The Twisted Root

chapter Fourteen
Cleo swallowed convulsively. "Aiden Campbell."

If she had set off a bomb it could not have had more effect.

Rathbone was momentarily paralyzed.

There was a roar from the gallery.

The jurors turned to each other, exclaiming, gasping.

The judge banged his gavel and demanded order.

"My lord!" Rathbone said, raising his voice. "May I ask for the luncheon adjournment so I can speak with my client?"

"You may," the judge agreed, and banged the gavel again. "The court will reconvene at two o'clock."

Rathbone left the courtroom in a daze and walked like a man half blind down to the room where Miriam Gardiner was permitted to speak with him.

She did not even turn her head when the door opened and he came in, the jailer remaining on the outside.

"Was it Aiden Campbell you were running from?" he asked.

She said nothing, sitting motionless, head turned away.

"Why?" he persisted. "What had he done to you?"

Silence.

"Was he the one who attacked you originally?" His voice was growing louder and more shrill in his desperation. "For heaven's sake, answer me! How can I help you if you won't speak to me?" He leaned forward over the small table, but still she did not turn. "You will hang!" he said deliberately.

"I know," she answered at last.

"And Cleo Anderson!" he added.

"No - I will say I killed Treadwell, too. I will swear it on the stand. They'll believe me, because they want to. None of them wants to condemn Cleo."

It was true, and he knew it as well as she did.

"You'll say that on the stand?"

"Yes."

"But it is not true!"

This time she turned and met his eyes fully. "You don't know that, Sir Oliver. You don't know what happened. If I say it is so, will you contradict your own client? You must be a fool - it is what they want to hear. They will believe it."

He stared back at her, momentarily beaten. He had the feeling that were there any heart left alive in her, she would have smiled at him. He knew that if he did not call her to testify, then she would ask the judge from the dock for permission to speak, and he would grant it. There was no argument to make.

He left, and had a miserable luncheon of bread which tasted to him like sawdust, and claret which could as well have been vinegar.

Rathbone had no choice but to call Aiden Campbell to the stand. If he had not, then most assuredly Tobias would have. At least this way he might retain a modicum of control.

The court was seething with anticipation. Word seemed to have spread during the luncheon adjournment, because now every seat was taken and the ushers had had to ban more people from crowding in.

The judge called them to order, and Rathbone rose to begin.

"I call Aiden Campbell, my lord."

Campbell was white-faced but composed. He must have known that this was inevitable, and he had had almost two hours to prepare himself. He stood now facing Rathbone, a tall, straight figure, tragically resembling both his dead sister and his nephew, Lucius, who was sitting beside his father more like a ghost than a living being. Every now and again he stared up at Miriam, but never once had Rathbone seen Miriam return his look.

"Mr. Campbell," Rathbone began as soon as Campbell had been reminded that he was still under oath. "An extraordinary charge has been laid against you by the last witness. Are you willing to respond to this - "

"I am," Campbell interrupted in his eagerness to reply. "I had hoped profoundly that this would never be necessary. Indeed, I have gone to some lengths to see that it would not, for the sake of my family, and out of a sense of decency and the desire to bury old tragedies and allow them to remain unknown in the present, where they cannot hurt innocent parties." He glanced at Lucius, and away again. His meaning was nakedly apparent.

"Mrs. Anderson has sworn that Miriam Gardiner claimed it was you she was running away from when she fled the party at Cleveland Square. Is that true?" Rathbone asked.

Campbell looked distressed. "Yes," he said quietly. He shook his head a fraction. "I cannot tell you how deeply I had hoped not to have to say this. I knew Miriam Gardiner -  Miriam Speake, as she was then - when she was twelve years old. She was a maid in my household when I lived near Hampstead."

There was a rustle of movement and the startled sound of indrawn breath around the room.

Campbell looked across at Harry Stourbridge and Lucius.

"I'm sorry," he said fervently. "I cannot conceal this any longer. Miriam lived in my house for about eighteen months, or something like that. Of course, she recognized me at the garden party, and must have been afraid that I would know her also, and tell you." He was still speaking to Harry Stourbridge, as if this were a private matter between them.

"Obviously, you did not tell them," Rathbone observed, bringing his attention back to the business of the court. "Why would it trouble her so much that she would flee in such a manner, as if terrified rather man merely embarrassed? Surely the Stourbridge family was already aware that she came from a different social background? Was this so terrible?"

Campbell sighed, and hesitated several moments before replying.

Rathbone waited.

There was barely a movement in the courtroom.

"Mr. Campbell..." the judge prompted.

