Acceptable Loss

CHAPTER

7

MONK WENT ACROSS THE river on the early morning ferry. It was a cool, quiet day, barely a ripple on the water in the slack tide. Swathes of mist half veiled the ships at anchor. Strings of barges seemed to appear out of nowhere.

He had been collecting the evidence against Rupert Cardew to present when he came to trial. It was a miserable job, and in truth he had little more taste for it than Hester had. But the more he learned, the easier it became to see Rupert as a spoiled young man whose louche style of life and ungoverned temper had finally caught up with him. In Mickey Parfitt he had met the one problem his father could not solve for him. No amount of money would have been sufficient to stop the blackmail that had clearly worked so well.

The only inconsistency was that Parfitt was a professional at extortion. He had been thirty-seven years old, and had survived for the last ten of these by profiting one way or another from other men’s weaknesses. There had been at least one suicide among his victims, possibly more, but no one had ever attacked him before. It seemed he had judged very precisely where to draw the line in his bloodsucking, or his threats. A dead victim is bad for business, and he never forgot that—at least not until recently.

Was that a weakness in the case, or simply a fact yet to be explained? Rathbone had not merely beaten Monk in the trial of Jericho Phillips, he had humiliated him, and later—when she had testified—Hester as well. He had done it with the knowledge of how to hurt that only a friend possesses.

Monk still felt a tide of anger burn up in him when he remembered it. Perhaps it hurt him more on her behalf than it had Hester herself. They had never spoken of it, as if it were a wound still too painful to touch.

This time Monk would make sure that Rupert Cardew was guilty, and that he had proved it beyond any doubt, reasonable or not; or else Monk would find the man who was guilty, and prove that.

Of course what he wanted, far more than the poor devil who’d killed Mickey Parfitt, was the man who had set him up in business, and had found his clientele among those whose weakness for the excitement of the forbidden, the illegal, and the obscene he had fed and exploited. Monk would find and prove that, whoever it was, even if it were Arthur Ballinger himself, as Sullivan had claimed. Indeed, even were it Lord Cardew—anyone, without exception.

The ferry reached the far side. Monk paid the fare and climbed the slippery steps up to the dock.

He was reluctant to prosecute Rupert Cardew, but there was no possible way to avoid it. What grieved him most was that the whole thing was so utterly pointless. He would never have taken off his distinctive silk cravat, deliberately knotted it, and then strangled an unconscious man. It seemed such an unnecessary thing to do—and, Monk realized, one that would give him no emotional satisfaction. There was no bodily contact, no release of the pent-up violence. There was something cold-blooded about it. But that was the only part he did not understand. The passion to destroy Parfitt he understood perfectly.

He reached the top of the steps as the sun came through the haze and made the dew on the stone momentarily bright. He walked quickly toward the road.

Had Rupert really been naïve enough to think that would end the trade? Was he so spoiled, so cosseted from reality, that he believed a man like Parfitt was the power behind the business, the one who found the vulnerable patrons and then judged exactly how far to bleed each one?

But it was the man behind Parfitt that Monk wanted, and that was what he had in mind an hour later when he called to see Oliver Rathbone. After a short wait, he was shown into Rathbone’s neat and elegant room.

“Good morning, Monk,” Rathbone said with some surprise. “A new case?” He indicated the chair opposite his desk for Monk to sit down.

“Thank you.” Monk accepted, leaning back as if he were relaxed, crossing his legs. “The same case.”

Rathbone smiled, sitting also and hitching his trouser to stop it from creasing as he crossed his legs, and he too leaned back. “Since we are on opposite sides, this should prove interesting. What can I do for you?”

“Perhaps save Cardew from the rope.”

Rathbone’s smile vanished, a look of pain in his eyes. Monk saw it and understood. Monk was glad it was not his skill or judgment on which rested the weight of the saving or losing of a man’s life.

“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized. It was probably inappropriate, but for a moment they were not adversaries. They felt the same pity, and revulsion, at the thought of hanging. “I have no wish to prosecute him at all,” he went on. “When I first found Parfitt’s body, I considered not even looking for whoever killed him, after I’d seen the boat and the boys kept there. But when the cravat turned up, I had no choice.”

Rathbone’s face was bleak. “I know that. What is it you want, Monk?”

“The man behind it. Don’t you?”

“Of course. But I have no idea who that is.” He met Monk’s eyes directly, without a flicker. Was he remembering the night when Sullivan had killed Phillips so hideously, and then himself, after he had said that the man behind it all was Arthur Ballinger? Why had he pointed to Ballinger? Had it been anger, ignorance, madness, while the balance of his mind turned? Had it been revenge for something quite different? Or the truth?

Rathbone could not afford to think that the man was Margaret’s father. The price of that would be devastating, yet nor could he afford to ignore it. Monk did not want to do this either, but he also could not look away, for Cardew, and, more important to him, for Scuff.

