A Sunless Sea Read online

  “Did you panic?” he asked more gently.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “What on earth did you hope to gain by speaking to Zenia?” he persisted. “What did you think she would tell you about your husband? Did you think he left papers from his report with her? Or that somehow she had helped him? Did she know something about opium that would have validated his findings?”

  She faced him again. “I didn’t go to Copenhagen Place. I don’t know who that woman was. Clearly she tried to look like me. There’s not much point in bringing the shopkeeper and other people in to testify, because they’ll say what everybody expects them to—and what they will now believe is the truth. But I did not go. That I know as well as I know I’m sitting here.”

  She took a deep, shaky breath. “And I will never believe that Joel killed himself. He knew his report was right and he was determined to fight his detractors. You have no idea of the evil and the shame of the opium trade, Sir Oliver, or of the people who are involved in it.” Her voice was trembling now. “Joel wept for what we have done in China. It is a very hard thing to acknowledge that your own country has committed atrocities. Many people cannot do that. They will go on to create more lies to cover the first.” There was a curious look in her eyes, almost a challenge.

  Suddenly a new truth became shatteringly clear to him, bringing the sweat out on his body and choking the breath in his throat. She had lied about being with Helena Moulton quite deliberately, knowing it would be exposed, and that Monk would have no choice but to charge her with Zenia’s murder—and she would stand trial for her life. She had meant it to happen. She had asked Monk to have Rathbone to defend her because she believed he would force the truth of Joel’s murder into the open, and clear his name. Perhaps his work would even be continued by someone else. That was the depth of her belief in him—and her love.

  Ridiculously, he found his mouth dry and he had to swallow hard in order to speak. He looked away from her, blinking rapidly to stop the tears in his eyes.

  “I’ll do everything I can.” It was a promise he would keep, but he had no idea if it would be enough to save her, let alone to restore Joel Lambourn’s reputation. She must have seen that Pendock was against them, just as he had. And yet she had not given in.

  How different she was from Margaret! How brave, reckless, and loyal. Beautiful and a little frightening. What must Joel Lambourn have been like to be worthy of such a woman?

  He stood up very slowly. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said a little hoarsely. “I know somewhere I can at least try to get help.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  MONK HAD RECEIVED A message from Rathbone late the previous evening requesting him to be at his chambers at eight o’clock so that they would have time to speak before Rathbone was due in court. Consequently Monk was up at six. He ate breakfast with Hester, both of them saying little in a silent understanding of the growing desperation of the case. He was on the river by seven, sitting in the ferry from Princes Stairs across to Wapping, still aware of a steady ache in his shoulder from his battle in the street. Since then he and Runcorn had both been more careful.

  He was not looking forward to the meeting. A brawl on one of the docks, in which a man had been killed, had kept him busy during the previous day, and in the little time he had been able to spare in the evening he had achieved nothing. He knew Hester had already told Rathbone about the nurse, Agatha Nisbet, but all that did was to confirm that Joel Lambourn had been investigating opium in patent medicines, which they already knew.

  Orme was still questioning people in Limehouse, especially the area near the pier, but no one had seen anything useful. One person admitted seeing three men, considerably the worse for drink, but he was not certain if it was that evening or another. Someone else had seen two women walking to the pier at the right sort of time, and the right day, but definitely not a man.

  The boat reached the steps at Wapping and he paid the ferryman and got out. The tide was low and the stones were wet. He had to be careful he did not slip. He reached the top and strode across the open stretch of the dock. The wind was rising as the tide started to flow again, coming in from the sea. It smelled of salt and fish, and now and again an unpleasant odor of effluent. Even so, it was better than the smell of the city streets, and there was a vitality in the air he had come to love. Here the sky was wide. No buildings closed in the vision and there was always light, no matter how dark the weather. Even at night the lamps’ yellow glow marked the ships.

  He had no time to call in at the station first. He went straight toward the high street and the first hansom cab he could catch.

