Death Of A Stranger

CHAPTER TEN

The journey to Liverpool was just like the others. He could hear the rattle of iron wheels over the joints in the rails even when he drifted into sleep, although he fought against it. He was afraid of what the dreams would bring back, the sense of horror and grief, the piercing, sick knowledge of guilt, although he still did not know for what.

He stared out of the window. The rolling countryside with its plowed fields was dark where the grain was sown but not yet through the ground, green like thrown gauze over the earth where the earlier crop had sprung. The cherry and wild plum and pear trees were mounded white with blossom, but all of them made no mark on his senses. He got out and back in again at every stop, eager to be there.

He reached Liverpool Lime Street just before dark, stiff and tired, and found himself lodgings for the night.

In the sharp chill of morning his mind was made up where to begin. Whatever pain it might bring, whatever revelations not only as to his life, but to Monk’s also, he must start with Arrol Dundas. Where had he lived? Who had been his friends, or his associates? What had been the style and the substance of his life? Monk had wanted to know these things, and at the same time dreaded it, ever since the first splinters of memory had begun to return. It was time to realize both the hopes and the fears.

The newspaper accounts had stated where Dundas had lived at the time of his arrest. It was a simple enough matter to check, and take a cab out to the elegant, tree-lined street. He sat in the hansom outside number fourteen, staring up and down at the beautiful houses, which were spacious and meticulously cared for. Maids beat carpets in the back alleyways, laughing and flirting with delivery boys, or arguing over the price of fish or fresh vegetables. Here and there a bootboy idled a few minutes, or a footman stood looking important. Monk needed no one to tell him this was an expensive neighborhood.

“This right, sir?” the cabbie asked.

“Yes. I don’t wish to go in. Just wait here,” Monk answered. He wanted to think, to let the air of the place, the sights and sounds, swirl around him and settle in his mind. Perhaps something here would rip away the veils in his mind and show him what he hoped and dreaded to see-himself as he had been, generous or greedy, blindly loyal or a betrayer. The past was closing in. Only another fact, a smell, a sound, and he would be face-to-face with it at last.

Who lived in this house now? Was there still a stained-glass window at the top of the stairs, before the flight turned up another story? Was there still a pear tree in the garden, white with spring blossom? There would be a different carpet in the withdrawing room, not red and blue anymore, probably not red curtains either.

Suddenly, with a jolt of clarity, he remembered perfectly sitting at the dining room table. The curtains were blue all along the row of windows opposite him. The chandeliers were blazing with candles, reflecting on the silver cutlery and the white linen below. He could see the patterns on the handles as if he held one right now, ornate, with aD engraved in the center. There were fish knives as well, a new invention. Before that people had eaten fish with two forks. Mrs. Dundas was extraordinarily pleased with them. He could see her face, calm and happy. She had been wearing a sort of plum color; it complimented her rather sallow skin. She was not beautiful, but there was a dignity and an individuality about her he had always liked. But it was her voice that pleased most, low and a little husky, especially when she laughed. There was pure joy in it.

There had been a dozen people around the table, all perfectly dressed, jewels glittering, faces smooth and happy, Arrol Dundas at the head, presiding over the good fellowship.

There had been money, plenty of it.

Had it been the product of fraud? Had all that elegance and charm been bought at the expense of other people’s loss? It was a thought so ugly he was surprised he could entertain it without it leaving him with a raw wound. And yet it did not. Perhaps he was too anesthetized by Katrina’s death and the snatched memories and imagination of the crash to be capable of still more hurt.

He leaned and tapped hard to get the cabbie’s attention.

“Thank you. Take me back to the records office, please,” he instructed him.

“Yes, sir. Right.” The cabbie had had his fair share of eccentrics, and it made no difference to him, as long as they paid. He flicked the whip lightly and the horse moved forward, glad to stand no longer in the sharp sunlight. The overnight frost had not yet melted on the cobbles in the shade.

Had the house been Dundas’s, or merely rented? Monk had followed enough other people’s affairs to know that all kinds of men lived on credit, sometimes the last ones you would expect. He remembered Mrs. Dundas somewhere quite different when she had told him of her husband’s death. Had she left this beautiful place for financial reasons, or because she could no longer bear to live so close to her old friends after her husband was disgraced? There would be no invitations anymore, no calls, no conversations in the street. Anyone might choose to move-he would have!

Dundas must have left a will. And there would be records somewhere of the house’s being sold, with the date.

It took him till the middle of the afternoon to trace what he was looking for. It left him puzzled and acutely aware of a mystery he should already have solved, but if he had there was nothing of it left in his memory. The house had been sold before Dundas’s death. In fact, by then his estate had been worth no more than the new, very modest house in which his widow had lived, and a very small annuity, sufficient only to keep her in the necessities, and even to do that she would have had to spend with care.

What startled him, and left him with shaking hands and a tightness in his chest, was that the name of the executor of the will was William Monk.

He stood in front of the shelf with the book open in front of him, and leaned over it, his legs weak.

What had happened to the money from the sale of the house? The court had not taken it. The profit from the sale of land which had been charged as fraud was still to be realized. Dundas had owned the house for twelve years. There was no shadow or taint upon his purchase of that.

So where had it gone? He looked again, and again, but search as he might, he could find no record of it. If he had handled it himself, and it seemed that Dundas had trusted him to do just that, then he had concealed all trace of it. Why? Surely the only reason a man hid his dealings with money was because they were dishonest?

It had been a fortune! If he had taken it himself, then he would have been an extremely rich man. Surely that was not something he could have forgotten? When he joined the police he had owned nothing but the clothes he stood up in-and a few others besides. Clothes-Dundas had taught him to dress well, very well, and he had never lost the taste for it.

Glimpses of memory returned of fittings at tailors, Dundas leaning back elegantly and giving instructions, a lift here, an inch in or out there, a little longer in the legs.Yes-that’s right! This cut of shirt is best, Egyptian cotton, that is how to tie a cravat. Smart but vulgar-don’t ever wear one like that! Understated, always understated. A gentleman does not need to draw attention to himself. Discreet but expensive. Quality tells in the long run.