“No …” Monk said slowly. “But if the right pressure were put upon Cardew, then he might give enough information for us to find out.”

“Why should he?” Rathbone asked, his voice tight and careful. “Surely by doing that he would automatically be admitting to the most powerful motive for killing Parfitt. I know that you believe you can prove that he did kill Parfitt, but he swears he did not.”

“And you believe him?” Monk said. “Actually, there is no point in your assuming that, even if you are right. It is what the jury believes that matters. If he will give us a record of every payment he made to Parfitt, dates and amounts, we might be able to trace it through Parfitt’s books. If it comes out in the open in court, it could shake other things loose.”

“And hang Cardew for certain,” Rathbone said quietly. “His own society will never forgive him for frequenting a boat like that, whether he killed the bastard who ran it or not.” His mouth pulled into a delicately bitter smile. “Apart from anything else, it would betray the fact that men of his social and financial class were the chief clients, and enablers of creatures like Parfitt. And while that is true, making it public is another thing altogether.”

“I know that,” Monk conceded. “But his revulsion when he learned the real nature of the business, but was still bled dry, will earn him some sympathy. That is your job, not protecting the reputations of others like him. I know no evidence that his story on that account is anything but the truth.”

Rathbone put his elbows on the desk, and his fingertips very gently together. “You are offering me life in prison in exchange for full admission, with details you can prove, of his visit to the boat, the nature of what went on there, and his payment of blackmail money to Parfitt? And all this is in the hope that it will somehow lead you to the man behind it?”

There was no point in arguing the shadings of meaning. “Yes.”

“I’ll ask him, but I’m not sure if I can recommend it is in his interest. God, what a mess!”

Monk did not answer him.

MONK WORKED ON THE river the rest of the day. There had been a large theft of spices from an East Indiaman in the Pool of London, and it took him until nearly midnight to trace the goods and arrest at least half the men involved in the crime. By quarter to one, a new moon in a mackerel sky made the river ghostly. Ships were riding at anchor, sails furled, like a gently stirring lace fretwork against the light, beautiful and totally without color. There was only a faint murmur of water and the sharp smell of salt in the air.

Monk stepped off the ferry at Princes Stairs and walked slowly up the hill to home.

Hester had left the light on in the parlor, but it was only when he stepped in to turn the gas off that he saw she was curled up in the large armchair, sound asleep.

His first thought was clear. She’d been waiting for him, or she would have been in bed. Was Scuff ill? No, of course not. If he were, she would have been with him. He remembered how many nights she had spent in the chair beside Scuff’s bed when he had been injured hunting the assassin in the sewers.

He bent down and spoke her name softly, not to startle her.

“Hester.”

She opened her eyes and sat up, smiling, pushing her hair back off her face where it had fallen out of its pins. “He didn’t do it,” she said with intense pleasure.

Monk was confused and too tired to think. “Who didn’t?”

“Rupert Cardew.” She stood up, so close to him that he could feel the warmth of her and smell her skin and her hair, clean cotton and, very faintly, soap. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I know that leaves the case open and you have to go back and start again. But I’m just so glad it wasn’t Rupert.”

“He told you that?” he asked. “I’m surprised they let you in to see him. Did his father take you?”

A look of disgust flickered across her face. “William, for heaven’s sake! I’m not a complete simpleton. No, I haven’t been to see him, nor would I expect him to say anything different.” She smoothed her skirts without much effect; they were creased beyond any help but a flat iron. “With help from Crow, I found a prostitute Rupert visited earlier that day, and she admits that she stole his cravat and gave it to someone else, but she’s terrified to say who. But if Rupert didn’t have it, then he couldn’t have used it to strangle Mickey Parfitt, and that’s the only real evidence against him. All the rest just bears that up. He never denied having been on the boat, or having been blackmailed for it. But so have many other people.”

She had just broken his case against Cardew. He should have been disconcerted, even angry, but instead he felt an absurd sense of relief.

She saw it in his eyes and put her arms around his neck, pulling his head down gently and kissing him.

MONK WOKE LATE, AND Hester was already up. It was a moment or two before he remembered what Hester had told him about the cravat. When it came back, he leaped out of bed, washed, shaved, and dressed as fast as he could. He had a new idea forming in his mind, and he had to draw the pieces of it together, prove them one by one.

He ate the most perfunctory breakfast, and left the house with only a brief word to Scuff and a quick moment of meeting Hester’s eyes, touching her cheek, and then going out of the door.

As he crossed the river again, in the rhythmic movement of the ferry, his mind was absorbed in what this new revelation meant. He had no doubt of what Hester had said, but later he would go and see this young woman and make certain that she had not been influenced to swear she’d taken the cravat. Her testimony might have to stand up in court. Was it conceivable that Lord Cardew had hired someone to find her and had possibly even paid her to come up with such a lie? He did not believe it, but it was necessary that he be thorough. If they ever found anyone else to accuse, that person would no doubt hire a barrister to defend him who was something like as clever as Oliver Rathbone. The question would be asked.

