Blood on the Water Page 9

  Monk thanked him and walked away, turning his words over and over. A man passed by him carrying a load. Monk looked at him, but knew he would not have remembered his face a moment later, or differentiated him from the next man ten seconds after that.

  Was any of the evidence that had been given worth a conviction? A man’s life?

  There was a frustrating lack of factual evidence here, of details that could be examined as many times as needed and were the same to everyone who looked at them later. Not memories. Not things affected by emotion, by loss and the need to settle on some truth and move on.

  And he still hadn’t been able to recall that fleeting memory from the night of the explosion, which bothered him. Every time he thought he had it, it was replaced by the horror of the ship exploding and then the bodies thrashing around in the water. He had woken in the night with his muscles clenched, his throat aching almost intolerably with the strain of shouting, and trying to be heard above the noise of the rushing water and the oars, the cries of the drowning. And then he was awake, and the silence was worse. The only thing that made it bearable was being able to reach out and touch Hester beside him, move closer to her, feel her breathing and the warmth of her body.

  How often had she been awake already, disturbed by him but pretending not to be? Sometimes she had moved and her hand had found his. He had held on to her until he went to sleep again. There was nothing to say. No words were needed.

  AT THE END OF the week, Orme came in pale-faced, his usual brisk color faded. He looked tired, even though it was not yet eight in the morning.

  “Found another body, way down Greenwich Reach,” he said quietly. “Just a girl, less than seventeen, by the looks of ’er. Just started ’er life.” He stopped abruptly and shoved the side office door open hard so it banged into the wall to the side of it.

  Hooper was standing at the entrance, the sounds of the river drifting behind him, and the warm, dusty salt air off the dock.

  “Feelings are running high,” he said, coming in and closing off the sounds. “Thought we had ’em all, an’ now she turns up. Must’ve been snagged on some wreckage, or she’d have turned up days ago. Papers’ll make it worse.”

  “There’s bound to be more bodies for a while,” Monk replied as levelly as he could, but his voice grated as if his throat were tight. “Even if they’re as far off as Gravesend. I suppose it’s just harder when it’s someone so young.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” Hooper walked slowly across the floor. He had a very slight swagger, as a man might have who had grown up at sea. “Comes the same day as they’ve officially commuted Beshara’s sentence to life in prison.”

  Monk jerked his head up, staring at Hooper to see if he was serious, although he was not a man known for an irresponsible sense of humor. He saw nothing in his face but a brooding anger.

  Around the room other men shifted position, muttering half-swallowed words of fury or disgust. There were several blasphemies that Monk did not often hear from them. He felt they had a right to feel doubly betrayed, first with the loss of the case, now with the commuting of the sentence.

  “What are you going to do, sir?” one of them asked, looking at Monk.

  Monk realized that they were all looking at him, even Hooper. He had no idea what answer he could give that made any sense. The case was finished. He had never had the power to do anything, from the moment they had taken the case from him. But to say so was to make himself helpless, a figure of submission, a follower.

  But did he want to lead what amounted to a mutiny, in effect if not in law? He felt the rage swell inside himself, fueled by his own knowledge of what it was like to be cornered and weaponless.

  It was Hooper who saved him from an immediate answer.

  “They’d ’ave been better to leave the case with us,” he remarked, leaning against one of the desks. “We’d ’ave solved it so the whole world would ’ave known he was guilty, an’ no one who valued their own skin would ’ave gone back on the sentence. Or maybe we could ’ave managed to let ’im drown as we were bringing ’im in. Dangerous places, rivers …” He let the suggestion linger in the still air of the room.

  Before the commuting of the sentence Monk might have argued. But who could have foreseen that? Like everyone else, he had believed that the death sentence was final.

  The men were waiting for his reaction. He knew their trust in him depended on his response, not only for the next few days, but in the weeks and years to come. All sorts of ideas raced through his mind. He knew of no one on whom to model himself! He was alone, and the seconds were ticking by. If he did not answer he would be effectively abdicating his leadership, and he would never get it back again.

  He took the plunge.

  “I know a politician called Quither is saying that it’s mercy to do with his illness and Lord Ossett is saying more discreetly that there are diplomatic reasons also, to do with Suez and the canal. And I expect the Egyptian embassy has had something to say.”

  They stared at him, no one speaking or moving.

  “I think they made a mess of the case,” Monk went on. “I’ve been up and down the docks in the last week. Spoken to a few people, listened to a lot. We all have. We know the Metropolitan Police didn’t do it as we would have done. They took people’s word we’d have known better than to trust. I think they’ve got cold feet now that they might have the wrong man—or at best that they haven’t proved it’s the right one. Once he’s hanged, they can’t go back on it.”

  One of the men vented his opinion in unrepeatable language. Several others growled agreement.

  Hooper straightened up and watched, his eyes moving from them to Monk, and back again.

  “If anybody’s going to put it right, it’s us,” Monk went on recklessly. “But carefully. It may take a long time, because we’ve no authority. A court’s found Beshara guilty, and it could be right. If we find real proof of that, the kind that we know is right, then we’ll make it public, and see what happens.”