Monk found himself smiling, against his will, a lump in his throat so high and hard it stopped him from swallowing.

The legacy was still with him; he spent too much on clothes even now.

What had happened to the money?

What had Mrs. Dundas bequeathed at the time of her death?

That too was easily discovered when he found her will: very little indeed. The annuity died with her. The house was worth a small amount, but some of that went to settle outstanding debts. She had lived to the meager limits of her income.

If he had been Dundas’s executor, had he disposed of the money somehow? Where? To whom? Above all, why? That question beat in his mind at every turn like the scrape of leather on a bleeding blister.

He drank hot coffee and was too tense to eat.

What did it have to do with Baltimore? Perhaps the affairs of Baltimore and Sons would give him some of the answers or lead him to another avenue to follow in his search.

It took him until the next day to find someone both willing and able to discuss the subject with him: Mr. Carborough, who made a study of the finances of such businesses with a view to investment in them for himself.

“Good company,” he said enthusiastically, waving a pencil in the air. “Small, but good. Made a nice profit from the land deals, not excessive, and better, of course, from the railways themselves. Headquarters in London now, I believe. Building another nice line to Derby.”

They were sitting in Carborough’s office overlooking a narrow, busy street down near the docks. The smell of salt drifted up to the half-open window, and the shouts and clangs of traffic, winches and bales being loaded and unloaded.

“What about Dundas and the land fraud?” Monk asked, keeping his voice casual, as if it were of no personal interest to him.

Carborough curled his lip. “Stupid to get caught in something as trivial as that,” he said, shaking his head. “Never understood it myself. He was brilliant. One of the best merchant bankers in the city, if not the best. Then he goes and does a foolish thing like changing the grid reference on a survey so they move the course of the track onto his own land, and he makes… what?” He shrugged. “A thousand pounds at most. Hardly as if he needed it. And at the time he did it, he’d have expected to get an interest in whatever the company made on the new brakes. He found the money to develop them.”

“What new brakes?” Monk said quickly.

Carborough opened his eyes wide.

“Oh… they invented their own system of braking for carriages and goods wagons. Quite a bit cheaper than the standard ones used now. Would have cleaned up a fortune. Don’t know what happened there. They never followed through with it.”

“Why not?” he asked. The same flicker of memory woke in Monk and died in the same instant.

“Don’t know that, Mr. Monk,” Carborough replied. “After Dundas’s trial everything seemed to stop for a while. Then he died, you know?” He put the pencil down next to his pad, making it perfectly level. “In prison, poor devil. Maybe the shock of it all was too much. Anyway, after that they concentrated on new lines. Seemed to forget all about brakes. Built their own wagons and so on. Did pretty well out of it. As I said, moved down to London.”

Monk asked him more questions, but Carborough knew nothing about Dundas personally and had not heard Monk’s name before that he recalled.

Neither was there any sign of the money that Dundas must have received for his house. It had vanished as completely as if the treasury notes it was paid in had been burned.

The next step was to pursue the Reverend William Colman, who had given such telling evidence against Dundas. It might be an unpleasant encounter, since Colman would certainly remember Monk from the trial. He would be the first person Monk had spoken to who had known him from that time. Dundas and his wife were both dead, and so was Nolan Baltimore. Monk would be coming face-to-face with the reality of who he had been, and finally there would be no escape from whatever Colman remembered of him.

Had he hated the man then, for his evidence? Had he been offensive to him, tried to discredit him? Had Colman even believed him equally guilty with Dundas, but simply been unable to prove it?

Colman was still in the ministry, and it was not a difficult matter to find him in Crockford’s, the registry of Anglican priests. By late afternoon Monk was walking up the short path to the vicarage door in a village on the outskirts of Liverpool. He was aware of a fluttering in his stomach and that his hands were clammy and aching from the frequency with which he was clenching them. Deliberately, he forced himself to relax, and pulled the bell knob.

The door opened surprisingly quickly and a tall man in slightly crumpled clothes and a clerical collar stood staring at him expectantly. He was lean with gray hair and a vigorous, intelligent face. Monk knew with a thrill of memory so sharp it caught his breath that this was Colman-the face he had seen sketched with the protesters against the railway. Immeasurably more vivid than that, it was the face he had seen in his dreams, and desperate, fighting through the wreckage of the burning train.

In that same instant Colman recognized him, his jaw momentarily slack with amazement.

“Monk?” He stared more closely. “It is Monk, isn’t it?”

Monk kept his voice steady with difficulty. “Yes, Mr. Colman. I would appreciate it if you could spare me a little of your time.”

Colman hesitated only a moment, then he swung the door wide. “Come in. What can I do for you?”

Monk had already decided that the only way to achieve what he needed was for the complete truth to come out, if indeed it was possible at all. The truth necessarily involved being honest about his loss of memory, and that bits and pieces were now coming back.

Colman led the way to the room in which he received parishioners and invited him to be seated. He regarded Monk with curiosity, which was most natural. He had not seen him in sixteen years. He must be looking at the changes in him, the character more deeply etched in his face, the tiny differences in texture of skin, the way the lean flesh clothed the bones.

Monk was acutely aware of Colman’s personality and the force of emotion he had felt in him before-nothing had diminished it. The grief was all still there, the memory of burying the dead, of trying to scrape together some kind of comfort for stricken families.

Colman was waiting.

Monk began. It was difficult, and his voice stumbled as he summarized the years between then and now, ending with the story of Baltimore and Sons and the new railway.

As Colman listened the guardedness was there in his face, the echoes of old anger and shattering grief. They had been on opposite sides of the issue then, and it was clear in his expression, in his careful eyes and slightly pinched lips, and above all in the tightness in his body as he sat, one leg still crossed over the other. His fists were closed, his muscles rigid. They were opponents still. That would never be forgotten.

“Nolan Baltimore has been murdered,” Monk stated. He saw Colman’s start of surprise, then a gleam of satisfaction, and immediately afterwards guilt for it, even a flush in his cheeks. But he was in no haste to express the usual regrets. There was an honesty in him which prevented it.

