Blood on the Water Page 12

  “I said they had no right to take the investigation from Mr. Monk in the first place,” she said bitterly as she added the boiling water from the kettle into the already warmed teapot. It was an old and very battered pewter one that somebody had thrown out, but it made an excellent cup of tea, and the crooked spout still did not drip. The crockery also was mismatched, but not chipped. What did it matter if a bluebell cup sat on a wild-rose saucer? Or poppy or daisy on anything else?

  “And now that they’ve made a complete mess of it, hand it back,” she added indignantly. “It’s like being given cold porridge that somebody else has already half eaten.”

  “What a disgusting thought!” Hester turned her mouth down. “But regrettably accurate.”

  “What are we going to do?” Claudine also automatically included herself in the problem. “There were quite a few prostitutes at that party, we know, from the survivors and the bodies. We’ll get help. And I dare say some will speak to us who wouldn’t to the police.”

  “I’m counting on it. I’ve already told Squeaky that cooperation in this is the price of help in the future: sick, injured, or just hungry.” Hester bit her lip, looking very steadily at Claudine. “I’ve never put a price on it before. I don’t like doing it.”

  Claudine did not hesitate. She had been watching Hester’s face as she listened, and she knew trouble when she saw it. Her own long, unhappy marriage had taught her a lot about bargains and prices. Since working at the Portpool Lane clinic, a new world of possibilities had opened up to her, most particularly the realization of her ability to make friends, to be clever, helpful, and liked by the oddest of people. Years ago she would have helped prostitutes with suggestions for their salvation, and considered it her Christian duty. Most of her acquaintances would still do that, or less.

  Now she knew prostitutes as individual people. Some she liked, some she didn’t. She helped them in practical ways regardless. They were to be treated in whatever way was possible for their illness or injuries: fed, and occasionally given better clothes, warmer ones. No comment was made on their occupation. That generous silence had not come easily to her, at first.

  Now Claudine amazed Hester.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” she said firmly. “Sometimes you can do too much for people. No self-respect in always taking. Price can be part of value. It’s time we showed them that. They’ll be the wiser for it.”

  Hester thought about it for a moment or two, and realized with surprise how deeply she agreed. And she was relieved because up to then she had felt guilty about it. Nursing help was never conditional, no judgment involved, except as to the best treatment. But food, shelter, clothes, dignity … that was different. Above all other things, worth could not be given.

  “Good,” she agreed.

  The information about the party on the Princess Mary was teased out slowly, and with much impatience on Squeaky’s part. He counted every spoonful of food given in reward as if it were a potato off his own plate.

  He quarreled with Claudine over the portions, and was amazed to come out of it second best. He had had no idea she had such spirit. It was disconcerting, and yet he was also oddly pleased, as if a protégée of his had developed a sudden talent.

  One of the most unfortunate was a particularly recalcitrant young woman named Amy.

  “Describe the people you saw at this party,” Claudine asked her. “How did they speak? How were they dressed? It’s your business to size up what money people have and whether they’ll spend it or not.”

  “More’n I got, that’s for sure!” Amy responded. “Yer should ’ave seen some o’ their dresses.”

  “Not good enough!” Squeaky snapped.

  “I dunno,” she said tartly, glaring back at him. “Wot’s it ter you, anyway? They’re all dead now, in’t they? Yer can’t buy an’ sell ’em anymore.”

  “No, nor they can’t eat a nice hot dinner,” Squeaky retaliated. “Like you can’t neither.”

  “You said …” she started.

  Squeaky rose in his seat. He was taller than one might have expected, seeing him slouched in the chair.

  She glanced at him, her face pallid with fear.

  Claudine stood up also. “There is no point in hitting her, Mr. Robinson,” she said coldly.

  Squeaky was amazed and angered. He had had no intention of hitting the stupid girl. How could Claudine have thought that of him? It was unjust … and hurtful.

