Blood on the Water Read online

  CHAPTER

  5

  MONK ATE DINNER IN the comfort of the kitchen, with Hester and Scuff. There was a checked cloth on the table, and the yellow china jug full of flowers on the dresser at the side was so big it hid half of the plates kept there. The back door was open to let in the warmth of the summer evening and the faint smell of earth and cut grass.

  “Why’s it matter so much?” Scuff asked.

  They had been speaking of the new canal at Suez.

  “Because it will take about five thousand miles off the journey from Britain to the Far East,” Hester replied, eager to sharpen his interest in anything connected with schoolwork. She was certain that he had been skipping attendance recently, but nagging him would not help.

  He still looked slightly puzzled.

  She started to explain how hard Britain had fought for mastery of the seas over the previous hundred years. Her narrative was full of terrific naval battles, especially in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, battles such as Copenhagen, the Nile, and finally Trafalgar, and at last she had his full attention.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the front door. Monk looked up in surprise, fearing that it would be one of his men calling on him about some case too urgent to leave until the next day.

  Scuff had finished his dinner. He had not yet lost the habit of eating as fast as he could in case his food were taken, as it had been sometimes in his years living in the docks. He stood up.

  “I’ll get it …” he said willingly, going toward the door before Monk could check him.

  He returned a moment later, closely followed by Runcorn.

  “Sorry,” Runcorn said, more to Hester than to Monk. He stood awkwardly, his height seeming to crowd the room. His eyes went to Monk’s unfinished meal. “I thought you’d want to know, maybe hear all there is, rather than whatever the papers say, which’ll be plenty.”

  Hester stood up, smiling. “Would you like tea, and maybe a piece of cake?”

  Runcorn shook his head, and then changed his mind instantly. “If it’s not a trouble?”

  “None at all,” Hester answered him, ignoring her own plate. “Why don’t you go and sit in the parlor? You’ll be more comfortable. Scuff, you can help me …” It was an order. He obeyed with only one backward glance, his brow puckered with worry.

  Runcorn accepted the suggestion, and followed as Monk stood up and led the way. In the parlor they sat down opposite each other. Monk waited.

  Runcorn shook his head. “You’ll hear tomorrow morning. It’ll be all over the place, and I’m reckoning it’ll be ugly. It seems this Egyptian fellow, Beshara, comes from a pretty important family back at home. To be precise, in the port of Suez, which I gather is small, scruffy, and very busy. But his family is in a way of business, and has quite a lot of money.”

  Monk was skeptical. “Who says so? And if he comes from an important family, why was he working in the London docks? Why did none of this important family come and speak for him during his trial?”

  Runcorn looked tired. He pushed his fingers through his thick, grizzled hair. “He always claimed he wasn’t working at the dockside.” He looked very directly at Monk, a shadow in his eyes. “Actually, the Egyptian embassy said as much, but nobody believed them—or, more accurately, everyone thought they were mistaken.”

  Monk felt the chill of unease touch him. Why had Runcorn come with this now? Was it anything more than what they must have expected, even if a little late? “Several people identified him,” he pointed out. “It didn’t rest on one.”

  Runcorn looked down at the table. “I know …”

  Memories flickered through Monk’s mind, other cases they had worked on together, long ago, people who had been certain of what they had seen—and wrong. Something else stirred in his mind, but eluded him before he could identify it. Something that night on the river.

  “Have you doubts?” he asked gently. If Runcorn had, he would understand. In a couple of days Beshara could be hanged and it would be too late to correct errors then, however obvious in hindsight. Mistakes would be sealed in death, unalterable. Nightmares of error would creep into the dreams of every man, no matter how honest his investigation had been. Monk had woken with the same fear himself, cold sweat on his body at the finality of it. Did jurors feel it too? Or did the company of eleven other “good men and true” relieve the responsibility?

  Runcorn was staring at him again. Whatever he said, the truth of it was in his eyes, but also a bitter humor, surely horribly misplaced.

  “What is it?” Monk asked.

