"Will you stay?" Sylvestra asked quickly. "I should prefer it.”

"Are you sure?" Hester was surprised. Usually people chose to keep such invasions of their privacy from as many as possible.

"Yes." Sylvestra was quite decisive. "Yes. If he has anything to tell us, it will be easier for Rhys if you know it also. I…" It was not necessary to say how frightened she was for him, it was only too plain in her face.

Evan was shown in. He looked cold and unhappy. The maid had taken his hat and outer coat, but his trouser legs were wet at the bottom, his boots were soaked, and his cheeks glistened with splashes of rain. It was some time since Hester had last seen him, but they had shared many experiences, both of triumph and of fear and pain, and she had always liked him. There was a gentleness and honesty in him which she admired. And he was sometimes more perceptive than Monk gave him credit for. Now it was discreet to behave as if they were strangers.

Sylvestra introduced them, and Evan made no reference to past acquaintance.

"How is Mr. Duff?" he asked.

"He is very ill," Sylvestra said quickly. "He has not spoken, if that is what you are hoping. I am afraid I know nothing further.”

"I'm sorry." His face crumpled a little. It was highly expressive, mirroring his thoughts and feelings more than he wished. He was a trifle thin, with bright hazel eyes and an aquiline nose, rather too long. His words came from sympathy, not annoyance.

"Have you… learned anything?" she asked. She was breathing rather quickly and her hands were held tightly together on her lap, fingers clenched around each other.

"Very little, Mrs. Duff," he replied. "If anyone saw what happened, they are not willing to say so. It is not an area where the police are liked. People live on the fringes of the law, and have too much to hide to come forward voluntarily.”

"I see." She heard what he said, but it was a world beyond her knowledge or comprehension.

He looked at her high-boned, severe and oddly beautiful face, and did not try to explain, although he must have understood.

Hester guessed the question he wanted to ask, and why he found it difficult to frame it without offending. Also it was more than possible she had no idea whatever of the truthful answers. Why would a man of Leighton Duffs standing go to such an area? To gamble illegally, to borrow money, to sell or pawn his belongings, to buy something stolen or forged, or to meet a prostitute. He could tell his wife none of these things. Even if it were something as comparatively praiseworthy as to help a friend in trouble, he still would not be likely to share it with her. Such difficulties were private, between men, not for the knowledge of women.

Evan decided to be blunt, which did not surprise Hester. It was the nature she knew in him.

"Mrs. Duff, have you any idea why your husband should go to an area like St. Giles, at night?”

"I… I know nothing about St. Giles." It was an evasion, a gaining of more time to think.

He could not afford to be put off.

"It is an area of extreme poverty, and crime both petty and serious,” he explained. "The streets are narrow and dirty and dangerous. The sewage runs down the middle. The doorways are full of drunken and sleeping beggars… sometimes they are even dead, especially this time of the year when they die of cold and hunger very easily, particularly those who are ill anyway. Tuberculosis is rife…”

Her face twisted with revulsion, and perhaps pity also, but her horror was too great to tell. She did not wish to know such things, for many reasons. It jarred her past happiness, it frightened and revolted her.

It threatened the present. The mere knowledge of it contaminated the thoughts.

"More children die under six than survive," he went on. "Most of them have rickets. Many of the women work in sweatshops and factories, but a great number practise a little prostitution on the side, to make ends meet, to feed their children.”

He had gone too far. It was a picture she could not bear.

"No…" she said huskily. "I can only imagine that he must have been lost.”

He showed a streak of ruthlessness that would have been characteristic of Monk.

"On foot?" he raised his eyebrows. "Did he often walk around parts of London at night where he did not know the way, Mrs. Duff?”

"Of course not!" she responded too quickly.

"Where did he say he was going?" he persisted.

She was very pale, her eyes bright and defensive.

"He did not say, specifically," she answered him. "But I believe he went out after my son. They had had words about Rhys's behaviour. I was not in the room, but I heard raised voices. Rhys had left in anger. We had both believed that he had gone to his own room upstairs." She was sitting very upright, her shoulders high and stiff, her hands folded. "Then when my husband went up to resume the discussion, he discovered he was absent, and he was very angry. He went out also… I believe to try to find him. Before you ask me, I do not know where Rhys went, or where Leighton did find him… which obviously he did. Perhaps that was how they became hurt?”

"Perhaps," Evan agreed. "It is not unusual for a young man to frequent some questionable places, ma'am. If he is not squandering money, or paying attentions to another man's wife, it is generally not taken very seriously. Was your husband strict in his moral views?”

She looked confused. To judge from her expression, it was a question she had never considered.

"He was not… rigid… or self-righteous, if that is what you mean." Her eyebrows rose, her eyes wide. "I don't think he was ever… unfair. He did not expect Rhys to be… abstinent. It was not really a – a quarrel. If I gave that impression, I did not mean to. I did not overhear their words, simply their voices. It may even have been something else altogether." She bit her lip. "Perhaps Rhys was seeing a woman who was… married? Leighton would not have told me.

He could have wished to spare me…”

"That may be the case," Evan conceded. "It would explain a great deal. If her husband confronted them, violence might have followed.”

Sylvestra shuddered and looked away towards the fire. "To commit murder? What kind of a woman can she be? Would it not have taken several men… to… to do such terrible things?”

"Yes… it would," he agreed quietly. "But perhaps there were several… a father or a brother, or both.”

She put her hands up to cover her face. "If that is true, then he was wrong very wrong but he did not deserve a punishment like this! And my husband did not deserve any punishment at all. It was not his fault!”

Unconsciously she ran her slender fingers through her hair, dislodging a pin, letting a long, black strand of it fall. "No wonder Rhys will not face me!" She looked up at him. "How do I answer it? How do I learn to forgive him for it… and teach him to forgive himself?”

Hester put her hand on Sylvestra's shoulder. "First by not supposing it is true until we know," she said firmly. "It may not be the case.”

Although looking across at Evan, and remembering the scene in the bedroom during the night, and today when Sylvestra had been there, she found it very easy to believe they had guessed correctly.

Sylvestra sat up slowly, her face white.

Evan rose to his feet. "Perhaps Miss Latterly will take me up to see Mr. Duff. I know he cannot speak, but he may be able to answer with a nod or a shake of his head.”

Sylvestra hesitated. She was not yet ready to face even the questions, let alone the answers Rhys might give. Nor was she ready to return to the scene where only a short while ago she had witnessed such a sudden and vicious side of her son. Hester saw it in her eyes, she read it easily because she shared the fear.

"Mr. Duff?" Evan prompted.

"He is unwell," she said, staring back at him.