Page 111 of The Twisted Root (William Monk 10)

Monk felt a stab of victory, and one of horror. "What was she like? Think hard, Miss Parkinson, and please be as exact as you can ... height, hair, age!"

Her eyes widened. "Why? She done something as she shouldn’t?"

"No. Please—describe her!"

"Very ordinary, she was, but very pleasant-looking, an’ all. Grayish sort of hair, although I don’t reckon now as she was over about forty-five or so. Seemed old to me then, but I was only fifteen an’ anything over thirty was old."

"How tall?"

She thought for a moment. "About same as me, ordinary, bit less."

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson—thank you very much."

"She all right, then?"

"No, I fear very much that she may be the woman whose body was found on the Heath."

"Cor! Well, I’m real sorry." She said it with feeling, and there was sadness in her face as well as her voice. "Poor creature."

Monk turned as they were about to leave. "You didn’t, by chance, ever happen to notice her boots, did you, Miss Parkinson?"

She was startled. "Her boots?"

"Yes. The buttons."

Memory sparked in her eyes. "Yes! She had real smart buttons on them. Never seen no others like ’em. I saw when she was sitting down, her skirts was pulled sideways a bit. Well, I never! I’m real sorry to hear. Mebbe Mrs. Dewar’ll let me go to the funeral, since there won’t be many others as’ll be there now."

"Do you remember her name?" Monk said, almost holding his breath for her answer.

She screwed up her face in the effort to take her mind back to the past. She did not need his urging to understand the importance of it.

"It began with a D," she said after a moment or two. "I’ll think of it."

They waited in silence.

"Bailey!" she said triumphantly. "Mrs. Bailey. Sorry—I thought it were a D, but Bailey it was."

They thanked her again and left with a new energy of hope.

"I’ll tell Rathbone," Monk said as soon as they were out in the street. "You see if you can find her family. There can’t have been so many midwives called Bailey twenty-two years ago. Someone’ll know her. Start with the doctors and the hospital. Send messages to all the neighboring areas. He may have brought her in from somewhere else. Probably did, since no one in Hampstead reported her missing."

Robb opened his mouth to protest, then changed his mind. It was not too much to do if it ended in proving Cleo Anderson innocent.

It was early afternoon of the following day when the court reconvened. Rathbone called the police surgeon, who gave expert confirmation of the testimony Hester had given regarding the death of the woman on the Heath. A cobbler swore to recognizing the boot buttons, and said that they had been purchased by one Flora Bailey some twenty-three years ago. Miss Parkinson came and described the woman she had seen, including the buttons.

The court accepted that the body was indeed that of Flora Bailey and that she had met her death by a violent blow in a manner which could only have been murder.

Rathbone called Aiden Campbell once again. He was pale, his face set in lines of grief and anger. He met Rathbone’s eyes defiantly.

"I was hoping profoundly not to have to say this." His voice was hard. "I did know Mrs. Bailey. I had no idea that she was dead. I never required her services again. She was not, as my innocent scullery maid supposed, a midwife, but an abortionist."

There was a gasp of horror and outrage around the court. People turned to one another with a hissing of breath.

Rathbone looked up at Miriam in the dock and saw the amazement in her face, and then the anger. He turned to Harry Stourbridge, sitting stiff and silent, and Lucius beside him, stunned almost beyond reaction.

"An abortionist?" Rathbone said slowly, very c

learly.