Revenge in a Cold River Read online

  Hooper nodded with a tight smile. “Wouldn’t do to take McNab for a fool, sir.”

  Monk looked across at Hooper, intensely grateful for his quiet loyalty, not necessarily to Monk himself, but to the value he placed on mercy.

  “Better get on with it,” Monk agreed. “I need to know as much about McNab as he does about me.”

  “Or more,” Hooper said, leaning forward to pull on the oar again, as soon as Monk was ready.

  —

  BACK IN THE WAPPING Station in the warmth of his office, Monk was still chilled. The hot woodstove could have been an open window.

  He searched his mind again to remember anything McNab had said that indicated a previous relationship between them, good or bad. Nothing specific came back to him, except the moment he had seen that flash of knowledge in McNab’s eyes, and knew he understood. Everything was about smuggling, arguments over jurisdiction, what information should have been shared, and had not been. Who had said what, and to whom.

  But McNab had known him in a past he could not recall. Of course he had. That was inescapable now.

  It was a fact that must be faced, because the cost of not doing so could be greater than any unpleasantness now. Yet he must not precipitate the result that he feared, betraying his weakness to McNab by the very act of raising the subject.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon going over all he could find on other prison breaks in the past six months, whether involving the river, smuggling, or major thefts with connections either to Blount or to Owen. The results were an unpleasant shock. There were two other major criminals who had gotten away without trace, both possessed of unusual skills. Possibly they were also pieces of the same puzzle at last falling together.

  Tomorrow morning, early, he would see McNab.

  —

  HE WENT HOME LATE, and he did not tell Hester about it. She was tired after a long day at the Portpool Lane Clinic, overwhelmed by victims of the cold weather and life on the streets. He set his own concerns aside, hoping to have an excuse to forget them, above all to avoid discussing with her the fear that ached deep inside him that the man he used to be had somehow made McNab’s belief of him justified.

  He wanted to hear news of Scuff. He would like to have heard only that he was doing well, learning medicine from Crow, being of use and enjoying it, and that Crow was pleased with him as a protégé. But if he thought it was less than the truth, he would be either worrying at it, or looking for the pain beyond the words.

  They ate quietly, then sat beside the fire in the parlor. It was a room warm in every way: the soft colors of their well-used furniture, the familiar pictures on the walls, the few ornaments of more sentimental value than monetary—a hand-stitched motto, a copper vase he had given her years ago, a painting of trees in water.

  He looked across at her and saw the weariness in her face. Perhaps she was not beautiful, at least not in the traditional way. There was a strength in her that many men would have found uncomfortable, even challenging. She was in her early forties now, and maturity suited her well. But he imagined that even as a child, she would have been challenging, eager to learn and never accepting less than what she took to be the truth.

  He smiled as he remembered some of their early confrontations. He had thought her aggressive, sharp-tongued, quick-minded, and unfeminine. But then he had been used to agreement from women, or at least some submission that had passed itself off as agreement. She had found that contemptible, in the women who were so lacking in either courage or self-respect, but even more so in a man who wanted something so worthless. He, too, must consider himself worthless if his vanity had to be catered to in such a fashion. And she had said so.

  Only when he was in trouble too real and too desperate to be plastered over with vanities had he come to value her lack of compromise and see her courage as the one quality that mattered.

  He was frightened, but perfectly well. Should he trouble her with his fear? It would be so much lighter if he shared it, and she might see the way forward more clearly than he did.

  Frightened! He had actually framed the word in his mind. That was an admission he seldom made, if ever. And so bluntly. It was to admit the unknown. Everything before waking in the hospital was unknown, and above all, the man he had been. Evidence varied from those who respected him, who said he was extremely clever, even brilliant at times, inexhaustible, apparently fearless, and uncompromising to those who did not like him. A larger number agreed he was clever, but added that he was too arrogant to be afraid, too angry to give in to tiredness, and too judgmental to compromise.

  And now? He had made too many mistakes of his own to afford easy judgment. He knew fear very well. Perhaps he had before, but hid it better. Now at least he not only knew he needed others, but found it easy to accept, even comfortable.

