Read Online Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel by Anne Perry - Free Book Online

could remember his mother only as a slim figure from his childhood, someone warm and safe who made him laugh, comforted his early pains and fears, and who told him he could accomplish anything, if he tried hard enough. She believed in him totally.
    She had died when he was twelve and away at boarding school. Shehad said he could do anything; he had thought then if he had been at home surely he could have saved her. He remembered the sharp, twisting pain of loss and the disbelief in his boyish mind, and then the guilt. He should have been there. Why had she not told him, not trusted him? What was wrong with him not to have seen it himself? She must have been ill for a long time before. It wasn’t sudden.
    All that had gone through his thoughts. Only later, several years after, did he realize she was protecting him. He was twelve, thinking himself almost a man, but she knew what a child he was. Had he been there, he would’ve wanted to save her, and he would’ve failed—and that would’ve hurt him deeply. She had known that.
    There was only the echo of those memories left now, a gentleness in the mind when he thought of her and the things she had cared for, when he imagined her presence. She had never lived to see him pass the bar examinations, see his mounting success, his triumph in battles for justice that had seemed impossible. Had she ever imagined he would be knighted by the Queen, would be Sir Oliver? And now he was a judge. She would have been so proud!
    Margaret likely had none of those emotions when she thought of her father. To lose someone you love because he dies from illness is a sweet ache. To lose everything good you believed of him is a pain that stains all he left behind. It poisons the very air of memory.
    Ballinger had had his revenge on Rathbone, from beyond the grave. He had bequeathed him the obscene photographs at the heart of the case. They were hidden away now, locked in a safe so well concealed he doubted anyone else would ever find it. He had used one of the photos once. He loathed doing it, and he had sworn he never would again.
    Maybe he should have destroyed them when they were first delivered to him after Ballinger’s death. He knew how they had come about, why Ballinger had created them, and how he had first used them and why. It was what had happened later that was the terrible wrong.
    Was all power like that? You use it for good, then for less good, then finally simply because you can. Surely he was strong enough to resist that kind of temptation? He was not like Arthur Ballinger. He wouldnot even look at them again, and perhaps one day soon he would smash the glass photographic plates to pieces. The paper prints he could burn.
    He heard a noise of wings and looked up at a flight of birds across the soft blue of the sky. It must be after six o’clock. The breeze was stirring the poplars, shimmering the top leaves. It would be a long, delicate evening, too good to waste in pointless remembering.
    He made the decision easily. He would go out to Primrose Hill and have supper with his father. He had a really good Belgian pâté, one of Henry’s favorites. He would take it, and the plum pie that his cook had made with rich, flaky pastry. Maybe he should take half a pint of cream as well, in case Henry didn’t happen to have any.
    H ENRY R ATHBONE HAD BEEN sitting in the garden reading one of the German philosophers he was so fond of. He had finally fallen asleep with the book upside down on his lap.
    Oliver walked silently over the grass and stopped just short of where his shadow would fall across his father and, in all likelihood, wake him up. He stood still for a few moments then turned and went back to fetch another chair. He sat down a few yards away and allowed the peace to settle over him. He was comfortable enough to go to sleep, but instead he chose to bask in the pleasure of it.
    There was no sound but the birds and the faintest wind occasionally stirring the leaves of the elms.