Slaves of Obsession

8

MONK WOULD also dearly have liked to find a way to defend Merrit without at the same time defending Breeland, but he was too much of a realist to imagine it could be done. He had watched them together on the long journey home across the Atlantic. He knew Merrit would never allow it. Whatever her belief about Breeland, or her horror at the reality of war, her own nature was based on loyalty. To have saved herself at his expense would be to deny everything she valued. It would be a kind of suicide.

Nor did it surprise him that Breeland was still more concerned with clearing his own name, and thus the cause, than with how Merrit was enduring imprisonment and the fear and suffering that must come with it. He smiled as he thought of Rathbone’s distaste, and imagined his regard for Merrit, her youth, her enthusiasm and vulnerability. He wondered also as he strode along Tottenham Court Road, watching for a hansom, what Rathbone had felt for Judith Alberton, and if he had been sensitive to her remarkable beauty.

The August sun was hot, shimmering up from the pavements, winking in hard, glittering light on harnesses, polished carriage doors and, at certain angles, from the windows of busy shops.

A shoeblack boy was accepting a penny from a top-hatted customer. He winked at a girl selling muffins.

Monk hailed a cab and gave the address of the police station, where he hoped, this early in the morning, to find Lanyon still there. It was the natural place to begin, even though he was now attempting to prove the opposite from that which had seemed to be so obviously the truth at the beginning.

He was fortunate. He met Lanyon just as he was coming down the steps, the sun catching his fair, straight hair. He was surprised to see Monk and stopped, his face full of curiosity.

“Looking for me?” he asked, almost hopefully.

Monk smiled in self-mockery. “I am now retained for the defense,” he said frankly. He owed Lanyon the truth, and it was easier than lying or evasion.

Lanyon grunted, but there was no criticism in his eyes. “Money or conviction?” he replied.

“Money,” Monk replied.

Lanyon grinned. “I don’t believe you.”

“You asked!”

Lanyon started to walk, a long, loping step, and Monk kept pace with him. “Sorry for the girl,” Lanyon went on. “Wish I could think she was innocent, but she was there in the yard.” He looked sideways at Monk, his face shadowed with regret, trying to read Monk’s reaction.

Monk kept his own face expressionless. It cost him an effort.

“How do you know?”

“The watch you found … it was Breeland’s all right, of course, but he had given it to her as a keepsake.”

“Did he say so?”

Lanyon’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Do you think I would take his word for it? No, he didn’t mention it at all, and I didn’t bother to ask him. It doesn’t really matter what he says. Miss Dorothea Parfitt told us. She’s a friend of Miss Alberton’s, and apparently Miss Alberton was showing it to her, boasting a little.” His expression was rueful, leaving Monk to picture the scene himself and draw his own conclusions.

They passed a strawberry seller’s cart.

Monk said nothing. His mind was racing, trying to fit into one congruous whole the vision of Merrit bragging about the watch Breeland had given her as a token of his love, Merrit standing in the warehouse yard watching as Breeland forced her father and the two guards into the cramped and humiliating position, then shot them in cold blood, and the Merrit he had seen in Washington and on the ship home, young and loyal, confused by Breeland’s coldness towards her, constantly making excuses for him in her own mind, making herself believe the best of him, and now alone and in prison, frightened, facing trial and perhaps death, and yet determined not to betray him, even to save herself.

Perhaps she was one of the world’s great lovers, but Breeland was not. He might be one of the world’s idealists, or one of its flawed obsessives, not so much a man who supported a cause as a man who needed a cause to support him, to fulfill a nature otherwise empty.

Lanyon was waiting for an answer from him.

“An ugly fact,” he granted. “I’m not yet ready to concede its meaning.”

Lanyon shrugged.

“What about Shearer?” Monk changed the subject. “What does he say for himself? Have you found the boy who delivered the message to Breeland at his rooms? Who sent it?”

“Don’t know yet,” Lanyon answered. “Haven’t found the boy. Could be any of thousands, and he’s not coming forward. Doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t want to be connected with a man who committed a triple murder, even supposing he knows we want him. Very likely he can’t read. Even if somebody’s told him, he’ll be keeping his head down.”

“Merrit said it was Shearer who sent it.”

“Nobody’s seen him since the day before Alberton was killed,” Lanyon replied again, watching for Monk’s response.

They crossed the street just behind an open landau, with laughing ladies holding up pale parasols, their white and blue muslins fluttering in the slight breeze.

A lemonade seller stood on the corner, now and then shouting out his wares. Lanyon stopped and bought one, looking enquiringly at Monk, who copied him. They both drank the liquid down without interrupting themselves to speak.

“Have you looked for him?” Monk asked as they moved on. Already the air was getting hot, but it was nothing like the stifling closeness of Washington—and London, for all its tens of thousands, its poverty and grime, its magnificence, opulence and hypocrisy, was at peace.

“Yes, of course we have,” Lanyon replied. “Not a whisper.”

“Don’t you think that requires an explanation?”

Lanyon grinned. “Well, the first one that comes to mind is that he was in league with Breeland, but had the good sense to disappear completely, instead of going openly somewhere. But then he didn’t have six thousand guns to ship.”

“Presumably he just had the money,” Monk said dryly.

Lanyon walked in silence for a hundred yards or so.

“You did look into the money?” Monk asked him.

“Of course,” Lanyon answered, stepping off onto the cross street, Monk keeping pace with him. “It’s clear enough in Casbolt and Alberton’s books. He had the half down that Trace paid him. He never received a penny from Breeland.”

“Breeland says he paid the full amount to Shearer when the guns were handed over at the Euston Square station.”

“Well, he would!” Lanyon skirted around two elderly gentlemen in dark coats and striped trousers, heads bent in earnest conversation. “And if he received the guns in time for the night train to Liverpool, what was it we followed down the river to Bugsby’s Marshes?”

Monk thought for several minutes while they walked.