“By a prostitute,” Monk added. “While in the pursuit of somewhat irregular pleasures.”

Disgust was plain in Colman’s eyes.

“And that brings you here?” he said in disbelief.

“Not directly,” Monk replied. “But it does mean we cannot question him about anything to do with what very much appears to be another fraud in Baltimore and Sons, almost exactly like the first.”

Colman sat upright with a jolt. “Another? But Dundas is dead, poor soul. You, of all people, must know that. Surely your memory cannot be so affected… I mean…” He stopped.

Monk rescued him in his embarrassment. “I remember that. But what I don’t recall is how the fraud was discovered… not in detail. You see, it seems this time as if a man named Dalgarno is responsible, only the person who was his main accuser is also dead… murdered.” He saw the pity in Colman’s face, this time unmixed with anything else. “A woman,” Monk continued. “She was betrothed to him, and because of her privileged position as his fiancée, discovered certain things about the business, overheard conversations, saw papers, which made her realize there was something seriously wrong. She brought it to me. I investigated it as far as I was able, but I could find no fraud. A little questionable profiteering, but that’s all.”

“But she was murdered?” Colman interrupted, leaning forward with urgency.

“Yes. And Dalgarno is charged with it. But in order to prove his guilt we need to show the fraud beyond question.”

“I see.” It was clear from his expression that he understood perfectly. “What is it that you want of me?”

“You were the one who first suspected fraud. Why?”

Colman frowned. He was clearly fascinated by the concept of such total loss from the mind of something in which Monk had been passionately involved. “You really remember nothing of it?” His voice thickened with emotion; his body became rigid. “You don’t remember my church? In the valley, with the old trees around it? The graveyard?”

Monk struggled, but nothing came. He was picturing it in his mind, but it was imagination, not memory. He shook his head.

“It was beautiful,” Colman said, his face tender with sorrow. “An old church. The original was Norman, with a crypt underneath where men were buried nearly a thousand years ago. The graveyard was full of old families, over fifteen or twenty generations. It was the history of the land. History is only people, you know.” He stared at Monk intensely, reaching for the man behind the facade, the passions which could be stirred-and wounded-deeper than the analytical brain. “They sent the railway right through the middle of it.”

Now something clicked in Monk’s mind, a bishop mild and reasonable, full of regret, but acknowledging progress and the need for work for men, transport, the moving forward of society. There had been a curate, shy and enthusiastic, wanting to keep the old and bring in the new as well, and refusing to see that to have both was impossible.

And caught between the two of them the Reverend Colman, an enthusiast, a lover of the unbroken chain of history who saw the railways as forces of destruction, shattering the cement of family bonds with the dead, vandalizing the physical monuments that kept the spiritual ties whole. Monk could hear voices raised-shouting, angry and afraid, faces twisted with rage.

But Colman had done more than protest, he had proved crime. Was this it, the elusive memory at last-the proof? Who would it blame-Baltimore, or Monk himself? He cleared his throat. It felt tight, as if he could not breathe.

“They destroyed the church?” he asked aloud.

“Yes. The new line goes right over where it used to be.” Colman did not add anything; the emotion in his voice was sufficient.

“How did you discover the fraud?” Monk forced himself to sound almost normal. He almost had the truth.

“Simple,” Colman replied. “Someone told me he watched rabbits on the hill they said they had to go around because it would be too expensive to tunnel through. He was a parishioner of mine, in trouble for poaching. When I asked where he’d been caught, he told me. Rabbits don’t tunnel in granite, Mr. Monk. Navvies can blast through pretty well anything; solid mountains just take longer, and therefore cost more.

“I found the original survey. When one looked more carefully at the one Baltimore was using, it was falsified. Whoever did it had been too clever to alter the heights or composition-he found a hill that was exactly right somewhere else and altered the grid reference. It was an extremely skilled job.”

Monk asked the question he had to, but he had to clear his throat again to make his voice come. “Arrol Dundas?”

“It looked like it,” Colman said with regret, as if he would rather it had been someone else.

“Did he ever admit to it?”

“No. Nor did he blame anyone else, but I think that was more a matter of dignity, even morality, than because he had no idea who it might have been.”

It was a moment before Monk realized the full meaning of what Colman had said. He had begun his own next question, and stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“You mean you doubted Dundas was guilty?” he said incredulously.

Colman blinked. “You always maintained he wasn’t. Even after the verdict, you swore he was not the one who had changed the survey, and that his profit was through good speculation but not dishonesty. He simply bought low and sold high.”

Monk was confused. “Then who forged the survey references? Baltimore? Why would he? He didn’t have any land!”

“Nor money in the bank from it afterwards,” Colman agreed. “I don’t know the answer. If it wasn’t Dundas, then the real money probably came in bribery somewhere, but no one will ever prove it.”

“Why would anyone else falsify the surveys?” Monk pressed.

Colman frowned, weighing his answer before he gave it, and then his words were picked with great care. “The railway cut through the middle of my church, and that was all I could think of at the time.” His eyes filled with sudden tears. “And then the crash… the children…” He stopped. There was no way to express it, and perhaps he saw some recognition of horror in Monk, and words became unnecessary.

Monk’s recollection of him was growing sharper. He had wanted to like him before; it was his testimony against Dundas that had made it impossible. Now all that had receded into history for both of them and there was no issue to be fought anymore.

Colman blinked and smiled in apology. “I am afraid I am not much help in gaining the evidence you need to prove Dalgarno’s guilt for murdering the young woman, or whether Baltimore was the one practicing the fraud. But if I understood you correctly, he was already dead himself by the time she was killed.”

“Yes, by two or three weeks,” Monk agreed.

“Then possibly Dalgarno was in the fraud with Baltimore, and once Baltimore was dead he would take all the profits to himself?” Colman suggested.

“Or share them with the son, Jarvis Baltimore,” Monk amended. “It seems likely, especially since Dalgarno is now courting the daughter, Livia, according to my wife’s observation.”

Colman’s eyes widened. “Your wife is acquainted with the Baltimores?”