  “They’re not going to hang him,” Runcorn replied. “At least not yet. He’s ill, so the doctors say. Can’t hang a sick man. Got to cure him first. Except I’m not sure there is a cure for that. Instead of hanging him quickly, they’ll let him die slowly.”

  Now Monk understood what he had seen in Runcorn’s eyes.

  Hester came in with the tea on a tray, and several slices of cake.

  Both men thanked her for it, unintentionally speaking at the same time, as she reached the door. She smiled briefly, and went out, leaving them alone.

  Silently, Monk poured both cups of tea and took a slice of the cake.

  Runcorn helped himself to one also. “Actually I do have doubts,” he answered the first question. “At least … I think I do.” He bit into the cake and smiled with satisfaction. He finished the mouthful before he went on. “Eyewitnesses see what they expect to see, and when they’ve said something to the police, unless they’re scared out of it, they tend to stay with whatever it was. And when they’ve said it a dozen times, they’re sure anyway.”

  “I know,” Monk agreed. “And by the time they’ve sworn to it in court, they’re boxed in and can’t change. Do you think they’re all wrong?”

  Runcorn bit his lip. “How much does anyone really remember faces? Especially of people you don’t know? I believe they probably saw someone who was an Egyptian, or similar looking, but how could they know with absolute certainty it was him …”

  “What do you know about Beshara, his background?”

  “He’s a very questionable dealer in artifacts, beyond doubt some of them stolen. Uncertain temper and … different … ideas about what qualifies as customs and excise duty,” Runcorn replied. “Not all cultures see bribery as a crime. To some it’s a way of life, a necessary expense of doing business.”

  “So a man on the edge of the law …”

  “Over the edge,” Runcorn corrected him.

  “That’s still a long way from killing the best part of two hundred people,” Monk pointed out.

  Runcorn sighed and ate another piece of cake. “I know,” he said with his mouth full. “But that isn’t going to change people’s reaction when the news breaks tomorrow that he won’t be hanged. I just want you to be prepared for that.”

  Monk’s own feelings were momentarily lost in pity for Runcorn himself. Monk understood the man’s confusion and sense of futility; even though Monk had been taken off the case almost as soon as he began, he felt the same emotions.

  Had they all allowed intense, almost unbearable shock and emotion to blind their vision? After all, Beshara had never admitted his guilt.

  But then, why would he? Most guilty criminals never did.

  “Did you ever really learn why he blew up the ship?” Monk asked abruptly.

  “No,” Runcorn replied. “The belief is that it was just anger because foreigners were making all the money out of chopping up Egyptian land and digging a canal.”

  “Did you think so?”

  “Actually I assumed he was paid by someone,” Runcorn confessed. “It fits the past patterns we could find; he has done questionable things for money several times. And he had no incentive to say who paid him. I supposed that was for his family’s sake, not his own. Maybe they were even hostages to someone …” He let the idea hang in the air, an ugly, complicated thought, which changed the balance of everything. “He’s sick anyway,” he added.

  M
onk nodded.

  The memory he had half glimpsed was still gnawing at the back of his mind, just beyond his reach.

  “YES,” HESTER ANSWERED MONK’S question when she and Monk were alone in the sitting room an hour later, after Runcorn had gone and Scuff was in bed. “It’s a nasty disease, and there isn’t a lot we can do to help people. Just—care …” She stopped, aware of what she was saying, and where Beshara would be, growing more and more ill, and eventually dying. She lifted her chin a little. “Perhaps it would show more mercy if they did hang him,” she conceded, her face pale. “But I know that isn’t the way they do it. I am sorry for him, but I feel more pity is for the families who lost the people they loved in the river that night. I can only imagine how I would feel if you were dead.” She stared at him defensively, daring him to argue with her.

  “I’m alive and well,” he answered gently. Then he looked at her more closely, seeing the stiffness in her shoulders, the way she carried her head. “I wasn’t in any danger,” he added.

  “I know! I …” She stopped, her voice choked in gathering tears. “Oh damn!” she swore, completely uncharacteristically.

