William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

from it. She looked at the face with its smooth brow, the chiseledmouth, the green eyes closed, then she looked down at the broad chest, scarred and marble white. The pattern of old injuries was quite individual.
    “That’s Caleb,” she said quietly. She touched his cold cheek with her fingers, gently, as if he could feel her. “God rest him,” she whispered.
    The coroner nodded and Hester went out with her. A few minutes later she returned with Genevieve. Again the morgue attendant laid back the sheet. Genevieve stared hard at the same calm face with its closed eyes, and the same white body with its old scars.
    Finally her eyes filled with tears and they spilled down her cheeks in an anguish of pity, wrenching at her with a pain she would never forget.
    “Yes,” she whispered so quietly that in any place but this room of death, it would not have been heard. “Yes, that is Angus. I know those scars as I know my own hand. I bandaged most of them myself. God make him whole, and give him peace at last.” She turned slowly and Hester held her in her arms while she wept the grief of all the lost pain she could not heal, the child she could not reach.
    “I’ll conduct the prosecution of Ravensbrook for murder,” Rathbone said with passion.
    “You’ll never prove it,” Monk pointed out.
    “That doesn’t matter!” Rathbone clenched his jaw, his body rigid. “The charge will ruin him. It will be enough.”
    Monk leaned forward and picked up one of the dead hands. It was beautiful, perfect-nailed, and he knew now why Caleb had always worn gloves—to protect Angus’s hands. He folded it carefully across the other. Perhaps no one else in the room could feel so deeply and with such an intimate pity for a man divided against himself, forever in fear of a dark half he did not know.
    “Be at peace,” he said. “What debts you cannot pay, we will.”



Acclaimed writer Anne Perry channeled her beloved character William Monk to answer some hard-hitting questions about his life and work
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    Mortalis: All your readers see how busy you are solving crimes. Do you think violent crime has become more rampant during Victorian times than it was in the past? Are the police getting better at solving it?
    William Monk: Very definitely better. Believe it or not in the 1700s it was worse. As for police getting better at solving it—in the 1600s, 1700s—what police?
    M: Do you prefer working for the police force or as a private investigator?
    WM: I am now in the police force again, and apart from the challenges of having command of men, trying to live up to their expectations of a leader, and being answerable to superiors whom I do not always admire, I prefer the financial security of police work for my family. I would rather worryabout crime than money. Also I don’t have to look for work, it comes to me. And I am growing to like and trust my superior, Inspector Orme.
    On the downside, I cannot refuse a case, no matter how I may dislike it. But then I couldn’t afford to before, at any rate.
    M: How do you think Hester’s experience in the Crimean War prepared her for solving mysteries now?
    WM: I’m not sure that it did directly. It contributed to making her who she is, and that helps everything. I think she would have always been a crusader for something, but ultimately her time in Crimea was the ideal thing for her in regards to her courage and compassion, her anger against injustice and with the frequent stupidity of those in authority. I don’t think it chose her, she chose it.
    M: If you could go back in time and erase the coach accident that caused your amnesia, would you?
    WM: Never! It was painful and confusing, but it gave me the chance to start over, to see myself from the outside. It was an opportunity for clarity that few people ever have. Without it I would have continued in all my arrogance and with many mistakes. This way at least I have the chance to address these failings.
    M: What is the worst part of your job?
    WM: Knowing that I am answerable to my superiors, and they can countermand me due to political pressures on them. It happens sometimes.
    M: What has been your most frightening experience?
    WM: Physically—being underground in the total darkness of the sewers, not knowing which way to go or if I could get out. Emotionally—not knowing myself or what I might have done during the time I can’t remember.
    M: What is your favorite possession?
    WM: I don’t know yet.
    M: What do you do to