  He looked around them slowly, catching each man’s eyes. “But one stupid mistake, one word out of turn, and we’ll be finished; our whole case will be shot full of holes like a sinking ship. Got that? If we don’t want to wind up on the bottom in the Thames mud, like the Princess Mary, then we’ve got to be careful, clever, and lucky.”

  He gave a bitter smile. “My wife’s a nurse; she was with Miss Nightingale in the Crimea. She says Beshara will die of his illness, and it’ll be slower and crueler than a rope and a quick drop. Now let’s turn our attention to the missing brandy from Mills & Sons.”

  Hooper stood up. One by one the other men picked up what they had been doing and resumed work.

  Monk waited a moment. His hand was still clenched, and he knew he was not yet ready to hold a pen and write anything legible. He had put his career on the line, his credibility as a leader of men, and all that it meant to him. More than he wanted it to, more than in the past when he had been a loner, not caring what anyone else thought or believed. He had not respected his seniors, nor really cared whether his juniors respected him. In fact they had feared him, and—before the accident that had erased his memory—that had been sufficient.

  How much he had changed! It was not sufficient now, not to him, and not to the man he wanted to be.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING WAS Saturday and Monk was free to take a whole weekend off. It was a mixed blessing. At any other time he would have been totally happy, looking forward to a day with Hester and Scuff. However, the morning papers were full of the reprieve for Beshara, and wild speculation as to the reason for it. Various political motives were mentioned and also a few far uglier financial ones. The words “bribery” and “corruption” were used.

  Monk saw Scuff staring at it and knew Scuff now could read the article without difficulty.

  “Why’d they change their minds?” Scuff asked, looking across the breakfast table at Monk. The question was simple and he wanted a simple answer. “He blew up the boat, didn’t
he?” His eyes lowered again to look at the portrait of the girl in white that had been printed. She had been the daughter of an important man, one with enough wealth and influence to have had her photographed. It was a real person who stared back at him from the page, not an artist’s impression. She was individual, with a life and a name, a mole high on her left cheek, and a shy, slightly crooked smile, as if she understood a joke and would have shared it with you.

  This moment it was Scuff whom Monk had to answer to. There was no question in his mind that he must not lie, but how much truth should he tell him? How much was helpful, how much a burden it was unfair to place on him?

  If he looked at Hester, he would seem to be asking her to lead. That was not what he wanted to do.

  “They’re saying that it is because he’s ill,” he replied, judging his words carefully, even though his voice was rough-edged with emotion, and Scuff would hear that, too. “We don’t execute people when they’re ill.”

  Scuff blinked. “Why not? If they’re going to be dead anyway, what difference does it make?”

  “I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “I don’t think that’s the real reason, anyway. Apparently his family is important in Egypt, near where they’re making the canal.”

  “Why does that make it all right?” Scuff asked.

  “It doesn’t,” Monk said. “It makes it expedient.” He looked at Scuff’s confusion. “It is the convenient thing for them to do for their own purposes,” he explained.

  Scuff’s contempt was plain in his expression.

  Instantly Monk regretted his choice of words. If he showed no respect at all for the men who governed the country, how could he expect Scuff to respect authority either? He had made a mistake.

  “I’m sorry,” he said grimly. “I’m so upset about all the dead people it makes me angry. I think they should have done better with Beshara’s trial, but I don’t know why they decided to let him live. Maybe they know something about it that we don’t.”

  Scuff bit his lip. “Like what? Didn’t he do it, then?”

  Monk hesitated. “I wasn’t on the case. I really don’t know. It is possible he didn’t …”

  Hester spoke for the first time. She looked far calmer than Monk felt.

  “If you think about it,” she said quietly, “it doesn’t seem likely he did it all by himself. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible. But he refused to mention anybody else. If they hang him, he’ll never tell them who else was with him.”

  “I see!” Scuff said quickly. “An’ if he’s alone an’ sick, they could get him to tell them.”

  Hester looked uncertain.

  Monk bit back the ghost of a smile.

  “Possibly,” Hester conceded. “At least that’s what they might think.”

  “So then we can hang all of them,” Scuff concluded.

  “Well, at least we could catch all of them,” she amended. “We really don’t want them going free, if we can prevent it.”

  Scuff looked satisfied. “You going to help?” he asked Monk.

  It was time for certainty. “Yes.”

  “They let yer?” Scuff said with doubt.

  This time Monk smiled properly. “I wasn’t intending to ask.”

  Scuff grinned back and went on with his breakfast.

  When he left the table to get ready for the day, Monk looked at Hester.

  “You don’t look as angry as I feel. How do you manage it? Do you really have some kind of pity for them? I mean the politicians who wriggle and twist as the wind turns?”

  “You know me better than that,” she replied, putting the used plates on top of each other. “I’ve seen too many battlefields to feel the same raw shock that you do, that’s all. It doesn’t hurt any less, just differently. I’ve learned to keep my powder dry …”

  “Gunpowder?” he said with a twist of his mouth. “Do we have any?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody’s given a real reason yet for Beshara, or anyone else, to have blown up the Princess Mary, have they?”

