Page 62 of A Sunless Sea (William Monk 17)

“Rubbish,” Hester said briskly. “Women who know nothing don’t survive very long. Don’t lie to me, and I won’t lie to you.”

Gladys shrugged, admitting at least a degree of defeat. “Wot are yer askin’?”

“Did you know Zenia Gadney?” Hester replied.

The color drained out of Gladys’s face, leaving her ashen. “Gawd! I don’t know nothin’ about that, I swear!”

“I’m sure you don’t know anything about the murder,” Hester agreed, telling something close to the truth. “I want to know what she was like.”

“Wot d’yer mean, wot she were like?” Gladys blinked in confusion.

Was she playing for time, or did she really not understand? Hester put her hand lightly on the cordial bottle. “This stuff is quite good for your health,” she remarked.

“Well, it in’t goin’ ter cure a slit throat!” Gladys said huskily. “Or yer guts torn out an’ tied around yer waist, is it!”

“Why should anyone do that to you?” Hester raised her eyebrows. “Anyway, her throat wasn’t slit. She was hit on the back of her head. She wouldn’t have known anything that happened after that, poor soul. You didn’t have an affair with Dr. Lambourn, did you?”

Gladys was startled. “Course I din’t! ?

?E weren’t like that. All ’e wanted were ter know ’ow easy it were ter buy opium, an’ if I knew wot was in the stuff I got ter ’elp me sleep, or when I got a bellyache.”

“And did you?” Hester tried to keep some of the eagerness out of her voice. She could not afford to have Gladys sense how much she needed the information. “Did you know what was in it, and how much to take? Or how long before you could take more?”

“I know it works, I don’t need ter know nothin’ else, do I!” Gladys retorted.

“Is that what he asked you?”

“ ’E weren’t askin’ me, ’e were askin’ them wot ’as kids. I were just there.”

“Did you know Zenia Gadney?” Hester went back to her first question.

“Yeah. Why?”

“What was she like?”

“Yer said that already. Wot kind o’ thing d’yer want ter know?” Gladys shook her head. “She were older’n me, quiet, not much ter look at, but clean. It’s all on wot yer like, in’t it? Some folk like ’em ordinary, but willin’ ter do anything, if yer get me meanin’? Like their wives, but easier.”

“Yes, I understand you. Is that what Zenia was like? Actually, she’s not much like Mrs. Lambourn at all.”

“Wot’s Mrs. Lambourn like, then?” Gladys was curious.

Hester remembered what Monk had said, and the effect she appeared to have had on him. “Handsome, very striking indeed,” she replied. “Tall and dark, with very fine eyes.”

Gladys shook her head, completely bewildered. “Well, Zenia weren’t nothin’ like that. She were as dull as a mouse, all browny-gray and quiet. In fact, she were a real bore, but nice, like, if yer know wot I mean? Din’t talk down at nobody. Din’t lose ’er temper nor tell lies about yer. Nor she din’t steal nothin’.”

Hester was puzzled as well. “How did you come to know her?”

Gladys rolled her eyes at Hester’s stupidity. “ ’Eard about ’er ’cos she got wot we all want, din’t she? One real nice gent wot only needed ter see ’er once a month, treated ’er like she were a lady, an’ paid all ’er bills. If that ’appened ter me, I’d reckon as I’d died an’ gone ter ’eaven. ’Ow’d she do it, that’s wot I’d like ter know. It weren’t ’cos she knew ’ow ter make a man laugh, or feel as if ’e were the most interestin’ man as she ever met, or the ’andsomest, neither.”

“Did Dr. Lambourn love her, do you think?” Hester asked. “Was she especially gentle, or kind?”

Gladys shrugged. “ ’Ow’d I know? I reckon as she must ’ave been willin’ ter do some real strange things fer ’im. All I can think. An’ ’e looked as decent as yer like, jus’ straightforward. Goes ter show, yer never know wot’s be’ind them ordinary faces.”

It was a possibility Hester had already thought of, distasteful as it was. She had never even met Dinah Lambourn. Why did it trouble her so much that she might have deeply loved a man with deviant tastes? Perhaps it was her own imagination of how she would feel were she to discover such a thing of Monk.

If it were so, would she want to kill the woman who had catered to him, as Dinah was accused of having killed Zenia? Possibly. Not as violently, as brutally, but kill her? It was strange and disturbing that murder was something that she could even imagine.

Now the whole situation looked different-sad, ugly, and unimaginably painful.