Campbell bit his lips. "Yes, my lord. It pains me deeply to say this, but Miriam Speake was a loose woman. Even at the age of twelve she was without moral conscience."

There was a gasp from Harry Stourbridge. Lucius half rose in his seat, but his legs seemed to collapse under him.

"I'm sorry," Campbell said again. "She was very pretty -  very comely for one so young ... and I find it repugnant to have to say so, but very experienced - "

Again he was interrupted by an outcry from the gallery.

Several jurors were shaking their heads. A couple of them glanced towards the dock with grim disappointment. Rathbone knew absolutely that they believed every word. He himself looked up at Miriam and saw her bend her ashen face and cover it with her hands as if she could not endure what she was hearing.

In calling Aiden Campbell, Rathbone had removed what ghost of a defense she had had. He felt as if he had impaled himself on his own sword. Everyone in the room was watching him, waiting for him to go on. Hester must be furious at this result, and pity him for his incompetence. The pity was worse.

Tobias was shaking his head in sympathy for a fellow counsel drowning in a storm of his own making.

Campbell was waiting. Rathbone must say something more. Nothing he could imagine would make it worse. At least he had nothing to lose now and therefore also nothing to fear.

"This is your opinion, Mr. Campbell? And you believe that Mrs. Gardiner, now a very respectable widow in her thirties, was so terrified that you would express this unfortunate view of her childhood and ruin the prospective happiness of your nephew?"

"Hardly unreasonable," Tobias interrupted. "What man would not tell his sister whom he loved that her only son was engaged to marry a maid no better than a whore?"

"But he didn't!" Rathbone exclaimed. "He told no one! In fact, you first heard him apologize to his brother-in-law this moment for saying it now." He swung around. "Why was that, Mr. Campbell? If she was such a woman as you describe - should I say, such a child - why did you not warn your family rather than allow her to marry into it? If what you say is true..."

"It is true," Campbell said gravely. "The state she was in that Mrs. Anderson described fits, regrettably, with what I know of her." His hands gripped the rail of the witness box in front of him. He seemed to hold it as if to steady himself from shaking. He had difficulty rinding his voice. "She seduced one of my servants, a previously decent man, who fell into temptation too strong for him to resist. I considered dismissing him, but his work was excellent, and he was bitterly ashamed of his lapse from virtue. It would have ruined him at the start of his life." He stopped for a moment.

Rathbone waited.

"I did not know at the time," Campbell went on with obvious difficulty. "But she was with child. She had it aborted."

There was an outcry in the courtroom. A woman shrieked. There was a commotion as someone apparently collapsed.

The judge banged his gavel, but it made little impression.

Miriam made as if to rise to her feet, but the jailers on either side of her pulled her back.

Rathbone looked at the jury. To a man their faces were marked deeply with shock and utter and savage contempt.

The judge banged his gavel again. "I will have order!" he said angrily. "Otherwise the ushers will clear the court!"

Tobias looked across at Rathbone and shook his head.

When the noise subsided, and before Rathbone could speak, Campbell continued. "That must be the reason that she was bleeding when Mrs. Anderson found her wandering around on the Heath." He shook his head as if to deny what he was about to say, somehow reduce the harshness of it. "At first I didn't want to put her out either. She was so young. I thought - one mistake - and it had been a rough abortion -  she was still..." He shrugged. Then he raised his head and looked at Rathbone. "But she kept on, always tempting the men, flirting with them, setting one against the other. She enjoyed the power she had over them. I had no choice but to put her out."

There was a murmur of sympathy around the court, and a rising tide of anger also. One or two men swore under their breath. Two jurors spoke to each other. They glanced up at the dock. The condemnation in their faces was unmistakable.

A journalist was scribbling furiously.

Tobias looked at Rathbone and smiled sympathetically, but without hiding his knowledge of his own victory. He asked no quarter for himself when he lost, and he gave none.

"I wish I had not had to say that." Campbell was looking at Rathbone. "I hesitated to tell Harry before because at first I was not even totally sure it was the same person. It seemed incredible, and of course, she had aged a great deal in twenty-three years. I didn't want to think it was her... you understahd that? I suppose I finally acknowledged that it had to be when I saw that she also recognized me."

There was nothing for Rathbone to say, nothing left to ask. It was the last result he could have foreseen, and presumably Hester would feel as disillusioned and as empty as he did himself. He sat down utterly dejected.

Tobias rose and walked into the middle of the floor, swaggering a little. Beating Oliver Rathbone was a victory to be savored, even when it had been ridiculously easy.

