Blood on the Water Read online

  Others asked still further: Did a verdict in the courts, or even a police charge in the first place, depend upon money, privilege of birth, influence, the color of your skin, or a tragic combination of all these things?

  Such questions were asked not only in the newspapers, and on the streets, but in the House of Commons. The words “corruption” and “collusion” were spoken.

  As the week progressed the questions became deeper, more probing, and spread into other spheres. International and diplomatic issues were raised. Lord Ossett was mentioned as not having dealt with the matter in an open and competent way. What political favors were being offered, or called in? Inevitably the Suez Canal was mentioned also, and all the old arguments for it and against.

  Letters to The Times became more and more open in their challenges to authority, and demands that deeper inquiries be made. They named several prominent ship owners with questions that were close to libelous. Lawsuits were threatened.

  Everyone was uneasy, even on the streets and docksides along the river. Several policemen were hurt in brawls that began in taverns and spilled out into the streets and alleys. Leaflets demanding justice were nailed up on doors. Crude pictures of a hanged man were painted on walls, with the words “It could be you next” scrawled beside it.

  Two weeks after the arrest of Gamal Sabri, his trial was announced. The haste was a matter of keeping some kind of control on public opinion, both at home and abroad.

  Rufus Brancaster, the young lawyer who had so brilliantly defended Rathbone at his trial, was chosen to prosecute Sabri.

  The following evening he knocked tentatively at the front door of Monk’s house in Paradise Place.

  Monk had just arrived home, tired and disheveled but beginning to regain his strength. He was pleased to have Hooper back, even if restricted to duty at the Wapping station for a further week or two.

  Hester brought Brancaster straight into the kitchen where Monk was eating a late supper. She offered the barrister something to eat, and he accepted tea and a thick slice of cake.

  “I suppose you know I’ve been asked to prosecute Sabri?” he asked, looking from Monk to Hester and then back again.

  “No.” Monk’s face lit with interest, and he momentarily ignored his food. “When does the trial begin?”

  “Three weeks. Doesn’t give me much time. But I think they’re terrified public unrest will boil over if they don’t settle this soon. It’s been a long, wretched summer since the sinking, and people are beginning to think it won’t ever be properly resolved. It’s one hell of a mess!”

  “The handling of it was,” Monk agreed, now taking his last mouthful.

  “It’s a mess itself,” Brancaster said, pulling his mouth into a tight line. “Pryor has already been engaged to defend Sabri, and he won’t defer to anyone, whomever or whatever he brings down. He’s already made his mark, and his money.” The muscles in his face tightened. “I know him. He’d rather win this and go down in history, even if it means he never practices again. He won’t be swayed by loyalty, offers of a seat in the House of Lords, or threat of never working again if he gets Sabri off.”

  “Sabri is guilty,” Monk pointed out. “The evidence is physical this time, no eyewitness identifications to be mistaken. The Seahorse is unmistakable. And before you ask, there are no other boats on the river with that particular device on them, not to mention the fact that the damages from the ramming of the ferry are still present. They’re structural; they can’t be painted over as the outside was, or replaced with new wood—that would make it even more obvious. I can give you half a dozen witnesses, apart from myself. I’m sure Pryor will try, but you have the facts.”

  “Precedent,” Brancaster said unhappily. “He’ll make a big play of the fact that we already convicted Beshara for it. He’ll attack the police, the prison system that let Beshara be beaten, the whole shambles of the investigation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brings in the issue of Suez, or the debate as to whether it’ll ruin British shipping and the mastery of the sea lanes we’ve given a century’s blood to secure.”

  He accepted a mug of tea and the cake from Hester with a smile of thanks.

  “And don’t think he wouldn’t do it!” he went on with his mouth full. “He would. And draw in all the weight and influence he can to protect those like Ossett, who stand to be ridiculed if the courts convict Sabri, thereby vindicating Beshara.”

  “I’ll give you all the evidence I can,” Monk promised. “And I’ll testify.”

  “I need more than that,” Brancaster said grimly. “I want Rathbone’s advice. I know he can’t appear until his disbarment is over, but I need his counsel, his ideas. I can’t find him!”

  “He’s in Paris,” Hester told him. “I’m sure he’ll come home for this, if you want him to.”

  “Yes, please,” Brancaster said with intense relief. “I know that technically it should be a simple case, but it’s only partially a matter of law. Mostly it’s emotions, beliefs, rage, and grief, and fear of chaos. And we need to win, not just for the victims of the Princess Mary—for all of us.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  OLIVER RATHBONE SAT IN the ferry across the Thames with the westerly sun hot on his face, in spite of the fact that it was early evening and the heat of the day gone. After nearly three years traveling around with his father, he was home again, in his new apartment, and on his way to see Hester and Monk, and, of course, Scuff.

  He had promised his father for years that they would take a trip together, and yet he had always had some reason to put it off. Then with the Taft case he had been disbarred and legal matters no longer kept him in England.

