Revenge in a Cold River Page 11

  “I don’t know what else you want,” she replied. “I already told you, above average height, lean as a whip, straight, dark hair, and gray eyes so dark they looked black at times.”

  “His name, woman!” McNab said sharply. “That description could fit a score of men, half the Spaniards or Italians in the world!”

  “I already told you,” she replied with thinly held patience. “I think the name was Monk, but I’m not sure. It could have been something else like it. I didn’t know him. For heaven’s sake, he was a sailor, one of the small schooner captains, a chancer out to make his fortune.”

  “But you saw him with your first husband, Astley?” McNab insisted.

  “Yes, briefly, and at a distance,” she replied.

  “How many times?”

  “You exceed your manners, Mr. McNab!” Now her voice was tight and hard. If he had thought she would be intimidated he was no judge of character. Beata had seen Miriam face down bigger men than this McNab.

  “Are you not forgetting your own needs, Mrs. Clive?” McNab retorted, but there was less menace in his voice, as if he had taken a step back both literally and also metaphorically. “If he was there, then he serves your needs as well as mine.”

  “And was he?” she asked instantly. “Are you certain?”

  “Not yet,” he admitted. “But I will be. Believe me, Mrs. Clive, I will be. Who is the woman in mourning? What part has she in this?”

  “Lady York is a friend of mine who has just lost her husband,” Miriam answered. “She has no part in this at all. And if you have any sense, you will pass her politely and make no remark beyond wishing her a pleasant evening, and beg her pardon for interrupting. I have already told you what she said. If I learn more, I will tell you. Now leave!”

  There was a moment’s silence. Beata moved quickly and, she hoped, silently as far away from the withdrawing room door as she could. When she heard his footsteps on the hall floor, she was several yards away, staring at a painting of a woman carrying a basket of flowers, bright blossoms lying casually on the woven straw.

  She turned as she heard his footsteps, as one naturally would.

  He stopped, and then walked over toward her.

  She gulped, waiting. He must not catch even a breath of the notion that she had been listening.

  “Good evening, Lady York,” he said a little stiffly. “My name is McNab. I apologize for interrupting your evening. It was a matter of some urgency, or I would not have done so.”

  She smiled at him as if she had overheard nothing.

  “Of course,” she agreed. “It is of no consequence. I assure you.”

  “May I offer you my condolences on the death of your husband,” he added quietly. “There is nothing harder in life than the loss of someone you love.” Now there was emotion in his voice and pain in his face. It robbed her of the chill with which she would have replied to him.

  “Indeed there isn’t, Mr. McNab,” she said gently. “I can see that your sympathy is genuine, and I thank you for it.”

  He bowed his head just enough to be courteous. “Ma’am.” Then he walked toward the door where the butler was waiting to usher him out.

  Beata returned very slowly to the withdrawing room.

  —

  THE FOLLOWING DAY BEATA put on a plain black costume with a heavy jacket, partly to be inconspicuous among other pedestrians on Gray’s Inn Road, where she left her carriage and walked the short distance to Portpool Lane. There had been no way to ascertain before going that Hester Monk would be there at this time in the late morning. It was too early to have sent a note and receive a reply but it was as good a time as any to begin. If she had to make more than one journey it did not matter. She had nothing else of importance to do. That was one of the more miserable aspects of mourning, the slow boredom of it.

  She turned into the lane, checking the name on the wall to be certain. The pavement was so narrow only one person could use it, and the stones were uneven and covered in ice from the water that dripped from the overhanging eaves above. The odor of wood rot and drains was everywhere.

  But she must persist. Meeting Hester was important. If she loved Oliver, and ever dreamed of marrying him one day, if he asked her, then she must learn more of the woman he had once really loved. Margaret Ballinger she was not afraid of. That sadness had brought with it its own ending. Beata was not afraid of comparison with her.

