Dark Tide Rising Page 8

  Hooper closed the front door.

  Celia went into the parlor and sank into one of the chairs.

  “Kitchen?” he asked.

  She looked up at him, puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ll find it,” he replied, and turned away. Poor woman. She looked devastated. Was it for Exeter, or Kate, or because she had lost perhaps the only family and the best friend she had?

  He found the kitchen quite easily, and there was a teapot on the table. He pulled the kettle over onto the hob and made sure there was water in it. He had lived alone all his adult life and was used to such things. Like many men in the Merchant Navy, he could cook a little, sew, and generally look after himself.

  Ten minutes later he carried the tray of tea into the parlor. His intention had served not only to bring her tea, but to give her a little time to compose herself. She sat upright now, her hands folded in her lap and her face so white she looked as if there were no blood in her.

  “Mr. Hooper, will you tell me what happened, please? Was Mr. Exeter hurt? I don’t think I want the details. He may not find me of any use at all, but I must be aware. Kate would have wished it.”

  Her choice of words gave away perhaps more than she thought.

  He poured the tea and passed her a cup, offering the milk jug at the same time. She poured in milk, then took the cup and set it down on the table between them, her hands shaking a little.

  “We did exactly as we were told,” he began. He would tell her the truth but without the details. “At Jacob’s Island, which is a terrible place, full of old houses settling into the mud and passageways so old and so rotten that portions are under the high-water mark. We followed their directions. Mr. Monk and Mr. Exeter went ahead with a case full of money.”

  She blinked. “Just the two of them?”

  “That was the instruction. The rest of us stayed well back, in the various passages. We were all attacked, as if they knew where we were.” He wanted to be careful not to give details that would distress her even more. He hurried on. “No one was badly injured. Just bruised and filthy. Then Mr. Exeter completed the last bit alone, as he had been instructed. They attacked him, too, and took the money.” How could he say this so it would be the truth, but not as brutal as it had been? It should have been someone she knew who told her, someone she loved and trusted, someone who could hold her in his arms and let her weep.

  She was waiting, watching him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “They killed her anyway.”

  She sat motionless, staring at him.

  “Perhaps Mr. Exeter’s trying to think how to tell you, a gentler way…”

  She blinked and the tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Would you like me to leave you?” he asked awkwardly.

  “If you would prefer.”

  “I wouldn’t! I…I just thought you might…you don’t know me,” he said awkwardly.

  She made a visible effort to regain her self-control. She reached for her tea and found it unexpectedly cool enough to sip. She looked at him questioningly.

  “I made it with boiling water,” he answered. “I just put a drop of cold in afterward.”

  “Oh. Thank you. Tea should always be made with water on the boil.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Did she suffer?”

  “No,” he lied.

  “It must have been very quick. Thank you.” She sipped the tea again. “I know that may not be the truth, but I would prefer to accept it. And I will find it easier now, when Mr. Exeter chooses to come and tell me.”

  “Surely he will? When he has composed himself. He was desperately upset.”

  “Of course.” There was little emotion in her voice, or her face. Perhaps she was controlling her own feelings too tightly. Or maybe she felt something for Harry Exeter that was not appropriate at this time of bereavement.

  “Or he may write,” she went on. “Sometimes writing is easier. You can read it over and over, to make sure it is what you really want to say. And of course you don’t have to be present when it is read.”

  “You don’t care for him very much, do you?” Hooper asked bluntly.

  “How careless of me to have made it so obvious. I shall miss Kate all the rest of my life. She was the sister I did not have.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Time may heal the wound, at least on the outside, if not deeper. But even on the outside, the scar doesn’t always go.”

  She smiled. “One sees such wounds in the eyes, and hears them in the silences, don’t you think?”

  He did not answer. She had seen them in his eyes, or he chose to think she had. He sipped his tea instead. There were lots of questions he wanted to ask her, and a good detective would have found a way. He did not want to. It seemed intrusive, not what he wished to be here for. But he must at least try.

  “If I ask Mr. Exeter, in time, if he has any enemies who might have done this for some kind of revenge, do you think he would tell me anything helpful? I hate to disturb him so soon, but we must catch these people, if there is any way.”

  She looked surprised. “You think it was personal?”

  “It’s possible. He isn’t the only wealthy man in London.”

  She considered it for several moments. “It would be about money, I expect, and land. He’s developing a big area somewhere on the south bank, I think. People can be jealous.”

  “I’ll look into it. What about Kate? Was there anyone who envied him because of her?”

  “Possibly. But how could anyone who loved her have killed her?” She drew in her breath quickly. “Oh, you don’t mean love, do you? You mean a kind of possession. ‘My wife is more beautiful, more dazzling than yours.’ Like owning a fine horse, an Arabian instead of a plain pony. I don’t know. She never mentioned anyone else…in that way. I think…” She did not finish.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I think she was very lonely,” she finished quietly.