  With that event many of his values had changed. His wife, Margaret, had left him. There was no possibility of a reconciliation, nor did he now want one. He had seized the chance to go abroad, and travel with Henry Rathbone wherever they wished. It had been marvelous. They had walked miles in old cities steeped in history, in rich countryside; they had eaten good food, laughed at jokes and stories, and talked of every subject imaginable. It had enriched him immeasurably. They had come to know each other as friends in a way that made him feel as if their entire past life had led toward this. Friendship, generous and unforced, without duty or obligation—that was surely the foundation of all the love that mattered.

  Now it was time to return to the present, to London, and to pick up what threads were left of his life. It was a strange, bittersweet feeling. All the old familiarity was here. He had known this city and its river all his life. Yet the time in Egypt, and then in Italy and France, had changed the way he saw almost everything.

  Had he grown up, became wiser? Or simply different?

  He looked around at the other craft on the water. The tiny waves were no more than ripples. Barely a breeze moved as they cut their way across for Wapping Stairs toward Greenwich. The air smelled of salt and mud. Usually he did not even notice it except perhaps with slight distaste. Today it filled him as if it had been strange and new. He had been to so many other places that he was drenched with all their various tastes and sounds, the smells of different foods, different lives. In his imagination he could feel the desert sand itch his skin, or recall the silence of the Egyptian night, alone with that great, ancient river and the ghosts of pharaohs lost in the dimness of time.

  His hands were knotted in his lap, his shoulders tight. He was home again, facing challenges, a life different from all he was accustomed to, which was sometimes awkward. He could either handle it well, or handle it badly. Every day when he got up from his bed in the new flat he had rented, away from the beautiful, lonely house he had shared with Margaret, once so full of hope, the choice was his.

  The ferry bumped gently against the Greenwich dock. He paid the fare and got out onto the steps. He thanked the ferryman and began to make his way up the hill toward Paradise Place. He realized he was walking rapidly, expectantly, pleased at the thought of seeing Monk and Hester again. He refused to acknowledge that i
t was still mainly Hester he was looking forward to seeing.

  They welcomed him with surprise and a warmth that wrapped around him like the odor of all the things he liked: clean sheets, fresh bread from the oven, mown grass, sunset wind off the Downs.

  They asked after Henry Rathbone, and about their travels.

  “Excellent,” he replied. “A week in the recounting, even to begin. But first tell me about the Princess Mary, and Beshara, and the trial of Gamal Sabri. What evidence was there before? How was it so mistaken? What is there now?”

  Monk smiled.

  Rathbone noticed how tired he looked, and that he sat a little awkwardly. “What is it?” he asked, anxiety biting him with a sudden chill.

  Monk told briefly him about the Seahorse ramming the ferry and how close he had come to drowning. He did not use emotional words, or describe his fear. Perhaps his tale was the more powerful for it.

  “And now?” Rathbone asked with concern.

  “All healed up. Just a little stiff.”

  Rathbone looked at Hester to confirm it, or not.

  “Near enough to the truth,” she conceded. “And Hooper was wounded also, when they arrested Sabri.”

  Rathbone relaxed a little. He had not expected to be so alarmed for Monk’s welfare. He did not normally give consideration to the physical dangers of his calling, only the always-looming possibility of failure.

  “And you said in your letter that Rufus Brancaster is going to prosecute. I can already see dozens of questions, difficulties, tactics the defense is likely to use.”

  That was a bleak half truth, but he needed to approach the real subject crowding his mind a step at a time.

  All the papers were clamoring for justice, but the more deep-thinking ones were asking who was behind the incompetence of convicting the wrong man. Where were the vested interests that had weighed the balances so crookedly? Whose money, whose political power had done this?

  It was the shadow of incompetence and almost certainly corruption within the law that weighed most heavily on Rathbone, the failure that had so easily condemned Beshara, an innocent man, at least as far as this crime went. So what if he was apparently unpleasant and a foreigner? None of these things should be relevant to a fair trial and a true verdict.

  How deeply had the error and corruption eaten into the soul of the law? With his own recent acts, for which he was now disbarred, was he another part of the same disease, excusing himself for his personal morality’s sake?

  Monk was regarding him with a slightly twisted smile, but it was an acknowledgment of both his presence and his help.

  “Let’s start with what evidence we have that is physical, and not capable of more than one interpretation.” Rathbone glanced at Hester and saw the corners of her mouth twitch in amusement at his inclusion of himself in the case.

  He colored very slightly but did not make it worse by trying to explain. She did not need to know how important it was to him, how much a part of being “at home” again. He would not try to explain to anyone, even his father, his hunger to know that he was intellectually and morally honest in his service of justice. That was too poisoned a wound to touch.

  “What does this evidence prove?” he continued. “What does it only indicate, and what more is needed? Is there anything that specifically implicates Beshara, or can we ignore him now? What about the eyewitnesses? Are any of them reliable? Any we need to explain, or discredit, to prove Sabri guilty?”

  Monk named a few, but added that there was no way to predict in advance who might change their story under pressure, or what the changes might be.

  “That’s the whole issue, isn’t it!” Rathbone leaned back in his chair. “What’s really behind this?” He looked from one to the other of them. “Does anybody know what Beshara’s motive was supposed to have been? Hester didn’t mention anything more than emotion and supposition in her letters. Do you know anything, Monk?”

