Rathbone allowed a moment for them to settle down again. Then he resumed. “We are here to try Arthur Ballinger on the charge of murdering Mickey Parfitt. I put it to you that for all Mr. Winchester’s elegance and his masterly exposure of the deeply vile nature of Mickey Parfitt’s trade, he has not shown us that Mr. Ballinger had anything to do with it, either as investor or as victim.”

He looked specifically at the jury.

“I propose in the next day or so to demonstrate to you the violent and deceitful nature of others involved on the edges of this trade, and how easy it would have been for any of them to have killed Parfitt. I shall show you a score of reasons why they might have, primarily involving greed. As has been amply demonstrated, there is a great deal of money to be made and lost in blackmail. Men’s reputations are destroyed, fortunes ruined, and lives ended. Such circumstances breed murder.”

Hester did not stay to listen. Rathbone would carefully lay all kinds of suggestions that would make the issue even less certain. He would probably not try to prove specifically that Rupert Cardew was guilty, but it might not be difficult to create at least sufficient belief that it was possible, so no jury would convict Ballinger. Then it would all begin again, perhaps only to end in more doubt.

She walked out into the late afternoon, the noise of the street, the traffic, almost another world. She tried not to think what it would mean for Monk if the trial ended in acquittal. Margaret would not forgive him. What would the River Police think? That he had charged the wrong man, or that he had been right and had failed to produce the evidence? Either way he had lost.

She forced herself to remember that it was being right that mattered, not looking right. She needed to know what had happened to Hattie. If Margaret had taken her to the door and suggested she leave, why had Hattie obeyed her? Where had she gone? To whom? Who had known where to find her, and had killed her to keep her from testifying? What would she have said? That Rupert was innocent? Or that he was guilty?

Now they would never know to whom Hattie had given the cravat, if indeed she had ever actually stolen it. Was it possible that Rupert had killed Parfitt after all? Why did that thought hurt? Simply the pain of disillusion? Or the humiliation of being wrong? Or the wrenching pity for his father?