by Anne Perry
“McFee?” Monk said incredulously.
Orme swallowed a mouthful of tea. “Yes …”
Monk thought for a moment. “Then Jimmy Kent was lying.” He recalled what he could of Kent. Not much of it was to his credit.
Orme sat still, his blunt face set in stubborn concentration.
“Why would Jimmy lie?” Monk pursued the train of thought.
“If he wasn’t where he said, then he was somewhere else.” Orme held his finger up to stop Monk arguing. “Somewhere worse—stands to reason.”
“With McFee at Blackfriars?” Monk shook his head. “Fiddling a barrel or two of whisky? We couldn’t have proved it. Jimmy’s sharper than that.”
“Yes. So what was he doing?” Orme raised his eyebrows and stared at Monk.
“Fiddling the whole shipment,” Monk concluded.
“Right!” Orme agreed. He watched Monk closely.
Hooper was leaning against the wall, his ankles crossed, listening.
Monk gave it words. “Which means he lied when he testified. If he saw Beshara at all, it wasn’t when he said it was!”
“And if it was somewhere else, but still Beshara,” Orme pointed out, “then Beshara wasn’t where anyone said he was!”
“Yes,” Monk said slowly. “Yes. I wonder how many said what they thought we wanted them to say—”
“Not us!” Orme interrupted, a shadow across his face. “Lydiate’s men …”
“Police,” Monk explained. “The authorities, the State. We all wanted it tidied up as soon as possible. Deal with it and forget it. Punish someone, then move on. It’s natural. The government would have pushed us, too, had we been on the case.”
Orme said nothing. It pained him, but he was a fair man. He could not argue.
“I wonder how many of them could tell one man from another in a hurry, just a glimpse of a face. Could you, Orme?” Monk pursued it. “If they were people you didn’t know,” he added.
“No,” Orme conceded. “But I wouldn’t swear to it …” He stopped.
Monk smiled.
“Maybe I would,” Orme said very quietly. “Maybe I’d get surer of it the more times I said it, and the more I thought of all of them that had gone down. An’ maybe I’d think the police grateful to me, and off my back forever asking me what I know.”
“And maybe,” Monk added, “if I had a lot of business I’d sooner that the police weren’t poking into too much, I’d look to be in their favor for a while.”
“You going to Lydiate?” Orme asked. No one would like the investigation being opened up again, after people had begun to forget it and move on with life. Beshara was a man with a reputation for dealing and bribing. He was not an innocent, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if he wasn’t guilty of sinking the Princess Mary, he was guilty of other things for which he had not paid.
“I have to,” Monk replied. “To Lydiate, anyway. It’ll come out, sooner or later.”
Orme nodded and gave a downward twisted smile. There was no need for him to add anything. Their thoughts were the same.
MONK DID NOT WANT to tell Lydiate in his office. He would allow the man time to accept it alone, or reject it, and possibly dispute it. He invited him to one of the small pubs along the river where there were seats overlooking the water. Everyone else there would be too busy watching the boats or listening to the occasional song to bother overhearing two men talking over a pint of ale and a pie.
Lydiate arrived after Monk. He was casually dressed, attempting to blend in, but he still looked like a gentleman. His careful grooming, and the grace with which he walked, would always give him away.
He came over carrying a tankard of ale and sat down next to Monk on the bench. It was only when he was closer, in the lower, more direct evening light off the water, that Monk noticed how tired he was. The fine lines on his face seemed to drag down, and there was little color in his skin. The experience of the Princess Mary case had weighed heavily on him. He had had to be closer to the reality of it, the massive loss, than his position usually required of him. This was going to be bitter.
“Put away a petty thief yesterday,” Monk began. There was no kindness in stringing it out, beginning with pleasantries. “But while I was doing so, he inadvertently gave me some information about another man involved in the robbery. That was odd, because the other man had a perfect alibi. I checked it very carefully.”
Lydiate was studying his face, waiting.