"Mr. Campbell, there is very little left for me to ask. You have told us far more than we could have imagined." He looked across at Rathbone. "I think that goes for my learned friend as much as for me. However, I do wish to tidy up any details that there may be... in case Mrs. Gardiner decides to take the stand herself and make any charges against you, as suggested by Mrs. Anderson - who may be as unaware of Mrs. Gardiner's youthful exploits as were the rest of us."

Campbell did not reply but waited for Tobias to continue.

"Mrs. Gardiner fled when she realized that you had recognized her - at least that is your assumption?"

"Yes."

"Did you follow her?"

"No, of course not. I had no reason to."

"You remained at the party?"

"Not specifically at the party. I remained at Cleveland Square. I was very upset about the matter. I moved a little farther off in the garden, to be alone and think what to do... and what to say when the rest of the family would inevitably discover that she had gone."

"And what did you decide, Mr. Campbell?"

"To say nothing," Campbell answered. "I knew this story would hurt them all profoundly. They were very fond of Miriam. Lucius was in love with her as only a young and idealistic man can be. I believe it was his first love ..." He left the sentence hanging, allowing each man to remember his own first awakenings of passion, dreams, and perhaps loss.

"I see," Tobias said softly. "Only God can know whether that decision was the right one, but I can well understand why you made it. I am afraid I must press you further on just one issue."

"Yes?"

"The coachman, James Treadwell. Why do you think she left with him?"

"He was the servant in the house she knew the best," Campbell replied. "I gather he had driven her from Hampstead a number of times. I shall not speculate that it was anything more than that."

"Very charitable of you," Tobias observed. "Considering your knowledge of her previous behavior with menservants."

Campbell narrowed his lips, but he did not answer.

"Tell me," Tobias continued, "how did this wretched coachman know of Mrs. Anderson's stealing of hospital supplies?"

"I have no idea." Campbell sounded surprised, then his face fell. He shook his head. "No - I don't believe Miriam told him. She was conniving, manipulative, greedy - but no. Unless it was by accident, not realizing what he would do with the information."

"Would it not be the perfect revenge?" Tobias asked smoothly. "Her marriage to Lucius Stourbridge is now impossible because she knows you will never allow it. Treadwell is raining her friend and benefactress, to whom she must now return. In rage and defeat, and even desperation, she strikes out at him! What could be more natural?"

"I suppose so," Campbell conceded.

Tobias turned to the judge. "My lord, this is surely sufficient tragedy for one day. If it pleases the court, I would like to suggest we may adjourn until tomorrow, when Sir Oliver may put forward any other evidence he feels may salvage his case. Personally, I have little more to add."

The judge looked at Rathbone enquiringly, but his 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 his despair. "She seemed so - so sure it was a woman ... someone she cared for ... who had helped her, even loved her... I - " She stopped, too weary, too hurt, to goon.

"I'm sorry," Rathbone said gently. "You were right to tell me about the baby. If Campbell was lying, at least we may be able to make something of that. Even if we do no more than save Miriam's reputation, I am sure that will matter to her." He was making wild promises and talking nonsense. Would Miriam care about such a thing when she faced death?

He banged on the door to be released again, and as soon as they were outside he turned to Hester.

But before he could begin to say how sorry he was, she spoke.

"If this woman really was killed, then her body must still be there."

"Hester - she was delirious, probably weak from loss of blood and in a state of acute distress from delivering a dead child."

"Maybe. But perhaps she really did see a woman murdered," Hester insisted. "If the body was never found, then it is out there on the Heath."

"For twenty-two years! On Hampstead Heath! For heaven's sake..."

"Not in the open! Buried - hidden somewhere."

"Well, if it's buried no one would find it now."

"Perhaps it's not buried." She refused to give up. "Perhaps it's hidden somehow, concealed."

"Hester..."

"I'm going to find Sergeant Robb and see if he will help me look."

"You can't. After all this time there 'll be nothing..."

"I've got to try. What if there really was a woman murdered? What if Miriam was telling the truth all the time?"

"She isn't!"

"But what if she was? She's your client, Oliver! You've got to give her the benefit of every doubt. You must assume that what she says is true until it is completely proved it can't be."

"She was thirteen, she'd just given birth to a dead child, she was alone and hysterical..."

"I'm going to find Sergeant Robb. He'll help me look, whatever he believes, for Cleo's sake. He owes her a debt he can never repay, and he knows that."

"And doubtless if he should forget, you will remind him."

"Certainly!" she agreed. "But he won't forget."