  Claudine turned to Amy and regarded her coldly. “If you have nothing else to tell us then you had better leave. You should set about earning your dinner, you’ll get none here. You can go out through the kitchen into the back alley. I’ll take you.”

  Amy rose to her feet sullenly and edged around the table, keeping as far from Squeaky as possible. She followed Claudine into the passage and—after many twists and turns—through the kitchen door. She knew she was there by the rich, delicate aroma of frying potatoes and onions that wafted toward her. The crackle and spit of a frying pan suggested someone was making sausages as well. She stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?” Claudine asked. “The back door out is at the other side.”

  Amy turned round to face her. “I might know summink about ’oo were on that boat—names, like.”

  Claudine put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and turned her back toward the door. “Then come back when you’re sure you do.”

  “D’yer ’ave that every day?” Amy sniffed and gestured toward the kitchen stove.

  “No,” Claudine answered unequivocally. “On you go!”

  “I ’membered summink!” Amy protested.

  “Did you? What was it, then?”

  Amy drew in a deep breath, studied Claudine’s face for a moment, and decided she had better give value for money, now, specifically, for fried sausages, onions, and mash.

  “That party were planned least a couple o’ weeks before it ’appened,” she answered with the firmness of truth rather than the flair of invention. “All the guest list wrote up, an’ everything. Least, special guests, people wot should be got special girls for, an’ like that. If yer gonna do it right, yer gotter know wot kind o’ girls different folks go fer.”

  “I see,” Claudine replied, as if she did see. “And who would know that information?”

  “Big Bessie, o’ course! ’Oo’d yer think? That’s worth an extra sausage, in’t it?”

  Claudine considered for a split second. “Yes, I think it is. So Big Bessie would know anyone that was important early. Asked by whom?”

  “Eh?”

  “By whom were they invited? Who was paying for it?”

  “Geez! Ow the ’ell do I know? I got me sausage? Or are yer a liar, an’ all?”

  “You have your sausage. You don’t yet have your pudding.”

  “Yeah? An’ wot’s pudding?”

  “Jam tart and custard.”

  That did not require any considering at all. “Wot else d’yer wanna know?”

  Big Bessie could be found easily enough. Squeaky would certainly be able to do that, and probably know the appropriate pressure to bear on her to gain the desired information. That it was so carefully planned at all was interesting in itself—well worth a fried sausage.

  “I would like to know Big Bessie’s clients, but I don’t imagine you have access to that. Perhaps at least whoever she usually uses to provide the food and drink for such occasions, and music? Or anything else that would be customary.”

  “Be wot?”

  “Anyone else involved.” Claudine looked narrowly at the girl and saw fear, hunger, and an underlying, constant rage. Her life held little pleasure, and much uncertainty and pain. “If you can bring me anything like that, for certain, or if it’s a guess, then say so—no lies—then it’s worth a meal. We eat every day, about this time.”

  Amy weighed her up. “Wot about that ’ol git? Wot if you in’t ’ere?”

  “Then tell Mr. Robinson. I shall let him know of our bargain. But don’t lie. He will be ver
y unpleasant if he’s lied to.”

  “Yer mean worse than ’e is now?” Amy asked incredulously.

  “Yes, I do. Very much worse. But if I’ve given you my word then he will honor it.”

  Amy took a deep breath. “Yeah … all right. Now I want me sausage an’ mash. An’ onions!”

  “You will have it. Go and sit at the table.”

  “YOU DID WHAT?” SQUEAKY demanded of Claudine. “That dozy piece o’ string? You—”

  Claudine raised her eyebrows and stared at him coolly. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Robinson?”

  Squeaky muttered under his breath, but conceded the victory. It was a very interesting piece of information, well worth a couple of sausages.

  CHAPTER

  8

  MONK WENT BACK TO the beginning, starting with sitting on the river in one of the police boats, oars at rest, facing Orme, who was at the tiller keeping the boat headed into the stream. They ignored the steady flow of traffic passing them: pleasure boats, ferries, heavy-laden barges. They were barely conscious of the sound of the hurdy-gurdy music on the shore.

