly behavior, and above all, absolutely no chance for an appeal.

  The counsel for the prosecution looked grim and full of confidence, as if already spoiling for a fight. Sorley Coniston was in his late forties, taller than Rathbone and heavier, smooth-faced. When he smiled there was a slight gap between his front teeth, which was not unattractive. He was almost handsome. Only a certain arrogance in his manner spoiled the grace with which he rose to call his first witness.

  As expected, it was Sergeant Orme of the Thames River Police. Rathbone had known it would be, but it still puzzled him that Coniston had chosen Orme rather than Monk.

  Then, as he saw Orme’s solid, calm face when he climbed the steps to the witness box and looked down at the floor of the court, he understood the choice. Monk was lean and elegant. He couldn’t help it. The air of command was in him: in the angle of his head, the bones of his face, his remarkable eyes. Orme was ordinary. No one would think him devious or overly clever. He would be believed. Anyone attacking his honesty would do more harm to themselves than to him.

  Coniston walked out into the center of the floor and looked up at Orme, who was already sworn in and had given his name and his rank.

  “Sergeant Orme,” Coniston began courteously, as if they were equals. “Will you please tell the court of your experience on the morning of the twenty-fourth of November, as you approached
Limehouse Pier? Describe the scene for those of us who have not been there.”

  Orme had been prepared for this, but he was uncomfortable nonetheless. It was obvious in his face, and the way he leaned forward a little, both hands gripping the rail. Rathbone knew it was the request for a description of something he was not used to putting into words for others, that made him behave so. To the jury it would look like distress at what he had seen. Coniston was already preparing them for the horror. Rathbone was impressed. He could easily have taken less trouble and assumed the mood would follow naturally.

  “Mr. Monk and I were coming back from looking into a robbery farther up the river,” Orme began.

  “Just two of you?” Coniston asked. “Were you rowing?”

  “Both of us,” Orme answered. “One behind the other, sir, an oar each.”

  “I see. Thank you. What time of day was it? What was the light?” Coniston asked.

  “Early sunrise, sir. Lot of color in the sky, and across the water, too.” Orme was clearly unhappy.

  “Were you close in to shore, or out in the current?” Coniston continued.

  “Close in to shore, sir. Out in the stream an’ you’d be in the way of shipping, ferries an’ the like.”

  “In the shadow of the docks and warehouses? Paint the picture for us, Sergeant Orme, if you please.”

  Orme shifted his weight to the other foot. “About twenty yards out, sir. Buildings sort of … looming up, but we were not in their shadow. Water was smoother closer to shore. Out of the wind.”

  “I see. You describe it well,” Coniston said graciously. “So you and Commander Monk were rowing back to Wapping after being called out before dawn. It was cool. The breeze made the river choppy except close to shore, almost in the shadow of the docks and the warehouses, rising sun spilling red light on the smooth, dark water around you?”

  Orme’s face tightened as if the attention to beauty in the circumstances were distasteful to him. “Something like that, sir.”

  “Did anything occur that caused you to stop?”

  There was absolute silence in the courtroom, apart from the slight rustle of a skirt as someone shifted position.

  “Yes, sir. We heard a woman crying out, on Limehouse Pier. She was screaming, and waving her arms. We couldn’t see why until we got right up to the pier and climbed the steps to the top. There was the body of a woman lying crumpled up on her side. Her … the body’d been ripped open and there was blood soaking her clothes …” He could not finish, not only because of his own emotion, but also because of the rising sound of gasps and groans from the body of the courtroom. In the gallery a woman was already crying, and there was a murmur of voices trying to offer comfort and telling others to be quiet.

  “Order! Please, ladies and gentlemen,” Pendock said from the bench. “Let us continue. Allow Sergeant Orme to be heard.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Coniston said soberly, then turned again to Orme. “I assume you and Commander Monk examined this poor woman’s remains?”

  “Yes, sir. There was nothing we could do for her. She was past all human help,” Orme said hoarsely. “We asked the witness’s name and address, and all she could tell us, which wasn’t anything. She had just come there looking for her husband. Then I stayed with the body, and Mr. Monk went for the local police.”

  “The local police?” Coniston said with raised eyebrows. “But since she was found on the pier, was she not within your jurisdiction?”

  “Yes, sir. But the first thing we wanted to know was who she was,” Orme pointed out reasonably.

  Coniston smiled and relaxed his tense position a fraction. “Of course. We will come to that. She was not known to you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And could you describe the body for us, Sergeant?” This time he made no apology.

  Rathbone would like to have objected, but there were no grounds. The crime was appalling. Coniston was entitled to horrify the jury until they were sick and weeping. Had Rathbone been prosecuting he would have done the same.

  Orme swallowed hard. Even from where he was sitting, Rathbone could see the muscles of his neck and jaws tighten. The effort it cost him to maintain his control would be just as visible to the jurors.