  He found Rathbone tense but remarkably full of energy. He welcomed Monk into the familiar quiet sitting room. There was a small fire in the grate, in spite of the fact that Rathbone would be in court most of the day.

  “Come in. Sit down.” Rathbone indicated one of the leather chairs. “Monk, I need your help. This has suddenly become urgent. Lambourn’s sister gave evidence yesterday, which is pretty damning against Dinah, and Lambourn also. I think she’s much more loyal to her husband than to her brother.”

  “Her husband is still alive,” Monk pointed out a little cynically.

  Rathbone’s face tightened but he made no comment on it. “Sinden Bawtry was in court for the second time.”

  “Protecting the government’s interest in the Pharmacy Act?” Monk asked.

  “Possibly. The judge is ruling against me every time he can, even stretching it a bit. I can’t help feeling he’s been instructed.” He continued pacing, too restless to sit himself. “Monk, I’ve suddenly realized what this is about. I don’t know how I can have been so blind! Well, I do. But that’s all irrelevant now.” He paced from Monk’s chair to the door, turned, and came back again.

  “Dinah lied about being at the soirée precisely in order that you should arrest her, and she would beg you to have me to defend her!” He watched Monk’s face intently.

  Monk was incredulous. Rathbone’s grief over Margaret had damaged his judgment even more than he had feared.

  “Dinah Lambourn implicated herself in a particularly obscene murder simply in order to create the opportunity for you to defend her?” he said, unable to keep the disbelief out of his face. “Why, for God’s sake? Couldn’t she simply have contrived an introduction?”

  “Not to meet me, you fool!” Rathbone said with a glimmer of bitter amusement. “To get the story of Joel’s death into open court. She saw the opportunity in Zenia Gadney’s murder, and took it. She is willing to risk being condemned to death in order to clear her husband’s name and restore the reputation he earned for diligence and honor.”

  Monk’s understanding came when he saw the light in Rathbone’s face, the softness and the grief in his eyes. His body was stiff, and he was thinner than he had been only a few months ago, before the end of the Ballinger case. But this morning there was a vitality in him; he had a great cause to fight for.

  Monk had no idea if Rathbone was right or not, but he did not want to crush the possibility.

  “What is it you want me to do?” he asked, dreading the answer would be impossible to meet.

  “Dinah said Lambourn supported Zenia because she was the widow of a friend of his,” Rathbone answered. “Dinah knew about it almost from the beginning. The money went from the household ledgers, under the initials Z.G. on the twenty-first of every month. If we can prove that’s true, then her principal motive is gone.”

  Monk felt his heart sink. “Oliver, that’s what he told her—or else she’s just thought of a very clever excuse for his behavior. It’s—”

  “Capable of proof!” Rathbone cut across him urgently. “Trace back where Zenia came from. Look at the records. We know her age—she must have been married within the last twenty-nine years. Find the husband.” He was lit with eagerness now, his voice low and keen. “Find his connection to Joel Lambourn. Perhaps they studied together, practiced medicine together. Somewhere their
paths crossed and they became such close friends that Lambourn supported his widow all his life. Even went to see her once a month, unfailingly. That’s a hell of a loyalty. There’ll be ways of tracing it.”

  Monk said nothing.

  “Find it!” Rathbone repeated more sharply.

  “You believe it?” Monk asked, wishing he did not have to.

  Rathbone hesitated, a split second too long. “Basically, yes,” he said with a faint smile of self-mockery. “She’s lying about something, I don’t know what. I do believe that she implicated herself deliberately by lying as to where she was, in order to stand trial, hoping that the whole issue of Joel’s suicide would have to be examined again, and somehow we would prove that it was murder, because his work was totally valid, and somebody wants it concealed.”

  Monk pushed himself up onto his feet. “Then I’ll reopen my investigation,” he said quietly. “And I’ll get Runcorn to reopen his.”

