Acceptable Loss wm-17 Page 16

  Monk needed answers to all of these questions.

  Had Mickey’s murderer taken him away and dropped his body overboard higher up, for it to drift downstream, misleading them all? The more Monk thought of that, the more it seemed to make sense. He could have been approaching the whole crime from the wrong direction from the beginning. It had looked like a murder of desperation, committed by a man angry and afraid of exposure, or bled dry by blackmail and facing exposure. But perhaps it had been more carefully planned than that, and by a far cooler head-not a crime of passion but a business decision.

  Could Parfitt have been rebelling against his backer, his greed jeopardizing the whole project? Or had he been skimming to keep a higher percentage of the profit for himself?

  Which brought Monk back to the question he both dreaded and most wanted to answer-could Ballinger himself have killed Parfitt? Or was that thought ridiculous?

  He went over the times of every movement again, carefully. If everyone were telling the truth-Tosh, ’Orrie Jones, Crumble, the ferryman, Harkness, Hattie Benson, even Rupert Cardew-then it would have been possible for Ballinger, a strong rower, according to Harkness, to have taken Harkness’s own boat from its moorings and met Parfitt somewhere along the river out of sight. He could have killed him and put his body in the water, then rowed back to moor the boat again, and taken the ferry back to Chiswick, exactly as he had said. It was tight, but still possible. The thought churned in his stomach-heavy, sick, and impossible to get rid of.

  How honest was his own thinking in this? Did he want the answer so desperately that he would settle for anything except defeat?

  What he needed was proof that Ballinger had known Parfitt, and, if possible, Jericho Phillips as well. That would take a long and very careful retracing of all the evidence, examining it, looking for a completely different pattern from before. He must start straightaway, as soon as he had seen this Hattie Benson and had verified for himself her evidence regarding the cravat.

  He found her by the middle of the following morning, sitting in the kitchen of her small, shared house in Chiswick. She looked tired and puffy-eyed, but even with a torn wrap around her nightgown and her hair tousled and falling out of its pins, there was a beauty in her flawless skin and the naivete of her face.

  “I in’t done nothin’,” she said before Monk even sat down on the rickety-backed chair at the other side of the table from her.

  He smiled bleakly. “I don’t want to prosecute you, Miss Benson. I believe you can help me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah? This time o’ the mornin’, an’ all. Yer should be ashamed o’ yerself. Wot’d yer wife say, then, eh?”

  “You can ask her, if you meet her again,” he replied with a rueful smile. “I would like you to tell me what you told her about taking Rupert Cardew’s dark blue cravat with the leopards on it.”

  Hattie stared at him, her mouth open.

  “She came here with a man called Crow, I believe,” Monk continued. “You told them what happened the afternoon before Mickey Parfitt’s body was discovered in the river. I need you to tell me again, with rather more detail.”

  She froze. “I can’t!”

  “Yes, you can,” he insisted. “Unless, of course, you were lying.” How could he persuade her to tell him, and be sure it was the truth? Perhaps she had been merely a witness at the time she had spoken to Hester and Crow, but now she realized what danger she would be in if she told the police that Cardew was innocent. She might only now be grasping the fact that they would begin to investigate the case all over again, going back to people she knew, and who knew her.

  “Hattie.” He leaned forward a little across the table, forcing himself to speak gently. “I don’t want to charge you with stealing the cravat, whether it was to keep for yourself, to sell, or to give it to someone else. I certainly don’t think it likely that you strangled Mickey Parfitt with it, although it isn’t impossible.” He let the suggestion hang in the air.

  “Yer mad, you are!” she said in horror. “ ’Ow in Gawd’s name d’yer think I could strangle a man like Mickey? ’E may a bin skinny as a broomstick, but ’e were strong! ’E’d a bashed me ’ead in.”

  “He was violent?” he asked.

  “O’ course ’e were violent, yer stupid sod!” she shouted at him. “Beat the shit out o’ anyone wot crossed ’im.”

  “Like who?”

  “Yer thinkin’ they killed ’im? I tell you, an’ yer don’t think they’re gonna come arter me?”

