The Twisted Root (23 page)

It transpired that the jailer knew Cleo—she had nursed his mother in her final illness-and he was only too pleased to repay the kindness in any way he could. Indeed, he seemed embarrassed by the situation, and Hester could not guess from his manner whether he thought Cleo could be guilty or not. However, word had spread that the charge was that she had killed a blackmailer, and he had a very low regard for such people, possibly sufficiently low that he was not overly concerned by the death of one of them.

The cell door shut with the heavy, echoing sound of metal on metal, sending a shiver of memory through Hester, bringing back her own few hideous days in Edinburgh, when she was where Cleo sat now, alone and facing trial, and perhaps death.

Cleo looked at her in surprise. Her face was pale, and she had the bruised, staring look of someone deeply shocked, but she seemed composed, even resigned. Hester could not recall if she had felt like that. She believed she had always wanted to fight, that inside herself she was screaming out against the injustice. There was too much to live for not to struggle, always far too much.

But then she had not killed Mary Farraline.

Even if Cleo had killed Treadwell because he had been blackmailing her over the medicines, it was a highly understandable action. Not excusable, perhaps, but surely any God worth worshiping would find more pity than blame for her?

Maybe she did not believe that? At least not now ... at this moment, facing human justice.

"Can I help you?" Hester said aloud. "Is there anything I can bring for you? Clothes, soap, a clean towel, rather better food? What about your own spoon? Or cup?"

Cleo smiled faintly. The very practicality of the suggestions contrasted with what she had expected. She had anticipated anger, blame, pity, curiosity. She looked puzzled.

"I’ve been in prison," Hester explained. "I hated the soap and the scratchy towels. It’s a little thing. And I wanted my own spoon. I remember that."

"But they let you go...." Cleo looked at her with anxiety so sharp it was close to breaking her composure. "And they let Miriam go? Is she all right?"

Hester sat in the chair, leaning forward a little. She liked Cleo more with each encounter. She could not watch her distress with any impartiality at all, or think of her fate with acceptance. "Yes, they let her go."

"Home?" She was watching Hester intently.

"No ... with Lucius and Major Stourbridge." She searched Cleo’s face for anything that would help her understand why Miriam had dreaded it. She saw nothing, no flicker of comprehension, however swiftly concealed.

"Was she all right?" Cleo said fearfully.

It seemed cruel to tell her the truth, but Hester did not know enough to judge which lies would do least harm.

"No," she answered. "I don’t think so. Not from what my husband said. She would far rather have gone anywhere else at all—even remained in prison—but she was not given the choice. The police could not hold her because there was no charge anymore, but it was obvious to everyone that she was deeply distressed, and since she is a witness to much of what happened, they have a certain authority over where she should go."

Cleo said nothing. She stared down at her hands, folded in her lap.

Hester watched her closely. "Do you know why she ran away from Cleveland Square and why she had to be all but dragged back there?"

Cleo looked up quickly. "No—no, I don’t. She wouldn’t tell me."

Hester believed her. The confusion and distress in her eyes were too real. "Don’t answer me whether you took the medicines or not," she said quietly. "I know you did, and I know what for."

Cleo regarded her thoughtfully for several moments before she spoke. "What’s going to happen to them, miss? There’s nobody to look after them. The ones with family are better off than those who haven’t, but even they can’t afford what they need, or they don’t know what it is. They get old, and their children move on, leaving them behind. The young don’t care about Trafalgar an’ Waterloo now. A few years an’ they’ll forget the Crimea, too. Those soldiers are all the thing now, because they’re young and handsome still. We get upset about a young man with no arms or no legs, or insides all to pieces. But when they get old we can’t be bothered. We say they’re going to die soon anyway. Wot’s the point in spending time and money on them?"

There was no argument to make. Of course, it was not true everywhere, but in too many instances it was.

"What about John Robb, sailor from the victory at Trafalgar?" Hester asked. "Consumption, by the sound of him."