“Perhaps Merrit was his witness,” he said at last, the idea forming in his mind as he spoke. “Maybe the guns went from Bugsby’s Marshes, and he simply told Merrit they went through Liverpool, but he went that way himself so she would swear to it?”

“On the assumption you would go to America, find him, and bring him back to stand trial …” Lanyon finished for him. “You work hard for your money, Monk, I’ll give you that! I’d hire you on my case, if I were in trouble.”

“Not on the assumption I’d bring him back!” Monk snapped, feeling the color wash up his face. “In order to deceive Merrit, because he didn’t want her to know the truth, couldn’t afford for her to know. He may well believe that anything he does, including triple murder, is justified by the cause, but he knows damned well that Merrit wouldn’t. Especially when one of the victims was her father.”

Lanyon’s eyes widened, and he slowed his stride considerably. “I suppose that’s not impossible. You mean Shearer and Breeland were accomplices, Breeland got the guns, and Shearer got the money? Poor Alberton was killed. Which way did the guns go?”

“Down the river to Bugsby’s Marshes, and across the Atlantic from there,” Monk answered as they crossed a busy street. “Breeland went to Liverpool and sailed separately, taking Merrit with him. That may have been his original intention, and he might have had to change his mind because of Merrit’s obsession with him. Either way, she is innocent of her father’s death.”

“So Shearer killed Alberton in order to steal the guns and sell them to Breeland?”

“Why not?” Monk’s spirits rose. “Doesn’t it fit with everything we know?”

“Apart from Breeland’s watch at the warehouse yard, yes.” Lanyon looked sideways at him, stepping up onto the curb. “How do you explain that?”

“I don’t … yet. Maybe she dropped it there earlier?”

“Doing what?” Lanyon asked incredulously. “Why would Merrit Alberton be at the warehouse in Tooley Street? Not a usual place for a young lady in the normal course of her summer social round.”

Even as he was denying it, Monk realized how desperately he was reaching for an escape for Merrit. “Perhaps she and Breeland went there to make some agreement with Shearer earlier in the evening?”

“Why there?”

“To verify the merchandise. Breeland wouldn’t pay for guns unless he knew what he was getting.”

Lanyon squinted at him. “Didn’t trust him to sell the right guns, even though he was Alberton’s agent, but did trust him enough to hand over the whole amount of the money to him and sail off to America in the absolute faith that the guns would be shipped to him, and not either kept or sold to someone else?” He pursed his lips. “What was to stop Shearer from pocketing the money and selling the guns again, or even simply leaving them where they were? Not a lot Breeland could do about it from New York!”

Another idea flashed into Monk’s mind. “Maybe that was why he took Merrit with him? Insurance against being cheated.”

“By Alberton, maybe … but why would Shearer care what happened to Merrit? He killed Alberton anyway.”

Monk remembered Breeland’s face when he had been told about the murders. “I don’t believe Breeland knew about that. He believed Shearer was acting out of principle, that he believed just as passionately as he did himself in the fight against slavery.” He saw Lanyon’s look of comical incredulity. “Talk to Breeland,” he said quickly. “Listen to him. He’s a fanatic. In his view, all right-minded people believe as he does.”

Lanyon took the point. “I suppose it’s possible,” he said cautiously. “So Shearer is the villain, Breeland the fanatic, guilty of buying stolen guns and using Merrit’s love for him, but not of murder. And Merrit herself is guilty only of being led by her heart and ignoring her head? I suppose at sixteen that’s half to be expected.” He shrugged. “If a woman wouldn’t do all she could to help her betrothed, we’d be just as quick to criticize her.”

“Probably,” Monk agreed, although privately he wondered just how much blind adoration he could take—perhaps at thirty a lot more than he could now. And would he have used it with the same disregard as Lyman Breeland did? Probably. What was given so freely was often valued too little. But the fact that he himself might have been no better did not soften his dislike for Breeland; if anything it deepened it.

“Are you going to pursue that?” Lanyon asked curiously.

“I’m going to pursue everything,” Monk replied. “Unless, of course, I find something so conclusive it isn’t necessary.” He grinned broadly at Lanyon, but it was ironic, and they both knew it.

Lanyon shrugged. “Good luck.” He sounded as if he meant it.

Monk started again at the very beginning, at the warehouse yard, following the trail of the wagons leaving. He remembered vividly going into the closed space in the pale, summer morning and seeing the dead bodies in their grotesque positions. He remembered Casbolt’s face in the light, the smell of blood, the wheel tracks over the stones.

He also remembered Manassas and the strange reality of war. The whole of it was like a dream, all smaller than it should have been, the dust and the heat ridiculously commonplace. Gunshots were not like thunder; they were crackling, like dozens of sticks being snapped as a bonfire took hold. Only the cannons roared.

But the blood and the fear had been more real than anyone could imagine, so stark they still came back to him every time he closed his eyes and forgot to guard against them. It was the smell that stayed in his memory.

What were three deaths compared with so many? Some of the soldiers had been shot down without even a fight, just wasted, as thoughtlessly as a man mows down grass.

Was that how Breeland looked at it? Did he see it not as murder but as war? Did he feel a few individual deaths were a small price to pay to secure the end of slavery for a whole race? And perhaps the end of the sin of enslaving for another race, his own? An argument could be made for it. Monk could make one himself.

He knew what Hester would say. At least he thought he did. You did not save a people from sin by committing another sin yourself. But was she a realist? Or did she think of individuals, one man’s injuries or pain, one man’s grief, because it was what she could help, and refuse to see a wider whole?

Certainly, Lyman Breeland ignored the individual and saw the thousands, the tens of thousands. And Monk found something in Breeland repellent. Did that make Breeland wrong, or only morally braver, more of a visionary and less of an ordinary, limited human being?