Monk looked at him. “He was with one of the witnesses who saw Habib Beshara at the time he was supposed to be putting the dynamite on board the Princess Mary.”
“But …” Lydiate began, and then sighed. “I suppose there’s no doubt?”
“Not that I can see. It raises the whole question of how many others were saying what they thought we wanted them to.”
“He fitted perfectly,” Lydiate said, more to himself than to Monk. “He was an unpleasant man, and for sale. He’d committed many other small acts for money, which he knew were going to end in brawls, or worse. But admittedly, this was far more serious. He had a record of dislike of the British, small acts of vandalism.” He took a sip of his ale, then put it down, as if it tasted sour to him. “This was far more serious than anything else we’ve know him to do, but it wasn’t out of character.” He looked at Monk. “Everyone was so keen to help. We weeded out a hundred or more who only wanted the limelight, or thought they knew something and were nowhere near. Lord Ossett’s people called every day.”
He did not need to add more than that. Monk could imagine the pressure. He had experienced it himself, in other cases, albeit to a lesser degree. He was familiar with the constant calls, the demands for results.
He looked at Lydiate and saw the weariness in him. Had those who demanded answers any idea what they were asking? Or the danger of error when there was such hunger for quick solutions? It was juggling the possibility, even the probability, of lies. First one, then another to explain the first, then more and more to prove the ones you had already built on.
“It’s political,” Lydiate said suddenly, anger and pain in his voice. “This damned canal is going to change so much! Everybody with money invested in shipping, import and export, travel, is trying to foresee what differences it’ll make, and guard themselves against loss. For decades, ever since Trafalgar, we’ve been lords of all the major seaways in the world.” He shrugged very slightly, his expression rueful. “Now suddenly there are shortcuts! The Mediterranean is the center of the world again and we’re on the edge. We can be bypassed, and fortunes are going to be made and lost!”
“Not all the seaways,” Monk corrected him. “It won’t affect the Atlantic, and that will get more and more important as America grows. But it will still mean a whole lot of change in investment, if the canal is a success.”
“There was talk about a new land route to the east, through Turkey,” Lydiate added, shaking his head. “Or trains from Alexandria to Suez, and then reloading everything again to go by sea. Even if this canal is a success, it will take ships slowly, and only up to a certain size. It’s inevitable. Haven’t they read about Canute?” He smiled with a bitter amusement.
Monk struggled to remember. “Holding back the tide? I saw a drawing of him, sitting on his throne with the sea up to his knees! Unbelievably stupid!”
“No!” Lydiate said sharply, as if this were the trigger to the anger he had been so long holding in. “He was trying to show his people that, great as he was, he could not hold back the tide. That was the whole point of the exercise. Even kings cannot stop the inevitable.”
Monk was considerably sobered. He felt a sudden warmth for this beleaguered man sitting on the bench beside him in the last of the sunlight. Lydiate was fighting against men’s political ambitions, and probably a king’s ransom in invested money. He was dealing with men who demanded miracles, and did not seem to understand the tide in any sense—of the sea, or of history.
“I don’t know whether Beshara was
guilty,” Monk said. “But I do know that the verdict was unsafe. And there’s a very strong chance that sooner or later something is going arise that will prove it. Do some of our political masters know that, and that’s why they won’t hang him?”
Lydiate looked at him curiously, the fine lines of his face etched deeply in the waning sunlight, his eyes very clear. “I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps because I didn’t want to. Perhaps. The other possibility is just as ugly, come to think of it. I assumed Beshara’s family had got to them. He’s a wayward son, something of a disappointment, but he has brothers and cousins who own a good deal of land around the canal, which means now that they have a lot of money.”
Monk raised his eyebrows. “And do they want him released?”
“That’s a very good question,” Lydiate answered, pulling his mouth into a bitter line.
“Can you prove anything?” Monk asked, turning a little in his seat. The sun was sliding below a cloud bank, spreading color over the water, but in ten minutes or so it would fade, and the wind would turn colder. There were fewer people on the bank already.
