Cain His Brother Read online

  “ ’E in’t got no love for Angus,” she said carefully. “ ’E don’ understand ’im.”

  There was something in her inflexion, the lack of anger in it, which made him think that she did not include herself in the feeling, but it was too subtle to press, and far too delicate.

  “Does he ever go uptown to see him?” he said instead.

  “Caleb?” Her eyes widened. “No, not ’im. Caleb never goes uptown. Least, never that I knows. Look, mister, Caleb don’t live ’ere. ’E just comes ’ere w’en ’e feels like it. I in’t ’is keeper.”

  “But you are his woman.…”

  Suddenly there was a softness in her face. The harsh lines of anger and defense melted, taking years away from her, leaving her, for an instant in the uncertain light, the twenty-five-year-old woman she should have been, would have been in Genevieve’s place, or Drusilla’s.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, lifting her chin a fraction.

  “So when he asks you, you go uptown to see Angus.” He made it a conclusion, not a question.

  Again she was guarded. “Yeah. ’E told me ter go if he’s short on the rent. But I in’t never bin ter ’is ’ouse. Wouldn’t know w’ere to look fer it.”

  “But you know his place of business.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You went on the eighteenth of January, in the morning.”

  She hesitated only fractionally. Her eyes never left his, and she knew he must have spoken to Arbuthnot.

  “So wot if I did? ’E in’t complainin’.”

  “Caleb asked you?”

  “Like I told yer, I goes up if the rent’s up an’ Caleb or I in’t got it.”

  “So you go and ask Angus for it and he pays? Why, when Caleb despises him so much?”

  Her jaw tightened again. “Caleb don’ tell me. In’t my business. Jus’ wan’ed ter see ’is bruvver. They’s twins, yer know. That in’t like ordinary bruvvers. ’Is wife won’t never stop that, not if she tries till ’er dyin’ day. Caleb in’t got no love for Angus, like Angus ’as for Caleb. Come if Caleb snaps ’is fingers, ’e does.” She said it with a kind of pride, and something towards Angus which could almost have been pity, were her loyalties not so plainly defined.

  “And Angus came this time?”

  “Yeah. Why? I tol’ yer, she won’t stop ’im!”

  “Did you see him that day?”

  “Yeah!”

  “I don’t mean in the office, I mean here in the Isle of Dogs.”

  “Not ’ere. I saw ’im in Lime’ouse, but ’e were comin’ this way. I s’pose ’e went over the West India Docks t’wards Blackwall an’ the river again.” She bent and put a piece of rotten wood into the stove and closed the door with a clatter.

  “But you saw him?” he persisted.

  “I jus’ said I saw ’im. Don’t yer ’ear good?”

  “Did you see him with Caleb?”

  She tipped some water out of a pail into a kettle and set it on the stove to boil.

  “I tol’ jer, I saw ’im goin’ inter the Docks t’wards Blackwall, an’ that’s w’ere Caleb said ’e were goin’ ter be. In’t that enough for yer?”

  “Is that where Caleb said to meet him?” he asked. “What instructions did you give Angus? Or did they always meet in the same place?”

  “Down by the Cattle Wharf at Cold’arbour, often as not,” she replied. “Any’ow, that’s wot ’e said that time, why?” She looked back at him. “ ’Oo cares? ’E in’t there now! Why yer askin’ me all these things? Ask ’im! ’E knows w’ere ’e went!”

  “Maybe he is still there,” Monk said, raising his eyebrows.

  She drew breath to mock him, then saw the seriousness beneath his tone, and suddenly doubt entered her.

  “Wot jer mean? Yer talkin’ daft!” She put her hands on her hips. “Look, wot jer come ’ere fer anyway? Wot jer want? If yer want Caleb, the more fool you! Go look fer ’im! If Angus sent yer, then tell me wot fer, an’ I’ll tell Caleb. ’E’ll come if ’e wants ter, and not if ’e don’t.”

  There was no point in trying to trick her.

  “No one has seen Angus since you did.” He looked her straight in the eyes—large, dark eyes with long lashes. “He never returned home.”