Monk did not bother to hide his smile, or the bubble of pride springing up inside him, high and bright, and with a pain like a dagger for what he could lose. “No. She is running a house of refuge and medical treatment for prostitutes in Coldbath Square, and Livia Baltimore went to her for help, and in considerable anger and distress, after her father’s murder. Hester learned some information and went to call on her. She nursed in the Crimea. There is not much that deters her once she is convinced she is right.”

Colman shook his head, but his eyes were shining. “I hope she does not have to enlighten Miss Baltimore as to the true nature of her father,” he said. “I think he may well have tried the same fraud a second time. But I don’t know how you will prove it to a jury without evidence of profit. He escaped the first time because it was plain he had no financial gain from it, and Dundas did.”

“Dundas died with very little,” Monk pointed out, old sadness and anger washing over him in a tidal wave.

Colman became suddenly very solemn also. “I heard that, although it was extraordinary. He was an excellent banker, quite brilliant. But you can’t have forgotten that, surely?”

“I had. But not now. Where did the money go?”

Colman stared at Monk somberly.

“I have no idea. No one had. And shortly after that the crash put all such things out of everyone’s thoughts.” Suddenly his face was pinched and the color went from his cheeks again. “It was the closest thing to hell I think this life could offer. I shall remember the screams as long as I live. The smell of burnt hair still brings me out in a sweat and I feel sick. But you know that. You were there.”

He looked ill. Monk lowered his eyes. He knew what Colman meant. He had tasted something of it in his own nightmare. It was strange, an almost irrelevant reality, to hear Colman say that Monk had been there; he knew it far more urgently and terribly from the nightmare of his hidden mind.

“What caused it?” he said aloud.

Colman looked up slowly. “They never found out. But it wasn’t the new track. That was perfectly good. At least… as far as anyone could tell.” The last vestige of blood drained out of his face and his body stiffened. “Oh, no! You don’t think it’s going to happen again? Please God-no! Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“It is what Katrina Harcus was afraid of,” Monk replied. “But I’ve searched everything I can; I’ve walked the track myself and I can’t see anything wrong with it at all. Tell me, Mr. Colman-how can I prove this fraud? It’s happened again-and I still can’t see it!”

Colman looked at him with intense pity. “I don’t know. Do you think if I did I would have stayed silent all these years? Whoever it hurt, I would have spoken. I simply don’t know!”

Monk stared at him helplessly, his mind caught like a runner through the breaking surf, feeling the tide drag at his feet, taking away his balance, and still no sense came out of it.

“Look for the bribe,” Colman urged. “That’s all it can be.”

Monk did not argue as to whether there had been a bribe or not. Colman had long ago made up his mind. He stayed a little longer, then thanked Colman and left, walking more easily, with lighter feet. One old enmity had been exorcised. Now he would not dread seeing Colman’s face in his dreams.

But he had not found that one fact which he was convinced would let him unravel all the others from the fast-tied knot of his memory. There was something which he dared not bring back because of the pain, and yet until he knew what it was, and faced it, all the rest was just beyond his reach.

He had the courage to look at it, and the will in his conscious mind, but that tiny part of him which looked too deep to touch, which knew what it was, still held it just beyond his reach.

Was it defying him… or protecting him?

He went back to London through Derby, checking once more on the original route, before the alteration, and seeing exactly whose land it had crossed. There was a large and wealthy farm it would have cut in half, making it impossible to have taken cattle from one side to the other, effectively ruining the unity of it.

It would also have sliced through a spinney of trees, one of the best in the area for drawing a fox, a favorite place of the local hunt. Would it have needed bribery to divert the track a mile or two through unused land? On the whole, he thought not. It seemed the obvious thing to do. Not to would have been an act of vandalism, and earned a dangerous enmity among the people of the nearest town.

Was any of this really a crime? Was it even a sin worth caring about more than with a passing regret?

Michael Dalgarno was a worthless man in his relationship with Katrina. He had taken her love while it suited him, and then cast her aside when a financially better prospect had presented itself in Livia Baltimore. But that was not a crime either… a sin certainly, but one many men were guilty of. As men had married for beauty, so many an empty woman had married for wealth.

None of that was motive for Dalgarno to have murdered Katrina.

To conceal fraud was, certainly, but where was the fraud? None that Monk could prove. It was all only suggestion and suspicion. Monk remembered the letter with his own name in it that he had removed from Katrina’s. His hand stung as if it had burnt him. Had he left it there, it would be he that Runcorn was after now, and were it anyone other than Runcorn, with as much certainty of his guilt!

“Of course he’s guilty!” Runcorn said indignantly when Monk went straight from the station to see him and report his failure. As always, his office was crowded with papers, but they were all neatly stacked, as though studied and dealt with. He was too busy to offer Monk tea. Anyway, he seemed to regard him now as a colleague rather than a guest. He looked at him skeptically and with some disappointment. “The fact that you still didn’t bring back any proof of the fraud doesn’t mean he’s innocent,” he said grimly. “It just means he hid it too well for you to uncover. Presumably he learned from Dundas’s mistakes. Two farms, or estates or whatever, you said?”

“Yes,” Monk replied stiffly. “And if I’d been planning that line you wouldn’t have had to bribe me to divert around a hill rather than go through it, if it meant not vandalizing a stretch of land like that.”

“And you think Dalgarno is the same as you, do you?” Runcorn lifted his eyebrows in a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

Monk hesitated. The question had been meant sarcastically, but he realized how much truth there could be in it. There was a physical resemblance, increased by their similar self-assurance-one might say arrogance, the love of good clothes, a certain grace of movement. If the witnesses to Katrina’s death had really seen someone on the roof, if their descriptions fitted Dalgarno, they would just as easily fit Monk. Plenty of people had seen him with Katrina-ask anyone in the Botanic Gardens. And to an onlooker they could have appeared to be quarreling. With a chill in the pit of his stomach, Monk remembered how she had put her hands up and grasped his coat, pulling off the button. He knew when it had been torn-but she had died with it in her hand. Why? What was she doing still holding it so long after?