  “What do you remember?” Monk asked grimly. He did not want to have to go over this again, but there was no other sensible way to begin. He did not prompt Orme. He wanted to see if he too had noticed the man going over the side of the Princess Mary the moment before the explosion.

  Orme was quiet, his face somber. Yesterday he had been full of anecdotes about the new granddaughter. Today it seemed bad taste, even bad luck, to speak of her at the same time as of those who had died so suddenly and violently.

  “Seemed like any other summer evening,” Orme began. “Lots of traffic, just the usual stuff. Remember someone crossing off toward mid-stream. String o’ barges near the far bank, and another about thirty yards behind them.”

  “How many ferries?” Monk interrupted.

  Orme thought a moment, visualizing it. “Three that I remember. One coming crosswise, about twenty yards behind us, level with the Princess Mary; another nearer the bank, as if they were waiting for her to get out of the way, and the rest to pass, before going in to the stairs. Another one out there,” he gestured. “Level with us. Don’t remember any more close. Don’t know what was behind, upriver of us.”

  “Do you remember the explosion?”

  Orme’s eyes widened. “Like I’d forget!”

  “What did you see?”

  Orme started to speak, then stopped. He stared at Monk.

  Monk waited.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” Orme said softly. “Something going over the side, in the air one moment, then going down first, before the explosion. What was it? Was it a man?”

  “I thought so,” Monk answered. “Which would have to be whoever set it off. There’s no other reason anyone would leap overboard into the Thames. Did you see a boat in the water anywhere near him?”

  “The closest ferry could have made it.” Orme clenched his jaw. “Or, of course, maybe it wasn’t a ferry.”

  “Then the moment after it would be picking people out of the water, rescuing survivors,” Monk pointed out. “Perfect disguise. What’s a couple more wet and shocked people?”

  “The swine!” Orme said bitterly. “No wonder we never found him. Invisible man. Survivors, like anyone else. Where the devil do we even look?”

  “With the ferryman,” Monk replied. “God! That’s cold! Blow them into the sky one moment, then the next, stretch out your hands to pull them out of the water, as if you were one of them.”

  “D’you suppose he was a real ferryman?” Orme asked, revulsion making his voice shake.

  “We’ll have to go back and question all the survivors we can find,” Monk answered grimly. “And the ferrymen we know were there. Go over and over it! Someone will have seen something, or remembered something they didn’t then.”

  “You reckon?” Orme’s eyes widened.

  “I saw someone,” Monk pointed out. “So did you. And another thing I’d really like to know, who did the police speak to? Did they speak to you? They didn’t ask me what I saw.”

  Orme considered it for several seconds, his hand gripping the tiller, keeping the boat facing into the current.

  “Odd, that,” he agreed, chewing his lip. “We were there. You’d think they’d try to jog some memory, wouldn’t you? What do you make of this Lydiate fellow?”

  “Decent man in an impossible situation,” Monk replied honestly. “But none of us has dealt with a tragedy on this scale, not when it’s a deliberate crime, and the victims are all random and completely blameless. At least as far as we know, it was the ship itself that was the target, or possibly the owners of it. The poor damn people in the water were incidental. They could have been anybody.”

  “Do you think the owners had anything to do with it?” Orme said dubiously.

  “No. That’s another thing; we’ve had no motive except general hatred of the way England behaved in the digging of the canal. That’s good for whipping up emotion and making everyone believe that in giving evidence they’re being patriotic, fighting the country’s enemies, but it doesn’t make any real sense. Have you ever come across a crime like that before?”

  “No.” Orme’s mouth pulled down at the corners.

  “Let’s go back to Wapping and start again,” Monk answered, moving back to his seat at the oars. “You and Hooper talk to the ferrymen and bargees. I’ll take the survivors.”

