A Sunless Sea wm-18 Read online

  The parlor maid asked him in and left him in an impressively furnished morning room while she went to see if Mrs. Herne would receive him.

  Monk looked around the room. It was highly conventional. There was nothing individual here, nothing that would particularly please or offend. It was not only boring; it was, in an oblique way, deceitful. All traces of personality were concealed. Amity Herne’s husband must be totally unlike her brother. Some of the books were similar, for example the Shakespeare and the Gibbon. But it was the way they were all matching and totally level with each other, as if they had never been moved, which irritated Monk.

  He had some time to wait, but looking around he saw nothing that engaged his interest or gave him any insight into the passion or the beliefs of the man who lived here, except that he exercised a certain caution in all he showed.

  Amity Herne came in and closed the door behind her. She was a handsome woman, in a brittle, elegant way. Her fair hair was thick and perfectly dressed, her skin without a blemish. She was almost as tall as her sister-in-law, but far thinner. In her dark, elegantly cut gown, her shoulders looked a trifle bony.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Monk?” she asked, without inviting him to sit down. “I am afraid I am due to attend an exhibition of Chinese silks with the lord chancellor’s wife this evening. You will appreciate that I cannot be late.”

  “Of course not,” Monk agreed. “I will come immediately to the point. Forgive my bluntness. I am inquiring into the death of a woman named Zenia Gadney.”

  Amity Herne frowned. “I don’t recall anyone by that name. I am sorry to hear that she died, but I cannot help you. I don’t know what led you to imagine I could.”

  “Perhaps not,” he conceded, without answering her oblique question. “But your late brother knew Mrs. Gadney quite well …” He stopped as he saw her face tighten. It might have been out of grief, but it looked to him more like irritation.

  “My brother did not move in the same social circles as my husband and I,” she said very quietly. It was plain she considered he was intruding, and-in view of her brother’s apparent suicide-perhaps she was right. “He was … eccentric … in some of his opinions,” she went on. “He became more so as he grew older. I’m sorry your time has been wasted.”

  Monk did not move. “His widow says that Dr. Lambourn knew Mrs. Gadney quite well, and our evidence from local people where she lived bears that out.”

  “That may be true,” she agreed, also not moving from her position a yard or two inside the door. “As I tried to explain to you, my brother was a little eccentric. When he was convinced of an idea, nothing would change his mind, certainly not common sense, or evidence.”

  He caught the bitter tone in her voice. This was a different side to Joel Lambourn. It gave him no pleasure to hear it, but Monk could not let it go if there was even a possibility that it could somehow help lead to Zenia Gadney’s murderer. He forced himself to picture her corpse lying half doubled over, looking smaller in death than she would have been alive. He pictured the waxy white face and the gutted body, the blood and the pale, bulging entrails.

  “Mrs. Gadney was murdered,” he said quietly, deliberately choosing the cruelest words. “Her stomach was slit open and her intestines pulled out. She was dumped on Limehouse Pier, like a sack of rubbish that had broken open. Dr. Lambourn knew her well enough to visit her every month,” he went on more gently. “His widow says she was aware of that; indeed, that she had been for years. So far Dr. Lambourn is the only person with whom Mrs. Gadney appears to have had a relationship with, of any kind. Others knew her only well enough to exchange a word in the street.”

  A succession of emotions crossed Amity’s face so swiftly, Monk could not identify them, except as forms of anger. If grief or pity were there, or fear, he did not see them long enough to know. But then, why should she display her vulnerability in front of him when he had been so brutal? Anger was most people’s defense for that which hurt intolerably.

  “You had better sit down, Mr.… Mr. Monk,” she said icily. “I shall be as clear as I can, and as brief. There is obviously a great deal that you do not know, and I suppose in the wretched woman’s memory, you need to. God knows, that sort of death should not happen to anyone.”