Without the motive, Dalgarno was no more proved guilty than was Monk himself. Perhaps the evidence against Dalgarno was just as rooted in chance-or mischance?

“Monk!” Runcorn said loudly. “Are you saying Dalgarno was like you?”

Monk returned to the moment with a jolt. “Somewhat,” he answered.

“Somewhat like you?” Runcorn said, amazement showing in his face that Monk was considering it seriously.

Monk felt himself on the brink of a precipice and pulled back. “Superficially,” he answered. Already his mind was enmeshed in other thoughts, farther into his own doubts and necessities. “Only superficially.” He wanted to excuse himself as soon as he could. He was feeling more and more impelled to see Rathbone. It was imperative. Perhaps it was almost too late now.

“There isn’t anything more,” he said aloud. “You’ll have to trust your prosecution. Sorry.”

Runcorn grunted. “I suppose I should be grateful that you tried.”

He had to wait an hour and a half before Rathbone was free to see him. It was a wretched time, far too long to sit and consider the difficulty and the embarrassment of what he must do.

When eventually Rathbone came and he was conducted into his familiar, elegant office, he began without preamble.

“Michael Dalgarno has been charged with murdering Katrina Harcus, but the proof depends on his having a motive,” he said bluntly.

“Of course.” Rathbone nodded, looking at Monk with sharpening interest. They knew each other well enough for him to be aware that Monk would not be there to say something so obvious, nor would he be so tense, his body tight, his voice on edge, were it not of acute personal importance, even pain, to him. The relationship between them was deep, at times troubled by rivalry between the smooth, socially and intellectually confident Rathbone, who nevertheless lacked emotional courage, and the arrogant, uncertain Monk, who looked and behaved almost like a gentleman, yet had the inner passion to commit his heart, win or lose, and was now so desperately afraid that after all the effort, the change, the hope, it would be lose.

Rathbone was regarding him gravely, waiting for him to explain.

“Runcorn assumes it was because Katrina had proof of his being involved in fraudulent purchase and sale of land for Baltimore’s railway line to Derby,” he began. “I thought so too, but I’ve searched as thoroughly as I can, even comparing all the dealings with the fraud in Baltimore and Sons in Liverpool sixteen years ago, when I worked for the banks concerned myself.” He saw Rathbone’s slight start of surprise, concealed almost instantly. “But I can find no proof,” he went on. “Certainly not sufficient to hang a man for murder.”

Rathbone looked at his hands, then up at Monk. “Exactly what was your involvement in the first fraud, as much as you know?” he asked.

Now was the time when only the naked truth would do. Any evasion might come back as guilt, like a knife to destroy whatever good was left.

“Arrol Dundas, the man who taught me everything I knew and was almost a father to me, was accused of buying land cheaply and then selling it at huge profit after falsifying the surveys so the railway would divert its course,” he replied. “He was found guilty, and died in prison.” It was odd, put so baldly, devoid of the reality of passion that had made it acutely and irrevocably painful. It sounded like a legal issue, not people’s lives torn apart. Best to add the ugliest part of that now, get it over. “And while he was in prison, there was one of the most terrible rail crashes in history. A coal train collided with an excursion train full of children.”

Rathbone was so moved by his own imagination of the horror of it that for a moment or two he did not speak. “I see,” he said at last, his voice low enough to be almost inaudible. “And did it have anything to do with the fraud?”

“Not that I could tell. It was attributed to human error-possibly both driver and brakeman.”

“Proof?” Rathbone raised his eyebrows very slightly.

“None. No one ever knew for certain. But navvies have never been known to build a faulty track. There are too many checks, too many skilled people involved.”

“I see. And was Dundas guilty of the fraud, or was it someone still alive now? Dalgarno?”

“Not Dalgarno, he would have been a schoolboy sixteen years ago. I don’t know whether Dundas was guilty. I was certain he was innocent at the time… at least I think I was.” His eyes did not leave Rathbone’s. “I fought to get him acquitted… and I can remember the grief and the sense of helplessness when he wasn’t.”

“But…” Rathbone probed gently, like a surgeon with a knife, and like a knife, it hurt.

“But I can’t remember. I feel guilty about something. I don’t know whether it was because I couldn’t help. In Liverpool just now I looked into his financial affairs as far as I could with no authority. He was very wealthy while I knew him, and up until the time of the trial. He was supposed to have made a profit out of the land deal…”

Rathbone nodded. “Naturally. One presumes that was part of the evidence of fraud. What about it?”

“He died with very little.” This time Monk did not look at Rathbone as he said it. “He sold his large house and his widow lived extremely modestly in a far less salubrious area. When she died she left nothing. She had lived on an annuity which ended with her death.”

“And you don’t know where the money went?”

Monk looked up. “No, I don’t. I’ve done everything I can to remember, been to the places again, read the newspapers, and it still won’t come.”

“What are you afraid of?” Rathbone spared him nothing. Perhaps that was as necessary as a doctor pushing to see where it hurt most.

Could he lie? At least about this? What was the point? He had to tell Rathbone that he had burnt the letters which implicated him-falsely. And there could be others saying that.

“That I did know at the time,” he replied. “I was executor of his will. He must have trusted me.”

Rathbone did not stay his hand at all, although the reluctance, the hurt at having to do it was in his voice. “Could you have taken this money yourself?”

“I don’t know! I suppose so. I can’t remember.” Monk sat forward, staring at the floor. “All I can see clearly in my mind is her face, his widow, telling me he was dead. We were in a very ordinary house, small and neat. I didn’t have the money, but I don’t know if I did something with it. I’ve racked my mind, but I just don’t remember!”

“I see,” Rathbone said gently. “And if Dundas were innocent, as you thought at the time, then was the truth that there was no fraud or that someone else was guilty?”

“I think that’s the difference,” Monk said, straightening up slowly and meeting Rathbone’s eyes. “Sixteen years ago there was definitely fraud. The grid references on the survey map were altered. If it wasn’t Dundas, then it was someone else, possibly Nolan Baltimore-”

“Why?” Rathbone interrupted. “If Dundas profited personally, why would Baltimore have forged a survey report?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense that I can see,” Monk admitted, defeated again. It closed in on him on every side. “But I don’t believe there was fraud this time. The track was rerouted, but Dalgarno didn’t own the land. If there was illegal profit, then it was bribery in order to change the route and not divide farms or estates. And placed as they are, anyone could have done that out of a sense of preservation of the land, without being bribed to.”

