Acceptable Loss: A William Monk Novel Read online

  Perhaps Rupert had known Phillips only casually, without realizing that he did? Was that one of the many scrapes from which Rupert’s father had bailed him out? It should not surprise her. How easy it is when you like someone to be blind to the possibilities of ugliness in them, of weaknesses too deep to be passed over with tolerance.

  What horror might be ahead for Margaret, if Sullivan had been telling the truth about Arthur Ballinger, and one day Margaret was forced to realize it? Margaret’s loyalties would be torn apart, the whole fabric of love and belief threatened. Margaret was loyal to her father; of course she was, as Rupert was to his. And perhaps he had even more cause. His father had protected him, right or wrong. The cost to Lord Cardew must have been far more than money, and yet he had never failed.

  Love does forgive, but can it forgive everything? Should it? Which loyalties came first—family, or belief in right and wrong?

  What about her own father? That pain twisted deep into places she dared not look. Her father had died alone in England, betrayed and ashamed, while she had been out in the Crimea caring for strangers, ignorant to his plight. What loyalty was that?

  “Hester?” Rupert’s voice broke through her thoughts.

  She looked up. She was glad that Rupert was just a friend, someone she was deeply grateful to but not tied to by blood, or love.

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “It sounds as if fate were harsher to Phillips than the law would have been.”

  MONK WENT TO OLIVER Rathbone’s office in the city late in the morning, and was informed courteously by his clerk that Sir Oliver had gone to luncheon. Monk duly returned at half past two, and was still obliged to wait. It might have been simpler to catch Rathbone with time to spare at his home in the evening, but Monk needed to speak with him when Margaret was not present.

  At quarter to three Rathbone came back, entering with a smile on his face and the easy elegant manner he usually had when the taste of victory was still fresh on his tongue.

  “Hello, Monk,” he said with surprise. “Got another case for me already?” He came in and closed the door quietly. His pale gray suit was perfectly cut and fitted to his slender figure. The sunlight shone in through the long windows, catching the smoothness of his fair hair and the touches of gray at the temples.

  “I hope I don’t,” Monk answered. “But I can’t let this go by default.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rathbone sat down and crossed his legs. He appeared reasonably comfortable, even if in fact he was not. “You look as if you have just opened someone’s bedroom door by mistake.”

  “I may have,” Monk said wryly. The reference was meant only as an illustration, but it was too close to the truth.

  Rathbone regarded him levelly, his face serious now. “It’s not like you to be oblique. How bad is it?”

  Monk hated what he had to say. Even now he was wondering if there were some last, desperate way to avoid it. “That night on Phillips’s ship, after we found Scuff, and the rest of the boys, you told me that Margaret’s father was behind it—”

  “I told you that Sullivan said so. He told me while you were occupied with Phillips.” Rathbone cut across him quickly. “Sullivan had no proof, and he’s dead by his own hand now. Whatever he knew, or believed, is gone with him.”

  “The proof may be dead”—Monk did not move his eyes from Rathbone’s—“but the question isn’t. Someone is behind it. Phillips hadn’t the money or the connections in society to run the boat and find the clients who were vulnerable, let alone blackmail them afterward.”

  “Could it have been Sullivan himself?” Rathbone suggested, and then looked away. Monk did not bother to answer—they both knew Sullivan had not had the nerve nor the intelligence it would have required. He’d been a man ruined by his appetite, and eventually killed by it. In the end, he’d been one more victim.

  Rathbone looked up again. “All right, not Sullivan. But he could have implicated anyone, as long as it wasn’t himself. There’s nothing to act on, Monk. The man was desperate and pathetic. Now he’s very horribly dead, and he took Phillips with him, which no man more richly deserved. There’s nothing more I can do, or would. The boat has been broken up, the boys are free. Let the other victims nurse their wounds in peace.” His face tightened in revulsion too deep to hide. “Pornography is cruel and obscene, but there’s no way to prevent men looking at whatever they wish to, in their own homes. If you want a crusade, there are more fruitful causes.”

  “I want to stop Scuff’s unhappiness,” Monk replied. “And to do that I have to stop it from happening to other boys, the friends he’s left behind.”

  “I’ll help you—but within the law.”

  Monk rose to his feet. “I want whoever’s behind it.”