  “We’ve got evidence that McNab’s men were working with the river pirates, at least as far as telling them about our raid,” he said.

  “Enough to prove it?” Hester asked with a lift of hope in her voice.

  “Not yet,” he admitted.

  “Did he do it for money?” she asked. “That might be a way of linking up the evidence. You have to be very clever indeed to hide unearned money, once people know it’s there, if they look for it.” She was watching his face. “Or was that not the reason?”

  “The man who drowned at Skelmer’s Wharf—Pettifer—seems to have been a part of it. Of course, how much he knew is another question….”

  “You mean only McNab knew what was really going on? Why? He’s got a good career, William, money and respect, and there’s very little danger in his job. Why would he risk that?”

  That was the heart of what frightened him. What had he done to McNab that mattered so much to him that he would jeopardize all he had to damage Monk? He had lain awake searching what was left, what he could find and piece together of his memory, but there was nothing.

  “William…?” she said gently.

  He looked up. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The words were difficult to say, even to Hester. “I don’t have any memory of him at all, not his name, his face, anything.”

  “Did you ever work on the river before?” she asked. “I don’t mean remember, but you must have looked at records. You know where you were in the police.”

  This was dangerous territory now, too close to the shards of memory that Aaron Clive was stirring up, and Gillander.

  “I was in the Metropolitan Police from 1852 onward. The records are clear. I don’t know before that, but not on the river. Not anywhere that I can trace.” That was what frightened him, that yawning gap of the unknown. Working in the police, yes. But at what? Clever, successful, ruthless…and what else?

  “And have you looked for McNab’s name in the old records?” Hester asked. Her voice was so gentle, her eyes troubled; she knew he was afraid of what he might uncover.

  “Not…yet…” he admitted. “I must, mustn’t I?”

  “It’ll be there waiting for you if you don’t.” She did not pretend it would be painless. She never had avoided confronting what was painful. Instead she moved forward off her seat and onto her knees and put her arms around him, holding him with all her strength.

  “Have you spoken to Crow lately?” he asked at last, letting go of her.

  She looked up at him and smiled, lifting the weariness from her face and softening the shadows. “Yes. Scuff makes mistakes, of course. But Crow says he has good instincts, and is so keen to learn. He’s also patient, which I admit surprises me.”

  He asked the question that hovered at the edge of his mind, where anxiety waited.

  “Is he actually any use to Crow, other than as an assistant, a messenger? If he’s doing us a favor having Scuff, rather than his actually helping, then I must pay him.”

  She leaned back a little, smiling. “Crow will be gentle, but he won’t spare the truth. It wouldn’t be a kindness, either now or later. Scuff must become a good doctor, or no doctor at all.”

/>   He smiled back at her. “I suppose that’s what he wants?”

  “Of course it is,” she agreed. “I know you would like to spare him the pain of failure. So would I. I have to keep reminding myself that I wouldn’t accept comfortable lies, or anyone else protecting me from life.”

  He winced. “I wouldn’t have dared!” he said, only half-jokingly. He had wanted to, and failed. He loved her, and had seen the pain she concealed from other people. She seemed so fierce, so sure of herself. Did anyone else see the capacity for hurt in her, the self-doubt she had to hide from the patients because they needed to believe in her? Without knowing it she was possibly teaching Scuff the exact same qualities.

  She was looking at him a little ruefully.

  He put his hand on hers for a moment, then sat back in his chair and let the silence of the room settle over him. There was no sound but the whickering of the flames in the hearth, and the patter of rain on the windows beyond the curtains.

  “William…” Hester said quietly.

  He sat up straighter. “Yes?”

  “The man Blount. He was drowned, maybe accidentally, maybe not, and then after he was pulled out of the water he was shot.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know by whom?”

  He saw the anxiety in her face. “No. Why?”

  “That’s what I was thinking…why? What is the point of shooting someone who is very obviously already dead?”