Rathbone stared at him, his face very grave. “Monk-what you are saying is that Dalgarno had no reason that you know of to kill this woman. If he had no motive, and no one saw him do it, then there is no evidence to tie him into the crime at all.”

“There is a little,” Monk said slowly, very distinctly, hearing the words drop like stones, irretrievable. He must tell Rathbone all of it. “There is the paper Katrina Harcus left accusing him. But she also left one which, on the face of it, accuses me. And the button.” Now it would be impossible to retract. Rathbone would force him to tell the whole truth.

“Button?” Rathbone frowned.

“She died with a man’s coat button in her hand.”

“Torn off in the struggle? Why the devil didn’t you say so?” Now Rathbone’s face was keen, his eyes alight. “That ties him in completely-motive or not!”

“No, it doesn’t,” Monk said flatly, even at this awful moment aware of the bitter humor of it.

Rathbone opened his mouth to speak, then sensed something deeper and beyond words, and said nothing.

“I met her in the Botanic Gardens earlier in the day,” Monk went on. “She was very distressed, and still passionately convinced that Dalgarno was guilty. We more or less quarreled about it, at least that is what it would appear to be to any onlookers, and there were many.”

Rathbone leaned forward a little across the desk, concentrating intensely.

Monk felt hot, and then cold. He was shivering. “She grasped at me, as if to demand my attention. Then, in pulling away she tore the button off my coat. It was my button in her hand.”

“Several hours later? When fighting with her murderer?” Rathbone said softly. “Monk, are you telling me the whole truth? If I am to defend you, I need it.”

Monk looked up at him slowly, dreading what he would see. “I came to ask you to defend Dalgarno,” he said, ignoring Rathbone’s surprise. “I think he may be innocent. Either way, I need him to be defended to the best of anyone’s ability. If he hangs, I have to be certain, beyond any doubt at all-reasonable or otherwise, that he killed her.”

“I am more concerned about keeping your neck out of the noose,” Rathbone said earnestly. “You knew this woman, you were seen to quarrel with her the day of her death, and your coat button was in her hand. And you didn’t tell me what happened to the letters which incriminated you.”

“I took them,” Monk told him. “Runcorn asked me to show him the rooms where she lived. I saw them before he did. I took them, and burnt them when I got home.”

Rathbone let out a long sigh. “I see. And to whom were these letters written?”

“Someone called Emma, but I don’t know anything else, except that she did not live in London. I went back”-he saw Rathbone wince, and ignored it-“and looked for more, an address book, but I didn’t find one.”

“Were they regular correspondents?”

Monk’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t know!” He did not mention the diary. No one had heard about it, and he clung to the tiny thread of hope that somehow it would still tell him something about Katrina which could provide a link, however fragile. And there was something of her dreams in it he wanted to protect. Perhaps if he were honest, that was it.

“I see,” Rathbone repeated softly. “And you are afraid your actions will hang a man who may be innocent.” That was not a question. He knew Monk well enough for it not to need to be.

Monk looked at him steadily. “Yes. Please?”

“He may have his own barrister already,” Rathbone warned. “But I will do everything I can, I promise you.”

Monk started to say “You’ve got to,” and realized how foolish that was. He was asking a favor for which he could not pay, perhaps an impossible one. “Thank you,” he said instead.

Rathbone smiled slightly, like a moment’s sun on a winter landscape. “Then let us begin. If Dalgarno did not kill her, and you did not, then who did? Do you have any idea at all?”

“No,” Monk said simply. It was the bare truth. He realized how very little he knew about Katrina Harcus. He could have described her to the minutest detail-her hair, her face, her remarkable eyes, the way she moved, the inflections of her voice. He could have told Rathbone what she had worn almost every time he had seen her. But until the day of her death he had not even known where she lived, let alone where she came from or anything of her daily life, her family or her past.

Rathbone tightened his lips for a second, then with an effort forbore from making any comment on Monk’s gullibility. Perhaps if he considered it, he knew as little about some of his own clients. “Well then, the first thing you can do is find out everything else you can about her, and as rapidly as possible,” he said bleakly. “Go wherever it takes you, but report to me every day.” He knew he did not need to emphasize that.

Monk stood up. Rathbone had been light in his condemnation, saying nothing of criticism or blame, but Monk knew him well enough to be aware of his thoughts. He felt as crushed by the mere fact of them as if they all had been put into speech.

Rathbone handed him the funds he would need.

“Thank you,” Monk accepted, hating it. Whether Rathbone would get any of it back from Dalgarno was still an open question, but Monk could not afford to refuse. He had no idea where his search would take him. Not only would Dalgarno’s life depend on it, but his own conscience, his identity, and if things came to the worst, his life too. If it seemed Dalgarno would be convicted, then he would have to tell the court of the paper he had found at Katrina’s rooms, and destroyed, and show them that the coat button was his. Then how could even Rathbone save him from the rope?

And yet he was innocent. Perhaps Dalgarno was also.

“I need to start with Dalgarno himself,” he said aloud. “Get me an interview with him.”

The clock had struck nine by the time Monk stood in the Newgate cell, Rathbone sitting to the side in the only chair. Dalgarno, pale and unshaven, paced back and forth restlessly, his face already haggard from the shock of realization that ahead of him lay the possibility of the gallows.

“I didn’t kill her!” he said desperately, his voice rising, close to breaking.

Monk kept his own emotions icily under control. It was the only way to approach thinking with any clarity.

“Then someone else did, Mr. Dalgarno,” he replied. “No jury will acquit you unless you provide them with an alternative.”

“I don’t know who did, for God’s sake!” Dalgarno cried out wildly. “Do you think I’d be standing here in prison if I did?” He stared at Monk as if he were a complete fool.