Monk stood in the sun in Tooley Street and weighed the possibilities. The wagons had left through the gates and must have turned either left or right. The guns were too heavy to have been transported other than by horse-drawn vehicles or on barges along the river. The river was by far the closer. It was the way Alberton normally moved all heavy goods. It was the way everyone did.

But Breeland was American. Perhaps he did not know that? Could he have gone by road to the Euston Square station? Well over a month had gone by. It would be hard to find witnesses who remembered anything, let alone were willing to testify to it.

Could Breeland’s story be true? That was the place to start. The wagons loaded with six thousand guns would be big enough, passing through the streets in the middle of the night.

But time was a whole different question. Breeland had said the note had come to him about midnight. Alberton was still alive then. He was killed around three, according to the medical evidence, and the reasonable deduction as to the loading of the guns. The wagons must have left immediately after. How long would it take them heavily laden, but in the traffic-free still of the night?

He started to walk rapidly, then caught a cab, following the shortest route over the river towards the Euston Square station, thinking furiously all the way. Even at a trot, which wagons could not have done, he could not have made it in less than half- to three-quarters of an hour.

He paid the cabdriver and strode into the station. He asked to see the stationmaster, quoting Lanyon’s name as if he had a right to.

“It is regarding illegal shipment of arms,” he said grimly. “And triple murder. My information must be exact. Lives depend upon it, and perhaps Britain’s reputation for honor.”

The clerk obeyed with alacrity. Let the decision for dealing with this be somebody else’s. “I’ll fetch Mr. Pickering, sir!”

The stationmaster kept him waiting only fifteen minutes. He was an agreeable man with a thick gray mustache and handsome side-whiskers. He welcomed Monk into his office.

“How can I be of assistance, sir?” he said mildly, but he eyed Monk up and down, weighing his importance and reserving judgment. He had heard wild statements before and was not easily impressed.

Monk would not retreat, but he decided to phrase his request carefully.

“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Pickering. As you are no doubt aware, there was a triple murder in Tooley Street on June twenty-eighth, and a large shipment of British guns was stolen and exported to America.”

“All London is aware of it, sir,” Pickering replied. “A very enterprising agent of enquiry tracked down the murderer and brought him back to stand trial for it.”

Monk felt a sharp prickle of satisfaction—he did not like to call it pride.

“Indeed. William Monk,” he introduced himself, allowing himself a faint smile. “Now I need to be sure that at that trial the man does not escape justice. He is claiming that he bought the guns quite legally, paying full price for them, and that he shipped them out from this station, on the train to Liverpool, the very night that the murders took place. There was a train to Liverpool that night?”

“No trains before six in the morning, sir.” Pickering shook his head. “We don’t run night trains on this line.”

Monk was taken aback. Suddenly the one thing he was sure of had slipped away.

“None at all?” he pressed.

“Well, the occasional special.” Pickering swallowed hard, but his eyes did not waver. “Private hire. Don’t often refuse one of those.”

“Was there one that night? Friday, the twenty-eighth of June? It would really be the early hours of Saturday morning.”

“I can look it up,” Pickering offered, turning to look at a sheaf of papers on a shelf behind his desk.

Monk waited impatiently. The seconds stretched out into a minute, then two.

“Here we are,” Pickering said at last. “Yes, by Jove, there was a special that night, all the way to Liverpool. Goods and a few passengers. Here you are.” He held out the sheaf of paper.

Monk snatched it from him. The train had left at five minutes before two o’clock.

“Are you sure it went on time?” he demanded. He heard the edge to his voice, and could not control it.

“Yes, sir,” Pickering assured him. “That sheet is written up afterwards. It should have gone five minutes before. That’s the time it actually went.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Does it help?”

“Yes, it does. The murders could not have happened before about three o’clock.”

Pickering looked relieved, and puzzled. “I see,” he said, although plainly he did not.

“Do you know if it carried cases of guns?” Monk asked, not expecting an answer of any value.

“Guns? No sir, just machinery, timber and I believe a consignment of bathroom furnishings.”

“Why a special train for those?”

“Bathroom furniture’s fragile, sir, I suppose.”

“Who hired it?”

“On the bottom, there, sir.” Pickering pointed at the sheet in Monk’s hand. “Messrs. Butterby and Scott, of Camberwell.” He regarded Monk curiously. “Did you think the American took the guns on our train to Liverpool? Newspapers said he went down the river to Bugsby’s Marshes and then across the Atlantic to America. Seems like the sensible thing to do. If I’d just murdered three men and stolen thousands o’ guns, I’d get out of the country and away from the law as fast as I could. I wouldn’t even hang around on the river; I’d be down there as quick as the tide would carry me, and while it was still as dark as it gets, this time o’ the year.”

“So would I,” Monk agreed. “I’d hope to have weighed anchor and be on the high seas before they’d traced which way I’d gone.”

Pickering looked puzzled.

“But if I hadn’t stolen them,” Monk explained. “If I’d bought them legitimately and didn’t know anything about murders, I’d go through Liverpool. It would save considerable time, days, rather than go all around the south coast of England before reaching the Atlantic.”

Pickering’s bristly eyebrows shot up. “You think he didn’t do it? So who did, then?”

“I don’t know what I think,” Monk admitted. “Except that whoever killed those men in Tooley Street did not travel north on one of your trains.”

“I can swear to that,” Pickering assured him. “And I will, if I’m called. You get that devil, Mr. Monk. That’s no way to treat anybody. Whatever it is you think you’re fighting for!”

Monk agreed with him, thanked him and took his leave.

He spent the rest of the day and all the following one retracing his steps down the river from Tooley Street as far as Bugsby’s Marshes. Again he spoke to everyone who had seen the barge he and Lanyon had tracked the first time, and a good few others who might have. It was exactly the same as before: a heavily laden barge, piled with crates the size and shape to carry muskets, the barge lying low in the water, moving clumsily to begin with but gathering impetus as it increased speed out in the center of the current. Two men, one tall and lean and with a soft, foreign accent—they thought American. Certainly with its pronounced r’s and slightly slurred consonants it was not European of any sort. He had seemed to be in charge and was giving the orders.