Cleo’s face tightened, and she nodded. "I don’t think he has long. His grandson does everything he can for him, but that isn’t much. He can’t give him any ease without the morphine." She did not ask, but it was in her eyes, willing Hester to agree.

Hester knew what that would involve. She would have to give him the morphine herself. It would involve her in the theft. But to refuse would compound the old man’s suffering and his sense of being abandoned. When he understood, he would also know that his suffering was of less importance to her than keeping herself from risk. Alleviating pain was all right, as long as the cost was small—a little time, even weariness, but not personal danger.

"Yes, of course:’ The words were out of her mouth before she had time to weigh what she was committing herself to do.

"Thank you," Cleo said softly, a momentary gleam in her eyes, as if she had seen a light in enclosing darkness. "And I would like the soap, and the spoon, if it is not too much trouble."

"Of course." Hester brushed them aside as already done. What she really wanted was to help with some defense, but what was there? She realized with bitterness that she was half convinced that Cleo had killed Treadwell. "Have you got a lawyer to speak for you?"

"A lawyer? What can he say? It won’t make no difference." The tone of her voice was flat, as if she had suddenly been jerked back to the harshness of the present and her own reality, not John Robb’s. There was a closed air about her, excluding Hester from her emotions till she felt rebuffed, an intruder. Was Cleo still somehow defending Miriam Gardiner? Or was she guilty, and believed she deserved to die?

"Did you kill Treadwell?" Hester said abruptly.

Cleo hesitated, was about to speak, then changed her mind and said nothing. Hester had the powerful impression that she had been going to deny it, but she would never know, and asking again would be useless. The mask was complete.

"Was he blackmailing you?" she asked instead.

Cleo sighed. "Yeah, ’course he was. Do most things for money, that one."

"I see." There did not seem much else to say. She had resolved without question or doubt that she would do all she could to help Cleo, it was a matter of thinking what that would be. Already, Oliver Rathbone’s name was in her mind.

Cleo grasped her wrist, holding hard, startling her. "Don’t tell the sergeant!" she said fiercely. "It can’t change what he does, and ..."—she blinked, her face bruised with hurt— "and don’t tell old Mr. Robb why I’m not there. Tell him something else ... anything. Perhaps by the time they try me, and ... well, he may not have to know. He could be gone his-self by then."

"I’ll tell him something else," Hester promised. "Probably that you’ve gone to look after a relative or something."

"Thank you." Cleo’s gratitude was so naked, Hester felt guilty. She was on the edge of saying that she intended to do far more, but she had no idea what it could be, and to raise hope she could not fulfill was thoughtlessly cruel.

"I’ll come back with the soap," she promised. "And the spoon." Then she went to the door and banged for the jailer to let her out.

The next thing she did she expected to be the most difficult, and it was certainly the one of which she was most afraid. She felt guilty even as she walked up the steps and in through the hospital door. She returned the stare of two young medical students too directly, as if to deny their suspicion of her. Then she felt ridiculous, and was sure she was blushing. She had done nothing yet. She was no different from the person she had been yesterday or this morning, when she had been perfectly happy to confront Fermin Thorpe in his office and rack her brain to defend Cleo Anderson. Would Callandra in turn have to rack her brain tomorrow to defend her?

And yet she could not escape it. Quite apart from her fondness for John Robb, she had given Cleo the promise. She had tried to form a plan, but so much depended upon opportunity. It was impractical to try stealing Phillips’s keys, and unfair to him. Added to which, he really was extremely careful with them, and might be the more so now.

How long would she have to wait for a crisis of some sort to present a chance, the apothecary’s room open and unattended, or Phillips there but his back turned? She was suddenly furious with herself. She had been alone with Cleo and not had the wits to ask her how she had accomplished it. She had just blithely promised to do the same, without the faintest idea how to go about it. It was very humbling to realize her own stupidity.

She stood in the middle of the passage and was still there when Kristian Beck reached her.