Monk felt a pity for him, and a guilt for his own part in it, but he also could not like the man. He had treated Katrina Harcus badly, whether he had killed her or not.

“Hysteria won’t help,” he said with chill. “Logic is the only thing that may. What do you know about her? And please tell me everything, and the truth, whether it is flattering to you or not. Your life may depend upon it. It is no time for protecting your reputation or your vanity.”

Dalgarno glared at him, then at Rathbone.

Rathbone nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I met her at a garden party,” Dalgarno began, his tone now subdued. “She was charming, full of life. I thought she was the most interesting woman I had ever seen. But I knew nothing of her social background, except that she was obviously well-bred and had sufficient means to dress in the height of fashion.”

“Who were her friends?” Monk asked.

Dalgarno rattled off half a dozen names. They meant nothing to Monk, but he saw Rathbone register recognition.

“Maybe one of them killed her,” Dalgarno said desperately. “I can’t think why, but God knows I didn’t. Why would I? I didn’t want to marry her, and she seems to think I did.” He colored faintly. “But there was no fraud-I swear!” He waved his hands jerkily. “We may have shaved a little here and there, but everyone does.”

Monk did not comment on that. It was irrelevant now. “That is precisely why I need to know more about her, Mr. Dalgarno. Someone killed her. Where did she come from? What about her family?”

“I don’t know!” Dalgarno said impatiently. “We didn’t discuss it.”

“But you were intending to marry her,” Monk pointed out. “As an ambitious young man, surely you enquired?”

Dalgarno blushed. “I… I believe she came originally from the Liverpool area. She said both her parents were dead.”

It made excellent sense. The fraud she had accused Dalgarno of practicing was almost an exact copy of the one for which Dundas had been convicted. Had she grown up in the Liverpool area she could have heard of it, and of the crash she had told Monk about with such horror.

He asked other questions, but for a man who had claimed to be in love, Dalgarno knew surprisingly little about her. But then Monk recalled with brutal honesty how little he had known, or cared, about some of the young women with whom he had thought himself in love.

Perhaps it was because he had known Hester since the first months after the accident, and she had crowded all others out of anything but the surface of his mind. She was real; they were only idealizations he had thought he wanted.

Had Dalgarno been like that with Katrina Harcus? If he had, Monk could not blame him for it. There was little point in asking Dalgarno about their relationship; he would say what he wanted them to believe, and there was nothing against which to check it.

“What about your own family, Mr. Dalgarno?” he asked. “Did you introduce Miss Harcus to them? Surely your mother enquired? Perhaps she would know more about her?”

Dalgarno looked away. “My family are in Bristol. My father is in poor health, unable to travel, and my mother does not leave him.”

“But you and Miss Harcus could travel,” Monk argued.

Dalgarno swiveled around, his eyes angry. “I did not ask Miss Harcus to marry me!” he snapped. “She may have imagined I was going to, but women do that!”

“Especially if you give them cause to,” Monk said equally sharply.

Dalgarno opened his mouth as if to deny it, then closed it again in a thin line.

Monk could learn nothing more of use. In the end he left the overpoweringly oppressive air of the prison and walked side by side with Rathbone along Newgate Street. Neither of them mentioned a like or dislike for Dalgarno, or the fact that he had shown no pity for Katrina Harcus, no remorse that he had used her badly.

“Liverpool,” Rathbone said succinctly. “If it has anything to do with her past it will begin there. The police will be looking into everything in London, so don’t waste your time with that. Honestly, Monk, I don’t know what you are looking for.”

Monk did not answer. He did not know either, but to admit it seemed like a surrender he could not afford.

When Monk reached Fitzroy Street, the house was empty, but he had been there not more than ten or fifteen minutes when Hester came in in a whirl of excitement. Her face lit when she saw him, and she dropped her parcel of shopping on the table and went straight to him as if she had no flicker of hesitation that he would take her in his arms.

He could not help himself from doing so, clinging onto her hard, feeling the strength of her answering embrace.

She pulled away and looked up at him. “William, I have solved the murder of Nolan Baltimore, at least in part. I don’t know exactly who did it, but I know why.”

He could not help smiling. “We all know that, my darling. We always knew. Ask any bootboy or peddler. He didn’t pay his bills. Some pimp took exception and there was a fight.”

“Not quite,” she said like a displeased governess. “That is only an assumption. I told you there is a brothel where one partner hands money to respectable young women who have got into debt for one reason or another…”

“Yes, you did. What has that to do with it?”

“He was the partner!” she said. Then, seeing the disgust in his face. “I thought you’d think so. He lent the money, and Squeaky Robinson ran the brothel. But Baltimore was a client as well! That was why he was killed, for taking his tastes too far. One of the girls rebelled, and pushed him out of a top-floor window. Squeaky had the body moved to Abel Smith’s place.”

“Have you told the police?”

“No! I had a much better idea.”

She was glowing with satisfaction. He had a sinking dread that he would have to destroy it. “Better?” he said guardedly.

“Yes. I have burnt the IOUs and put Squeaky Robinson out of business. We shall take over the premises, without rent, and the young women there can nurse the others who are sick or injured.”

“You did that?” he said incredulously. “How?”

“Well, not by myself…”

“Indeed?” His voice rose in spite of himself. “And whose help did you enlist? Or would I very much prefer not to know?”

“Oh, it is perfectly respectable!” she protested.

“Margaret Ballinger and Oliver!”

“What?” He could not grasp it.

She smiled up at him and kissed him gently on the cheek. Then she told him precisely what they had done, ending with an apology. “I’m afraid it doesn’t help with the railway fraud. It doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“No,” he agreed, but there was a tiny spark of pride warm inside him. “I have to go back to Liverpool for that.”

“Oh…”

Then, in turn, he told her what Runcorn had said.

“It isn’t proof, is it?” she agreed. “But they must have rerouted the track for some reason, and Miss Harcus said they were expecting an enormous profit which must be kept secret.” She looked at him very steadily. “What are you going to do?”

It made it easier for him that without question she assumed he was going to do something.