  She moved across to one of the large armchairs and sat down carefully. “My sister-in-law, Dinah, is a highly emotional woman and a complete idealist. If you have met her, as you say you have, then you are probably already aware of that. Her view of Joel was unrealistic, to put it at its kindest.” She shook her head a little. “She was devoted to him and of course to their two daughters, Adah and Marianne. She cannot yet face the truth about him. I dare say she never will. I know it will certainly not help to try to force her. We all need something in which to believe, and she believes in Joel and his memory. It would be not only cruel, but also completely pointless, to say this to her now. I know, because I am guilty of having tried myself.”

  Monk could imagine it: Amity and Dinah with wildly opposing views of the same man, whom presumably they had both loved, but in such different ways. Did Dinah believe in him so consumingly, not because of who he had been, but because of who she had needed him to be, to fill her hunger and her dreams?

  Amity was impatient. “Joel was a charming man,” she went on, looking at Monk earnestly. “He was my elder brother, by seven years, and I always looked up to him. But clever as he was, he was also a man lost in his own ideas, a little …” A flicker of a smile touched her mouth and then vanished. “Otherworldly,” she finished. “He would become obsessed with a cause, and then refuse to see the evidence against it. Perhaps that is good for a man of faith. It is not good for a scientist. He should have been a painter, or a dramatist, or something where realities and facts are not as important.”

  Monk did not interrupt her.

  She sighed. “He used to be far more in touch with things, when he was younger. I suppose it’s only in the last five or six years that he’d really lost his way.”

  Monk stared at her. Was she the wise one, the brave one, willing to look at the truth, rather than Dinah, who saw only what she wished to? There was a chill about Amity, but might it be only the armor she wrapped around herself as a shield from the pain of the situation, the fact that there was nothing she could do to help him now that he was gone, and maybe there never had been?

  Amity lowered her gaze. “Most of his life he was very good at his job,” she went on. “He was meticulous. He had a rare kind of integrity. Dinah will have told you that, and she was right. But he became fixed on this idea about opium and he got some of his original facts wrong, and from then on it all went bad. He just piled one error on top of another until there was no way out for him.”

  Her face was bleak, her concentration total, as if she were forcing herself to override all her inner misery and pain to a place where she could hide it, and continue only with the truth that had to be told. That way she could make Monk understand, and then he would leave. She could pick up the remnants of her life again and pretend normality, allow time to heal at least the surface of the wound.

  Still, somehow, Monk did not like her.

  “Errors?” he asked.

  “His last report was a total failure, and the government rejected it,” she answered. “They had no choice. He was just completely mistaken. He took it very hard. He couldn’t believe he was wrong, in spite of the evidence against him. That was why he killed himself. He couldn’t face his colleagues knowing. Poor Joel …”

  “And Mrs. Gadney?” Monk asked more gently.

  Amity shrugged. “I really don’t know for certain, but it isn’t hard to guess. Dinah is a beautiful woman, but demanding in … in her requirements.” She said the word delicately, implying a deeper, more personal meaning. “She left him no room to fail. Perhaps he wished for someone who could be a friend, simply listen to him, and share his interests without the incessant need.”

  Monk thought about what it would be like to feel an unendurable l
oneliness, an emotional exhaustion, as the threat of being a disappointment, of having deceived others and let them down, became bigger, more suffocating with every slip, every error retrieved, and each new lie.

  An ordinary, pleasant-faced prostitute, just as lonely, just as familiar with the taste of failure, would seem like a godsend. It would at last be someone to laugh and cry with, for once without judgment, without expectation of anything except fair payment.

  Would Dinah have even begun to understand that? Probably not. And could she have required other things from him as well, of a physical nature, that he was too tired, anxious, or otherwise unable to provide? Love was a good deal more than a supply of constant praise and belief. Sometimes it was the ease of no expectations, of allowing a person to fail and still loving them the same way.