  Hester was different. Oliver still spoke of her with not just respect but admiration, and there was a softness in his eyes even at the thought of her. Her beauty was inside, not outside, which meant that it would never fade. In fact, it might in time grow even deeper.

  Beata was beautiful on the outside; whatever Ingram had thought, she knew that. It was the inside that betrayed her, the weakness to give in rather than fight to defend herself, risk more violence, more humiliation. It was the degradation she had yielded to because she could see no way of evading it and surviving. Hester had survived the battlefield! Her courage must be insurmountable—supreme. How could any woman compare with her?

  Beata hesitated on the pavement for a moment before going on. The brewery loomed huge and grim ahead of her. The row of houses that had once been a brothel and was now a clinic dominated the other side.

  She went in through the door and approached the small table straight ahead of her. Would she be taken for a street woman in trouble? The thought was amusing. She found herself smiling in spite of the situation. Ingram would have a fit if he could see her now.

  A plain, middle-aged woman came out of one of the several doors and approached her. Her face was calm and she had a unique dignity in the way she walked.

  “Can I help you?” she asked quietly, apparently without any judgment as to whom Beata might be.

  “Thank you…” Now that the moment was here, Beata found the words catching in her throat. This was absurd. She had come to offer help, not to beg for it. “My name is Beata York. I have come to see Mrs. Monk, to ask her if I might be of assistance in any way. I am newly widowed, and I have a great deal of time on my hands.”

  The woman smiled with apparent surprise.

  “Claudine Burroughs,” she replied with more warmth in her smile. “I’m sure Mrs. Monk will be happy to see you. Do you mind coming with me up to the medicine room? We are just checking supplies.”

  “I should be happy to,” Beata answered, following Claudine as she turned and led the way back into the warren of corridors that twisted through the three houses that formed the clinic. They went up and down stairs and around corners until they found the medicine room, which was quite large and had a door that locked.

  Hester was checking something on a piece of paper as Claudine came to the door.

  “This is Mrs. York,” Claudine said, as if it were a sufficient introduction. Perhaps the fact that Beata was wearing entirely black clothes told all the rest that was necessary.

  Beata had not known quite what to expect, but not the rather thin woman who stood in front of her, pencil in one hand, paper in the other. Hester was not traditionally beautiful, but even more than the grace in her, there was a burning vitality, an energy of spirit that commanded attention. In spite of the strength in her manner, there was a gentleness in her face, even a vulnerability.

  “How do you do, Lady York?” she said warmly, and Claudine gave a nod of acknowledgment at her title. “Sir Oliver has spoken so well of you I feel as if I know you, at least in part.”

  Beata felt some of the anxiety slip away. Oliver had spoken of her to Hester, and well!

  “It is obligatory that I spend the appropriate time in mourning,” Beata replied. “But I believe it is not forbidden to be useful. It is surely better than sitting at home doing nothing. I have no skills of nursing, but I have not always lived an idle life. Long ago in California I did all kinds of things. Is there something I can do here?”

  As if she understood all the layers of deeper need beneath the words, Hester answered without hesitation. “Oh, ce
rtainly! If you don’t mind chores like making beds, sweeping floors, carrying meals, and helping some people to eat, we will be grateful for all the help you can offer. If you are still willing after your mourning is over, we always need someone in certain social positions to help us raise funds to purchase medicines, let alone food and coal.” She gave a rueful smile. “I am terrible at it. I have a finite temper with hypocrites, and a sarcastic tongue. I’ve probably lost more sympathy than I’ve gained.”

  Beata found herself smiling. “I’m afraid I have learned to be polite whatever I feel, sadly. I’m not at all sure it is a virtue…” She was apologizing for things Hester would never know, never even guess.

  Hester shook her head a little. “I think it’s called good manners. I know compassion, but I don’t always have good sense. If you would really like to help, we would be grateful. I’ll find you a pinafore to protect your clothes, and I’ll introduce you to the people you’ll need to know, at least to begin with.”

  She had committed herself. Beata smiled back, and accepted.

