“Of course I’m sorry! I’m not heartless,” she retorted with a touch of anger. “But she had a life that was always going to end badly.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We have to fight for complete justice—exoneration for Papa. And then perhaps Monk will put it right by charging Rupert Cardew again. He can, can’t he? I mean, there’s no double jeopardy or anything like that, because he didn’t stand trial. He might even have killed Hattie as well. Then if you can’t prove he killed Mickey Parfitt, you could always hang him for killing her.”

“You said it as if you would like that,” he observed. Why was he provoking a quarrel, pushing her away? All she wanted was for her father to be free from all taint or suggestion of wrongdoing. Was that not natural? Wouldn’t he do exactly the same if it were his father? Wouldn’t Lord Cardew fight just as hard and as ruthlessly for Rupert, when that time came? Would he ask Rathbone again to defend him? Would Rathbone accept?

Would Monk even be in command of the River Police anymore to pursue it? Or by then would it be some new man?

Hester would not have found this loyalty so cut and dried. She was far more complex, more torn by conflicting passions and convictions. And yet at this moment, at least, she was easier for him to understand. She would weep for Hattie; she would not accept that it had been inevitable; and she would weep for Rupert Cardew, and his father. What about for Monk? He was her own. She would fight for him, blindly, without care for injury, weariness, even temporary defeat, just as Margaret fought for her father. But would Hester be sure that Monk was right? He thought not. It would not lessen her love for him, but she would consider the possibility that he had been mistaken, even that the error had been moral as well as factual.

Was that good, or bad?

Margaret was staring at him, her eyes puzzled and angry. “If he’s guilty, then he deserves it,” she replied. “I don’t like it, but I accept it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t find the difference between right and wrong so simple.”

“He murdered Parfitt, and probably Hattie as well, and he was looking to see my father hang for it. What is complicated about that?” There was challenge in her face, a stiffness, nothing anymore that he could reach out and touch.