  The back door closed with a sharp click and there were quick footsteps along the passage. Next moment, the maid knocked and then put her head around the door. “Oh, miss, are you all right?”

  Hooper rose to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Darwin, I’m sorry I had to come with such news.” He looked at the maid to make sure she understood that there was a tragedy. “And thank you for the tea.”

  Celia met his eyes for a moment and he was satisfied.

  “Not at all, Mr. Hooper,” Celia said. “I think it is not so hard this way. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  MONK WENT HOME IN the mid-afternoon after spending the morning with the Metropolitan Police, learning what he could elicit about other kidnappings. The lights were on at the house in Paradise Place, which meant that Hester was at home. Whether he told her about the case or not, the sense of isolation, and above all of futility, would be eased a little by her presence.

  She must have heard the door, maybe even been half listening for it, because she came from the kitchen immediately. She was not wearing an apron. Perhaps she had been working on the clinic papers, as she often did, spreading them all over the kitchen table.

  She did not ask how he was. Instead, she looked at him gravely, at his clothes, the angles and the lack of energy in his body, then straight at his face. She understood, and made no comment on it.

  “You have to go out again…”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t they do it alone?”

  “Yes. I’m not going because they need me…”

  “Loyalty?” she asked.

  “No.” He followed her down the hall into the kitchen and sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs while she cleared her papers away. “It’s not out of loyalty. In fact, rather the opposite.” It was hard to say, even to her, who uniquely understood duty and the import
ance of trust. And yet it would be a relief to tell her; he knew that, too.

  She was waiting, seeing the struggle in him.

  “Hester, one of them betrayed us, and Kate Exeter was slashed to death. He is one of us, and yet that divides him from us forever. The kidnappers know he can be made to do that! They own him—he knows that and so do they. How can I not know who it is? Yet I don’t even sense it.”

  “Because you’re not looking for it,” she answered. “You have to take most of what you know about people at face value. They trust you. Whether they like you or not, they know you are brave, honest to a fault.” She smiled very slightly. “Short-tempered and precise. But that you’d be loyal to them and to the job, whatever it costs. I know other things about you.” Her face softened and her eyes were tender. “Things they’ll never know: things you dream about, things that recall moments of pain, and happiness, things you regret, and things you’ll always remember. They’ll never know those things about you, nor will you know those things about them.”

  He found himself coloring faintly, but it was from pleasure. He had trusted her with everything of himself, even if he had not entirely meant to.

  “I need to know them better,” he said aloud. “One of them is carrying an intolerable burden. After what happened to Kate, the guilt must be like an open blade inside him. What can’t I see?”

  Her face tightened. “Be careful, William. Whoever it is has already gone far past the point of returning! He’ll—”

  “I know,” he said quickly. “I’ll be careful.”

  She watched him silently for a few seconds, then turned and paid attention to getting his food.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN MONK LEFT, HESTER stood alone for several minutes absorbing the emotions that almost overwhelmed her. She had been careful not to show how deeply she felt his pain while he was still there.

  Perhaps he thought he was concealing it. For all their intimacy on so many levels—the laughter, the pain, the tenderness, even the need—he was still a proud man, and in some areas, very private. He still did not trust anyone, even her, with the raw edges of his own doubt, the pain that hurt him more than he could bear with grace.

  She had seen it in his face, even if he thought he was hiding it. She could feel the urge inside herself to protect him, but she had no idea how. If any one of them, especially Hooper, had betrayed them inadvertently, or was placed under some unbearable pressure, it would destroy something inside Monk that he did not know how to repair.

  There must be something she could do! Arguments of words, all the tenderness of touch, would not heal him. They might show him how much she loved him, how deeply she felt his pain, but that was not enough. It was putting a bandage on the wound. And wounds of the heart sometimes needed scouring of the infected part, just as those of the flesh needed removal of the bullet or broken knife tip.

  She decided to go tell Scuff—Will now. She need not tell Monk she was doing so; he still thought of Will as a child, to be protected from certain realities. She knew better. He was learning to be a doctor. If he was going to follow in the footsteps of the duties she had learned in the army, he would have to face the rigors of amputation and other invasive surgeries. They always hurt. Sometimes the patient died from the shock to the body, but they would otherwise die for certain from their untreated wounds.

  Will would understand the need for the truth, whatever it turned out to be.

  Hester put on her coat and left the house immediately. She walked down the hill to the Greenwich ferry and took the first boat across. She did not know where Will would be, but she knew where to begin looking. The place to start was always at the free clinic run by Crow, the onetime street doctor, skilled but unqualified, whom she had known for years. She had finally persuaded him to take his exams. Terrified, he had done so and passed. Not perhaps with the highest of marks, but enough to qualify, and to do the work to which he had dedicated his life, and at which he had abilities that could not be quantified on paper.

  He had now agreed to teach Will, in a practical way, all he could. He understood Will’s dream to be a doctor and the limits of his schooling, which made it difficult to gain a place in a university. So far, it was working very well. When it was time to take surgery to a higher level, they would have to think again.