  “Give me evidence, and I’ll prosecute,” Rathbone promised. “But I’m not indulging in a witch hunt. Don’t you … or you’ll regret it. Witch hunts get out of hand, and innocent people suffer. Leave it, Monk.”

  Monk said nothing. He shook Rathbone’s hand and left.

  CHAPTER

  2

  IT WAS EARLY MORNING, and Corney Reach was deserted. The heavy mist lent the river an eerie quality, as if the smooth, sullen face of it could have stretched to the horizon. It touched the skin and filled the nose with its clinging odor.

  Here on this southern bank, the trees overhung the water, sometimes dipping so low they all but touched its surface. Within fifty yards they were shrouded, indistinct; a hundred yards, and they were no more than vague shapes, suggestions of outlines against the haze. The silence consumed everything except for the occasional whisper of the incoming tide over the stones, or through the tangled weeds close under the bank.

  The corpse was motionless, facedown. Its coat and hair floated, wide, making it look bigger than it was. But even partly submerged, the blow to the back of the skull was visible. The current bumped the body gently against Monk’s legs. He moved his weight slightly to avoid sinking in the mud.

  “Want me to turn ’im over, sir?” Constable Coburn asked helpfully.

  Monk shivered. The cold was inside him, not in the damp early autumn air. He hated looking at dead faces, even though this man might have been the victim of an accident. If it was an accident, he would resent having been called all the way up here, beyond the western outskirts of the city. It would have been a waste of his time, and that of Orme, his sergeant, who was standing five or six yards away, also up to his knees in the river.

  “Yes, please,” Monk answered.

  “Right, sir.” Constable Coburn obediently leaned forward, ignoring the water soaking his uniform sleeves, and hauled the corpse over until it was floating on its back.

  “Thank you,” Monk acknowledged.

  Orme moved closer, stirring up mud. He looked at Monk, then down at the body.

  Monk studied the dead man’s face. He seemed to be in his early thirties. He could not have been in the river long, because his features were barely distorted. There was just a slight bloating in the softer flesh, no damage from fish or other scavengers. His nose was sharp, a little bony, his mouth thin-lipped and wide, and his eyebrows pale. There seemed little color in his hair, but it would be easier to tell when it was dry.

  Monk put out his hand and lifted one eyelid. The iris was blue, and the white was speckled with blood. He let it close again. “Any idea who he is?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Coburn’s face was shadowed with distaste. “ ’E’s Mickey Parfitt, sir, small-time piece o’ dirt around ’ere. Inter fencin’, pimpin’, generally makin’ a profit out of other folks’ misery.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “No mistake, sir. See ’is right arm?”

  Monk noticed nothing, but the jacket covered the man’s right arm to the base of his fingers. Then he glanced at the left arm, and realized the right was at least three inches shorter. Monk gripped the arm and felt the wasted muscle. The left one was thin, but hard. In life it would have been strong, perhaps making up f
or the withered one.

  “Who found him?” he asked.

  “ ’Orrie Jones, but ’e’s only ’alf there,” Coburn replied, tipping his head. “It were Tosh as called us. ’E worked fer Parfitt ’ere an’ there. As much as ’e worked at all, that is. Nasty piece o’ work, Tosh.”

  “Not a tosher?” Monk asked curiously, referring to the men who worked stretches of the sewers, fishing for valuables that had been washed down. They found all sorts of things, jewelry in particular. Given the right area, there were rich pickings to be had.

  “Was, once, so ’e says,” Coburn replied. “Got tired of it. Or maybe ’e lost ’is patch.”

  “What was ’Orrie Jones doing down by the riverbank so early?”

  “That’s a good question.” Coburn pulled his mouth tight in an expression of disgust. “ ’E says as ’e were takin’ a breath of air before startin’ ’is day’s work.”

  “Do you think he killed Parfitt?” Monk said doubtfully.

  “No. ’E’s daft, but ’e’s ’armless. But I reckon as ’e could a bin lookin’ fer ’im.”

  “Any idea why? And why would he expect to find Parfitt down by the riverbank at five or six in the morning?”

  Coburn bit his lip. “Good question, sir. ’Orrie did odd jobs fer Mickey, rowed ’im about, like, fetched an’ carried fer ’im, ran errands. ’E must ’ave ’ad a good idea ’e was ’ere.”