  “No. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Unless there’s something about Beshara or his family that we don’t know about.”

  “Could we have cheated them out of something, or vice versa?” she asked very quietly. “Land, for example?”

  He had thought of that and hoped it was not so. Of course, there were vast shipping companies whose fortunes were built on Britain’s dominance of the seas. With a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea that power would largely disappear.

  “Paid by someone to do it? Or someone paid to make it look like he did it?” he said, hating the words.

  “It could be … William, please …” She did not finish.

  “I know,” he said very quietly. “Don’t tell Scuff.”

  “He has enough trouble with authority,” she agreed. “All his natural instincts are to deny it. Don’t add to that. He needs to stay in school. If he rebels now he’ll lose all he’s gained so far. He’ll close so many doors that won’t open for him again.”

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

  “Is Beshara guilty?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not happy with the evidence. The whole investigation was too quick, too pressured. I’m not blaming Lydiate for that, but his men don’t know the river the way we do. I’ve found some oddities, but I don’t know if they make any real difference.”

  “Enough for a retrial?”

  “No. Just for a lot of doubt and ugliness.”

  She looked even more worried. “People are talking about riots to force them to hang him. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’re so angry that doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I know. Please … you be careful …” He did not know how to say what he wanted. He felt a nameless fear, a darkness just beyond grasping.

  IT WAS RUNCORN WHO told him the following day that Habib Beshara had been attacked in prison and was now in a critical condition.

  Monk was stunned. “Attacked?” he repeated, as if saying the word again would explain it. He stared at Runcorn standing in the Greenwich dockside in the sun, the busy river bright behind him, endlessly moving. “Who? Were they moving him, or something? Why?”

  Runcorn looked unhappy and just as confused. “No. He was safe in prison. At least he was supposed to be safe. Fortridge-Smith isn’t saying a damn thing!”

  “Prison governor?” Monk assumed. “Who did it? Someone lashing out because they decided not to hang him? Someone who lost a relative in the Princess Mary?” It was a natural assumption.

  “Nobody’s saying anything,” Runcorn stared across the choppy water. “It’s a bloody mess! Could be revenge, outrage, or sheer temper. Or it could be an old score to settle over something else. Beshara’s been here on and off for several years. He’s probably made a few enemies even before the Princess Mary.”

  “Or it could be to make sure he keeps silent about whoever else was involved in the sinking,” Monk said quietly.

  Runcorn turned to face him, his eyes narrowed against the light off the water. “Yes, it could,” he agreed. “I’ve heard that the Chinese have a saying, something like: ‘Before you go looking for revenge, you had better dig two graves.’ ”

  “Very wise people,” Monk agreed. “Except this time I don’t think we are looking at just two.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  “I WASNAE THERE!” MCFEE complained bitterly, glaring at Monk. “That’s down river o’ me, you daft …” He bit his tongue. Whatever his thoughts on the mental inadequacies of the River Police, it was not wise to antagonize them. “The tide was going out … sir.”

  Monk ignored Orme’s flash of irritation, and affected interest. They were standing on the steps at Charlton Wharf, just short of Woolwich Reach. They had caught the whip-thin Scotsman with a couple of kegs of single malt whisky, and no papers to explain them. They looked extraordinarily like part of a shipment that was missing from a warehouse a mile and a half farther up the
river.

  Orme waited.

  “I know what you’re thinkin’,” McFee began again. “They barrels was like this, but I got this one from Old Wilkin at Bugsby’s Marshes, right legal. An’ I can prove it! Ask Jimmy Kent. He was with me.”

  “When was that?” Monk said quickly. Jimmy Kent had only recently gone into the Coldbath Fields Prison for a short stretch.

  “Ha! You think I cannae count, eh?” McFee said triumphantly. “I know exactly what day that was, ’cos the Princess Mary got sunk that night—see!”

  “And Jimmy Kent was with you when you bought those?” Monk asked.

  “That’s right!” McFee nodded vigorously. “Up at Blackfriars.” His lips thinned in a crooked smile. “And you know where to find that poor sod!”

  “I do indeed,” Monk nodded. “But he wasn’t at Blackfriars on the evening before the Princess Mary sunk. You picked the wrong man—or the wrong night, McFee. He swore in court that he was at the Surrey Docks. He was one of the witnesses who saw Habib Beshara coming ashore before the Princess Mary went down.”

  McFee paled but he did not retreat.

  “Then he’s a liar! I was there! You ask …” He looked from Monk to Orme, and back again, then swore solidly for a full minute without repeating himself.

  Orme arrested him, curling his lip with distaste.

  AN HOUR LATER MONK and Orme were back at Wapping taking a hot cup of tea and a cold beef sandwich each. The room was over-warm and the air stuffy. Someone had left the door open to remedy it, and the slight breeze was ruffling papers on the nearest desk.

  Orme was deep in thought, ignoring the sound of river traffic, the drift of accordion music, the odd shout of a bargee, the constant hiss and slurp of water.

  “He’s a nasty little swine,” he said suddenly, turning to look at Monk. “But what if he was telling the truth?”