It had all been done discreetly, even stealthily, hailing no one else, ignoring the usual comradeship of the river men.

Again he lost them at Bugsby’s Marshes. He tried several times to find anyone who had seen them beyond Greenwich, or who had seen an oceangoing ship coming, going or moored, but there was nothing.

A waterman shrugged, leaning on his oars, wrinkling his eyes against the glare of the sun off the incoming tide.

“Not so odd really,” he said, chewing on his lip. “ ’Idden ’round the bend o’ Bugsby’s Marshes, ’oo’d be lookin’? Lie there all night and not likely ter be seen, if yer lie close in, like. That’s wot I’d do … if I ’ad business as was private. Then be off on the first o’ the tide. Be out ter sea afore breakfast.”

Monk thanked him and was about to turn away and walk back towards the Artichoke Tavern when the man called after him.

“Eh! Yer wanner find out wot ’appened ter it?”

Monk swiveled back. “Do you know?”

“Course I don’t, or I’d a’ told yer. But yer said yer traced it down this far, an’ a blind man can see yer think it ’ad suffink valuable in it, suffink stolen.”

Monk was impatient.

“Well, ’aven’t yer asked them wot ’as the barge?” the waterman said, shaking his head.

“Asked …” Then it struck Monk almost like a physical blow. He had followed the trail of the barge as far as Bugsby’s Marshes, but his mind had been fixed on Breeland and the guns. He had not thought of the barge’s returning upstream to wherever it was now! That might provide proof of Shearer’s complicity, and if not where he was now, then at least where he had gone after the murders. Monk could have kicked himself for not having done that straightaway. It seemed Lanyon had not thought of it either. They had both been so convinced that catching Breeland was everything, it had not seemed to matter. Presumably, Breeland’s undenied possession of the guns, plus his watch at the scene, had been proof enough without finding out where he had hired the barge, and from whom. That in itself was not incriminating. Breeland would claim he had done so in the hope of being able to purchase the guns in the usual way.

But now it mattered.

“Yes,” he said grudgingly. It pricked him to be taught the obvious by a river man whose job it was to row boats and understand tides. “Yes, I’ll trace the barge back up. Thank you.”

The river man grinned and pushed his cap back farther on his head before picking up his oars again and pulling away.

But even though he spent that evening until dusk, and all the day after, Monk found no trace of the barge’s return journey, nor did the river police know anything about a barge stolen or missing.

“ ’Appens,” a gap-toothed sergeant told him, standing on the dockside in the sun, the tide lapping high at the pier stakes below them. “Mebbe it was stole from someone as stole it ’emselves, so they couldn’t say much. Or could be it were put back afore it were missed?”

“Or maybe it belonged to whoever used it,” Monk added. “They might have been well paid to keep silent.”

“Could be,” the sergeant agreed glumly. “Daresay yer’ll never know. Sorry I can’t ’elp yer. I can’t even tell yer w’ere ter begin. There’s ’undreds o’ wharfs an’ docks along the river, an’ scores of ’em ’d do yer a favor, if yer paid ’em right, an’ keep their mouths shut.”

Monk stared across the busy river, light reflecting off the gray water between strings of barges going upstream with the incoming tide. They carried goods from all over the world, everything from timber, coal and machinery, to silks, spices and exotic furs, perhaps cotton from the Confederate states to feed the mills of Manchester and the north, and tobacco for the gentlemen’s cigars in Mayfair and Whitehall.

A pleasure boat passed, decks lined with people, their straw hats on against the sun, scarves and handkerchiefs bright. Somewhere a hurdy-gurdy was playing. The air smelled of salt and fish and a whiff of tar.

“Do you know an agent named Shearer?” Monk asked.

The sergeant thought for a few moments. “Tall feller, thin, long nose an’ a lot o’ teeth?” he asked. “Crooked at the front, like?”

“Actually, I don’t know. I’ve not met him.” And he had not seen Judith Alberton to ask her for a physical description. “He worked for Daniel Alberton, in Tooley Street.”

“That’s the one. Sharp feller. Very quick ter see the advantage in anything.”

“Do you know him, professionally, I mean?”

“Criminally, like? No. Too fly for that, an’ no need, as I can see. Jus’ ’eard of him up an’ down the river.”

“Do you know anything else about him?” Monk pressed him. “Do you know where he came from? Has he any political beliefs?”

“Political beliefs?” The sergeant looked startled. “Like wot? Anarchist, or the like? Never ’eard ’e were dangerous, ’ceptin’ if yer crossed ’im over money. Could be nasty then, but so can a lot o’ folk.”

“I was thinking of sympathies with either side in the American civil war.” Monk knew it sounded ridiculous as he said it, standing side by side with this river sergeant watching the barges nudging each other upstream towards the docks, the commerce of the world coming and going. This was trade, cargo, profit. It was tides, weather, tonnages, who bought and who sold and at what price. Washington and Bull Run were another life.

“Shouldn’t think so.” The sergeant shrugged. “Shouldn’t think ’e even knew there was a war, ’less they bought summink for someone an’ wanted it shipped. S’pose that’s the guns, eh? Wouldn’t think a man like Shearer’d give a toss where they went, long as they were paid for.”

That fit in with Monk’s theory that Breeland could have paid Shearer with the price of the guns, and Shearer could have been the one who murdered Alberton and took the guns down the river while Breeland himself and Merrit went to Liverpool by train. The only question then was why had Breeland been rash enough to trust Shearer? And obviously he had been right to do so, because the guns had arrived in Washington.

But Monk could not believe it, not without some compelling reason why Breeland would trust Shearer. Yet it seemed there must have been such a fact.

Was there another person involved? Not likely, unless it had in some way been Alberton himself, and he had then been betrayed by Shearer. Breeland had said the note sent to him had been from Shearer, but he would not know that. Anyone could sign Shearer’s name.