  “Yes, sir,” Orme said quietly. He gripped the rail in front of him and breathed in and out several times before beginning. “She wasn’t a young woman, maybe forty, but not gone to fat. Her skin was very white, what we could see of it. Her clothes had been torn, or cut, and her … her bosom laid bare. Someone had slit her open right from …” He moved a rather jerky hand to the middle of his own chest and then slowly down below the rail to where his groin would be. He swallowed again. “And her entrails were pulled out, sir, an’ left lying all over her. It … it wasn’t easy to see if everything was there, sir, an’ I wouldn’t know anyway.”

  Coniston looked pale himself. “Was that the full extent of her injuries, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir. There was blood matted in her hair, as if she’d been hit pretty hard.”

  Coniston stood with his head bowed. “Thank you, Sergeant. Would you please remain on the stand in case my learned friend for the defense has any questions for you?” He looked across at Rathbone with a courteous smile. There was nothing for Rathbone to question, and they both knew it.

  Rathbone stood up and addressed the judge. “Thank you, my lord. But I think Sergeant Orme has already told us all that he is able to.”

  Orme left the stand, and his place was taken by Overstone, the police surgeon who had examined the corpse. He held himself with military precision and looked straight at Coniston, his face bleak, his thinning hair smooth to his head. He looked tired, as if he had done this too many times, and it was getting harder rather than easier for him. It flickered through Rathbone’s mind that it was requiring all the man’s strength of will to speak with a steady, unemotional voice.

  “You examined the body of this unfortunate woman that the police found on Limehouse Pier, Dr. Overstone?” Coniston began.

  “I did,” Overstone answered.

  “Describe it for me, if you please. I mean what manner of person had she been in life?”

  “About five foot, three inches tall,” Overstone replied. “Of average build, thickening a little around the waist. She appeared to be well nourished. I would estimate her age to be middle or late forties. Her hair was light brown, her eyes blue. As much as one could tell, she must have been very pleasant-looking in life. She had good teeth, fine-boned hands.”

  “Any sign of illness?” Coniston inquired, as if it were a reasonable question.

  Overstone’s face tightened. “The woman was hacked to bits!” he said between his teeth. “How in God’s name would I know?”

  Coniston flushed slightly, even though he had incited the answer. In that instant Rathbone knew he had done it intentionally. The emotion in the room was taut as a violin string. Rathbone felt his own muscles lock and his neck ache with the effort of trying to breathe deeply and relax. Some of the jurors were looking at him, wondering what on earth he would do to defend anyone accused of such a crime. Possibly they wondered why he was here at all.

  Coniston’s penitence was brief. He addressed Overstone again.

  “But you could ascertain the cause of her death, couldn’t you, sir?” he said respectfully.

  “Yes. A violent blow to the head,” Overstone answered. “It crushed her skull. She would have died instantly. The mutilation was done after her death, thank heaven. She can have known nothing about it.” There was a very slight defensiveness in Overstone’s face.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said calmly. He walked back toward his seat, then at the last moment turned around again and looked up. “Oh … one more thing. Would it have required great strength to have struck the blow that killed her?”

  “No, not if it were wielded with a swing.”

  “Did you ever find what it was that was used?”

  “They brought the body to me, man!” Oversto
ne said irritably. “They didn’t take me onto the pier to look at it.”

  Coniston’s face remained impassive. “Just so. Have you any idea what the weapon was? What do you think most likely, if you please?”

  “A heavy piece of metal: a length of piping, something of that order,” Overstone answered him. “I doubt a wooden bar would have had the weight, unless it was hardwood, even ebony.”

  “And the mutilations? Would they have needed particular strength or skill?”

  “Just a sharp blade. There was nothing skilled about it.” Overstone said the words with loathing.

  “Would a woman have the strength to have done it?” Coniston finally asked what everyone in the room was thinking.

  “Yes.” Overstone did not add anything.

  Coniston thanked him and turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”

  Rathbone tried desperately to think of anything to say that would make the slightest difference. Dinah must be wondering why on earth she had hired him. Her life was in his hands.

  “Was there anything about the injuries, anything at all, to indicate what manner of person had inflicted them?” he asked, looking up at Overstone.

  “No, sir,” Overstone replied.

  “Nothing to suggest their height?” Rathbone elaborated. “Strength? Whether they were left- or right-handed, for example. Male or female? Young or old?”

  “I said nothing at all, sir,” Overstone repeated. “Except perhaps, considering the power of the blow, it might have been two-handed.” He lifted both his own arms above his head, hands clenched together, and brought them down and sideways, as if holding a two-handed sword. “But that hardly helps. All it does is make height irrelevant.”

  “So it could have been anyone, except perhaps a child?”

  “Just so.”

  Rathbone nodded. There was nothing more he could ask. Overstone was dismissed.

  Next Coniston called Monk to the stand.

  Monk was immaculately dressed, as always, elegant even to his polished boots. But he climbed the stairs to the witness bar as if he were stiff, and stood with one shoulder a little higher than the other.