  “You could have killed Mickey,” he went on thoughtfully. “Someone hit him hard on the back of the head, probably with a piece of fallen branch from a tree. Then, when he was unconscious, they strangled him. It doesn’t take a lot of strength to do that.”

  “Well, I didn’t! I ’ad customers all night, till past two in the mornin’. Then I were knackered,” she said defiantly.

  “Names would help me to believe you.”

  “Oh, yeah! I’m gonna be in great shape fer me business if I give yer a list o’ toffs wot come ’ere fer a bit o’ fun, aren’t I? Do wonders fer me reputation, that would!”

  “I expect I can find them from somebody else.” He said it lightly, as if it were an easy thing to do. “I can ask one of the pubs along the mall who was there that evening.”

  Her face went even paler, her skin as white as milk. “Please, mister, yer’ll ruin me! If I lose all me customers, I in’t got nothin’ else I can do! An’ I owe money. They’ll come arter me!” She leaned toward him, and he could feel the warmth of her, a faint smell of perfume and sweat. “If I tell yer I took the cravat that afternoon, then yer’ll know it wasn’t Mr. Cardew as killed Mickey, an’ then yer’ll start all over again wi’ Tosh, an’ ’e’ll skin me alive for bringin’ trouble on ’im. ’E’ll beat the ’ell out o’ me, an’ then I won’t be able ter work.”

  “You’re right,” Monk said gently. “That would be unfair.”

  She took a deep, shaky breath and made an attempt at a smile.

  “Better to let Rupert Cardew hang,” he said quietly. “Who do you suppose did kill Mickey?”

  Her hands were gripped so tight, there were white ridges on her knuckles.

  “I dunno,” she whispered.

  “He’ll need to come back and make sure you don’t tell anyone,” he pointed out. “Rupert will remember that you took his cravat. He’ll say so, in court, even if no one believes him. I dare say the prosecution will call you to give evidence, just to deny it. Close off all escape for him, as it were.”

  “Jesus! Ye’re a bastard!” she said huskily. “Worse than Tosh, yer are.”

  “No, I’m not, Hattie.” He shook his head, although he felt a sharp stab of truth in what she said. “I want you to tell me the truth, then I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Yeah?” she said contemptuously. “An’ ’ow are yer gonna do that, then? Buy a nice little room somewhere where they’ll never find me, will yer? An’ food an’ summink ter do, then?”

  The answer was instant in his mind. “Yes, actually, that’s exactly what I’ll do. But to do it, I need the truth, preferably with some way you can prove it.”

  She blinked, hope flickering in her eyes. “Like ’ow?”

  “Describe the cravat to me.”

  “Eh? It were just a dark blue tie, that sort o’ shape.” She made a picture in the air. “Silk,” she added.

  “How long?”

  Again she gestured, holding her hands just under three feet apart.

  “Go on,” he prompted. “What else?”

  “It’s narrer in the middle an’ wide at both ends,” she said. “One end bigger than the other … longer, like.”

  “Was it plain or patterned?”

  “Patterned. Yer know that, fer Gawd’s sake! It ’ad little yeller animals on it, three at a time. Cats, or summink.”

  “How?”

  “One on top o’ the other. Three of ’em.”

  “Thank you, Hattie. I believe you. Now go and pack some cl
othes into a bag, get dressed, and I will take you to a safe place.”

  She remained sitting down. “Where?”

  “In the city, Portpool Lane. You will be safe there. You will be fed and have your own room. You’ll work for it, at whatever Mrs. Monk tells you to do.” He saw the look on her face. “It used to be a brothel,” he said with a broad smile. “It’s a clinic for sick women, and injured ones.”

  She swore at him, colorfully and with profound feeling, but she did as he told her.

  They took a hansom from the Chiswick mall all the way into the city. It was a long and expensive ride, but Monk felt it was more than warranted by the circumstances. He did not wish her to be seen with him; in fact, he could not afford it. It would be so easy for anyone to make a few inquiries and find the clinic. Perhaps he should warn Squeaky Robinson to keep a close eye on Hattie and see that she did not show herself in the rooms where casual patients came for treatment or help, at least until the case had come to trial and she had testified. After that, her safety could be reconsidered.