One thing was absolutely certain: Monk was still a considerable distance from the truth.

He made his way back to Tooley Street and the warehouse. It was busy now. Storage and shipment, buying and selling continued in spite of Alberton’s death. Perhaps it was not as thriving as it had been, but his reputation had been excellent, and Casbolt was still alive, although his part in the business had apparently been more to do with purchase.

Monk went in through the open gates with an icy shiver of memory. There was a wagon in the center of the yard, horses shifting restlessly on the cobbles, flies buzzing around, a smell of manure, wood shavings, oil, sweat and tar heavy in the air. Two men were working together lowering a wooden crate from the winch into the back of the wagon, and they finished as he approached them. One lashed the crate firmly so it would not shift; the other went to close the warehouse doors.

“Yeah?” The one at the wagon turned to Monk civilly enough. He was a square, heavy-shouldered man with a mild, blunt face. “ ’Elp yer, sir?”

“I hope so. I’m looking for Mr. Shearer. I believe he used to work with Mr. Alberton,” Monk replied.

“Yeah, ’e did an’ all,” the man responded, pushing his hand through what was left of his hair. “Poor Mr. Alberton’s dead, murdered. ’Spect you know that, all Lunnon does. But I ain’t seen Shearer for weeks. In fact, not since poor Mr. Alberton were done in, an’ that’s a fact.” He turned to the man coming back from closing the warehouse doors. “Eh, Sandy, feller ’ere’s lookin’ fer Shearer. Yer see ’im lately? ’Cos I ain’t.”

Sandy shook his head. “Ain’t seen ’im since … I dunno. Reckon not in weeks. Mebbe day afore poor Mr. Alberton got done in.” His face reflected sadness and an undisguised anger. Monk was surprised how much it pleased him. He had liked Alberton. He had not allowed himself to think about that lately, suppressing it in his concentration on solving the question of who was responsible for Alberton’s death and proving exactly how it had been accomplished.

“What was he like?” he asked aloud. Then he realized he had not introduced himself. “My name is Monk. Mrs. Alberton has employed me to help her with regard to Mr. Alberton’s death. She believes there is much more to learn about it than we know at present, and there may be other people involved.” That was true literally, if not in its implication. He did not wish to tell them it was to clear Merrit of the charge of murder. They might well believe her guilty. If the newspapers were accurate, which was highly debatable, the general public had little doubt as to her involvement.

“Eh! Bert! Over ’ere!” Sandy called to a third man, who had appeared at the warehouse doors. “Come an’ ’elp this gent ’ere. ’E’s workin’ fer Mrs. Alberton.”

That was sufficient to make Bert move with alacrity. Whether they knew Judith personally or not, mention of her name ensured complete cooperation.

“Wot yer reckon ter Shearer, then?” Sandy prompted. “ ’Ow would yer describe ’im fer someone as ’ad never met ’im an’ knew nuffink?”

Bert considered carefully before he answered. “Clever,” he said at last. “Clever as a rat.”

“Eye ter the best chance,” the first man added, nodding sagely.

“Ambitious?” Monk asked.

They all three nodded.

“Greedy?” Monk ventured.

“Gonna get ’is share,” Bert agreed. “Never knowed ’im ter cheat, though, ter be fair.”

“Don’t do ter cheat, not if yer get caught at it,” Sandy added. “This sort o’ business yer’ll be lucky ter land in the clink. More like facedown in the river. But I never knowed ’im ter cheat, neither. Can’t say as I ever ’eard ’e did.”

“Had ambitions, but not dishonest as far as you know,” Monk summed up.

“S’right, guv. There’s another five ’undred guns was ’ere, an’ they’re gorn too. But we reckoned as ’ooever was ’ere took ’em all. You think as Shearer ’ad summink to do wif doin’ in the gaffer?” the first man asked, squinting a little at Monk. “Papers says as it were that Yankee.”

“I’m not sure,” Monk said honestly. “Breeland got the guns, no doubt about that, but I’m not sure he actually killed Mr. Alberton.”

“Then ’ow’d ’e get ’em?” Sandy said reasonably. “An’ if it weren’t for them guns, why’d anyone do ’im like that? That ain’t even a decent way ter kill anyone. That’s …” He searched in vain for a word.

“Barbaric,” Monk supplied.

“Yeah … that an’ all.”

Bert nodded vigorously.

“Yer reckon as Shearer ’ad summink ter do wif it?” Sandy persisted. “An’ then he scarpered, like? ’Cos nobody ’round ’ere’s seen ’im since then.”

“Does it fit in with what you know of him?” Monk asked.

They looked at each other, then back again. “Yeah, near enough,” Sandy agreed. “Don’ it?”

“Yeah. If the money were right,” Bert added. “ ’Ave ter be. ’E wouldn’t do it fer nuffink. Sort o’ liked the gaffer, in ’is own way. ’Ave ter be a lot.” He bit his lip. “Still an’ all, the way it were done. I don’t see Shearer doin’ it like that. That ’ad ter be the Yankee.”

“What about for the price of six thousand first-class rifled muskets?” Monk persisted.

“Well—s’pose so. That’s a lot o’ money in any man’s reckonin’,” Sandy acknowledged.

“Could he have sympathized with the Union cause?” Monk tried a last question on the subject.

They all looked mystified.

“Against slaving,” Monk explained. “To keep all the states of America as one country.”

“We don’t ’ave no slaving in England,” Sandy pointed out. “Least not black slaving,” he added wryly. “There’s some as thinks they got it ’ard. an’ as for the states o’ America, why should we care? Let ’em do whatever they likes, I says.”

Bert shook his head. “I’d be agin slavery. In’t right.”

“Me too,” the first man added. “Can’t say as Shearer gave a toss, though, not so as ter kill anyone over it, like.”