  He put his arms around her and held her tightly. He knew acutely the tide of fear and gratitude that had overwhelmed her. Life was so precious, loss so rending, that there were moments when the passion of it slipped beyond control. He wanted to find something to say, but what he felt was too enormous for words at all. In the end all he said was, “I love you,” and then felt her arms tighten around him in answer.

  THE NEXT MORNING MONK was returning from an early check on a missing cargo of hides. Since it was now midsummer, it had long been daylight. He walked down from the Licensed Victuallers’ Dock to the Dog and Duck Stairs, keeping his eye out for a ferry to take him back upriver, and to the north bank again. He reached the top of the steps with still nothing in sight.

  He had been there only a couple of minutes when he saw Hooper coming along from the other direction.

  “Morning, sir,” Hooper said cheerfully.

  “Morning,” Monk replied. “Going over the river?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hooper shaded his eyes and scanned the water for sign of a ferry. Then, seeing one, he raised his arm. “What do you make of the news, sir?” he asked.

  Monk had no doubt that he was referring to Beshara’s stay of execution.

  “Surprised,” he answered. “I thought they would have kept quiet about the illness and just got on with it.”

  Hooper’s face was grim. “It’s not over yet, sir. They should’ve left it with us. Got ’emselves in a right mess now.”

  Monk looked at him, studying his face in the bright morning light. He saw resigned anger in it. Hooper was a man he had learned to respect since he had joined the River Police.

  “An inevitable mess?” he asked. “Or would we have done better?”

  Hooper smiled—a surprisingly gentle expression. “Maybe not, but our mistakes would ’ave been different. We know the water, and the watermen. We’d ’ave known who’d be out in the river, an’ who wouldn’t, who’s scared of wot, and who owes.”

  “Do you think they’re wrong?” Monk asked.

  “They went about it wrong,” Hooper replied. “They asked the questions as would get them the answers they wanted. Not lies so much as truths shaved to fit. We’d ’ave known that.”

  “Is that all that is bothering you?” Monk asked.

  “No,” Hooper answered firmly. “You work the streets, you work the river. You know the people. You know when something don’t smell right, even if you don’t know why. This don’t smell right.” He looked straight at Monk, prepared to defend himself.

  “Do you think it was Beshara?” Monk asked.

  “Could be, could be not. Too much hurry. He fits well enough, least if you don’t look too close, too long. Everyone wanted it over with.”

  “You think they made mistakes?” Monk pressed.

  Hooper nodded. “Maybe they got the right man. I’m not saying they didn’t. Just they didn’t get ’im the right way. That’s the trouble with real bad crimes—people look at it an’ don’t see straight.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of feeling about not hanging Beshara after all,” Monk said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard some of it already, and it’s early yet.”

  Hooper smiled. “There’ll be a lot more.” He shook his head. “We in’t more than halfway through this yet.”

  The ferry bumped gently at the bottom of the steps and Monk straightened up and started to go down to it, Hooper on his heels. He did not answer, but he knew Hooper was right.

  WHEN MONK WENT INTO the police station at Wapping there was a sudden silence. Half a dozen men stared at him, waiting for his reaction. He had expected that.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “Any word on the brandy smuggling in Bugsby’s Marshes? Mr. Orme?”

  “Yes, sir,” Orme answered gravely. “All dealt with, sir. Quiet day, by the look of it. Except that everyone’s hopping mad about that Egyptian. Bit of smashing up of property owned by foreigners, that kind of thing. And of course everybody’s jumpy about it happening again. Pleasure boats losing custom. Should’ve ’anged him when we had the chance. Like before arresting him!”

  “We didn’t arrest him,” Monk pointed out bleakly. “The regular police did.”

  Orme pulled a face of disgust. “Yes, sir. That’s what they’re complaining about. Walpole, that old tosher down the King’s Arms Stairs, says he was never asked anything, an’ he doesn’t miss a trick. They took the word o’ Nifty Pete instead, skinny little toad, an’ he wouldn’t tell you straight what day it was.” His face was dark with disgust. “He’d tell you it was the prime minister who did it, for a ham sandwich an’ a cup o’ tea. If that was what you wanted to hear.”