"What about Monk?" he challenged her as she turned to leave.

"He's still busy trying to find out more about Treadwell and the corpses," she said over her shoulder.

"Hester, wait!"

But she had walked off, increasing her pace to a run, and short of chasing after her there was nothing he could do -  except try to imagine how he was going to face the court the next morning.

Michael Robb was sitting alone in the room where until recently his grandfather had spent his days. The big chair was still there, as if the old man might come back to it one day, and there was a startling emptiness without him.

"Mrs. Monk," Robb said with surprise. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Everything is wrong," she answered, remaining standing in spite of his invitation to sit. "Cleo is going to be convicted unless we can find some sort of evidence that Miriam also is innocent, and our only chance of that is to find the body of the woman..."

"What woman? Just a minutef" He held up his hand. "What has happened in court? I wasn't there."

With words falling over each other, she told him about Rathbone's calling Cleo to the stand and her story of how she had first met Miriam, and then Aiden Campbell's denial and explanation.

"We've got to find the woman that Miriam said was murdered," she finished desperately. "That would prove what she said was true! At least they would have to investigate."

"She's been out there for twenty-two years," he protested. "If she exists at all!"

"Can you think of anything better?" she demanded.

"No - but..."

"Then, help me! We've got to go and look!"

He hesitated only a moment. She could see in his face mat he considered it hopeless, but he was feeling lonely and guilty because Cleo had helped him in the way he valued the most and he could do nothing for her. Silently, he picked up his bull's-eye lantern and followed her out into the gathering dusk.

Side by side they walked towards Green Man Hill and the row of cottages where Cleo Anderson had lived until her arrest. They stopped outside, facing the Heath. It was now almost dark; only the heavy outlines of the trees showed black against the sky.

"Where do you think we should start?" Robb asked.

She was grateful he had spoken of them as together, not relegating the search to her idea in which he was merely obliging her.

She had been thinking about it as they had traveled in silence.

"It cannot have been very far," she said, staring across the grass. "She was not in a state to run a distance. If the poor woman really was murdered - beaten to death, as Miriam apparently said - then whoever did so would not have committed such an act close to the road." She pushed away the thought, refusing to allow the pictures into her mind. "Even if it was a single blow - and please God it was - it cannot have been silent. There must have been a quarrel, an accusation or something. Miriam was there; she saw it. She, at least, must have cried out - and then fled."

He was staring at her, and in the light of the lantern she saw him nodding slowly, his face showing his revulsion at what she described.

"Whoever it was could not follow her," she went on relentlessly. "Because he was afraid of being caught. First he had to get rid of the body of the woman - "

"Mrs. Monk... are you sure you believe this is possible?" he interrupted.

She was beginning to doubt it herself, but she refused to give up.

"Of course!" she said sharply. "We are going to prove it. If you had just killed someone, and you knew a girl had seen you, and she had run away, perhaps screaming, how would you hide a body so quickly that if anyone heard and came to see, they would not find anything at all?"

His eyes widened. He opened his lips to argue, then began to think. He walked across the grass towards the first trees and stared around him.

"Well, I wouldn't have time to dig a grave," he said slowly. "The ground is hard and full of roots. And anyway, someone would very quickly notice disturbed earth."

He walked a little farther, and she followed after him quickly.

Above them something swooped in the darkness on broad wings. Involuntarily, she gave a little shriek.

"It's only an owl," he said reassuringly.

She swung around. "Where did it go?"

"One of the trees," he replied. He lifted the lantern and began shining it around, lighting the trunks one after another. They looked pale gray against the darkness, and the shadows seemed to move beyond them as the lantern waved.

She was acutely glad she was not alone. She imagined what Miriam must have felt like, her child lost, a woman she loved killed in front of her, and herself pursued and hunted, bleeding, terrified. No wonder she was all but out of her mind when Cleo found her.

"We've got to keep on looking," she said fiercely. "We must exhaust every possibility. If the body is here, we are going to find it!" She strode forward, hitching up her skirts so as not to fall over them. "You said he wouldn't have buried it. He couldn't leave it in plain sight, or it would have been found. And it wasn't. So he hid it so successfully it never was found. Where?"

"In a tree," he replied. "It has to be. There's nowhere else!"

"Up a tree? But someone would find it in time!" she protested. "It would rot. It..."

"I know," he said hastily, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the idea. He moved the lantern ahead of them, picking out undergrowth and more trees. A weasel ran across the path, its lean body bright in the beam for a moment, then it disappeared.

"Animals would get rid of it in time, wouldn't they?"

"In time, yes."