  She reached Crow’s clinic and found him in. As usual, he was delighted to see her and flashed his luminous smile. And as usual he was dressed all in black and busy with patients. Nevertheless, he stopped long enough to tell her that Will would be back in ten or fifteen minutes.

  “Can I help?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s bad?” It was half a question, half a judgment made from her expression. He had always been able to read her emotions. It was part of his nature, and a large part of his skill.

  She did not evade the truth. “I want to borrow Will for…maybe a day or two. It’s…”

  “The kidnapping,” Crow finished for her. “If he could help, he’d be no use to me or to anyone if I tried to stop him. If I can do anything, you’ll tell me?” That really was a question.

  “Yes,” she said immediately. She did not know whether she would or not, but it would hurt him deeply if she said no.

  Will came in shortly after that, and one glance at her face was enough to alarm him. He hardly resembled the eleven-year-old mudlark they had first met. He was now twenty and several inches taller than Hester. He was confident, filled out, and strong. But she could still see the vulnerable, street-smart survivor in him, the child nobody wanted, who had found Monk when he was new to the riverbank.

  “What is it?” Will demanded immediately. He looked anxiously at Hester.

  They were alone in one of the rooms in which Crow kept stores. They would not be interrupted. Briefly she told him what had happened, and why it mattered so much.

  He stood perfectly still. He was used to dealing with sickness and injury, being cold, hungry, alone, but being in a close group, apart from Monk and Hester, was new to him. Disillusion and betrayal were things he had not had to face before. When you trust no one and believe in nothing, you are vulnerable to anything, and yet in some ways also to nothing. He was still learning what it was to belong irrevocably, not to be able to walk away because the ties are too deep, too woven into who you are, who you want and need to be, where all that is comfortable and precious resides.

  “Well, it couldn’t be Hooper.” He made it a statement, but his eyes pleaded for her to assure him of that.

  Should she? She had never lied to him, even in the hardest of times.

  “We’ve got to prove that it isn’t.” She chose her words carefully. She had first known Will when he was a slender-necked, narrow-shouldered little boy, but fully independent, trusting no one, and with a deep suspicion of all women. His own mother had turned him out for the new man in her life, who protected her and the younger children. It had taken Scuff a long time to allow himself to care for Hester. He had loved Monk easily, because he had been able to teach Monk much about the river he had known since birth.

  And yet it was Hester’s career he had chosen to follow, not Monk’s.

  “And the others, too,” Hester went on. “I’ll check on Hooper. Will you look at Bathurst for me? And when we know about them, we can tell William.”

  Will nodded. “Tell me all you know about Bathurst. I know people. I can find out.”

  “Thank you. And…”

  “What?”

  “Be careful. It was a terrible thing they did to…”

  His face looked pinched. The secure, loved young man disappeared and the frightened child, trying so hard to prove he needed no one, yet so desperately wanting someone, was clear in his eyes. “I will,” he said firmly. “Don’t worry.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN MONK LEFT HESTER at home, he returned to Wapping and found
Hooper and the rest of the men waiting for him, prepared to go catch the group of men who had successfully carried out two warehouse robberies and escaped both times. The River Police could not afford to let them slip away again.

  “Ready?” Monk asked quietly.

  Hooper looked at him steadily. “They’re as ready as they’re going to be. None of their families is missing, but you can’t escape the fact that someone told the kidnappers which way we were coming in.”

  Ten minutes later, they were in the boats and pulling away from the Wapping steps. The wind was cold and the tide was well past low water and coming in fast. It would be a hard pull on the oars against the current. Monk threw his weight into it.

  He wondered if he should try to say anything to the men to build spirit. He was in a boat with Walcott and Marbury. Hooper, Laker, and Bathurst were in the other, just a few yards away, their black bows cutting across the silver dappled water. The moon was higher now, and there were very few clouds; not the best night to catch people off guard. To anyone used to the river, they looked like exactly what they were: a police river boat, two rowing, a third man in the stern. No ferry rowed in that arrangement, and they had no platform on which to carry cargo. They were obviously moving swiftly, and with purpose.

  For several minutes they rowed in silence, except for the creak of the rowlocks and the swish of the water. Careful planning had gone into the raid, and everything indicated they would be successful. And yet since the kidnapping, they no longer trusted each other. Monk could feel it in each of them. They pulled the oars steadily against the weight of water, against the incoming tide, but with anger rather than exhilaration.

  Monk could see that in the set of Marbury’s shoulders, and on Walcott’s face, toward the bow. He avoided Monk’s gaze. They were all anticipating the same thing, working toward it, but separately. He knew their skills, certainly, and there were many. Their weaknesses were few, but he was mindful of them. For example, Laker sometimes thought he knew far more than he did. He was irreverent, but it hid the fact that he really did have considerable respect for both Monk and Hooper; he just didn’t want them to know it.