But Monk would put it off until he had explored other possibilities. Orme had gone over Parfitt’s financial records, such as they were, and had found nothing to suggest that Parfitt had withheld any of the proceeds from the man who had given him the boat. If he had, then it was well hidden, and certainly not spent on his own pleasure. He lived no more comfortably than could be accounted for by the obvious takings of the boat’s trade, without the blackmail. Whoever was behind it had had no apparent motive to get rid of Parfitt. He would only have to be replaced with someone just like him.

Did he already have someone in mind? A friend, a relative, a creditor to whom he owed some favor?

That was the man Monk wanted to catch so intensely that he could taste it like a bitter flavor in his mouth. Was it Ballinger? Or was it even possible that Ballinger was another victim, like Sullivan had been, except turned to recruit more victims, perhaps as the price of his own survival? A dangerous tactic. Ballinger was not a man whose flaws one could manipulate.

Before anything else, Monk needed to know as much as possible of the facts. Where had Ballinger been on the night of Parfitt’s death?

Hester had told him of the ferryman rowing a man resembling Ballinger across the river and then later bringing him back. It would not be difficult to ascertain if it had been Ballinger. If he had been visiting a friend, he would have no occasion to deny it.

“CERTAINLY,” BALLINGER SAID WITH a smile when Monk visited him in his offices in the city. “Bertie Harkness.” He sat at ease behind a large desk. The room was unostentatiously comfortable. Bookcases lined two walls, filled in a disorderly manner with dark leather-bound volumes, clearly there for use, not ornament. There were old hunting prints on the walls, personal mementoes on sills, a portrait of his wife in a silver frame, a bronze bust of Julius Caesar, a pair of pearl-handled opera glasses.

“Known each other for years,” Ballinger continued. “In fact, far longer than I care to remember. I drop by for a late supper and a little conversation every now and again.” He looked puzzled. “Why does this concern you, Inspector? I find it impossible to believe that you suspect Harkness of anything.” His eyebrows rose. “Or is it me you suspect?” He said it with faint amusement, but his eyes were unnervingly direct.

Monk made himself look surprised. “Of what? You might have some sympathy with whoever killed Mickey Parfitt. Many people might have, myself included. But I don’t think you would lie to protect him.” He gave a slight shrug. “Unless he were a member of your own family, for example. But I have no reason whatever to suspect that.”

Ballinger still appeared puzzled. Monk looked at his hands on the leather inlaid surface of the desk. They were motionless, deliberately held still.

Monk smiled. “I have an idea as to the time you crossed the river, by ferry …” He saw a very faint smile lift the corners of Ballinger’s mouth, and in that instant Monk knew that in spite of Ballinger’s affectation to the contrary, he was not surprised. “Naturally, we questioned anyone that we knew would be in the area,” Monk went on almost expressionlessly. “Such as ferrymen. It is always possible that any witness might have seen something that would later have meaning for them.”

“I did not see Rupert Cardew,” Ballinger replied, studying Monk’s face. “At least not so far as I know. I observed a few other people on the river; some of them looked to be young men, no doubt about private pleasures. I could not responsibly identify any of them. I’m sorry.”

“Even so,” Monk persisted. “If you could tell me the time, as closely as you know it, and exactly what you did see, it might help.”

Ballinger hesitated, as if still puzzled as to its importance.

“Even if it merely confirms someone else’s story,” Monk added. “Or proves it false.”

“I couldn’t identify anyone,” Ballinger said, and gave a slight gesture of helplessness. “Apart from the ferryman, of course, Stanley Willington.”

“Of course,” Monk agreed. “But if you saw one person, or two, it could help. Or if you saw no one, at a time someone claimed to be there …” He allowed it to hang in the air, self-explanatory.

“Yes … I see. Let me think.” Ballinger’s eyes never left Monk’s, as if it were a kind of duel to which neither of them would admit. “I took a hansom as far as Chiswick. I think I arrived there about nine. There were still a number of people around, although it was dark. I saw them as figures on the quayside, talking, laughing. I smelled smoke—cigars. I recall that. It is a highly recognizable aroma. And it suggests gentlemen.”

Monk nodded. It was a clever observation, and he acknowledged it.

“I waited about ten minutes for a ferry. I preferred to have Stanley. He entertains me.” The description was good, and it matched Willington’s own account, as no doubt Ballinger knew it would.

Ballinger continued. All of it was in accordance with what Monk already knew, but it served the purpose he intended. He would check on it, not only with the men on the river, all the way up to Mortlake, a distance of nearly a mile and a half, but with Bertie Harkness, whose address Ballinger also offered.

“Thank you,” Monk said when he was finished and standing by the door. “It may help us catch someone in a lie.”

“I admit, I don’t see the purpose,” Ballinger replied. “Was I misinformed that you have evidence sufficient to bring Rupert Cardew to trial?”