  “You are thinking it was to bring me into the case? I thought of that, too. McNab sent for me personally.”

  “He is a problem, isn’t he? A slow, careful man, but clever?”

  The words chilled him a little. “Yes.”

  “Then he has something planned,” she answered quietly. “Are you sure that Owen’s escape was chance? Be careful…please…You have to go into the records and look, however hard it is. You can’t afford not to.”

  “I know.”

  —

  IN THE MORNING HE went across the river before dawn, which late in November was around eight in the morning, especially when the day was overcast. All the riding lights on the ships at anchor were still bright, and the streetlamps were lit along the water’s edge. If an unpleasant thing had to be done, it was best it were done as soon as possible.

  He paid the ferryman and climbed the steps up to the quayside. He called in briefly at the office and spoke to the night watch coming off duty, then went out to the street and caught a hansom cab to the office where police records were kept. He knew he looked grim. He had debated how much he should tell anyone, and hated the necessity of the conclusion he had reached. No more lies, at least not outright ones.

  “Good morning,” he said to the archivist as pleasantly as he was able, though he heard the edge to his voice. “I have someone in a court case who is causing me trouble. I can’t remember dealing with him before, but he seems to have a grudge against me. It would be safer to know.”

  “Yes, sir. If you’ll come this way, sir. Just your own records, you say?”

  “Thank you.”

  He went through all he could find from the time he joined the police force up until his accident. It was a tedious job and stirred many emotions in him: respect for his skill, fear that there was an arrogance in it and a degree of ruthlessness he was not now proud of, but he saw no dishonesty, and no mention of McNab at all. It took him until the early afternoon. His head ached, his neck was stiff, and his eyes were tired by two o’clock. He had spent nearly six hours studying reports. He had learned nothing except that he had been even more efficient than he had been told, and that his path had never officially crossed that of McNab.

  He went back to Wapping to check on current cases, dash cold water on his face, and have a hot cup of tea, too strong and too sweet, and a couple of rather good ham sandwiches, then he went to see McNab himself.

  He found him sitting at his desk with a large cup of tea so strong it looked like mud. McNab glanced up from the papers he was working on. At first he was startled, tense, then slowly he relaxed and his face eased into a smile.

  “Funny you should call. I was going to come to see you tomorrow.”

  Monk deliberately made himself look relaxed. He was in McNab’s territory, and very sharply aware of it. He walked forward, giving the man who had conducted him here a brief nod of thanks.

  “I’ve conclusions, and more questions,” he answered.

  McNab did not offer him tea. “About what?” he asked curiously, as if he had little idea.

  Monk sat down, uninvited.

  “Blount, Owen, and a couple of other prisoners who’ve escaped custody in the last six months,” he replied.

  “Oh, really?” McNab’s expression quickened with interest. “Not from us. Where from, and why do you care? You haven’t lost anyone, have you?” His voice lifted with hope, ready to be amused.

  Monk had expected that. “No. From a little farther north, not far. Less than a day’s journey. Fellow called Seager. Heard of him?”

  “No. Why should we care, particularly?”

  “Expert safecracker,” Monk answered. “Escaped from Lincoln, but he’s a Londoner. Thought to be heading this way. Top of his skill, so they say.”

  “Ah…?” McNab was watching him closely now. “That ties in with what I was going to say to you. No trace of Owen for certain, but a few rumors…You haven’t heard? Then a good thing you came. Damned good explosives man just turned up in Calais, on the way back here.” He looked at Monk unblinkingly. “And then there’s Applewood….”

  “Applewood?” Monk resented being made to ask.

  “Another expert,” McNab said with relish. “A chemist. Can mix all sorts of gases, among other things.”

  Monk waited.

  “All known associates,” McNab added.

  There was a moment’s silence. Footsteps in the passage outside were audible, then faded away.

  “I see.” Monk let out his breath. “Associates in what?”

  McNab oozed satisfaction. “A major robbery. Gold bullion. Got caught, but more by mischance than any skill on the part of the police.”