  “A good idea that he was dead?” Monk suggested.

  “Mebbe.”

  “And who killed him?”

  Coburn shook his head. “Mebbe that too, but ’e wouldn’t tell us.”

  “Then, we’d better find Mickey’s friends, and enemies,” Monk responded. “I suppose there’s no hope it could be an accident?”

  “ ’Ope all you like, sir, but we don’t often get so lucky that a piece o’ vermin like Mickey ’as accidents.”

  Monk glanced up at Orme.

  Orme frowned. He was a quiet, solid man, used to the river and to those who preyed on its business and its pleasures. “Wonder if the blow killed him, or if he drowned,” he said thoughtfully. “An’ what was he doing down here anyway? Was he alone? How far upstream did he go into the water?”

  Monk was thinking of the blood in the dead man’s eyes. The eyes did not look like those of someone who had drowned. He bent down and lifted one eyelid again, then the other. It was the same—stained with small hemorrhages. Carefully, using both hands, he pulled the jacket open and the collar of the wet shirt, exposing the thin neck.

  Orme let out a sigh between his teeth.

  “Oh, Gawd!” Coburn said hoarsely.

  The throat was horribly swollen, but the thin line of a ligature was still unmistakable, biting deep into the flesh. Irregularly, every few inches, there were spreading bruises, as if whatever it was had knots in it that had further lacerated the flesh.

  “There’s no way that happened by accident,” Monk said grimly. “I’m afraid we very definitely have a murder. Let’s get him out of the water and ask the police surgeon to tell us what he can. And we’ll speak to Mr. ’Orrie Jones, who so fortuitously found him. And Tosh. What’s the rest of his name?” He looked at Coburn.

  “Never heard it,” Coburn said apologetically.

  They waded ashore, Orme and Coburn dragging the body. Then the three of them lifted it awkwardly onto the bank, scrambling to keep a footing as the mud gave way beneath their feet. The last thing Monk wanted was to land spread-eagled in the water, soaked to the skin. It was bad enough that his shoes were sodden and his trouser legs were flapping coldly around his ankles.

  They laid the body in the cart that Coburn had sent for, and then followed behind it in a grim troop across the fields to the roadway. Then they climbed up into it for the rest of the journey.

  Monk was only slowly getting used to the tidal waters of the Thames, even this far upstream. Initially he had assumed that the body would have been carried down toward the sea, but just in time he prevented himself from saying so.

  “How far do you think he was carried?” he asked Coburn. Ignorance of the local tide was acceptable. There were several factors involved: speed, currents, obstacles, as well as time.

  “Depends where ’e went in,” Coburn said, chewing his lip. He guided the horse to the right, down toward Chiswick. “Could a bin carried both ways, if nothing on the shore stopped ’im. ’Ard to tell.”

  “Many barges this far up?” Monk asked. He had seen only two all the time they had been there, and it was now midmorning.

  “Not many,” Coburn replied. “An’ they usually stay as far out as they can. Nobody wants to get caught up on sandbanks, fallen logs, rubbish. Easier to find out what ’e were doin’ in the water at all than try to reckon where ’e went in by where we found ’im.”

  The town was barely a mile away, and they arrived in clear sunshine. The streets were full of carts, drays, wagons of one sort or another, and the pavements were crowded with people. Several barges lay moored at the docks, loading and unloading.

  The police surgeon had come from the city and took charge of what was left of Mickey Parfitt, promising a report in good time. He seemed to be waiting for a challenge, a demand for haste, but he did not get one. Monk already knew that Parfitt had been strangled and had taken a hard blow to the head first—there was no sense in hitting a man after he was dead. The weapon that had struck him could have been almost anything. What had strangled him was more interesting, but the shape of the bruises told him that. The surgeon would have to cut the ligature off to find out more.

  “I want to see this Tosh,” Monk said to Coburn as they left the morgue.

  “Yes, sir. Thought yer would. Got ’im at the station. Unusually ’elpful, ’e is.” Again the look of distaste twisted his mouth.