Monk smiled, perhaps a little wolfishly, memory harsh in his mind. “He is defended by Oliver Rathbone,” he replied, “so I need every scrap of evidence I can find. There must be no surprises, no loopholes. I’m sure you understand.”

Ballinger inhaled deeply, then let out a sigh, and smiled back. “Of course,” he agreed, not bothering to conceal the pleasure in his eyes.

———

MONK SPENT ANOTHER COMPLETE day checking on all the accounts he had from ’Orrie Jones, Crumble, Tosh, and various other people on the river who had serviced the boat, before he finally called on Bertram Harkness.

Harkness was a portly man in his early sixties, roughly Ballinger’s own age. He had a military bearing, although he professed no retired rank and made no mention of service. His hair was short and graying, as was his bristling mustache.

He received Monk in the study of his house, a room lined with books, drawings, and a curious mixture of exotic seashells and miniature bronzes of guns, mostly Napoleonic cannons.

“I don’t know what you think I can tell you,” he said rather abruptly. “I was reasonably near the river that night, but I saw nothing and heard nothing. I had a late supper with Arthur Ballinger, whom I have known for years. Since our school days, actually. He often drops by. Been a bit out of it since my injury. Took a bad fall from my horse.” He tapped his right thigh. “Good of Ballinger. Keeps me up with the news I can’t get from the papers, you know?”

“I see. Yes, it must be pleasant to hear a little deeper insight than is printed for the general public,” Monk agreed.

“Damned right. So, what on earth is it you want from me, young man? Ballinger came up by river. Pleasant way to travel on an autumn evening. But for God’s sake, if he’d seen something of this wretched murder, don’t you think he’d have told you?” There was challenge in his voice, and the slightly aggressive cock of his head.

“Yes, sir,” Monk said politely, increasingly aware that Harkness’s temper was thin. “He has already told me precisely what he saw. But it is the timing that matters, and he is not certain about it. I thought you might be able to help in that.”

Harkness appeared mollified. “Ah! Bad business. Sorry for Cardew, poor devil. Lost his eldest son, and spoiled the younger. Happens. Easy mistake. Now he’s going to pay for it up to the hilt. Both sons gone. Family name ruined. Damned grief, children. I’d have the bastard horse-whipped, if they weren’t going to hang him anyway.”

“The time, Mr. Harkness,” Monk reminded him. “It would help a great deal if you could tell me enough for me to know precisely when Mr. Ballinger was on the river, both coming here and going home again.”

“Doesn’t the damn ferryman know?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I didn’t look at the clock,” he said brusquely. “We sat down to supper about ten, as I recall. Talked for an hour or so afterward. Dare say he left at midnight. Whatever he says, that’ll be the truth.” Harkness regarded Monk with disfavor. “Good sportsman, Ballinger. Always admire that, you know? No, I don’t suppose you do.” He looked Monk up and down. “Don’t look like a damn policeman, I’ll give you that.”

Monk swallowed his temper with considerable difficulty. “ ‘Good sportsman’?” he inquired.

“That’s what I said. Good God, man, isn’t that simple enough for you? Damn good at the oars. And wrestling. Strong, you see?”

“Yes, sir.” Monk breathed out slowly. There it was, the sudden gift in all the other irrelevant evidence. The idea burned hot and bright in his mind. “Thank you, Mr. Harkness.”

Harkness shrugged. “I like to be fair,” he replied, standing a little straighter.

Monk forbore from making any reply to that, although one rested on his tongue. He thanked Harkness again and allowed the butler to show him out into the blustery darkness of the street, with the damp smell of the river in the air.

He took nearly half an hour to find a ferryman willing to row him back from Mortlake to Chiswick, and he timed how long it took. While he was sitting in the boat he considered what Harkness had told him, and went over in his mind all the times and details that he had been able to confirm.

Of course none of the times was exact. The only way to check them was against what other people had said. ’Orrie had taken Parfitt over to the boat where it was moored upriver, just short of Corney Reach, and had left him there, after quarter past eleven. For what purpose, he had said he did not know.

’Orrie was supposed to have gone back for him within the hour, but had been held up, and when he had done so, at about ten to one, Parfitt had not been there.

Crumble had verified ’Orrie’s departure and return on both journeys. Tosh had backed him up, giving his own movements—not difficult since he and Crumble had been together most of the time.

Ballinger had boarded the ferry at approximately ten past nine, and had been rowed all the way up past the Eyot, along Corney Reach, right to Mortlake, where Harkness swore to his arrival, and later his departure. The ferryman affirmed having collected him again at half past midnight, and reached Chiswick at one in the morning, more or less.

Whereas Rupert Cardew had been drunk and unaccounted for for most of the evening after he had left Hattie Benson, who said she had stolen his cravat and given it to someone she refused to name. Fear? Or had she been paid to say this, and her fear was for the consequences of lying?

