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Her expression darkened slowly from puzzlement to anger, but it was a quiet, cold emotion, no heat in it at all.
“It is a dress I used nursing,” she said calmly. “It is warm and serviceable. I don’t know why you bother to mention it What on earth does it matter?”
He changed the subject abruptly. “I am going to Edinburgh on the train tonight. Rathbone wants me to find out all I can about the Farralines. One assumes it was one of them who murdered her…”
“It is all I can think of,” she said quietly, but without conviction in her voice. “But before you ask me, I don’t know who or why. I can’t think of any reason, and I have had nothing to do here but try to think of it.”
“Did you kill her?’
“No.” There was no anger in her, only quiet, black resignation.
It infuriated him. He wanted to take her physically and shake her until she was as angry as he was, until she was enraged enough to fight and go on fighting until they knew the truth, and then force everyone else to look at it, acknowledge it and admit they had been wrong. He hated the change in her; the quietness was uncharacteristic. Not that he was so fond of the way she had been. She talked far too much, and with much too much opinion, whether she was informed or not. She was quite unlike the sort of woman that appealed to him; she had not the gentleness, the feminine warmth or the grace he admired and which quickened his pulses and awoke his desire. But still, to see her like this disturbed him profoundly.
“Then someone else did,” he said. “Unless you are telling me she committed suicide?”
“No of course she didn’t!” Now at last she was angry too. There was a faint touch of pink in her cheeks. “If you’d known her you would not even entertain such an idea.”
“Perhaps she was senile and incompetent?” he suggested. “And she killed herself by accident?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Her voice rose sharply. “She was no more senile than you are. If that is the best you can do, you are wasting my time! And Oliver’s, if he is employing you!”
He was delighted to see her spirit returning, even if it was only in the defense of Mary Farraline; and he was thoroughly piqued by the suggestion that he was here solely at Rathbone’s request, and because he was paid. He did not know why it stung so sharply, but it was a painful thought, and he reacted instantly.
“Don’t be childish, Hester. There isn’t time, and it’s most unbecoming in a woman of your age.”
Now she was really angry. He knew it was the reference to her age, which was idiotic, but then at times she was idiotic. Most women were.
Hester looked at him with intense dislike.
“If you are going to Edinburgh to see the Farralines, they are hardly likely to tell you anything other than that they employed me to accompany Mrs. Farraline to London, to give her her medicine night and morning, and see that she was comfortable. And I failed them most dismally. I don’t know what else you would expect them to say?”
“Self-pity doesn’t become you any better than it does most people,” he said sharply. “And we haven’t time.”
She glared at him with loathing.
He smiled back, a twisting of the lips, but still relieved that she was angry enough to fight-not that he wished her to perceive that. “Of course they will say that,” he agreed. “I will ask them a great many questions.” He was formulating his plan as he spoke. “Because I shall tell them that I have come on behalf of the prosecution and wish to make sure of everything in order to have an unanswerable case. I shall pursue every detail of your stay there.”
“I was only there a day,” she said.
He ignored her. “Then in the course of so doing, I shall learn everything else I can about them. One of them murdered her. In some way, however slight, they will betray themselves.” He said it with more certainty than he felt, but he must not allow her to know that. The least he could do was protect her from the bitterest of the truth, the odds against success. He wished desperately he could do more. It was appalling to be helpless when it mattered so intensely.
The anger drained out of her as suddenly as if someone had turned out a light. Fear overtook everything else.
“Will you?” Her voice shook.
Without thinking he reached forward and took her hand, holding it tightly.
“Yes I will. I doubt it will be easy, or quick, but I will do it.” He stopped. They knew each other too well. He saw in her eyes what she was thinking, remembering-that other case they had solved together, finding the truth at last, too late-when the wrong man had been tried and hanged. “I will, Hester,” he said with passion. “I’ll find the truth, whatever it costs, and whoever I have to break to get it”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away suddenly. For a moment she was so frightened she could hardly control herself.
He gritted his teeth.
Why was she so stupidly independent? Why could she not weep like other women? Then he could have held her, offered some kind of comfort-which would have been meaningless. And he would have hated it. He could not bear the way she was, and yet for her to change would have been even worse.
And he hated the fact that he could not dismiss it and walk away. It was not simply another case. It was Hester- and the thought of failure was unendurable.
“Tell me about them,” he commanded gruffly. “Who are the Farralines? What did you think of them? What were your impressions?”
She turned and looked at him with surprise. Then slowly she mastered her emotions and replied.
“The eldest son is Alastair. He is the Procurator Fiscal-”
He cut across her. “I don’t want facts. I can find them for myself, woman. I want your feelings about the man. Was he happy or miserable? Was he worried? Did he love his mother or hate her? Was he afraid of her? Was she a possessive woman, overprotective, critical, domineering? Tell me something!”
She smiled wanly.
“She seemed generous and very normal to me…”
“She’s been murdered, Hester. People don’t commit murder without a reason even if it is a bad one. Somebody either hated her or was afraid of her. Why? Tell me more about her. And don’t tell me what a charming person she was. People sometimes murder young women because they are too charming, but not old ones.”
Hester’s smile grew a little wider.
“Don’t you think I’ve lain here trying to think why anyone would kill her? Alastair did seem a little anxious, but that could have been over anything. As I said, he is the Procurator Fiscal…”
“What is a Procurator Fiscal?” This was not a time to stand on his pride and blunder on in ignorance.
“Something like the Crown Prosecutor, I think.”
“Hmm.” Possibilities arose in his mind.
“And the youngest brother, Ke
“I see. What else?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Quinlan, that is Eilish’s husband-”
“Who is Eilish? Did you say Eilish? What kind of a name is that?”
“I don’t know. Scottish, I presume. She is the middle daughter. Oonagh is the eldest. Griselda is the youngest.”
“What about Quinlan?”
“He and Baird Mclvor, Oonagh’s husband, seemed to dislike each other. But I don’t see how any of that could lead to murder. There are always undercurrents of likes and dislikes in any family, most particularly if they all live under one roof.”
“God forbid!” Monk said with feeling. The thought of living so closely with other people appalled him. He was jealous of his privacy and he did not wish to account for himself to anyone at all, least of all someone who knew him intimately.
She misunderstood him.
“No one would murder for the freedom to leave.”
“Wasn’t the house hers?” he asked instantly. “What about the money? No, don’t bother to answer. You wouldn’t know anyway. Rathbone will find that out. Tell me exactly what you did from the time you arrived at the house until you left. When were you alone? Where was the dressing room or wherever the medicine case was left?”