"Hester?" he said with concern. "Are you all right?"

She recalled herself swiftly and began speaking with the idea only half formed in her mind. "I was wondering how Cleo Anderson managed to steal the morphine. Phillips is really very careful. I mean, how do you think it happened, in practical detail?"

He frowned. "Does it matter?"

Why did he ask? Was he indifferent to the thefts? Was he so certain Cleo was guilty that the details did not matter? Or was it even conceivable that he had some sympathy with her?

"I don’t want to prove it," she answered steadily, meeting his eyes with complete candor. "I would like above all things to disprove it, but failing that, at least to understand."

"She is charged with murdering Treadwell," he said softly. "The jury cannot excuse that, whatever they privately feel. There is no provision or law for murdering blackmailers or for stealing medicine, even if it is to treat the old and ill for whom there is no other help." The lacerating edge in his voice betrayed his own feelings too clearly.

"I know that," she said in little above a whisper. "I should still like to know exactly how she did it."

He stood in silence for several moments.

She waited. Part of her wanted to leave before it was too late. But escaping would be only physical. Morally and emotionally, she was still trapped. And that was trivial compared with Cleo—or John Robb.

"What do you think she took?" Kristian asked at length.

She swallowed. "Morphine, for an old man who has consumption. It won’t cure him, but it gives him a little rest."

"Very understandable," he answered. "I hope she gave him some sherry in water as well?"

"I believe so."

"Good. I need a few things from the apothecary myself. I’ll go and get the keys. You can help me, if you would." And without waiting for her answer, he turned sharply and strode off.

He came back a few minutes later with the keys and opened the door. He went inside and left her to follow him. He started to unlock various cupboards and take out leaves for infusions, cordials and various powders. He passed several of them to Hester while he opened bottles and jars, then closed them again. When he had finished he ushered her out, relocked the door, took some of the medicines back from her, then thanked her and left her standing in the corridor with a small bottle of cordial and a week’s dosage of morphine, plus several small paper screws of quinine.

She put them quickly into her pockets and went back towards the front door and out of it. She felt as if dozens of eyes were boring holes in her back, but actually she passed only one nurse with a mop and bucket, and Fermin Thorpe himself, striding along with his face set, hardly recognizing her.

John Robb was delighted to see her. He had had a bad night but was a trifle better towards late afternoon, and the loneliness of sitting in his chair in the empty house, even with the sun slanting in through the windows, had made him melancholy. His face lit with a smile when he recognized her step, and even before she entered the room he was tidying the little space around him and making ready for her.

"How are you?" he said the moment she came through the door.

"I’m very well," she answered cheerfully. He must never know about Cleo if there was any way it could be prevented.

She could not warn Michael without explaining to him the reason, and that would place him in an impossible situation. He would then have either to benefit indirectly from the thefts, which he would find intolerable, or else have to testify against Cleo from his own knowledge. That would also be unbearable, for the old man’s sake as well as his own. Such disillusion and sense of betrayal might be more than his old and frail body could take. And then Michael’s guilt would be crippling.

"I’m very well indeed," she said firmly. "How are you? I hope you are well enough to share a cup of tea with me? I brought some you might like to try, and a few biscuits." She smiled back at him. "Of course, it was all an excuse so you will tell me more stories of your life at sea and the places you have been to. You were going to describe the Indies for me. You said how brilliant the water was, like a cascade of jewels, and that you had seen fishes that could fly."

"Oh, bless you, girl, I have an’ all," he agreed with a smile. "An’ more than that, too. You put the kettle on an’ I’ll tell you all you want to know."

"Of course." She walked across the room and pulled the biscuits and tea out of the bag they were in, filled the kettle from the jug and set it on the stove, then, with her back to him, took out the cordial bottle and placed it on the shelf, half behind a blue bag of sugar. Then she slipped the morphine out of her other pocket and set it underneath the two thin papers that were left from Cleo’s last visit.

"Was it very hot in the Indies?" she asked.