  Claudine took over counting the medicines, and Beata followed Hester downstairs again to meet the bookkeeper, Squeaky Robinson. He was an irascible man of more than middle age, lean and black-coated, with a tangle of gray hair that looked as if it had never seen a brush, and wildly uneven teeth that made it impossible to tell if he was smiling or snarling.

  He looked her up and down as if she had been presented for his inspection.

  “Judge’s wife?” he said to Hester.

  “Judge’s widow,” Beata corrected him smartly.

  Squeaky glared at her. She held his gaze until he finally nodded and pursed his lips. From his look she deduced that he knew something of Ingram, and for a moment she felt her face flame. What madness had brought her here? This was dreadful!

  “Then I guess you know a thing or two,” Squeaky said at last. “You won’t have your head in the clouds, with a Bible in one hand and a feather duster in the other.”

  She found herself laughing a little hysterically at the vision. It was uneven laughter, too close to losing control. She stopped abruptly.

  “I’m sorry,” Hester said. “You can see how much we need someone who can exercise good manners, regardless of their own thoughts and feelings. I can do it now and then but, like Squeaky, I slip up.” She held out her hand, as a man would have. “I was an army nurse, and at times my experience of reality shows rather too much.”

  Her smile and her direct, unjudging gaze eased Beata’s self-consciousness away like a warm iron over silk. She smiled back. “I imagine only practicality is any use to the sick,” she replied, taking Hester’s hand and gripping it warmly. As she did so, she understood what Oliver had loved in this woman, and she was not afraid of it anymore. Hester’s virtues were real, hard won, and she would like to emulate them. She could! She had the battles to win and the fields in which to do so. Tomorrow she would not bother with black at the clinic; gray was more practical.

  “DROWNED,” HYDE SAID WITH a grimace. He and Monk were standing in his small office in the morgue. “But I can’t say how much your blow contributed to it. Sorry. Like to be able to say it didn’t, but I couldn’t swear to that on the stand. You definitely stunned him. It may have been sufficient to stop him from functioning enough to breathe. All I can say, if it’s any comfort to you, is that if you hadn’t hit him, I’d most certainly be giving this report to whoever would take over from you.”

  “Thank you,” Monk said bleakly. “I assume that’s what you also told McNab?”

  “It’s the truth,” Hyde answered. “He was none too pleased, but there’s nothing he can do.”

  Monk did not reply to that. He left the morgue and went out into the street, much less certain than Hyde that there was nothing McNab could do. He took a cab back toward Wapping, the subject still heavy in his mind. Had he really done all he could to save Pettifer? Or, believing that he was the person they were after, had he been willing enough to let him die, if the rescue would have been a real risk to his own life?

  He weighed it in his mind as he rode through the gray, busy streets. Was it an excusable decision any man might have made? Even should have made? Or was it an error of judgment that had cost another man his life?

  He had thought Owen was McNab’s man, and Pettifer was the prisoner. Was that because of something in the way they had attacked each other? Owen had seemed to be behind Pettifer, when actually he had simply come from the other side. Pettifer was big, heavily bearded, and had used some pretty ripe language, so had Monk simply assumed he was the prisoner through personal prejudice, a judgment based on superficialities?

  But then, if he were a customs officer who had just lost a prisoner, the second one in a week, might he not be expected to be in a fury? Anyone judging Monk would point that out.

  Anyone? Who, for example?

  McNab, of course.

  Monk got out of the hansom, paid the driver, and walked along the dockside in the wind. There were gulls circling above him and the incoming tide was choppy, here and there white-crested. It was a day when a water patrol would be hard work. Not only strength would be required but endurance, and seamanship.

  He thought of Orme with a recurring emptiness of loss. In spite of the fact that he had been well into his sixties, he could keep going all day, hoarding his strength, using the water’s current, the boat’s weight, its impetus. Monk had learned to appreciate him at the time, but even more since his death. He realized only now how much he had asked his opinion, relied on his judgment of a situation, his word of warning now and then, his example dealing with men.