  Orme drew in his breath to argue that Monk had given himself by far the grimmest job, then looked at Monk’s face, and fell silent.

  IT WAS INDEED HARD. It took Monk two days to find the men left alive from the disaster and trace them to where they were now living. There was one woman who had survived also, but he wasn’t sure if he should cause her further distress. Then, thinking of Hester, he decided that she might be more insulted by being excluded than grateful for the consideration. And it was always possible that she would recall some detail no one else did.

  There were seventeen of them well enough to be interviewed, still in the London area, and willing to speak to him. Most remembered little, repeating only what they had already said. Monk sat patiently listening to the pain in their voices, saw the blocked-out horror return, and felt as if he were being pointlessly cruel. The things that were uppermost in their minds were the sense of coldness and suffocation, and the helplessness as they watched their wives, friends, or families sinking in the dark river, fighting for life, and losing.

  He feared he was being brutal and he loathed himself for it.

  The ninth person he spoke to was a brickmaker’s laborer with powerful arms and a chest like an ox. He still looked faintly bewildered as he recalled the night.

  “I can’t ’ardly remember where I was, or what ’appened,” the man said, as if admitting to some deep failure in himself. “One minute I were standing on the steps going up to the deck, next I were in the water an’ I couldn’t see nor ’ear nothing, ’cept cold an’ choking. It were moments before I even ’eard other folks cryin’ out.” His face was pinched with misery and there was a haunting guilt in his eyes.

  Monk did not want to press him, but there was no other way to discover if there was anything more to learn. Silence, fear, shame, and pain were all the allies of whoever had done this.

  “Who was with you on the boat, Mr. Hall?”

  Hall’s face tightened. “My ma and pa. It was a special trip for them. Wedding anniversary.” He breathed in deeply, his massive chest expanding and contracting, but he could not control the tears that slid down his cheeks, embarrassing him for the show of weakness in front of a stranger.

  Monk felt bruised himself for his failure to have prevented this, or at the very least to have caught the right man for it. Would an explanation help? An apology? The man deserved it.

  “I’m sorry,” Monk said quietly. He wished he could comfort the man by blaming someone else. “It looks now as if Habib Beshara was not the right man. We wanted to catch someone so desperately we weren’t caref
ul enough.”

  Hall shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off Monk’s. “You mean that man in prison isn’t guilty?”

  “Possibly not. Certainly not alone. If it weren’t necessary, I wouldn’t ask you again.”

  Hall was quiet for several moments, as if thinking this over. Then he nodded for Monk to continue.

  “Who picked you up out of the water?” Monk asked.

  “Ferryman. ’E might ’ave said ’is name, but what did it matter?”

  “Are you sure it was a ferry?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “It might matter. Were you the first person in the boat, apart from the ferryman himself?”

  “No. There were one other man in it. ’E were ’elpin’ all ’e could.”

  “Do you remember him?”

  “No …”

  “But a man?”

  “Yeah.” His face crumpled. “Weren’t many women as were got out. I … I couldn’t find me ma …” He stopped, his voice choking. “I swam around looking for ’er, calling out … but she were gone …”

  Monk could imagine it, the increasing panic as hope faded, the desperate search among the survivors, going from place to place, asking. Had he ever found her body? He must bring the man back to the present. It seemed uncaring, but it was probably better than the memory he was reliving.

  “And the man, what was he wearing? Party clothes? Black suit, fitted jacket, white shirt?” he asked.

  Hall frowned, searching his memory, finding the image. “No jacket, least, not like … it was like them jackets waiters wear, waistcoats, to move easy in, just …”

  Monk felt a sharp jolt of excitement, recognition of a moment of truth. Could this have been the man he had seen leap off the Princess Mary just before the explosion?

  “Anything else you remember about him?” He clung to the tiny thread, afraid to pull too hard and have it disintegrate. “Voice, actions? Did the ferryman seem to know him? A name?”