Parfitt’s body had been found almost halfway along Corney Reach, upriver from where his boat had been moored. The questions burned in Monk’s mind. How far had it drifted—or been dragged? Where had he actually been killed? Was it necessarily on the boat? Could he have had ’Orrie take him to the boat, and then left it again in some kind of dinghy from the boat itself? Or could someone else have come by water, and he had gone with them?

Monk needed answers to all of these questions.

Had Mickey’s murderer taken him away and dropped his body overboard higher up, for it to drift downstream, misleading them all? The more Monk thought of that, the more it seemed to make sense. He could have been approaching the whole crime from the wrong direction from the beginning. It had looked like a murder of desperation, committed by a man angry and afraid of exposure, or bled dry by blackmail and facing exposure. But perhaps it had been more carefully planned than that, and by a far cooler head—not a crime of passion but a business decision.

Could Parfitt have been rebelling against his backer, his greed jeopardizing the whole project? Or had he been skimming to keep a higher percentage of the profit for himself?

Which brought Monk back to the question he both dreaded and most wanted to answer—could Ballinger himself have killed Parfitt? Or was that thought ridiculous?

He went over the times of every movement again, carefully. If everyone were telling the truth—Tosh, ’Orrie Jones, Crumble, the ferryman, Harkness, Hattie Benson, even Rupert Cardew—then it would have been possible for Ballinger, a strong rower, according to Harkness, to have taken Harkness’s own boat from its moorings and met Parfitt somewhere along the river out of sight. He could have killed him and put his body in the water, then rowed back to moor the boat again, and taken the ferry back to Chiswick, exactly as he had said. It was tight, but still possible. The thought churned in his stomach—heavy, sick, and impossible to get rid of.

How honest was his own thinking in this? Did he want the answer so desperately that he would settle for anything except defeat?

What he needed was proof that Ballinger had known Parfitt, and, if possible, Jericho Phillips as well. That would take a long and very careful retracing of all the evidence, examining it, looking for a completely different pattern from before. He must start straightaway, as soon as he had seen this Hattie Benson and had verified for himself her evidence regarding the cravat.

HE FOUND HER BY the middle of the following morning, sitting in the kitchen of her small, shared house in Chiswick. She looked tired and puffy-eyed, but even with a torn wrap around her nightgown and her hair tousled and falling out of its pins, there was a beauty in her flawless skin and the naïveté of her face.

“I in’t done nothin’,” she said before Monk even sat down on the rickety-backed chair at the other side of the table from her.

He smiled bleakly. “I don’t want to prosecute you, Miss Benson. I believe you can help me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah? This time o’ the mornin’, an’ all. Yer should be ashamed o’ yerself. Wot’d yer wife say, then, eh?”

“You can ask her, if you meet her again,” he replied with a rueful smile. “I would like you to tell me what you told her about taking Rupert Cardew’s dark blue cravat with the leopards on it.”

Hattie stared at him, her mouth open.

“She came here with a man called Crow, I believe,” Monk continued. “You told them what happened the afternoon before Mickey Parfitt’s body was discovered in the river. I need you to tell me again, with rather more detail.”

She froze. “I can’t!”

“Yes, you can,” he insisted. “Unless, of course, you were lying.” How could he persuade her to tell him, and be sure it was the truth? Perhaps she had been merely a witness at the time she had spoken to Hester and Crow, but now she realized what danger she would be in if she told the police that Cardew was innocent. She might only now be grasping the fact that they would begin to investigate the case all over again, going back to people she knew, and who knew her.

“Hattie.” He leaned forward a little across the table, forcing himself to speak gently. “I don’t want to charge you with stealing the cravat, whether it was to keep for yourself, to sell, or to give it to someone else. I certainly don’t think it likely that you strangled Mickey Parfitt with it, although it isn’t impossible.” He let the suggestion hang in the air.

“Yer mad, you are!” she said in horror. “ ’Ow in Gawd’s name d’yer think I could strangle a man like Mickey? ’E may a bin skinny as a broomstick, but ’e were strong! ’E’d a bashed me ’ead in.”

“He was violent?” he asked.

“O’ course ’e were violent, yer stupid sod!” she shouted at him. “Beat the shit out o’ anyone wot crossed ’im.”

“Like who?”

“Yer thinkin’ they killed ’im? I tell you, an’ yer don’t think they’re gonna come arter me?”

“You could have killed Mickey,” he went on thoughtfully. “Someone hit him hard on the back of the head, probably with a piece of fallen branch from a tree. Then, when he was unconscious, they strangled him. It doesn’t take a lot of strength to do that.”

“Well, I didn’t! I ’ad customers all night, till past two in the mornin’. Then I were knackered,” she said defiantly.

“Names would help me to believe you.”

“Oh, yeah! I’m gonna be in great shape fer me business if I give yer a list o’ toffs wot come ’ere fer a bit o’ fun, aren’t I? Do wonders fer me reputation, that would!”