"Well, it's been over twenty years! What would be left now? Bones? Teeth?"

"Hair," he said. "Perhaps clothes, jewelry, buttons. Boots, maybe."

She shuddered.

He looked at her, shining the light a little below her face not to dazzle her.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Monk?" he said gently. "I can go on my own, if you like. I'll take you back and then come back here again. I promise I will..."

She smiled at his earnestness. "I know you would, but I am quite all right, thank you. Let's go forward."

He hesitated for a moment, still uncertain, then as she did not waver, he shone the lantern ahead of them and started.

They walked together for forty or fifty yards, searching to left and right for any place that could be used for concealment. She found herself feeling more and more as if she was wasting her time - and more important, Robb's time as well. She had believed Miriam's story because she wanted to, for Cleo's sake, not because it was really credible.

"Sergeant Robb," she began.

He turned around, the beam of light swinging across the two trees to their right. It caught for a moment on a tangle in the lower branches.

"What's that?" he said quickly.

"An old bird's nest," she replied. "Last year's, by the look ofit."

He played the light on it, then moved forward to look more closely.

"What?" she asked, with curiosity more than hope. "Clever how they weave them, isn't it? Especially since they haven't got any hands."

He passed her the lantern. "Hold this onto it, please. I want to take a closer look."

"At a bird's nest?" But she did as he requested, and kept the light steady.

With hands free it was easy enough for him to climb up until he was level with the nest and peer inside where it was caught in a fork in the branches, close to the trunk.

"What is it?" she called up.

He turned around, his face a shadowed mask in the upturned beam.

"Hair," he answered her. "Long hair, lots of it. The whole nest is lined with hair." His voice was shaking. "I'm going to look for a hollow tree. You just hold the light, and keep your eyes away."

She felt a lurch inside. She had no longer believed it, and now here it was. They were almost there - in the next half hour - more or less...

"Yes," she said unsteadily. "Yes, of course."

Actually, it took him only fifteen minutes to find the tree with the hollow core, blasted by some ancient lightning arid now rotted. It was closer to the road than the nest, but the spread of branches hid the hole until it was deliberately sought. Perhaps twenty-two years ago it had been more obvious. The entire tree was hollow down the heart.

"It's in there," Robb said huskily, climbing down again, the lantern tied to his belt. His legs were shaking when he reached the ground. "It's only a skeleton, but there's still cloth left..." He blinked, and his face looked yellow-gray in the beam. "From the head, she was killed by one terrible blow... like Treadwell... and Mrs. Stourbridge."

Rathbone had slept little. A messenger had arrived at his rooms after midnight with a note from Hester:

Dear Oliver,

We found the body. Seems to be a woman with gray hair. She was killed by a terrible blow to the head - just like the others. Am in the police station with Sergeant Robb. They do not know who she is. Will tell William, of course. I shall be in court in the morning to testify. You MUST call me!

Yours, Hester

He had found it impossible to rest. An hour later he had made himself a hot drink and was pacing the study floor trying to formulate a strategy for the next day. Eventually, he went back to bed and sank into a deep sleep, when it seemed immediately time to get up.

His head ached and his mouth was dry. His manservant brought him breakfast, but he ate only toast and drank a cup of tea, then left straightaway for the courtroom. He was far too early, and the time he had expected to use in preparing himself he wasted in pointless moving from one place to another, and conversation from which he learned nothing.

Tobias was in excellent spirits. He passed Rathbone in the corridor and wished him well with a wry smile. He would have preferred a little fight of it. Such an easy victory was of little savor.

The gallery was half empty again. The public had already made up their minds, and the few spectators present were there only to see justice done and taste a certain vengeance. The startling exceptions to this were Lucius and Harry Stourbridge, who sat towards the front, side by side, and even at a distance, very obviously supporting each other in silent companionship of anguish.

The judge called the court to order.

"Have you any further witnesses, Sir Oliver?" he asked.

"Yes, my lord. I would like to call Hester Monk."

Tobias looked across curiously.

The judge raised his eyebrows, but with no objection.

Rathbone smiled very slightly.

The usher called for Hester.

She took the stand looking tired and pale-faced, but absolutely confident, and she very deliberately turned and looked up towards the dock and nodded to both Cleo and Miriam. Then she waited for Rathbone to begin.

Rathbone cleared his throat. "Mrs. Monk, were you in court yesterday when Mrs. Anderson testified to the extraordinary story Miriam Gardiner told when she was first found bleeding and hysterical on Hampstead Heath twenty-two years ago?"

"Yes, I was."