  He thought back to the times he had failed. He had allowed his resentment of Runcorn, his old superior, to distract his attention from the truth more than once. And there had been other slips. Perhaps the worst was the arrogance that had ultimately led to Jericho Phillips being acquitted the previous year. But Hester had not blamed him or reminded him of it since.

  When he had been most afraid of his own past, the ghosts that his amnesia had concealed but that had haunted him so badly in the early years, she had not called him a coward for fearing them. She had granted the possibility of his guilt in the murder of Joscelyn Gray, but not of surrender without a fight to the very last stand. Certainly it was the kind of love everyone needed in their darkest moments.

  Had Dinah been unable to support Joel Lambourn when the possibility of failure loomed? Was that the reason he had given up?

  Monk rose to his feet and thanked Amity Herne, even though what she had told him was so far from what he had wanted to hear.

  As he returned home Monk thought about what Amity had said. Her view of Lambourn was so different from Dinah’s that he needed some other opinion to balance them in his mind.

  Dinah loved Lambourn profoundly, with a wife’s love, perhaps distorted by a passion she still clearly felt. She was ravaged by the grief of his death and refused to believe it could have been self-inflicted. That was not difficult to understand, particularly since there seemed to have been no anger or despair leading up to his suicide; rather a determination to continue fighting for a cause he believed in deeply.

  Or was that just what Dinah wished to believe-even needed to-in order to keep her own faith in all she cared about, and her ability to continue living and looking after her daughters? That would not be hard to understand.

  Amity Herne had said that Lambourn was older than her. Seven years was a big gap between children. They would have led rather separate lives. He would’ve been caught up in his education and then his professional life. According to Amity, at that time they had lived sufficiently far apart geographically to have no more communication than letters, and therefore had not developed a friendship even then. Only recently had she learned much of his nature as a man.

  Or was that also an emotionally tainted judgment rather than an impartial observation? Did she need to excuse herself from all blame in his suicide by painting him as a fatally flawed man whom she could never have believed in and was never close to?

  Who else could Monk ask? Amity’s husband, Barclay Herne, would be too tied by family bonds to answer freely, even if his opinion were more measured. Who had been in charge of the organization that requested Lambourn’s report? They would have at least a professional opinion as to Lambourn’s judgment, if not his personal life. Monk resolved to speak to them.

  It did not take more than a few inquiries to learn that the government minister concerned was Sinden Bawtry, a gifted and charismatic man fast rising in political circles. He had a vast personal fortune and donated generously to many causes, especially cultural and artistic ones. His collection of fine paintings, and occasional donations of one or the other of them to museums, earned him much admiration.

  But gaining half an hour of his time was less easy. It was late afternoon when Monk was shown into his office. He had had to stretch the truth a little as to the likelihood of Bawtry’s information being able to help solve the murder of the woman on Limehouse Pier. He kicked his heels for three-quarters of an hour in the outer waiting room, growing ever more impatient.

  He was expecting Bawtry to be a middle-aged man of austere disposition. But when he was finally summoned into Bawtry’s office, he was met instead by a man whose vitality seemed to fill the room as he came forward and grasped Monk’s hand.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said warmly. “Some people have no idea how to put things briefly. They think the more words they use the more important you will think their business.” He smiled. “What can I do for you, Mr. Monk? Your message said it is to do with the late Dr. Joel Lambourn, and a possible connection with this appalling murder on Limehouse Pier. You have me puzzled as to what that connection could possibly be.”

  “There may not be any.” Monk decided instantly not to try any deceit with this man, however slight. His handsome head and ready charm did not mask his intelligence or his consciousness of power. “But it appears that Dr. Lambourn knew the murder victim quite well,” he went on. “I have received differing opinions of Dr. Lambourn from those close to him. I need an informed but more impartial view to balance them, particularly regarding the value of his work, and thus possibly his state of mind in the last year or so of his life.”