  It had not been just his knowledge, it was his wisdom, his rare laughter, his love of the wild birds in the sky across the Estuary. He knew them all by their flight patterns. It added to Monk’s pleasure to know such things.

  And it was his ability to tell a man the harshest truths without making them seem like criticism. He had learned his craft through years—and took pleasure in passing it on. He had had no sons, only a daughter, and it was his legacy that he had taught two generations of River Police what he knew. That very much included Monk.

  Now Monk wished intensely that Orme were here to help him make a judgment of McNab. How much was it simply personal dislike that McNab was using on Monk, as a skilled man learns to use his attacker’s own weight and impetus against him?

  He stopped and stared across the gray water, trying to think of every operation he had carried out that could have had any effect on the customs men, or on McNab in particular. Nothing came to mind. Usually they both benefited. Was there one where McNab felt he had done the work, and Monk had taken the credit? Could it be something as petty as that? It sounded like the sort of thing schoolboys do in the playground.

  Or was it interservice rather than personal? Customs against police? Orme would have known. Monk tried to think back if Orme had ever said anything, given any warning, however discreet.

  There was none he could think of.

  He wondered about asking Hooper but felt reluctant to do so. Maybe he cared more what Hooper thought of him. Or was he more afraid of his judgment because in some way he trusted him less? Hooper was roughly his own age, whereas Orme had been almost a generation older and had known Monk’s weaknesses right from the beginning, when Monk was still only temporarily assisting the River Police. He recalled the horror of plague and the nightmare ship going down the river with Devon at the wheel, sailing into oblivion, giving his life to save everyone else.

  A man who had shared that with you forged both a bond that was not like any other, and a unique kind of grief at his loss.

  Had McNab in effect murdered Orme, by betraying the raid to the gunrunners, or was Monk trying to blame McNab for something that was essentially his own fault?

  It was past time he found out for certain whether the battle on deck had been a piece of bad luck, which strikes anyone now and then, or if his suspicions about McNab’s betrayal were in any part correct.

&nb
sp; Why had he not faced it and pursued it to the end before? It was months since Orme’s death now, and yet he had not looked at the evidence regarding the ambush of the gunrunning ship by river pirates at exactly the same hour as the River Police raid.

  Monk and his men had come from upriver, just at daylight. They had come out of the west and the darkness, catching the gunrunners completely by surprise. The battle had been raging on deck in the broadening light. This had been very definitely to the police’s advantage, when the river pirates had boarded from the downriver side, climbing up onto the deck and very nearly carrying the battle.

  It was in that chaos that Monk and his men had won, but at the loss of Orme. He had been so badly injured that in spite of everything they could do, he had bled to death. They had got him ashore, Monk carrying him in his arms. He had seemed so light. Monk’s own exhaustion had been nothing. They had done all they could, every one of them, weary, blood spattered, desperate to help. But in the end Monk had sat all night in the hospital, watching the life drain out of Orme’s body and leave it a surprisingly small and empty shell.

  It was Monk who had had to go and tell Orme’s daughter and her husband and child that Orme would not be coming to retire with them in a couple of weeks. He could still see the shock in their faces, the empty eyes. They had not blamed him, at least not openly. But he had blamed himself—and McNab, for giving warning of the raid to the pirates.

  It was time he proved this, even if no more than to himself. And it was time he found the truth as to how much it was his fault…even if that turned out to be entirely.

  He reached the Wapping Police Station and went inside, passing his men with a brief acknowledgment. In his office he started going through all the reports of information before the event. Who had first learned of the shipment of guns coming in? What had they said, exactly? A man in Customs named Makepeace had warned the River Police, specifically Laker. Who had followed it up? What information had they, from where? After that Laker, then Hooper, had been getting it from McNab himself. How reliable was any of it? It had seemed, at the time, beyond doubt.