Страница 82 из 99
McTeer snorted. “I thought maybe ye were the po-liss…”
It still jarred Monk that he was no longer a policeman and had no power whatever. His new status gave him freedom, and at the same time robbed him of half the ability to use it to its uttermost.
“Then ye’ll be wanting Mrs. Mclvor, no doubt,” McTeer finished for himself. “Mr. Alastair is no here at this time o’ day.”
“Of course not,” Monk agreed. “I should be obliged to see whoever I may.”
“Aye, aye, I daresay. Well, you’d better come in.” And reluctantly McTeer pulled the door wide enough open to allow them to pass into the hall, with its giant picture of Hamish Farraline dominating the room.
Hester stared at it with curiosity as McTeer withdrew. Monk waited impatiently.
“What are you going to say?” Hester asked him.
“I don’t know,” he replied tersely. “It can’t be prescribed and followed like a dose of medicine.”
“Medicine is not prescribed and followed regardless,” she contradicted. “You watch the progress of the patient and do whatever you think best according to his response.”
“Don’t be pedantic.”
“Well, if you don’t know now, you had better make up your mind very rapidly,” she replied. “Oonagh will be here in a moment, unless she sends a message that she will not receive you.”
He turned his back, but remained standing close to her. She was right, and it irritated him almost beyond bearing. There had been too much emotion in the last few weeks, and he was profoundly disturbed by it. He hated his feelings to be beyond his control. The anger brought back memories which frightened him, recent memories of confusion and fear. The possibility of failure was another all too recent memory he preferred not to reawaken. The emotion caused by the knowledge that she might very easily die was a profound and deeply confused turmoil he chose to ignore. If he did so for long enough, he could sink into all the other memories he had lost.
She did not interrupt his thoughts again until McTeer returned to say that they would be received in the library. He did not say by whom.
When he opened the library door and a
“Miss Latterly, no expression of regret can suffice for what you have endured, but please believe that we are truly sorry, and as far as we have any part in it, we apologize profoundly.”
It was a noble speech, most especially considering that it was her own husband who now stood so openly accused.
Eilish looked wretched, and Monk felt an unaccustomed wave of pity for her. Quinlan’s behavior could only be acutely embarrassing to her.
Hester was generous about it, whatever her underlying feelings.
“You have no call to apologize, Mrs. Mclvor. You were newly bereaved in most fearful circumstances. I think you acted with dignity and restraint. I would be pleased to have done as well.”
A slight smile touched Oonagh’s lips.
“You are very gracious, Miss Latterly, more generous than I think I should be”-the smile broadened for a moment-”were we to change places.”
Eilish made a strangled sound in her throat.
Deirdra turned to her, but Oonagh ignored the interruption, and looked at Monk.
“Good morning, Mr. Monk. McTeer gave no indication as to why you have come. Was it simply to accompany Miss Latterly, that we might apologize to her?”
“I did not come for apologies,” Hester cut across him before he could speak. “I came to say how highly I regarded your mother, and in spite of all that has happened since we last met, I regard her loss as the worst of it.”
“That is generous of you,” Oonagh accepted. “Yes, she was a remarkable person. She will be greatly missed, outside the family as well as within it.”
They seemed to be on the point of being shown out again, and Monk had asked nothing at all.
“I have already expressed my regrets, long ago,” he said somewhat abruptly. “I came to ask if you wished my assistance in the matter. It is far from resolved, and the police will not allow it to rest. They ca
“As an agent of inquiry?” Oonagh’s fair eyebrows rose curiously. “To help us obtain another verdict of ‘not proven’?”
“Do you think Mr. Mclvor is guilty?”
It was an appalling thing to ask. There was a shocked, breathless silence. Even Hester gasped and bit her lip. A coal settled in the grate and outside beyond the windows a dog barked.
“No!” Eilish said at last, her voice a sob in her throat. “No, of course not!”
Monk was ruthless. “Then you will need to prove that it was someone else, or he will take Miss Latterly’s place at the rope’s end.”
“Monk!” Hester exploded. “For heaven’s sake!”
“You find the truth ugly?” he said. “I would have thought you, of all people, would not now balk at the real-ity”
She said nothing. He could feel her disgust as if it were a palpable thing radiating from her. It did not disturb him in the slightest.
A bar of pale sunlight came through the clouds and shone on one of the bookcases.
“I fear you are right, Mr. Monk,” Oonagh said with distaste, “no matter how bluntly you phrase it. The authorities ca
It was an impossible question to answer. He was seeking the truth only to prove once and for all that it was not Hester. The only imaginable alternatives were members of the Farraline family. Looking at Oonagh’s face, he saw the depths of her eyes, the black laughter in there, and knew that she understood it as perfectly as he did.
Eilish moved uncomfortably. Deirdra glanced at her.
“Discover which of you it was, Mrs. Mclvor,” Monk said quietly. “At least let us hang the right man-or woman. Or would you prefer simply to hang the most convenient?”
Hester let out a suppressed groan of anguish.
Oonagh remained entirely composed.
“No one could accuse you of mincing your words, Mr. Monk. But you are correct. I should prefer it to be the right person, whether it is my husband or one of my brothers. How do you propose to proceed? You must know a great deal already, and it has not led you to any conclusion, or doubtless you would have said so in Miss Latterly’s interests.”
Monk felt himself tighten as if he had been slapped. Once again his respect for Oonagh mounted. She was unlike any woman he had known before, and he could think of few men, if any, who could match her cold courage or her monumental composure.
“I now know a great deal more than I did then, Mrs. Mclvor. I think we all do,” he replied dryly.
“And you believe it!” Eilish could control herself no longer. “You believe everything Quinlan said, just because it was-”
“Eilish!” Oonagh’s voice cut across her firmly, reducing her to agonized silence, staring at Monk with her brilliant eyes. Oonagh turned back to Monk. “I presume you do not believe the matter is ended, or you would not have bothered to come. I imagine, whatever tactics or courtesy require you to say, it is to clear Miss Latterly’s name that you have really come. No, you do not need to answer that. Please don’t protest, it is unworthy of either of us.”
“I was not going to protest,” he said tersely. “As I see it, there are at least two avenues to explore on the grounds of evidence, either old or new.”