  As the wheels rumbled over the streets, he engaged her in conversation, as much in order to take her mind off her present situation as in the expectation of learning anything more. Either way, he failed.

  “Yer gotta keep ’im from findin’ me,” she said, hugging her arms around her body and sitting forward on the seat. “ ’E’ll do me, ’e will.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Tosh, o’ course!” she answered angrily. “I in’t scared o’ Crumble. ’E couldn’t squash a fly. Feared of ’is own shadder, an’ fearder still o’ Tosh.”

  “What about ’Orrie Jones?”

  “I dunno. Sometimes I think ’e’s ’alf-witted, other times I in’t so sure. But ’e wouldn’t do nuffink ’less Tosh told ’im ter, wotever ’e thought fer ’isself.”

  “Did you ever hear the name of Jericho Phillips?”

  “No. ’Oo’s ’e?”

  “He’s dead now, but he used to run a boat like Mickey’s, but down the river.”

  “An’ now Mickey’s dead, eh?” she said thoughtfully. “Could Mr. Cardew a killed ’im?”

  “No. We know who killed Phillips. The man who did it killed himself also.”

  She gave a little grunt.

  “Why did you think it was the same person?” he asked. “Do you think Mickey and Phillips knew each other?”

  “Dunno. Mickey din’t work for ’isself. ’E come from Chiswick, same like the rest of us. ’E never ’ad money ter get a boat. Someone else staked ’im. Mebbe it were the same person.”

  “Rupert Cardew?”

  “Don’t be daft!” she retorted. “Why’d ’e have me steal ’is necktie ter make it look like ’e killed Mickey if ’e were behind it all? It’s someone wi’ twice the brains ’e ’as.”

  “More than Mickey, or Tosh?”

  “They got cunning; it in’t the same.”

  He did not argue. Deliberately he guided the conversation to other, more pleasant subjects, and finally they arrived at Portpool Lane. He took her inside, introduced her to Squeaky Robinson, and then to Claudine Burroughs, explaining the need to keep her safe.

  “She can help me,” Claudine said decisively. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”

  Monk thanked her, wondering wryly how Hattie would take to that. It might well be the best care she had ever known.

  In the morning Monk went to see Rathbone and told him that he had now found evidence that made it extremely unlikely that Rupert Cardew was responsible for the death of Mickey Parfitt.

  Rathbone was startled. “And the cravat? Was it not his?” he asked, as if unable to believe in the release from the responsibility of an impossible task.

  “Yes, it was his,” Monk replied, sitting down in the chair opposite Rathbone’s desk without being invited. “A prostitute stole it from him that afternoon and gave it to someone she is too afraid to name. But I believe her. She can describe it far too precisely for her to have only seen it around his neck. She had seen it undone, felt it, and knew it was silk. She admitted to taking it.”

  Rathbone drew in his breath as if to speak, then changed his mind.

  Monk smiled, sitting back a little in the chair. “Did Lord Cardew pay her to say this?” He said aloud what he knew was in Rathbone’s mind. “You could always ask him.”

  “Where is she?” Rathbone did not bother to express his opinion of that remark.

  “I would prefer not to tell you,” Monk replied. “For your safety as well as hers.”

  Rathbone’s eyes widened for a moment, then his face was expressionless again. “Now what will you do about it?” he asked. “Are you happy to mark the case as ‘unsolved’ and move on? Does anyone really want to know who killed Parfitt?”

  “Lord Cardew might,” Monk observed. “A shadow hangs over his son as long as we don’t know. But whether he does or not, I do. Not because I give a damn about Parfitt, but I need to find out who was behind him, Oliver.” He did not look away. He knew exactly what Rathbone was thinking, remembering, and what the weight of it would be if Monk were right.

  For several seconds they stared at each other, then Monk rose to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said very quietly, little more than a whisper. “I can’t let it go.”

  Rathbone did not reply.

  Monk let himself out, passing the clerk in the entrance lobby, and thanking him.

  In spite of the sun, the air outside felt cold.