  Rathbone smiled, the ease relaxing his body, hope in his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Monk went directly to Runcorn’s office. It was still a long journey eastward and back across the river in a rising wind with sleet on the edge of it. Maybe it would snow for Christmas.

  He met Runcorn at the door, just as he was leaving.

  Runcorn saw his face and, without speaking, he turned back and went up the stairs to his office, motioning Monk to follow him. As soon as he closed the door, Monk repeated the essence of what Rathbone had told him. Runcorn did not interrupt until he was finished.

  Runcorn nodded. He did not ask if Monk believed it.

  “We’d better see if anyone knows where Zenia came from,” he said practically. “Trouble is, asking too many people. Better it doesn’t get back to Lambourn’s enemies that we’re still looking.”

  Monk assumed for a moment that Runcorn was thinking of his own safety. Then a glance at his face, a memory of him in the firelight looking at Melisande, made him ashamed of the thought.

  “Has anyone said anything to you?” he asked. He should have expected it, after the attack in the street, especially given what Rathbone had said about Sinden Bawtry being in court, and his conviction that Pendock was deliberately blocking him at every turn.

  Runcorn gave a slight shrug. “Obliquely,” he said, treating it lightly, although Monk heard the slight rasp in his voice. “Not only a warning, more a thank-you in advance, for acting with discretion.”

  Monk wondered if he should tell Runcorn that he would understand if he did not wish to pursue the matter. His career might be jeopardized. He remembered how much that had mattered to him in the past, how all the times the next step upward had been the goal.

  “We’ll have to be careful.” Runcorn’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Check Zenia, not Lambourn. It would have been easier to check Lambourn’s career and see who he might have been close to and who died about fifteen years ago, but they’d spot that. Zenia’s not a common name. Be a lot harder if she were Mary or Betty.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Wonder if Gadney’s her maiden name, or married. D’you know?”

  “We’ll check Gadney for deaths around fifteen years ago,” Monk replied with a sudden lift of enthusiasm. It would be good to work with Runcorn again, as he knew they had at the beginning of their careers. Runcorn would remember it. He wished he could. Perhaps he would have flashes of recall, as he’d had at the beginning of his amnesia, sudden jolts when something was desperately familiar, and for an instant he could see it clearly.

  “Then we’d better start now.” Runcorn picked up his jacket again. “It could take awhile. How many more days does Rathbone think we have?”

  “A week, maybe,” Monk replied. “He’ll drag it out as long as he can.” Neither of them needed to say that once the verdict was in it would be all but impossible to get the case reopened. Evidence would no longer sway a jury. It would have to be an error in law, or some new fact so irrefutable that no one could deny it, before they would overturn the court’s decision. Time was their enemy, along with the vested interests of money and reputation.

  Obligatory civil records of births, deaths, and marriages had begun in 1838, twenty-six years ago. But to begin with there had been omissions, and there was always the possibility that an event had not taken place in the county. People made mistakes, misread a name or a number, mistook a 5 for an 8, or even a 3, and that altered everything. And, of course, people lied, especially about their age.

  They left Runcorn’s office in Blackheath and went back across the river. As they sat hunched up in the ferry, their faces were stung with fine pellets of ice as the sleet drove westward off the water.

  At Wapping they went ashore and took a cab west again. They rode in an oddly comfortable silence. There was no need to make conversation. Each was quietly consumed in thoughts of the case, and how much might rest on it.

  They were conducted into the vast, silent storerooms of the registry office, and Monk began looking for a death in the name of Gadney, although neither of them had any idea what the man’s Christian name might be, or even the year of the death. He started fifteen years earlier and moved forward.

  Runcorn began at that time and worked back.

  They searched until both were bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed, then stopped for something to take away the taste of dust and paper in the air.

  “Nothing,” Runcorn said, failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

  “We need to think again,” Monk admitted, returning the last heavy book to its place on the shelf. “Let’s do it in a pub with a decent lunch. I feel as if I can taste that ink.”