  “Do you think it wasn’t Beshara?”

  Orme shook his head. “No idea, sir. I’ve got to go and see about that boat that Huggins says was stolen.” He said it politely, but his anger made his voice cold, and as he walked away his body was stiff; there was no ease to his gait.

  Hester had given Monk a list of the witnesses who had been called, and he studied it that evening for the first time. Perhaps it was foolish of him, since the case was closed. There was no evidence to be added. But for his own peace of mind, he went through it, along with the lists and statements of all the witnesses the police had questioned. He compared their evidence with what he knew of them, and thought about whom he would have asked for the same judgments and observations.

  It carried him over into the following day, when the anger at Beshara’s escape from the rope had grown more intense. The newspapers were full of it. He saw posters on walls demanding justice, even slurs daubed in paint, ugly and uneven and filled with rage.

  It was nothing to do with him, or with anyone in the Thames River Police, and yet he felt a sense of responsibility, as if he had failed.

  As the day wore on, it nagged at the back of his mind. Lydiate was a good man—in all probability an honest one—but investigation needed more than that. It needed knowledge of the area, of the people, and it needed luck. It usually required more time than this also—and that, Lydiate had been denied.

  Monk had occasion to be on the dockside where one of the witnesses, a man named Field, had been working at the time he claimed to have seen Beshara. He mentioned it to Landry, a squat, heavily built man whose back was bent from years of lifting heavy sacks and barrels.

  “Did you see Beshara?” Monk asked with interest, wondering why Lydiate had chosen to question Field instead. He was far less respected and given to invention.

  Landry shook his head, squinting sideways at Monk. “You try carryin’ a few o’ them sacks, an’ see if yer’ve got time ter see yer own mother walking past yer, never mind some foreign feller wi’ a box o’ fancy food up ter ’is face.”

  Monk pictured it in his mind. “So Field was lying?” he said bluntly.

  “ ’E were sayin’ wot they wanted ’im te
r say,” Landry snapped back. “If yer ask the question the right way, yer get the right answer, don’t yer? ‘Yer din’t see this man, did yer?’ ‘No sir, I didn’t.’ ‘D’yer think you might ’ave seen this one?’ ‘Yeah. I might ’ave.’ ” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Field weren’t lyin’, ’e were bein’ ’elpful. We all want ter catch the bastard wot sank the Princess Mary an’ all them people! I wouldn’t ’ang the swine. I’d drown ’im, slow! Down a bit—up a bit. Know wot I mean?”

  “Yes,” Monk agreed with feeling. “I saw it happen.”

  “I know yer did! So why’d they take the case from yer? That’s wot I’d like ter know.”

  “Politics, I dare say,” Monk replied, then realized he would be most unwise to continue the conversation. “Thanks, Landry.”

  Landry shook his head and went back to work.

  Monk continued on his current robbery investigation. He was trying to trace the passage of the goods both before they were stolen, and then afterward, and that involved speaking to several stevedores, bargees, and ferrymen—some of who had given evidence at the trial. He could not help asking them a few questions about what they had seen.

  He soon realized that each time they had told their stories to others the words had been exactly the same. They were remembering not what had happened, but what they had said about it.

  “Did you see the Egyptian?” he said casually to a lighterman called Bartlett, who hadn’t been questioned extensively or called to the witness stand. “You were there, weren’t you?”

  Bartlett looked at him narrowly.

  “I’m not looking for evidence,” Monk said. “It’s all over. Doesn’t matter now.”

  “It’s not bleedin’ well all over,” Bartlett snarled back at him, swaying slightly as he kept his balance on the stern of his barge. “Damn Egyptian’s still alive! An’ goin’ ter stay that way, looks like.”

  “You saw him?” Monk said quickly.

  “Saw him? How the hell do I know? I watch wot I’m doin’, not a couple o’ dozen Egyptians, lascars, Levantines, Africans, or ’oo ever comes an’ goes. This is London, mate. The ’ole world’s got its business ’ere, one time or another. You think I’ve got time ter sit ’ere an’ watch ’em?”