  Monk spent the next two days questioning everybody who had anything to do with Mickey Parfitt, or who might have seen anyone on the river or the dockside at either Chiswick or Mortlake the night of Parfitt’s death. ’Orrie, Crumble, and Tosh repeated their stories almost word for word, and he could not shake them. Nothing was changed. It was still possible that Ballinger could physically have killed Parfitt, but without a motive, without proof that they knew each other, it was nothing more than an idea.

  Monk was pacing the path by the side of the river along Corney Reach when he ran into the fisherman.

  “Don’t walk up be’ind a man like that!” the fisherman spat. “I could a taken yer eye out wi’ me rod, yer great fool! Where d’yer grow up, then? In the middle of a desert?” He was a skinny little man with a long nose and a lantern jaw. The cap pulled forward over his eyes hid whatever hair he had left.

  Monk apologized, which was received with ill grace. He was about to move on when, out of sheer habit, he asked the question. “Do you spend a lot of time here?”

  The man squinted at him. “Course I do, yer daft sod. I live up there.” He jerked his head back toward the lane leading out of the town into the fields.

  “Do you have a boat?”

  “Yeah, but it in’t fer ’ire. I don’t want some great lummox crashing about in it who don’t know one end from the other.”

  “I grew up in boats,” Monk said testily. The fact that he had only the briefest flashes of memory about that time was none of the man’s affair. “I’m looking for witnesses, not to go rowing myself.”

  “Witnesses ter wot? I in’t seen nothing. In’t even seen a bleedin’ fish terday.”

  “Not today. The day before Mickey Parfitt’s body was pulled out of the river.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Seen, like wot?”

  “People coming and going, other than the ferrymen. Anyone you know behaving differently from usual. Anyone in a hurry, frightened, quarreling, running away.”

  The man shook his head.

  “Jeez! Yer don’t want much, do yer? All I saw were Tosh racin’ up ter Mickey on the dockside, yellin’ at ’im ter wait. Then ’e pulls a piece o’ paper out of ’is pocket an’ gives it to ’im. Mickey reads it, swears summink ’orrible, grabs a pencil from Tosh, an’ writes summink on it, then ’e gives it back to ’im. Arter that ’e calls the ferryman and tells ’im ’e’s changed ’is mind. ’E rushes away lookin’ all excited, an’ far as I know, nobody gone after ’im, nobody ’it ’im nor strangled ’im nor threw ’im in the rive
r.”

  Monk felt a sharp flicker of excitement stir inside him. “But Mickey changed his mind about where he was going?” he urged.

  “I jus’ said that, yer damn fool! In’t yer listenin’?” the man snapped.

  “What time was this, roughly?”

  “About ’alf past ten.”

  “Thank you. I’m most obliged. What is your name, if I need to speak to you again?” He nearly added, in case he needed him to testify, then thought better of it. He would send Orme for him, and allow no choice.

  “ ’Orace Butterworth,” the man replied grimly. “Now get out of it. Yer frightenin’ the fish.”

  Monk considered carefully how to make the best use of this delicate piece of information. Was this the message that had taken Mickey out to the boat, and then upriver toward Mortlake to meet his death? Who was it from? What had he believed he was going for? It must have been urgent, to take him back out again at that hour.

  Tosh would be very unlikely to tell Monk. Nor would he tell him who the messenger was or where he’d come from. It would too easily implicate him in being party to the murder that had followed. He would simply deny it all, say that Butterworth was wrong, probably made it all up. A good lawyer would demolish the story in minutes.

  He must build a chain of evidence. Who was the weakest link? ’Orrie Jones. That was where to begin.

  He found ’Orrie in a boatyard patiently sanding a piece of wood. There were other men around, all sawing, planing, chiseling, carefully fitting planks, easing tongues into grooves. The ground was covered with sawdust, and it was in the air with the smell of wood and sap, and there was the constant, irregular sound of friction, banging, and someone whistling half under his breath.

  Lower down, closer to the water’s edge, one old man with tattooed arms was caulking the sides of a boat, his feet now and then shifting as the water seeped up through the shingle and soaked his boots.

  They were sheltered from the breeze. The tide slurped on the stone of the slipway. There was a smell of river mud and wet wood.