The Twisted Root Page 0,140

gavel was already in his hand.

Rathbone had no weapons and no will to fight any further.

"Certainly, my lord," he said quietly. "By all means."

Rathbone had barely left the courtroom when he was approached by the usher.

He did not wish to speak to anyone. He was tasting the full bitterness of a defeat he knew he had brought upon himself. He dreaded facing Hester and seeing her disillusion. She would not blame him. He was certain she would not be angry. Her kindness would be even harder to bear.

"What is it?" he said brusquely.

"Sorry, Sir Oliver," the usher apologized. "Mrs. Anderson asked if you would speak with her, sir. She said it was most important."

The only thing worse than facing Hester was going to be telling Cleo Anderson that there was nothing more he could attempt on her behalf. He drew in his breath. It could not be evaded. If victory could be accepted and celebrated, then defeat must be dealt with with equal composure, and at the very least without cowardice or excuses.

"Of course," he replied. "Thank you, Morris." He turned and was a dozen yards along the corridor when Hester caught up with him. He had no idea what to say to her. There was no comfort to offer, no next line of attack to suggest.

She fell into step with him and said nothing.

He glanced at her, then away again, grateful for her silence. He had not seen Monk, and assumed he was on some other business.

Cleo was waiting in the small room with the jailer outside. She was standing facing them, and she stepped forward as soon as Rathbone closed the door.

"He's lying," she said, looking from one to the other of them.

He was embarrassed. It was futile to protest now, and he had not the emotional strength to struggle with her. It was over.

He shook his head. "I'm sure you want to believe - "

"It has nothing to do with belief! I saw her then. She wasn't aborted. She'd gone full term." She was angry now with his lack of understanding. "I'm a nurse. I know the difference between a woman who's given birth and one who's lost her child or done away with it in the first few months. That child was born - dead or alive. The size of her - and she had milk, poor little thing." She swallowed. "How she wept for it..."

"So Campbell is lying!" Hester said, moving forward to Cleo. "But why?"

"To hide what he did to her," Cleo said furiously. "He must have raped her, and when she was with child he threw her out." She looked from Hester to Rathbone. "Though he didn't even notice her condition. Who looks at housemaids, especially ones who are barely more than children themselves? Perhaps he'd already got tired of her - moved on to someone else? Or if he thought she'd had it aborted, and only then realized she hadn't, to avoid the scandal."

"It wouldn't be much of a scandal," Hester said sadly. "If she was foolish enough to say it was his, he would simply deny it. No one would be likely to believe her ... or frankly, care that much even if they did. It isn't worth murdering anyone over."

Cleo's face crumpled, but she refused to give in. "What about the body?"

"Which body?" Rathbone was confused. "The baby?"

"No - no, the woman!"

"What woman?"

"The woman Miriam saw murdered the night her baby was born. The woman on the Heath."

Rathbone was still further confused. "Who was she?"

Cleo shook her head. "I don't know. Miriam said she had been murdered. She saw it - that was what she was running away from."

"But who was the woman?"

"I don't know!"

"Was there ever a body found? What happened? Didn't the police ask?"

Cleo waved her hands in denial, her eyes desperate. "No - no body was ever found. He must have hidden it."

It was all pointless, completely futile. Rathbone felt a sense of despair drowning him as if he could hardly struggle for breath, almost a physical suffocation.

"You said yourself that she was hysterical." He tried to sound reasonable, not patronizing or offensive to a woman who must be facing the most bitter disillusion imaginable, and for which she would face disgrace she had not deserved, and a death he could not save her from. "Don't you think the loss of her baby was what she was actually thinking of? Was it a girl?"

"I don't know. She didn't say." Cleo looked as if she had caught