  “The opium report,” Bawtry said with a slight nod of understanding. “I didn’t know Lambourn personally. But I believe he was an unusually likable man, and affection can distort judgment, no matter how much you intend to be fair.”

  “Exactly,” Monk agreed. He found himself relaxing a little. It was so much easier to deal with intellect unclouded by emotion.

  Bawtry gave a tiny shrug, in a sort of wordless apology.

  “A brilliant man, if a little unworldly,” he continued frankly. “Something of a crusader, and in this case, he allowed his intense pity for the victims of ignorance and desperation to color his overall view of the problem.” He lowered his voice a little. “To be honest, we do need some better control of what is put into medicines that anyone can buy, and certainly more information as to how much opium is in the medicines given to infants.”

  He looked bleak. “But that is one of the main reasons we couldn’t accept Lambourn’s report. Some of his examples were extreme, and based more on anecdote than medical histories. It would have done more harm to the cause than good, because it could so easily have been discredited.”

  He met Monk’s eyes with a steady gaze. “I’m sure you have the same problem preparing a criminal case for the courts. You must offer only the evidence that will stand up to cross-examination, the physical evidence you can produce, the witnesses whom people will believe. Anyone that the defense can destroy may lose you the jury.” He smiled, the question in his gesture. “He was a liability to us. I wish it had been different. He was a decent man.”

  Then all the light vanished from his face. “I was stunned by his suicide. I had no idea he was so close to despair, but I have to believe there was something else far different from the failure of the report behind that. Perhaps something to do with this miserable business in Limehouse with the woman? I hope that isn’t the case-it would be so sordid. But I don’t know. My assessment of him is professional, not personal.”

  “Do you know what happened to the report?” Monk asked. “I would like to see a copy of it.”

  Bawtry looked surprised. “Do you think it can possibly have some bearing on the death of this woman? I find it hard to believe her connection with Lambourn is anything but coincidental.”

  “Probably not,” Monk agreed. “But it would be remiss of me not to follow every lead. Perhaps she knew something? He may have spoken with her, even confided something to her concerning it.”

  Bawtry frowned. “Like what? Do you mean the name of someone concerned with opium and patent medicines?”

 
“It’s possible.”

  “I’ll find out if there is a copy still extant. If there is, I’ll see that you are given access to it.”

  “Thank you.” There was nothing more that Monk could ask, and he had exhausted nearly all the time Bawtry could give him. He was not sure if it was what he had wanted to hear or hoped to discover, but he could not argue with it. It was careful, compassionate, and infinitely reasonable.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly.

  Bawtry’s smile returned. “I hope it is of some use to you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  In the morning Monk went to the office of the coroner who had dealt with Lambourn’s suicide. The findings of the inquest were public record and he had no difficulty in obtaining the papers.

  “Very sad,” the clerk said to him solemnly. He was a young man who took his position gravely. His already receding hair was slicked back over his head and his dark suit was immaculate. “Anyone choosing to end their own life has to make one stop and think.”

  Monk nodded, unable to find any reply worth making. He turned to the medical section of the report. Apparently Lambourn had taken a fairly large dose of opium, then slit his wrists and bled to death. The police surgeon had testified to it succinctly and no one had questioned either his accuracy or his skill. Indeed, there was no reason to.

  The coroner had had no hesitation in passing a verdict of suicide, adding the usual compassion of presuming that the balance of the dead man’s mind had been affected, and therefore he was to be pitied rather than condemned. It was a pious form of words so customary as to be almost without meaning.

  The commiserations were polite but formal. Lambourn had been a man much respected by his colleagues and no one wished to speculate aloud as to what might have been the reasons behind his death. Dinah Lambourn had not been called upon to say anything. The only witness of any personal nature had been his brother-in-law, Barclay Herne, who said that Lambourn had been depressed about the findings of his latest inquiry, and that the government’s inability to accept his recommendations had troubled him rather more than was to be expected. Herne added that he regretted the fact deeply.