  “Maybe Gadney’s her maiden name, not her husband’s,” Monk said a quarter of an hour later as they ate thick slices of fresh bread with crumbling Caerphilly cheese and pickles. They were both thirsty enough to get through a pint of cider and ask for a second. “They called her Mrs. Gadney, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the title was accurate.”

  “Then his name could be anything.” Runcorn wiped crumbs off his mouth. “Did anyone mention an accent? Please don’t tell me she was Irish! We haven’t time to start looking for anything that far away.”

  “No one mentioned it.” Monk reached for a piece of sharp-flavored apple pie, cooked till the slices of fruit were tender but still whole. “And I think they would have. Anyway, her birth would be before they kept general records. We’d have to go to the parish for the church register. What good would it do anyway? It doesn’t help to know where she was born.”

  “It might,” Runcorn argued. “Women often get married wherever they grew up rather than where the husband lives.”

  He was right. Once Monk would have argued, and then pointed out that it didn’t help anyway. Now he took it in its value simply as a word of encouragement to continue. He finished his cider. “You go on looking for anything with Gadney, a marriage with either bride or groom of that name. I’ll start tracing Lambourn’s career. See if anyone can remember who his friends were fifteen years ago. Someone might remember the name Gadney.”

  Runcorn frowned heavily. “They’ll hear about it,” he warned. “How long do you think you have before it’s reported to Bawtry, or someone below him?” There was anxiety in his face. “I’ll come with you. Two of us’ll get there faster than one.”

  Monk shook his head. “Look for the marriage. If Bawtry, or anyone else, questions what I’m doing, I’ve got a reason. Or I can think of one.”

  “Like what?” Runcorn asked. His face reflected he knew the risk they were taking, and Monk was trying to protect him from it.

  Monk thought for a moment. “Like I want to make sure the case against Dinah Lambourn is perfect.” He smiled with a little twist of irony. “I don’t mind lying to them.”

  “Don’t get caught!” There was no answering humor in Runcorn’s eyes, only concern.

  “I’ll meet you back here at six o’clock.” Monk stood up.

  “What if I find something?” Runcorn asked quickly.

  “Nothing I can do about it beca
use I don’t know where I’ll be,” Monk answered. “Wait for me.”

  Runcorn did not argue but rose as well and they went out together into the blustery afternoon.

  MONK SPENT SEVERAL EXHAUSTING and completely fruitless hours. As discreetly as he could he asked questions of people Lambourn had studied with, and stifled his impatience with difficulty. They were hard to track down, claiming to be too busy to spare him time. Perhaps they were embarrassed to discuss someone whose life had ended in such tragedy, but Monk could not help being crowded by the suspicion that they had been warned they would find great disfavor with their superiors if they were to be indiscreet. Doors that had been open before might inexplicably become closed to them in the future.

  He found professors who had taught Lambourn, others who had graduated in medicine at the same time, one man who had changed his studies to chemistry. They remembered Lambourn but could offer nothing of use beyond the facts Monk already knew.

  He could go on for many more hours without exhausting the possibilities, and each time increasing the chances of attracting more attention to his inquiries. Also he did not wish to keep Runcorn waiting. He had a dim recollection that he had done so rather often in the past.

  He found Runcorn sitting at the same small table in the corner of the public house, drumming his fingers impatiently on the wood.

  Monk knew he was not late, but all the same he took out his watch and glanced at it to make doubly certain. He sat down opposite Runcorn.

  Runcorn was frowning, his face troubled. “You’re not going to like it,” he said quietly.

  Monk felt his muscles tighten and his breath catch in his throat. “You found something?”

  Runcorn did not stretch out the tension. “Marriage, no death.”

  Monk was stunned. “So the husband is still alive?”

  “Not now.” Runcorn took a deep breath. “Zenia Gadney was married all right—to Joel Lambourn.”

  “What?” Monk froze. He must have misheard. It was not a bitter or ill-conceived joke; there was not a shred of humor in Runcorn’s eyes.