“I expect I can find them from somebody else.” He said it lightly, as if it were an easy thing to do. “I can ask one of the pubs along the mall who was there that evening.”

Her face went even paler, her skin as white as milk. “Please, mister, yer’ll ruin me! If I lose all me customers, I in’t got nothin’ else I can do! An’ I owe money. They’ll come arter me!” She leaned toward him, and he could feel the warmth of her, a faint smell of perfume and sweat. “If I tell yer I took the cravat that afternoon, then yer’ll know it wasn’t Mr. Cardew as killed Mickey, an’ then yer’ll start all over again wi’ Tosh, an’ ’e’ll skin me alive for bringin’ trouble on ’im. ’E’ll beat the ’ell out o’ me, an’ then I won’t be able ter work.”

“You’re right,” Monk said gently. “That would be unfair.”

She took a deep, shaky breath and made an attempt at a smile.

“Better to let Rupert Cardew hang,” he said quietly. “Who do you suppose did kill Mickey?”

Her hands were gripped so tight, there were white ridges on her knuckles.

“I dunno,” she whispered.

“He’ll need to come back and make sure you don’t tell anyone,” he pointed out. “Rupert will remember that you took his cravat. He’ll say so, in court, even if no one believes him. I dare say the prosecution will call you to give evidence, just to deny it. Close off all escape for him, as it were.”

“Jesus! Ye’re a bastard!” she said huskily. “Worse than Tosh, yer are.”

“No, I’m not, Hattie.” He shook his head, although he felt a sharp stab of truth in what she said. “I want you to tell me the truth, then I’ll keep you safe.”

“Yeah?” she said contemptuously. “An’ ’ow are yer gonna do that, then? Buy a nice little room somewhere where they’ll never find me, will yer? An’ food an’ summink ter do, then?”

The answer was instant in his mind. “Yes, actually, that’s exactly what I’ll do. But to do it, I need the truth, preferably with some way you can prove it.”

She blinked, hope flickering in her eyes. “Like ’ow?”

“Describe the cravat to me.”

“Eh? It were just a dark blue tie, that sort o’ shape.” She made a picture in the air. “Silk,” she added.

“How long?”

Again she gestured, holding her hands just under three feet apart.

“Go on,” he prompted. “What else?”

“It’s narrer in the middle an’ wide at both ends,” she said. “One end bigger than the other … longer, like.”

“Was it plain or patterned?”

“Patterned. Yer know that, fer Gawd’s sake! It ’ad little yeller animals on it, three at a time. Cats, or summink.”

“How?”

“One on top o’ the other. Three of ’em.”

“Thank you, Hattie. I believe you. Now go and pack some clothes into a bag, get dressed, and I will take you to a safe place.”

She remained sitting down. “Where?”

“In the city, Portpool Lane. You will be safe there. You will be fed and have your own room. You’ll work for it, at whatever Mrs. Monk tells you to do.” He saw the look on her face. “It used to be a brothel,” he said with a broad smile. “It’s a clinic for sick women, and injured ones.”

She swore at him, colorfully and with profound feeling, but she did as he told her.

They took a hansom from the Chiswick mall all the way into the city. It was a long and expensive ride, but Monk felt it was more than warranted by the circumstances. He did not wish her to be seen with him; in fact, he could not afford it. It would be so easy for anyone to make a few inquiries and find the clinic. Perhaps he should warn Squeaky Robinson to keep a close eye on Hattie and see that she did not show herself in the rooms where casual patients came for treatment or help, at least until the case had come to trial and she had testified. After that, her safety could be reconsidered.

As the wheels rumbled over the streets, he engaged her in conversation, as much in order to take her mind off her present situation as in the expectation of learning anything more. Either way, he failed.

“Yer gotta keep ’im from findin’ me,” she said, hugging her arms around her body and sitting forward on the seat. “ ’E’ll do me, ’e will.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Tosh, o’ course!” she answered angrily. “I in’t scared o’ Crumble. ’E couldn’t squash a fly. Feared of ’is own shadder, an’ fearder still o’ Tosh.”

“What about ’Orrie Jones?”

“I dunno. Sometimes I think ’e’s ’alf-witted, other times I in’t so sure. But ’e wouldn’t do nuffink ’less Tosh told ’im ter, wotever ’e thought fer ’isself.”

“Did you ever hear the name of Jericho Phillips?”

“No. ’Oo’s ’e?”

“He’s dead now, but he used to run a boat like Mickey’s, but down the river.”

“An’ now Mickey’s dead, eh?” she said thoughtfully. “Could Mr. Cardew a killed ’im?”

“No. We know who killed Phillips. The man who did it killed himself also.”

She gave a little grunt.

“Why did you think it was the same person?” he asked. “Do you think Mickey and Phillips knew each other?”

“Dunno. Mickey din’t work for ’isself. ’E come from Chiswick, same like the rest of us. ’E never ’ad money ter get a boat. Someone else staked ’im. Mebbe it were the same person.”