  “ ’E never went …” Her face paled under its dirt and paint. “Wotcher sayin’? ’E never ran orff! ’E’s got everyfink ’ere. ’As ’e done summink? Is ’e on the run from the rozzers, then?” A flicker of both amusement and pity touched her mouth.

  “I think it very unlikely,” he replied with an answering gleam of black laughter. Although even as he did so, he realized it was not a total impossibility, though it had never occurred to him before. “Far more probable that he is dead.”

  “Dead!” Her face blanched. “Why would ’e be dead?”

  “Ask Caleb!”

  “Caleb?” Her eyes widened and she gulped hard. “That’s wot yer ’ere fer!” Her voice rose shrilly. “You fink as Caleb murdered ’im! ’E never! Why? Why’d ’e kill ’im arter all these years? It don’t make no sense.” But her mouth was dry and there was terror in her eyes. She stared at him, searching for some argument to convince him, but even as she did so, the hope faded and disappeared. She knew from his face that he had seen the knowledge in her. Caleb could very easily have killed his brother, and they both knew it—she from knowing Caleb, he from her eyes.

  The kettle started to jiggle from the heat of the stove.

  “Yer’ll never get ’im!” she said desperately, fear and protection equal in her now. “Yer’ll never take Caleb Stone.”

  “Perhaps not. I’m more interested in proving Angus is dead.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “That won’t prove it were Caleb, an’ it sure as ’ellfire won’t catch ’im … or ’ang ’im.” Her face was stricken and her voice had a thickness of emotion in it.

  “So his wife can be treated like a widow,” he replied. “And his children be fed.”

  She let out her breath. “Well in’t nuffin’ I can do, even if I were minded to.” She was struggling to convince him, and herself. She put too much certainty into it, torn by loyalties.

  “You already have,” he replied. “I knew Angus was last seen here, going towards Blackwall Reach. No one ever saw him after that.”

  “I’ll deny it!”

  “Of course you will. Caleb’s your man. Even if he weren’t, you wouldn’t dare say it if he didn’t want you to.”

  “I ’int afraid o’ Caleb,” she said defiantly. “ ’E wouldn’t ’urt me.”

  He did not bother to argue. It was another thing they both knew was a lie.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Good-bye … for the moment.”

  She did not answer. On the stove the kettle started to steam.

  Monk left Manilla Street and went east through the West India Docks, the way Angus Stonefield must have gone, and spent all afternoon combing the docks and slums along the Isle of Dogs and the Blackwall Reach. Caleb Stone was known well enough, but no one was willing to say where he was. Most of them would not even commit themselves to when they had last seen him.

  A knife grinder admitted to having spoken with him two days before, a chandler to having sold him rope a week ago, the keeper of the Folly House Tavern to seeing him regularly, but none of them knew where he was to be found at any specific time, and all spoke his name carefully, not necessarily with fear, but not lightly. Monk had no doubt whose side they would be on if there were ever a necessity to choose.

  He left Blackwall at dusk, and was pleased to get back to Fitzroy Street to wash and change into his more customary attire. He would go to Ravensbrook House to report to Genevieve. After all, he had something to say this time. Then he had a dinner engagement with Drusilla Wyndham. The very thought of it made him smile. It was like a sweet smell after the dirt and stench of the Isle of Dogs, like laughter and bright colors after the gray misery.

  He wore his very best jacket, perhaps partly because of the memory of Selina and her opi
nion of him, but mostly it was the mood he felt every time he thought of Drusilla. He could see her face in his mind’s eye: the wide hazel eyes, the delicate brows, the soft mass of honey-shaded hair, the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. She had grace and charm, assurance, wit. She took nothing too seriously. She was a joy to the eye and to the ear, to the mind and the emotions. She seemed to have the perfect judgment of exactly what to say, and even when to remain silent.

  He looked at himself in the glass, adjusting his cravat to perfection. Then, taking his overcoat and his hat, he went out of the door and walked smartly to find a hansom, humming a little tune to himself.

  Of course Hester was likely to be at Ravensbrook House, but that was something he could not avoid. He would almost certainly not run into her. She would be in the sickroom, where he would not be permitted, even had he wished to go, which he certainly did not.