“Do you know where Shearer lives?” Monk asked them.

“New Church Street, just off Bermondsey Low Road,” Bert replied. “Dunno the number, but ends in a three, as I recall. About ’alfway along.”

“Was he married?”

“Shearer? Not likely!”

Monk thanked them and left the yard to try New Church Street.

It took him nearly half an hour to find where Shearer had lived, and an irate landlady who had waited three weeks with an empty property.

“Bin ’ere near on nine year, ’e ’ad!” she said belligerently. “Then ups and goes Gawd knows where, an’ without a by-your-leave! Says nothing to nobody, an’ left all ’is rubbish ’ere fer me ter clear out. Lorst three weeks o’ rent money, I did.” Her eyes glared stonily at Monk. “You a friend o’ ’is, then?”

“No,” Monk lied quickly. “He owes me money too.”

She laughed abruptly. “Well, yer got no chance ’ere, ’cos I got nuffink an’ I ain’t partin’ wif the li’l I got from sellin’ ’is clothes ter the rag an’ bone, an’ I tell yer that fer nothin’.”

“Do you think something could have happened to him?”

Her thin eyebrows shot up.

“That one? Not likely! Too fly by ’alf, ’im. Got a better offer an’ took it, I s’pec. Or the rozzers is after ’im.” She looked Monk up and down. “That wot you are, a rozzer?”

“I told you, he owes me money.”

“Yeah? Well, I never knew a rozzer wot was close kin ter the truth. But if ’e owes yer money, I reckon as ’e’s in for trouble if yer finds ’im, like. Yer look like trouble ter me.”

Monk had an instant of recollection, as if someone else had said exactly the same to him, but it was gone before he could place it. Such jolts of memory from before the accident were becoming fewer, and he no longer actively searched for them or tried to hold them with him. What she had said was probably true. He did not forgive easily, and if someone had cheated him, he would have pursued the culprit to the last hiding place and exacted what was due. But that was a long time ago. Then his carriage had overturned, robbing him of all his past, in the summer of 1856. In the five years since he had built a new life, a new set of memories and characteristics.

He thanked her and left. There was nothing more to be learned here. Shearer had disappeared. What mattered was where he had gone, and why. Tomorrow he would speak with dockers and bargees who would have known him. He might even find where the barge had come from that had taken the guns down the river. Then he would go on to the shipping offices Shearer would have dealt with to export Alberton’s guns, or machinery and whatever else he traded in.

That evening he told Hester a little of what he had learned.

“Do you think it was Shearer who actually killed Mr. Alberton?” she asked with a lift of hope in her voice.

They were sitting at the table over a meal of cold chicken pie and fresh vegetables. He noticed that she looked a little tired.

“Where have you been all day?” he asked.

“Do you?” she insisted.

“What?”

“Do you think Shearer killed Daniel Alberton?”

“Possibly. Where have you been?”

“At the Small Pox Hospital at Highgate. We’re still trying to improve the quality of staff caring for the patients there, but it’s difficult. I’ve been writing letters most of the time.”

It was on the edge of his tongue to make some remark about Florence Nightingale, who was inexhaustible in her letter writing in her efforts to bring about hospital reform, but he forbore. It explained Hester’s tiredness. He had promised months ago to employ a woman to keep house, and forgotten about it.

“It would mean Merrit was not guilty,” she said, watching him keenly. “It would explain how Breeland did it without her knowledge.”

He smiled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” It was a statement.

She hesitated only a moment. “Yes,” she admitted. “I can’t see any way he is innocent, but I really want to believe she is.”

He relaxed a little. “You should start looking for someone to come in every day, even if it’s only for a few hours.”

She thought about it for several minutes, watching his face, trying to judge if he was being overgenerous.

He could read her thoughts as if they were written in front of him.

“Look for someone,” he repeated. “Maybe three days a week, long enough to clean and do some cooking.”

“Yes,” she accepted. “Yes, I will.” She looked at him very levelly, a smile beginning in her eyes.

He felt remarkably pleased, as if he had given her the best gift imaginable, and perhaps it was, because his real gift was time to devote to what she was good at, time to use the skills she possessed in abundance, instead of laboring to develop those she would never find natural. He smiled back, more and more broadly.

She knew his thoughts too. She bit her lip. “I can cook!” she said quickly. “Moderately.”

He did not argue; he just grinned.

In the morning he began on the river, speaking to dockers and bargees yet again, this time not about the movement of the guns but about Shearer. It took him till early afternoon to find anyone who knew Shearer and was willing to talk about him, but all he could say reinforced what Monk had already heard from the men at the warehouse. Shearer was hard, ambitious, competent, but to all outward appearances loyal to Daniel Alberton. He was not spoken of with liking, but there was a definite respect in the men’s faces and in the tone of their voices.

It left Monk further confused. The picture of Shearer that emerged did not sit easily with the facts. He walked along the street almost unconscious of the passing traffic, the heavily laden wagons, the men shouting to one another, the cranes rising and lowering, the jostling crowds of masts as the tide jiggled the boats, the occasional gull wheeling overhead.

Shearer had disappeared, that seemed unarguable. The guns had gone to America, as had Breeland and Merrit. Alberton and the two guards were dead, murdered.

The barge with the guns had gone down the river towards Bugsby’s Marshes, and was untraceable after that. Breeland and Merrit seemed to have traveled by train to Liverpool, but the only train in which they could have gone had left before the murders, and thus before the guns had left the warehouse.

It seemed Shearer’s involvement was the only fact which could link all three things together and make any kind of sense of them.

Someone must know more of Shearer, and might even know of the ship which had come up the Thames as far as Bugsby’s Marshes and loaded the guns and then weighed anchor and gone out to sea again. Was it a British ship or an American one?