“I don’t have the right even to look,” Lydiate replied.
“Motive?” Monk pointed out. “No one gave a motive for Beshara blowing up the Princess Mary, beyond a general hatred of Britain, and that’s as thin as tissue paper. Millions of people the world over must have a pretty mixed view of the British Empire, just as millions admire it or depend on it. It doesn’t make them blow up a pleasure boat with a couple of hundred ordinary people on board.”
“I know,” Lydiate agreed. “Nobody seemed to care very much about finding a more substantial reason.”
Monk said what he was afraid Lydiate was also thinking. “Or else they know damn well what it was, and didn’t want it to come out?”
“I didn’t see that at the time,” Lydiate confessed, staring across the water again. “I thought it was just the weight of public outrage and loss. Damn it, Monk, you saw the bodies! You, of all people, know how bloody awful it was! It was like a battlefield! Only it wasn’t soldiers dead, it was ordinary people, most of them women and children. What kind of a … monster does that?”
“Greedy … frightened … filled with hate for his own lost,” Monk replied. “Think about how many Egyptian lives have been sacrificed, digging this canal.”
Lydiate sighed. “Thousands—but the bloody thing’s French, not English!”
“You’re right,” Monk conceded. “It doesn’t make any sense. But mass murder doesn’t, however you look at it.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. The sun disappeared, taking the glow with it, and suddenly it was dark and the air chill.
“I’m sorry,” Monk said. “It might make some kind of sense if we had all the facts. It was very carefully planned. It wasn’t a sudden impulse of a lunatic, and we both know that.”
“It’s about all we do know, for certain,” Lydiate said miserably. “How can so many men, and the constituencies they serve, be so wrong? There is so much we assumed, and could be totally mistaken about.” He looked helpless. “What government deals or policies are involved? What’s really in the balance, naturally, or intentionally? What private deals are in place, and with whom? Or is it all something else entirely, and we aren’t even on the right track?”
Monk gave a bitter little smile. “With luck we can give it back to the Home Office and let the minister worry about that.”
Lydiate flinched. “And give it right back to me again!”
“I’m sorry,” Monk said sincerely.
“I know. You had no choice,” Lydiate answered graciously, rising to his feet as if his muscles ached. “I’ll tell him tomorrow morning.”
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON MONK was in Wapping; he had tidied up the last reports on the smuggling case and had just left the police station when Hooper strode after him.
“Sir!”
Monk turned round as Hooper caught up with him. He saw from the look in Hooper’s face that the news was not good. He waited in silence to hear it.
“Lord Ossett wants to see you, sir,” Hooper said expressionlessly, his brown eyes meeting Monk’s and waiting.
Monk was surprised. Ossett was very senior indeed, a man of great power, highly respected in government circles. A member of the House of Lords rather than the House of Commons, he was an adviser to both the Home and Foreign Offices and occasionally to the prime minister himself on important matters of international trade and finance.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hooper replied steadily, his face unreadable.
“When?” Monk asked, his stomach knotting tight.
“Now … sir.” Hooper took a deep breath. “Maybe we’re getting back on the case, sir. Do you want me to tell Mr. Orme, and start sorting the duties out?”
Monk felt a sense of dread, but he didn’t let it show on his face. “Yes … please,” he agreed. I think you’d better. Don’t change anything yet, but get ready.”
Hooper’s smile was twisted, and without replying he turned and walked with his easy, loping gait toward the station.
Monk caught the first passing hansom toward Lord Ossett’s office in Whitehall. On the ride through the docklands he was all but unaware of the high, barn-like warehouses, wagons laden with all kinds of goods, the towering cranes and the creak of loads, shouts of stevedores, and the rattle of wheels on the stones. His mind was on the case of Habib Beshara and the sinking of the Princess Mary.