“Rupert Cardew?”

“Don’t be daft!” she retorted. “Why’d ’e have me steal ’is necktie ter make it look like ’e killed Mickey if ’e were behind it all? It’s someone wi’ twice the brains ’e ’as.”

“More than Mickey, or Tosh?”

“They got cunning; it in’t the same.”

He did not argue. Deliberately he guided the conversation to other, more pleasant subjects, and finally they arrived at Portpool Lane. He took her inside, introduced her to Squeaky Robinson, and then to Claudine Burroughs, explaining the need to keep her safe.

“She can help me,” Claudine said decisively. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”

Monk thanked her, wondering wryly how Hattie would take to that. It might well be the best care she had ever known.

IN THE MORNING MONK went to see Rathbone and told him that he had now found evidence that made it extremely unlikely that Rupert Cardew was responsible for the death of Mickey Parfitt.

Rathbone was startled. “And the cravat? Was it not his?” he asked, as if unable to believe in the release from the responsibility of an impossible task.

“Yes, it was his,” Monk replied, sitting down in the chair opposite Rathbone’s desk without being invited. “A prostitute stole it from him that afternoon and gave it to someone she is too afraid to name. But I believe her. She can describe it far too precisely for her to have only seen it around his neck. She had seen it undone, felt it, and knew it was silk. She admitted to taking it.”

Rathbone drew in his breath as if to speak, then changed his mind.

Monk smiled, sitting back a little in the chair. “Did Lord Cardew pay her to say this?” He said aloud what he knew was in Rathbone’s mind. “You could always ask him.”

“Where is she?” Rathbone did not bother to express his opinion of that remark.

“I would prefer not to tell you,” Monk replied. “For your safety as well as hers.”

Rathbone’s eyes widened for a moment, then his face was expressionless again. “Now what will you do about it?” he asked. “Are you happy to mark the case as ‘unsolved’ and move on? Does anyone really want to know who killed Parfitt?”

“Lord Cardew might,” Monk observed. “A shadow hangs over his son as long as we don’t know. But whether he does or not, I do. Not because I give a damn about Parfitt, but I need to find out who was behind him, Oliver.” He did not look away. He knew exactly what Rathbone was thinking, remembering, and what the weight of it would be if Monk were right.

For several seconds they stared at each other, then Monk rose to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said very quietly, little more than a whisper. “I can’t let it go.”

Rathbone did not reply.

Monk let himself out, passing the clerk in the entrance lobby, and thanking him.

In spite of the sun, the air outside felt cold.

MONK SPENT THE NEXT two days questioning everybody who had anything to do with Mickey Parfitt, or who might have seen anyone on the river or the dockside at either Chiswick or Mortlake the night of Parfitt’s death. ’Orrie, Crumble, and Tosh repeated their stories almost word for word, and he could not shake them. Nothing was changed. It was still possible that Ballinger could physically have killed Parfitt, but without a motive, without proof that they knew each other, it was nothing more than an idea.

Monk was pacing the path by the side of the river along Corney Reach when he ran into the fisherman.

“Don’t walk up be’ind a man like that!” the fisherman spat. “I could a taken yer eye out wi’ me rod, yer great fool! Where d’yer grow up, then? In the middle of a desert?” He was a skinny little man with a long nose and a lantern jaw. The cap pulled forward over his eyes hid whatever hair he had left.

Monk apologized, which was received with ill grace. He was about to move on when, out of sheer habit, he asked the question. “Do you spend a lot of time here?”

The man squinted at him. “Course I do, yer daft sod. I live up there.” He jerked his head back toward the lane leading out of the town into the fields.

“Do you have a boat?”

“Yeah, but it in’t fer ’ire. I don’t want some great lummox crashing about in it who don’t know one end from the other.”

“I grew up in boats,” Monk said testily. The fact that he had only the briefest flashes of memory about that time was none of the man’s affair. “I’m looking for witnesses, not to go rowing myself.”

“Witnesses ter wot? I in’t seen nothing. In’t even seen a bleedin’ fish terday.”

“Not today. The day before Mickey Parfitt’s body was pulled out of the river.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Seen, like wot?”

“People coming and going, other than the ferrymen. Anyone you know behaving differently from usual. Anyone in a hurry, frightened, quarreling, running away.”

The man shook his head.

“Jeez! Yer don’t want much, do yer? All I saw were Tosh racin’ up ter Mickey on the dockside, yellin’ at ’im ter wait. Then ’e pulls a piece o’ paper out of ’is pocket an’ gives it to ’im. Mickey reads it, swears summink ’orrible, grabs a pencil from Tosh, an’ writes summink on it, then ’e gives it back to ’im. Arter that ’e calls the ferryman and tells ’im ’e’s changed ’is mind. ’E rushes away lookin’ all excited, an’ far as I know, nobody gone after ’im, nobody ’it ’im nor strangled ’im nor threw ’im in the river.”