Perhaps what he had already learned would be enough to raise reasonable doubt as to Merrit’s guilt, if there were no prejudice and jurors were able to disregard their emotions. But it would certainly not be sufficient to clear her name. There would always be those who would believe her guilty, simply that it had not been proved. She had got away with it. That was only a little better than hanging, a kind of life in limbo. Although if she returned to America with Breeland, perhaps England’s opinion of her would matter less.

But was it also enough to save Breeland from the rope, against the hatred there was for him, the conviction in the public’s mind that he was guilty? And would he inevitably drag her down with him?

Not that it made any difference to what Monk had to do. Probabilities of a verdict one way or the other were Rathbone’s business, although he was certain Rathbone would want to know the truth as much as he did. Someone had bound up three men and shot them through the head. He needed to know who that someone was, beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or not.

He went into the nearest shipping office and asked to speak to the clerks.

“Shearer?” A young man in a tight jacket repeated the name. “Oh, yes, very good fellow. Agent for Mr. Alberton.” He sucked in his breath. “Terrible business, that. Awful. Thank goodness they got the man who did it. Kidnapped the daughter too, by all accounts.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“When did you last see Shearer?” Monk asked.

The clerk thought for a few minutes. “Doesn’t deal with us a lot,” he replied. “Certainly I haven’t seen him for a couple of months or more. I expect he’s very busy, what with poor Mr. Alberton gone. Don’t know what’s going to happen to the business. Good reputation, but won’t be the same without Mr. Alberton himself. Very reliable, he was. Knew a lot about shipping, and trade too. Knew who had what, and always paid a fair price, but nobody’s fool. Can’t replace that, even though Mr. Casbolt is brilliant at the buying, so I hear. Terrible shame.”

“I can’t find anybody who has seen Shearer since Mr. Alberton’s death,” Monk told him.

The clerk looked surprised. “Well, I never. Knew he thought the world of Mr. Alberton, but didn’t think he’d go off like that. Thought he’d stay around to look after the business best he could, for the widow’s sake, poor woman. Goes to show, you never know, do you?”

“No. Who did Shearer deal with mostly, if not you?”

“Pocock and Aldridge, up on the West India Dock Road. Big place. Ask anyone.”

Monk thanked him and left. It was some distance to the West India docks, so he took the first hansom he saw and arrived twenty-five minutes later. He paid the driver and alighted, then turned towards the building, and suddenly he knew exactly what it would be like inside, as if he had visited it frequently and this were only one more routine call.

It was unnerving. He had no idea why he would have come here, or when. It was no time he could recall since the accident. He strode across the pavement, almost bumping into a thin man in gray, and without apologizing, he went up the few steps and pulled the door open.

Inside was completely strange to him, not as he had seen it in his mind’s eye at all. The proportions were more or less the same, but there was a desk where he had not seen it, the walls were the wrong color, and the floor, which had been the most individual feature, tiled in gray-and-white marble, was now wooden.

He stopped abruptly, confused.

“Mornin’, sir. Can I ’elp yer?” the man behind the desk asked.

Monk collected himself with difficulty. He found he was fumbling for words, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“Yes … I need to speak to …” The name Taunton came into his mind, but he had no idea from where.

“Yes, sir? ’Oo was it yer wanted?” the man asked helpfully.

“Do you have a Mr. Taunton here?”

“Yes, sir. Would that be the elder Mr. Taunton or the younger?”

Monk had no idea. But he must answer. He went with instinct rather than sense.

“The elder.”

“Yes, sir. What name shall I say?”

“Monk. William Monk.”

“Right, sir. If yer’d care ter wait, sir, I’ll tell ’im.”

The message came back within minutes, and Monk was directed up a stair that curved graciously onto a landing. He could not remember what the man in the hall had said, but he had no hesitation in turning left and walking to the end of the corridor. This was familiar, a little smaller than he recalled, but he even knew the feel of the handle when he touched it, recalled the catch as the door stuck before it swung wide.

The man inside the comfortable room was standing. There was surprise in his face, and unease in the angles of his body. He was a little older than Monk, perhaps fifty. His hair was receding, auburn in color, his cheeks ruddy. Monk knew that Mr. Taunton the younger was his half brother, not his son, a taller, darker man with a sallow complexion.

“Well, well,” Taunton said nervously. “After all these years! What brings you here, Monk? Thought I’d seen the last of you.” He looked puzzled, as if Monk’s appearance confused him. He could not help staring, first at Monk’s face, then at his clothes, even his boots.

Monk realized that Taunton was older than he had expected. He could not recall him with a full head of hair, but the gray in it was new, the lines in his face, a certain coarsening of features. He had no idea how long it had been since they had last met, or what the circumstances were. Was it to do with police work, or even before that? That would make it twenty years or more, well into the past that Monk had lost completely, not even patched together from fragments learned here and there, people he had come across in investigations since the accident.

He could not afford to trust that Taunton was a friend; he could not assume that of anyone. The little he knew of his life showed he had earned more fear than love. There might be all manner of old debts left unpaid, his and others’. This was a time when he wished fiercely that he knew himself better, knew who were his enemies, and why, knew their weaknesses. He was without armor, without weapons.

He searched Taunton’s face, and saw no warmth in it. The expression was guarded, careful, but already there was a beginning of pleasure, as if he had seen a vulnerability in Monk, and it pleased him.

Monk racked his mind for something to say that would not betray his ignorance.

“The place has changed.” He played for time, hoping Taunton would let slip some information, so at least he would know how long ago they had last met, perhaps even the mood, whether their enmity was open or concealed. Because with every passing second he was more and more certain that it was enmity.

“Twenty-one years, I make it,” Taunton said with a faint curl of his lip. “We’re doing well. Did you think we couldn’t have the odd renovation here and there?”

Monk looked around the office. It was well appointed, but not luxurious. He allowed his observation of it to reflect in his expression—unimpressed.

The color deepened in Taunton’s cheeks.