  Monk made no reply but followed Coburn across the roadway and into the police station, where Tosh was sitting in the interview room, sipping a mug of tea and eating a large, sugary bun. He looked suitably sober, as befitted a man who had reported finding a corpse. However, Monk detected a certain sheen of satisfaction in his long face as he rose to his feet slowly, careful not to spill his tea.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” Tosh said in a remarkably well-modulated voice. He was a tall man, narrow-shouldered, with rather a long nose and decidedly frizzy hair, which stood out all over his head. “Sad business.” He turned to Monk, recognizing authority immediately. “Tosh Wilkin. What can I do to ’elp you?”

  Monk introduced himself.

  “ ’Ow do yer do, Mr. Monk?” Tosh said soberly. “All the way up from Wapping, eh? You must take it all very serious.”

  “Murder is always serious, Mr. Wilkin.”

  “Murder, is it?” Tosh affected mild surprise. “ ’Ere was I ’oping ’e were just unfortunate, an’ fell in by ’imself.”

  “Really? You didn’t notice the ligature around his neck?”

  Tosh affected innocence. “The what?”

  “The knotted rope around his neck,” Monk elaborated. He watched Tosh’s eyes, his face, the long, scrupulously clean hands at his sides. Nothing gave him away.

  “Can’t say as I did,” Tosh replied. “But, then, I didn’t look more ’n to make sure ’Orrie wasn’t ’avin’ visions, like. Police business, either way. Don’t do for ordinary folk to meddle. ‘Don’t touch’ is my watchword. Just called Constable Coburn ’ere.”

  He hesitated, as if undecided about exactly how to go on. He looked only at Monk, avoiding the eyes of the other two. “Actually, Mr. Monk, to tell the truth, ’Orrie came to me early, about ’alf past six in the morning. I could ’ave brained ’im for waking me up. But ’e said ’e took Mickey out to ’is boat, about eleven o’clock or so, last night. Mickey told ’im to go back for ’im in about an hour. Well, when ’Orrie went, there were nobody there. No Mickey, no anyone. ’E said ’e ’ung around for a while, calling out, looking, but then ’e reckoned ’e must ’ave got it wrong, an’ ’e went ’ome. But when Mickey wasn’t there this morning, ’Orrie was
scared something ’ad ’appened.”

  “At half past six?” Monk said with disbelief.

  “That’s it,” Tosh agreed. “You see, I didn’t believe ’im. I told ’im to get out an’ leave me alone. Go back to bed like civilized folk, and don’t be so stupid. An’ off ’e went.”

  Monk waited impatiently.

  “Then I got to worrying meself,” Tosh continued, looking at Monk gravely. “So instead o’ going back to sleep, I lay there for a while, then I got up and dressed, an’ I was on me way down the path, just to check up, so to speak, when I saw ’Orrie come up at a run, all red-faced an’ out o’ breath.”

  Monk looked from Tosh to Constable Coburn, and back again. “Where is this boat that ’Orrie took Mickey to last night?” he asked.

  “Moves around,” Coburn answered.

  “Moored up between ’ere an’ Barnes,” Tosh said, and gestured upriver. “Which don’t mean to say poor Mickey went into the river there. Tides can play funny games wi’ things—floaters in particular.”

  “So ’Orrie took Parfitt to his boat shortly after eleven o’clock last night, and went to collect him an hour or so later, and he wasn’t there?”

  Tosh nodded his fuzzy head. “Yer got it. Given, o’ course, that ’Orrie isn’t always that exact with time.”

  “Is ’Orrie short for Horace?”

  Tosh half hid a smile. “ ’Orrible. When you’ve met ’im, you’ll see why. ’E’s not …” He tapped his forehead, and left the rest to Monk’s imagination.

  Monk remembered the corpse’s withered arm. “I assume Mr. Parfitt was not able to row himself? Was this usually Mr. Jones’s job?”

  “Yes. ’E obeys well enough, but not much use for anything else.”

  “I see. And do you know for yourself that what he says is true, or do you just believe him?”

  Tosh’s eyes opened very wide with exaggerated surprise, sending a row of wrinkles up his forehead. “I believe ’im ’cos it makes sense, and ’e ’asn’t the wit to lie. One of the benefits of employing idiots—they’re not imaginative enough to tell a decent lie. And ’aven’t the brains to remember it if they did.”