  Monk shook his head slightly. “Talk of revenge, but we don’t know for what, if it was on his own behalf, or that of his family, his community, or if it was merely someone who paid him. We found no evidence of money passing hands—but if it were well done, there wouldn’t be. It needn’t have been paid to him; anyone could have received it on his behalf. Maybe it’s sitting in a bank in Egypt.”

  “There’s the devil of a lot to find out,” Rathbone said with a touch of both exhilaration and awe. He remembered their past battles, the long nights when he was so tired he could barely see straight, the nagging ache in the back of the head, the prickle of desperation as the answers eluded him. But no triumph comes without work and the corresponding possibility of loss.

  The difference now was that the last case he had sat through at trial was his own. He was not the one who fought, he was the one whose life would pay the price for win or lose. He was never going to have been hanged, but he could have spent years in that wretched prison with the noise, the stench, the utter lack of privacy. It had seemed to him as if that penetrated even his mind and his soul, and he would slowly have changed into the man they thought he was.

  “Oliver!”

  He heard Hester’s voice, sharp, demanding his attention. Had she sensed what he was thinking? Even seen something of it in his face? Surely the hot Mediterranean sun had burned away the prison pallor? Or would there always be the sick shadow of it in his eyes?

  He trusted Hester. She was his friend, not because of who he was, but who she was. His ex-wife no longer mattered. She would hate him and think the worst of him, regardless of facts. Hers was a hate born of disillusion, out of something that had once been love, and perhaps an unreal hope. Thinking about Hester and Margaret automatically made him think of Beata York. But she was also different, from both Hester and Margaret. He had met and become fast friends with her in a rash moment; possibly more than that, in dreams.

  He must discipline his mind not to think of her. He had been getting better at it, until now. But this case—the struggle, the insatiable desire to fight for the truth—was as much part of his life and his nature as was breathing. He could not stand up in court and speak, but he could put the words into Brancaster’s mouth, and he was grateful for that opportunity.

  “Oliver!” Hester said more sharply.

  “I am trying to think through to the key questions we must answer. The eyewitnesses are not the issue. I think we may safely conclude that they were emotionally distressed, pressured by the police and by circumstances and the desire to please. It is also obvious that Lydiate’s men were given no time to investigate properly, as public feeling was running so high about a crime so appalling. But what are the officers of the court concealing, and for whom?”

  “For whom?” Hester asked, puzzled.

  “Who has the power to order such a thing?” he explained. “What would be revealed by a complete exposure? Who would it damage?” He looked from Hester to Monk, and back again.

  Hester shivered.

  “Is this thing they are concealing related to the sinking of the Princess Mary? Or is the connection only incidental?”

  “It has to be,” she replied.

  “No, actually it doesn’t,” Rathbone argued. “Not more than by chance, or the coincidence of one man who is implicated in both the sinking and something else involving money or power, position, even reputation. I am only exploring possibilities.”

  Monk nodded slowly but said nothing.

  “Lydiate’s motives are easy enough to understand,” Rathbone continued. “His professional reputation, and that of his men, is on the line for a quick and unquestioned solution that damages no one of importance.”

  Hester winced.

  Rathbone smiled ruefully, but he made no excuses.

  “Is Oswald Camborne guilty of overzealousness to the point of ignoring the truth, cutting corners of legal process? He’s an arrogant man with extraordinary ambition, but he is usually very careful indeed not to cross the line of acceptability. And Juniver? He’s honest enough, but did he allow hims
elf to be pressured, and if so, by whom?”

  “Camborne?” Monk asked.

  Rathbone shook his head. “No. Juniver’s good for a fight. If anyone affected him, it would be someone with a more honorable argument; threat and promises would not work on him. And another thing, have you evidence as to whether this new man, Gamal Sabri, sank the ship on his own account, and if so, for God’s sake why? Or was he paid by someone else? Or has he hostages to fortune of some sort?”

  “No family,” Monk replied. “We found no personal connections in England, or in Egypt. We could find no motive except for money.”

  “You’ve questioned him?” Rathbone glanced at Monk’s still heavily bandaged chest.

  “Once,” Monk replied. “Briefly, before they took him away and his lawyer refused to allow him to speak. He need not have bothered. Sabri wasn’t saying anything.”

  “Your opinion?” Rathbone asked.

  “Paid by someone,” Monk said without hesitation. “You don’t get a lawyer of the quality of Pryor without both influence and money.”

  “Fame,” Rathbone said simply.

  “Defending the man who sank the Princess Mary?” Monk’s voice rose with disbelief.

  Rathbone smiled bitterly. “Or defending the justice system and showing that they got the right man in the first place. You could gain a lot of friends that way, and comfort a vast number of Londoners who want to feel safe.”

  Monk closed his eyes and leaned back a little in his chair, as if suddenly too weary to sit upright.

  Rathbone could not afford to let it go yet.

  “Any idea who tried to kill Beshara? And for that matter, do you know if Beshara has any connection to Sabri?”