“You’ve changed too,” he said with a faint sneer. “No more fancy shirts and boots. Thought you’d have had everything made ’specially for you by now. Fall on hard times, did you?” There was a keen undertone of pleasure in his voice, almost relish. “Dundas take you down with him, did he?”

Dundas. With blinding clarity Monk saw the gentle face, the intelligent, clear blue eyes with laughter deep in the lines around them. Then as quickly it was overtaken by grief and a raging helplessness. He knew Dundas was dead. He had been fifty, perhaps fifty-five. Monk himself had been in his twenties, aspiring to be a merchant banker. Arrol Dundas was his mentor, ruined in some financial crash, blamed for it, wrongly. He had died in prison.

Monk wanted to smash the sneering face in front of him. He felt the rage burn up inside him, knotting his body, making it difficult even to swallow, his throat was so tight. He must control it, hide it from Taunton. Hide everything until he knew enough to act and foresee the results.

How much did Taunton know of Monk since then? Did he know he had joined the police? Monk could not be sure. His reputation had spread widely. He had been one of the best and most ruthless detectives they had had, but he might never have had occasion to work here in the West India docks.

“A little change of direction,” he answered the question obliquely. “I had certain debts to collect.” He allowed himself a smile, wolfish, as he intended it to be.

Taunton swallowed. His eyes flicked up and down Monk’s very ordinary clothes, the ones he had chosen in order to be inconspicuous on the river and in the docks.

“Doesn’t look like they amounted to much,” he observed.

“I haven’t collected them all yet,” Monk answered, the words out before he gave them thought.

Taunton was rigid, his hands moving restlessly by his sides, his eyes never leaving Monk’s face.

“I don’t owe you anything, Monk! And after twenty-one years, I don’t know who does.” He let out a little snort. “We always did very well by you. Everybody made their profit. No one got caught, far as I know.”

Caught! The word struck Monk like a physical blow. Caught by whom? Over what? He did not dare ask. What had Dundas been accused of in the end, what was it that had ruined him? Monk could remember only the fury he had felt, and the absolute conviction that Dundas was innocent, blamed wrongly, and he, Monk, should have known some way to prove it.

But was it something to do with Taunton? Or did Taunton know about it because everyone did?

Monk hungered to have the truth, all of it, more than almost anything else he could think of. It had haunted him ever since the first shafts of memory had struck him, fragments, emotions, small moments of recollection gone before he could perceive anything more than an impression, a feeling, a look on someone’s face, the inflection of a voice, and always the sense of loss, a guilt that he should have been able to prevent it.

“Worried?” he asked, staring back at Taunton.

“Not in the least,” Taunton replied, and they both knew it was a lie. It hung in the air between them.

For once Monk was pleased that he inspired fear. Too often his ability to intimidate had disturbed him, made him feel guilty for that part of him which must have liked it in the past.

“Know a man named Shearer?” He changed the subject abruptly, not to discomfort Taunton but because he did not know what else to say to him about the past. Above all Taunton must not guess that Monk himself did not know.

“Shearer?” Taunton was startled. “Walter Shearer?”

“That’s right. You do know him.” That was a statement.

“Of course I do. But you wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t know that already,” Taunton answered. He frowned. “He’s an agent for shipping machinery and heavy goods, marble, timber, guns mostly … for Daniel Alberton—or he was, until Alberton was murdered.” His voice dropped. “What’s that to do with you? Are you in guns now?” He shifted his weight slightly.

Monk could smell fear, sudden and sharp, physical rather than the slow anxiety there had been before. Taunton’s imagination had taken a leap forward. When he spoke again his voice was a pitch higher, as if his throat had tightened till he could scarcely breathe.

“Is it something to do with you, Monk? Because if it is, I want no part of it!” He was shaking his head, stepping backwards. “Working for men who make their money slaving is one thing, but murder is something else. You can swing for that. Alberton was well liked. Every man’s hand’ll be against you. I don’t know where Shearer is, and I don’t want to. He’s a hard man, gives no quarter and asks none, but he’s no killer.”

Monk felt as if he had been hit so hard his lungs were paralyzed, starved for air.

Taunton’s voice rose even higher. “Look, Monk, what happened to Dundas was nothing to do with me. We made our deal, and we both kept our sides of it. I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me. If you cheated Dundas, that’s between you and … and the grave, now. Don’t come after me!” He held up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “And I want nothing to do with those guns! There’s a rope waiting at the end of those. I’m not shipping them for you, I swear on my life!”

Monk found his voice at last.

“I haven’t got the guns, you fool! I’m looking for the man who killed Alberton. I know where the guns are. They’re in America. I followed them there.”

Taunton was stunned—nonplussed.

“Then what do you want? Why are you here?”

“I want to know who killed Alberton.”

Taunton shook his head. “Why?”

For a moment Monk could not answer. Was that really what he had been like, a man who did not care that three men had been murdered, or who had done it? Did his need to know require explaining?

Taunton was still staring at him, waiting for the answer.

“It doesn’t matter to you.” Monk jerked himself out of his thoughts. “Where is Shearer?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him for close on two months. I’d tell you if I knew, just to get rid of you. Believe me!”

Monk did believe him; the fear in his eyes was real, the smell of it in the room. Taunton would have given up anyone, friend or foe, to save himself.

How had Monk ever been willing to trade with such a man? And worse than that, larger and far uglier, to make profit by trading with a man whose money came from slaving! Had Dundas known that? Or had Monk misled him, as Taunton implied?

Either thought made him sick.

He needed the truth, and he was afraid of it. There was no point in seeking an answer from Taunton; he did not know. What he believed of Monk was indictment enough.

Monk shrugged and turned on his heel, going out without speaking again. But as he walked past the man at the desk in the hall, his thoughts were not on Taunton, or Shearer, but on Hester and her face in his mind’s eye as she had spoken of slavery. To her it was unforgivable. What would she feel if she knew what he now knew of himself?

Already the thought of it bowed him down, crushed him inside. He walked out into the sun, and was cold.