“Go back to Liverpool,” he replied. “Try to find out exactly what mistakes Arrol Dundas made that he was caught.” He saw her eyes widen and heard her indrawn breath, let out again without speaking. “For this case,” he replied. “Not the past.”

She relaxed and smiled.

He went back to the same lodgings in Liverpool where he now felt familiar, even welcome. The first thing was to find if Katrina Harcus had been born here. It would be in the early 1830s, to judge from her age. That was just before the compulsory registration of births, so it would be a matter of finding a record of her baptism in a local church. There was nothing to do but go from one parish to another enquiring. He telegraphed Rathbone to that effect.

It took him four weary and tedious days to find the entry in the records of a small Gothic church on the outskirts of Liverpool. Katrina Mary Harcus. Her mother was Pamela Mary Harcus. Her father was not listed. The inference was obvious. Illegitimacy was a stigma from which few recovered. He felt a stab of pity as he saw the solitary entry. He stood in the faintly dusty aisle where the sunlight fell in vivid jewel patches from the stained-glass windows, watching the parish priest walking towards him. Perhaps it was not so surprising that Katrina had left home and gone to London, where she was unknown, even friendless, to seek some future better than the taint of being a bastard which would follow her everywhere here.

“Did you find it?” the minister asked helpfully.

“Yes, thank you,” Monk replied. “Does Mrs. Harcus still live in the parish?”

The Reverend Rider’s bland, pleasant face filled with sadness. “No,” he said quietly. “She died nearly three months ago, poor woman.” He sighed. “She used to be such a charming creature, full of life, full of hope. Always saw the best in everything. Never the same after…” He checked himself just before speaking. “After her benefactor died,” he finished.

Was that a euphemism for her lover, Katrina’s father?

“Were things hard for her after that?” Monk asked solicitously. He was affecting pity for the vicar’s sake; ordinarily he would have felt it, but at the moment he simply could not afford the emotional energy to let it fill him as it should.

“Yes… yes.” Rider pursed his lips and nodded his head. “To be alone, in failing health and with little means is a hard thing for anyone. People can be very unkind, Mr. Monk. We tend to look at our own weaknesses with such charity and other people’s with so little. I suppose it is because we know the fierceness of the temptation to our own, and all the reasons why that exception to the rule was understandable. With other people we know only what we see, and even that is not always the truth.”

Monk knew more exactly what he meant than the vicar could have known. His loss of memory had forced him to see his own actions with that partial and outward eye, mostly through the lens of others, and understanding nothing. To be judged that way was acutely painful. He could feel closing on him the threat of answering for wrongs committed in a time he could not remember, and as if by another man. He had tried so hard to shed the old ruthlessness, the indifference. Was the past not now going to allow him that?

But he had no time for indulgence of his own feelings, however crowding and urgent.

“Yes,” he agreed, to avoid the appearance of abruptness. “It is a narrowness common to most of us. Perhaps a little time being judged, instead of judging, would be a salutary thing.”

Rider smiled. “Perceptive of you, Mr. Monk.”

“Do you know who her benefactor was? Perhaps the father of her daughter, whom I knew, and attempted to help with a particular problem she was seeking to address.”

“Knew?” Rider said quickly, catching the past tense.

“I am afraid she is dead.” Monk did not have to pretend the grief. And it was more than guilt that he had not prevented it; it was a loss for someone who had been full of passion and urgency, much of which he had shared, even though she had not known it.

Rider looked crushed, a great weariness filled him. “Oh, dear… I am sorry,” he said quietly. “She was always so very full of life. Was it an accident?”

“No.” Monk risked the truth. “She was murdered…” He stopped as he saw the shock in Rider’s eyes, almost as if he had walked into something unseen and without any warning found himself bruised and on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized. “I should have told you less frankly. I am concerned because I fear they may have arrested the wrong man, and there is little time to learn the truth.”

“How can I help?”

Monk was not sure, but he asked the obvious question. “Who was her father? And how long ago did she leave here?”

“About two years ago,” Rider answered, frowning in concentration.

“And her father?” Monk pressed.

Rider looked at him ruefully. “I don’t see how it can have anything to do with her death. It was many years ago. All those involved are dead now… even poor Katrina. Allow them to rest in peace, Mr. Monk.”

“If they are dead,” Monk argued, “then they cannot be hurt by it. I will tell no one, unless it is necessary in order to save the life of a man who will be hanged for killing her, and may be innocent.”

Rider sighed, his face crumpled with regret. “I’m sorry, Mr. Monk, but I cannot break the confidences, even of the dead. You already know from the baptismal record more than I would have told you. Apart from my personal regard, these people were my parishioners, and their trust was my charge. If the young man is innocent, then the law will find him so, and for poor Katrina’s sake, find the one who was guilty. Perhaps for his sake also, although it is not ours to judge.” He took a long, deep breath. “I am deeply sorry to hear of her death, Mr. Monk, but I cannot help you.”

Monk did not pursue it. He could see in Rider’s gentle, sad face that his conviction would not waver.

“I am sorry to have brought you such news,” he said quietly. “Thank you for your time.”

Rider nodded. “Good day, Mr. Monk, and may God guide you in your quest.”

Monk hesitated, steeling himself, and turned back.

“Mr. Rider, did Katrina have a friend named Emma?” His heart was beating so wildly he could feel it lurch inside him. He saw the answer in Rider’s face before he spoke.

“Not that I am aware of. I am sorry. To my knowledge there was only herself and her mother-and her aunt, Eveline Austin. But she died some ten or twelve years ago. But of course I shall mention her death in church next Sunday, and no doubt word will pass.” He smiled sadly. “Bad news so quickly does.”

Monk swallowed, his mouth dry. He could feel everything precious, all the life he knew, infinitely precious, slipping away like water between his fingers, and there was nothing he could do to hold on to it.

“Are you all right, Mr. Monk?” Rider said anxiously. “You look a little unwell. I am so sorry to be of… of so little assistance.”

“No!” Monk steadied himself. This was an escape, but he was far from free yet. “Thank you. You have simply told me the truth. Thank you for your time. Good day.”

“Good day, Mr. Monk.”