  “Police. So nothing to do with Customs, or the river, that time,” Monk said, his mind racing. McNab was enjoying this, but why? Had that any relevance to its truth?

  “What do they need a chemist, an explosives expert, a forger, and a safecracker for?” Monk asked. “Or don’t you know?”

  “I have some ideas,” McNab said slowly, his eyes never leaving Monk’s. “But we need to know what they’re after. And they have to replace Blount with somebody of equal skill. That would be where we start.” He smiled. “Unless Blount had already done the work, and they killed him because they didn’t need him anymore?”

  “Then we should keep an eye open for any bodies that could be one of the others,” Monk added. “How did Pettifer know that Owen was going upriver, instead of down to the Isle of Dogs, and the sea?”

  McNab froze.

  Monk tried very hard to keep the emotion out of his face. This might be his chance to learn more about Pettifer, and possibly about the plot too big for McNab to deal with without Monk’s men. McNab would undoubtedly cooperate until the capture was sure, then turn on Monk at the last moment and, if he could, make a fool of him. It was all in the timing.

  McNab relaxed, letting his breath out in a sigh. “Pity we can’t ask him,” he said with an edge to his voice that was unmistakable in its implication.

  “Perhaps he spoke to someone?” Monk said as if he believed it likely. He needed to know more about all of it, but especially about Pettifer.

  McNab sat absolutely motionless for several seconds. Then a slow satisfaction seeped through him and he met Monk’s eyes with a candor unusual for him.

  “Skelmer’s Wharf is pretty near Aaron Clive’s big warehouses, isn’t it.” It was not a question, rather a reminder, something for Monk to take hold of. “Big importer and exporter. Lot of very valuable stuff would pass through his hands. Some of it small enough to b
e stolen relatively easily, wouldn’t you say?”

  It would be ridiculous to deny it.

  “Yes…” Monk agreed guardedly.

  “And there was the schooner lying inshore on the south bank,” McNab went on, still looking at Monk. “Seagoing, do you think?”

  “No doubt at all,” Monk conceded.

  “And Owen swam for it.” McNab was enjoying himself now. “And the captain helped him aboard. Told you that he took Owen downriver and put him ashore. Did you believe that?”

  Monk hesitated. Either answer tripped him up. If he believed Gillander, then he sounded naïve. If he did not, then he should have questioned him further. Honesty was the only thing that would not catch him later.

  “I believed Gillander at the time,” he admitted.

  McNab pursed his lips, but it was a pretense at regret. His eyes were shining. “Pity. Too late now. The bird has flown. Maybe you should learn a little more about this Aaron Clive, and his business? I can give you copies of what we have about him. Very rich man…indeed.” His smile widened. “Seems he made a king’s ransom of money in the goldfields in California. Decided to come and taste the good life in London. He’s American. Don’t know much about him before a couple of years ago.” He sat back a little in his chair. “If you find anything interesting, Customs would regard it as a nice piece of cooperation if you would let us know.” His eyes met Monk’s and they gleamed with satisfaction. It was not an expression that Monk enjoyed.

  “Naturally,” he agreed. “If you’ll send us copies of the most recent cargo manifests of Clive’s business, that would be a nice piece of cooperation, too.” He stood up. “Good day, Mr. McNab.”

  “Good day, Commander Monk. So glad you came.”

  —

  MONK FOUND CLIVE IN his offices on the riverbank, just short of the place where Owen had escaped, and Pettifer had died. It was a beautiful room, more like a gentleman’s study than a place of business. The furniture was heavy, polished teak and cherrywood, the chairs covered with leather. The pictures were unobtrusive landscapes, beautifully framed.

  “Good morning, Commander,” Clive said courteously. He was a man of reserved charm. The warmth was easy, but never did he seem to court favor. Had he been English, Monk would have taken him for an aristocrat of considerable power, the sort of old blood that comes with the centuries of privilege, and obligation, and almost certainly thousands of acres of land somewhere in the Home Counties. It said much for Clive that within one generation of land with gold in it he could assume that power with such grace.