The Masters of Bow Street by John Creasey

There was heaviness in her breast, a sense of loss and of grief, and she lay alone and looked at a bright patch of sky. She heard the old woman whom she had met on that first day moving about in another room and scolding a chambermaid for dallying at the window. Easing herself up on her pillows, she pushed back the bedclothes, but as she swung herself over the side of the bed she felt the onslaught of nausea. When she stood up she could only keep steady by gripping one of the fluted oak posts of the bed. She lowered herself again and belched, but hardly eased the nausea. She placed her well-shaped, well-kept hands on her belly, feeling the softness of the silk Fred had liked her to wear; it was the nearest cloth to feel like the smoothness of her skin. ‘I can’t be,’ she said aloud. ‘It isn’t possible!’
    But of course it was possible. She had been to see him in Newgate, where he had the use of a private room; not once, not twice, but a dozen times she had helped him to forget his danger.
    And if she had a child it could only be Fred’s.
    Ruth Marshall heard the footsteps on the stairs and moved towards the door. She was quite calm, and indeed had been much calmer since reaching her decision than she had expected to be. She opened the door to find Furnival at the head of the stairs. He took off his hat but still had to stoop to get through the doorway. It was daylight and yet gloomy in this room, and the sound of the children shrieking in the yard travelled clearly. So did the stomping of a horse’s hooves. She realised he had come on horseback, consequently alone; and that in its way was a great compliment to her. She closed the door as he tossed his cloak back over his shoulders; she noticed that he was breathing hard, as if the ride had been furious or the climb up to this room had been exhausting. He took a folded paper from his pocket and she recognised the note she had sent him yesterday, the day following her decision. James had delivered this to the offices in Bow Street only last night. She had written:
     
    If it still pleases you I would be proud to enter your service in the manner of our discussion.
     
    She studied the strong face and the massive body of this ‘great bull of a man’ and was aware of the appraisal in his tawny eyes. His lips were unexpectedly shapely when he began to smile as he asked, ‘Who taught you to write, Ruth Marshall?’
    ‘My father, sir.’
    ‘And what was your father, pray? A teacher? A parson?’
    ‘He was a preacher, sir, and in his spare time a carpenter and wagonmaker.’
    ‘And could read and write well enough to teach his children. You were fortunate in your father.’
    ‘I have long been aware of it, sir.’
    ‘No doubt he had a ready tongue, also,’ said Furnival dryly. ‘What made you make up your mind so quickly?’
    ‘A variety of reasons, sir,’ she answered, ‘and the most telling was that I did not want my children to go hungry or my son to miss the chance of going to school.’
    He nodded slowly and then added in a quieter voice, ‘By your leave I will sit down.’
    She was angry with herself for not offering him a chair and pushed forward the armchair in which Tom Harris had sat two nights ago. The arms were carved, and polished with age, and he rubbed them with each hand as he went on.
    ‘What other reasons, Ruth? I want to know them all.’
    She stood in front of him and words like ‘out of respect’ and even ‘out of affection’ came to her mind but she could not utter them. He waited, watching. She remembered Richard telling her, ‘He can smell when a witness is lying or telling half the truth. I’ve seen him on the bench make a man confess to a horrid crime simply by staring at him and saying: “I want the truth, only the truth.”’
    And she could understand that as John Furnival stared at her now until she was driven to say, ‘It would be false to pretend deep affection for you, sir.’
    He started. ‘Affection? For me? You