Monk felt a sharp flicker of excitement stir inside him. “But Mickey changed his mind about where he was going?” he urged.

“I jus’ said that, yer damn fool! In’t yer listenin’?” the man snapped.

“What time was this, roughly?”

“About ’alf past ten.”

“Thank you. I’m most obliged. What is your name, if I need to speak to you again?” He nearly added, in case he needed him to testify, then thought better of it. He would send Orme for him, and allow no choice.

“ ’Orace Butterworth,” the man replied grimly. “Now get out of it. Yer frightenin’ the fish.”

Monk considered carefully how to make the best use of this delicate piece of information. Was this the message that had taken Mickey out to the boat, and then upriver toward Mortlake to meet his death? Who was it from? What had he believed he was going for? It must have been urgent, to take him back out again at that hour.

Tosh would be very unlikely to tell Monk. Nor would he tell him who the messenger was or where he’d come from. It would too easily implicate him in being party to the murder that had followed. He would simply deny it all, say that Butterworth was wrong, probably made it all up. A good lawyer would demolish the story in minutes.

He must build a chain of evidence. Who was the weakest link? ’Orrie Jones. That was where to begin.

He found ’Orrie in a boatyard patiently sanding a piece of wood. There were other men around, all sawing, planing, chiseling, carefully fitting planks, easing tongues into grooves. The ground was covered with sawdust, and it was in the air with the smell of wood and sap, and there was the constant, irregular sound of friction, banging, and someone whistling half under his breath.

Lower down, closer to the water’s edge, one old man with tattooed arms was caulking the sides of a boat, his feet now and then shifting as the water seeped up through the shingle and soaked his boots.

They were sheltered from the breeze. The tide slurped on the stone of the slipway. There was a smell of river mud and wet wood.

’Orrie looked up and saw Monk approaching, and his face took on a look of infinite weariness.

“You again,” he sighed. “In’t it enough yer ’ang the poor bastard, yer gotta ’it every nail inter ’is coffin as well?”

“Have to be sure it fits, ’Orrie, just like those pieces you’re putting together.”

“So wot is it now, then?” ’Orrie’s good eye swiveled around.

“When did Mickey ask you to row him out to the boat?”

“I dunno!”

“Yes, you do. Think!”

’Orrie met his eyes and gave him that rare focused look of total clarity. “Why? What does it matter now? Don’t make no difference to ’oo killed ’im.”

“You tell the defense lawyer that, ’Orrie. If you can’t answer, he’ll pick your life apart detail by detail, and—”

“I dunno when ’e decided ter go out ter the boat!” ’Orrie protested angrily. “But ’e din’t ask me until a bit before eleven. I know ’cos I jus’ started a pint, an’ I ’ad ter put it down.”

“At the pub?”

“O’ course at the pub! D’yer think I were pullin’ it out o’ the river?”

“I don’t care where you got it. Why did Mickey decide so late? Were you at his beck and call anytime?”

’Orrie stiffened. “No, I weren’t! I weren’t ’is bleedin’ servant. Summink came up.”

Monk nodded, trying to curb his impatience and look encouraging. “An appointment, unexpectedly?”

“Right!”

“And he thought it was important enough to go? Not so convenient for him either. Was he angry? Or afraid?”

“No, ’e weren’t. ’E were ’appy.”

“Why?”

’Orrie drew in his breath, looked at Monk, weighed up his best advantage, and decided to answer. “Well, it don’t matter now. The poor sod’s dead, eh? ’E thought as it were a good chance o’ new business. But don’t waste yer breath askin’ me wot, ’cos I dunno.”

“Of course you don’t. Did he come for you personally, or did he send you a note?” He made his tone deliberately insulting. “Maybe someone read it for you?”

“I read it meself!” ’Orrie snapped. “Jus’ ’cos I got a walleye don’t mean I’m stupid.”

“Really? What did you do with the note?”

“I kept it ’o course. Never know when yer gonna need paper for summink.”

’Orrie fished in his trouser pocket and slammed a grimy piece of paper onto the wood he was working with. He glared at Monk.

Monk picked up the paper and saw written in an untidy but obviously educated script:

Excellent new opportunity for business. Meet you on the boat, midnight. Be there, or I’ll give it to Jackie.

And underneath was a further note scrawled in a completely different hand:

Meet me at the dock, 11 o’clock. Don’t be late. Mickey.

Monk looked at the paper a few moments longer, feeling the texture of it between his fingers. It was good paper, pale blue and smooth, torn from a larger sheet.

He turned it over and saw on the other side what had apparently been part of a longer letter, or a list. This one was written in ink, but the words were harder to decipher, as if it were another language, perhaps Latin, although, with only half of some of the words, it was hard to tell. The letters were well formed, the script disciplined. He wondered where it came from.

“Thank you, ’Orrie,” Monk said in a whisper, letting his breath out slowly. “That is just about perfect.”