  He tipped his hat to a woman he passed in the arc of the street lamp. The knowledge that he would not see Hester was an instant relief. He was in no mood to have his present happiness spoiled by her criticism, her constant reminder of the pain and injustices of life. She was so one-sided about everything. She had no sense of proportion. It was a fault possessed by many women. They took everything both literally and personally. Those like Drusilla, who could see the realities and yet had the courage to laugh and carry herself with consummate grace, were rare indeed. He was extraordinarily fortunate that she was so obviously enjoying his company every bit as much as he did hers.

  Unconsciously he increased his pace, striding out over the wet pavement. He was quite aware that women found him attractive. He did not have to work at it; there was an element in his nature which drew their fascination. Perhaps it was a sense of danger, of emotions suppressed beneath the surface. It was of no importance. He simply realized it was there, and from time to time had taken some slight advantage of it. To use it fully would be stupid. The last thing he wanted was some woman pursuing him, thinking of romance, even marriage.

  He could marry no one. He had no idea what lay in his past beyond the last couple of years, and perhaps even more frightening than that, what lay in his character. He had very nearly killed one man in a blinding rage. That he knew beyond question. Memories of those awful moments were still there, buried in his mind, sometimes troubling his dreams.

  The fact that the man was one of the worst blackguards he had ever known was immaterial. It was not the evil in the man he feared. He was dead now, killed by another hand. It was the darkness within himself.

  But Drusilla knew nothing of that, which was part of her allure.

  Hester did, of course. But then he did not want the thought of Hester in his mind, especially tonight, or of the typhoid fever, its anguish or its bitter realities. He would tell Genevieve Stonefield he had made a considerable stride forward today, then he would leave and spend a bright, witty and elegant evening with Drusilla.

  He stepped off the curb and hailed a hansom cab, his voice bright with anticipation.

  6

  THE NEXT MORNING, Monk woke with a smile and arose early. The February morning was dark and windy and there was a hard frost in the sheltered hollows of the streets, but he set out before eight for the East End again, and the Blackwall Reach. He meant to find Caleb Stone, and he would not cease until he did, today, tomorrow, or the day after. If the man were alive, he was too angry, too distinctive and too well known to disappear.

  By nine he was standing in thin daylight on the banks of the Blackwall Reach on the Isle of Dogs. This time he did not bother with pawnbrokers or street peddlers, but went straight to the places where Caleb might have eaten or slept. He tried hot pie sellers, alehouses and taverns, other vagrants who slept rough in old packing cases and discarded sails or awnings, piles of rotting rope, with timbers rigged to make some kind of shelter.

  Yes, one old man had seen him the night before last, striding down Coldharbour towards the Blackwall Stairs. He had been wearing a huge coat, and the tails of it had flapped wide around his legs, like broken wings.

  Was he sure it was Caleb?

  The answer was a hollow laugh.

  He did not ask anyone else if they were sure. Their faces told it for them. A young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, simply ran away. A one-legged man sitting awkwardly, splicing ropes with horny hands, said he had seen him yesterday going toward the Folly House Tavern. He was walking rapidly against the wind, and looked pleased with himself.

  Monk took himself to the Folly House Tavern, a surprisingly clean establishment full of dark oak paneling and the smell of tallow candles whose flickering lights reflected in a mirror over the bar. Even at this hour of the morning there were a dozen people about, either drinking ale or busy with some chore of fetching or cleaning.

  “Yeah?” the landlord inquired cautiously. Monk looked ordinary enough, but he was a stranger.

  “Ale.” Monk leaned against the bar casually.

  The landlord pulled it and presented him with the tankard.

  Monk handed over threepence, and a penny for the landlord, who took it without comment.

  “Do you know Caleb Stone?” Monk said after a few minutes.

  “I might,” the landlord said guardedly.

  “Think he’ll be in today?” Monk went on.

  “Dunno,” the landlord replied expressionlessly.

  Monk took half a crown out of his pocket and played with it in his fingers. Along the bar counter several other drinkers ceased moving and the dull background chatter stopped.

  “Pity.” Monk took another sip of his ale.

  “Don’t never know wiv ’im,” the landlord said carefully. “ ’E comes w’en ’e suits, an’ goes w’en ’e suits.”

  “He was here yesterday.” Monk made it a statement.