Was he going to be given back the investigation, now that it was thoroughly contaminated? Could he refuse? What would it mean for his career if he did? No—that was not the issue. He was irritated with himself for having thought of it at all. What mattered was the reputation of the River Police, and whether they had any chance of finding the truth, for Beshara, and for those who were dead or bereaved.
Was it important to find those beyond, the incompetent, and the corrupt? Or was that expecting miracles, which might also take down a great many people who were only peripherally involved? In eagerness to find the guilty, he could destroy the bystanders as well, those who were misguided, afraid, confused, guilty only of not understanding.
He had found no answers to any of his questions when he alighted. He paid the driver and walked across the pavement and in through the imposing doorway of Lord Ossett’s office.
He was received immediately. He had the distinct impression from Ossett’s lean and rather somber secretary that Monk was not so much paying a visit as obeying a summons.
Ossett was waiting in his office. He was a striking man, slender, a little over average height, and with a bearing that made it obvious that he had served many years in the army. He stood like a soldier, back straight, shoulders square, but quite clearly with the ease of an officer well used to command. Monk respected that whatever rank he had borne, Ossett did not now use it. He had no urge to impress.
“Ah,” he said with evident satisfaction. “I’m obliged you have come.” He did not even obliquely refer to the fact that Monk had had no choice. “I’m afraid we have a very ugly situation.” He waved his arm toward one of the well-upholstered leather armchairs near the classic fireplace, which was at present unlit and masked by a tapestry screen.
As Monk sat down, he noticed that above the marble mantel hung a four-foot-high portrait of what appeared to be Ossett himself as a young man. His face was quite plainly recognizable. His hair was thicker and several shades fairer, but the way it grew from his brow was exactly the same. He was handsome, his chin held high, a half-smile on his mouth. His military scarlet was immaculate.
Ossett sat in the chair opposite Monk, leaning forward a little so as to indicate the urgency of the matter. There was no time for the indulgence of relaxation.
“Lydiate tells me that you have discovered a serious flaw in some of the evidence against Beshara,” he said gravely. “Evidence that wouldn’t stand up to exposure, should you pursue your inquiries. Is that true?”
“Yes
, sir, I’m afraid it is,” Monk replied.
“Lydiate gave me some of the details, but I would like to hear it from you. Please be specific. If it really does cast doubt on the verdict, then it is so serious it would be hard to overstate the damage it could do.”
Monk recounted exactly what he had learned, and how.
Ossett listened to him silently, but with clearly growing concern.
“So if this is accurate, then Beshara may be involved,” Ossett said finally. “But we cannot confirm that he is the person who placed the dynamite on the Princess Mary.”
“No, sir,” Monk agreed.
“And have we any idea who did?”
“Not yet,” Monk answered. “I assume the investigation will have to be reopened.”
Ossett bit his lip. Monk noticed that his hands were tight, knuckles pale as he sat. He was deeply disturbed by the situation. All the comfort and familiarity of the office with its leather chairs, glowing Turkey carpet, shelves of well-used books on the history of the Empire, the exploration of the world and the arts and sciences of the mind, could have been another man’s possessions for any sense of comfort they offered him.
“I regret this,” Ossett said quietly. “But we cannot turn a blind eye to the new evidence. It would not be morally unacceptable to ignore it, even if we could. But it is a moot point. It will emerge somehow, sooner or later, and that will damage Britain’s reputation beyond anyone’s ability to repair. Some mistakes can be salvaged. This would be one that cannot.”
Monk did not reply. He knew that Ossett was speaking as much to himself as to Monk.
“This will be highly political,” he said at last.
Again Monk did not speak. He felt a deep sympathy for the man. He was caught in the horror of a dilemma that might be partially of his own making. He had acceded to the decision to take the case from the River Police and give it to the regular metropolitan force, although perhaps he had had little choice in that too.
“Yes, sir,” Monk said, not that his agreement mattered. He spoke to break the silence, and possibly even to indicate that he understood the burden, and the decision.