  “So wot if ’e were? ’E comes ’ere now an’ then.”

  “Did you see him when he was here two weeks ago last Tuesday?”

  “ ’Ow do I know?” the landlord said in amazement. “D’yer fink I write down everyone wot comes in ’ere every day? Fink I got nuffink better ter do?”

  “ ’E were.” Another little man leaned forward, bright gray eyes in a narrow face. “ ’Im an’ ’is bruvver, both.”

  “Garn! ’Ow jer know?” a short man said derisively. “ ’Ow jer know it were Tuesday?”

  “ ’Cos it were same day as ol’ Winnie fell orff the dray an’ broke ’is ’ead,” the little man replied with triumph. “That were Tuesday, an’ it were Tuesday as Caleb an’ ’is bruvver were ’ere. Lookin’ at each other fit to kill, they was, both of ’em blazin’ mad, faces like death, they ’ad.”

  Monk could hardly believe his luck.

  “Thank you, Mr.…”

  “Bickerstaff,” the man replied, pleased with the attention.

  “Thank you, Mr. Bickerstaff,” Monk amended. “Have a drink, sir. You have been of great assistance to me.” He passed over the half crown, and Bickerstaff grabbed it before such largesse could prove a mirage.

  “I will,” he said magniloquently. “Mr. Putney, hif you please, we’ll ’ave drinks all ’round for them gents as is me friends. An’ fer me new friend ’ere too. An’ fer yerself, o’ course. Not forgettin’ yerself.”

  The landlord obliged.

  Monk stayed another half hour, but even in the conviviality of free-flowing beer, he learned nothing further of use, except a more detailed description of precisely where Bickerstaff had seen Caleb and Angus, and their obvious quarrel.

  The early afternoon found him pursuing an ephemeral trail downriver towards the East India Docks and Canning Town. Twice it seemed he was almost on Caleb’s heels, then the trail petered out and he was left in the gray, wind-driven rain staring at an empty dockside. Dark-mounded barges moved silently up the river through the haze, voices calling across the water in strange, echoing singsong, and the incoming tide whispering in the shingle.

  He started again, coat collar turned up, feet soaked, face set. Caleb Stone would not escape h
im if he combed every rookery and tenement along the river’s edge; every rickety, overlapping wooden house; every dock and wharf; every flight of dark, water-slimed and sodden steps down to the incoming tide. He questioned, bullied, argued and bribed.

  By half past three the light was beginning to weaken and he was standing on the Canal Dock Yard looking across the river at the chemical works and the Greenwich marshes beyond, veiled in misty rain. He had just missed Caleb again, this time by no more than half an hour. He swore long and viciously.

  A bargee, broad-chested and bow-legged, swayed along the path towards him, chewing on the stem of a clay pipe.

  “Gonna throw yourself in, are ye?” he said cheerfully. “Wi’ a face like that it wouldn’a surprise me. Ye’ll find it powerful cold. Take yer breath away, it will.”

  “It’s bloody cold out here,” Monk said ungraciously.

  “In’t nothing compared with the water,” the bargee said, still with a smile. He fished in the pocket of his blue coat and brought out a bottle. “ ’Ave a drop o’ this. It don’t cure much but the cold, but that’s somethin’!”

  Monk hesitated. It could be any rotgut, but he was frozen and bitterly angry. He had come so close.

  “Not if yer goin’ to jump, mind,” the bargee said, pulling a face. “Waste o’ good rum. Jamaickey, that is. Nothin’ else like it. Ever bin ter Jamaickey?”

  “No. No, I haven’t.” It was probably true, and it hardly mattered.

  The man held out the bottle again.

  Monk took it and put it to his lips. It was rum, a good rum too. He took a swig and felt the fire go down his throat. He passed it back.

  “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t ye come away from the water an’ have a bite ter eat. I got a pie. Ye can have half.”

  Monk knew how precious the pie was, a whole pie. The man’s kindness made him feel suddenly vulnerable again. There was too much that was worth caring about.

  “That’s good of you,” he said gently. “But I have to catch up with a man, and I keep just missing him.”

  “What sort of a man?” the bargee said doubtfully, although he must have heard the change in Monk’s voice, even if he could not see his expression in the waning light.