Blood on the Water

by Anne Perry

  “I … I can’t remember.” Hall shook his head, like a dog coming out of water. “I can’t remember what anyone said.”

  “Anything at all that you can think of?” Monk pressed.

  “No! No, ’e said something, but I can’t remember. I was so desperate, none of it made sense. I’m sorry …”

  Monk reached out and grasped Hall’s hand. He had been there, seen it all.

  “What did the police ask you?” he said quietly.

  “Police? Nothing really, just if I’d seen anything before the explosion. Where I was, that kind o’ thing. I weren’t any ’elp to them.”

  “They didn’t ask anything about after the explosion?”

  “No. Nothing. They knew I’d been rescued, and that I’d lost my ma. Nothing else.”

  Monk withdrew his hand slowly.

  “I think you might have been a great help to me, Mr. Hall,” he said with growing conviction. “I appreciate it, and I grieve for your loss.” Hall nodded, too full of emotion to risk words again, which anyway would have been inadequate to the weight of meaning.

  Monk asked others but no one else had more to add to what he already knew, just confirmation. What stood out, over and over, were the omissions, the questions Lydiate’s men had not asked, and the people they had not spoken to. They had inquired about events leading up to the explosion, and hardly anyone had had more than a few passing observations to offer: anonymous people who played music, waited on them with drinks or at table. Most of the evidence that was of value came from the deckhands. It could have implicated Habib Beshara, or almost anyone else with a darker than average skin.

  Crossing the river again at dusk, on the way home, Monk was haunted by his disjointed memories of the screams, the bewilderment, and the look of abiding pain in the faces of survivors. When it came down to reality, what mattered except the lives of those you loved? All that was precious was made up of passions and of love, of belief in a purpose beyond the habits of living from day to day.

  The meaning of it all could be taken in a few moments. What would his life be without Hester, and now also without Scuff?

  Even memory could be torn from you. He could not remember his accident, all those years ago, or who he had been before that. All he could recollect was waking up in the hospital with no idea even who he was, let alone the life he had built. He had lost both the good and the bad, the dreams and the nightmares. No one knew what lurked in that long silence before he woke up.

  He vividly remembered everything since then, the things he wanted to and the things he would prefer not to: mistakes, discoveries about his own nature, including the reasons why some people feared or hated him. Better than that were the good things, and like a strong thread through all of it was Hester, in all her roles. They had fought like cats in a bag at one time, each trying so hard not to be vulnerable, not to care. Always she had been loyal, believing in his worth even when he did not.

  Thinking, even for an instant, how he would feel if she had been lost in that dark water was horrifying; it gave him a deep empathy for the grief the survivors and the victims’ families lived with, day and night. It was not like someone dying from a long illness, when you know to prepare yourself and have the time to do it. This was sudden and brutal, total, like an amputation of part of you.

  He came to the further shore, paid the ferryman, and alighted. He walked up the hill in long, swift strides, far faster than usual—eager to be home.

  MONK CONTINUED WITH THE search, going through all the reports from Lydiate’s men, comparing each with the others. He found no reference to the man he had seen dive overboard. Did that mean they had not found him? Or that they had, and he was of no importance? Or that they just weren’t aware of his existence?

  He read them all again, to be sure of his impressions. There was a pattern of interference from various officials working for a politician, Mr. Quither, who appeared to report directly to Lord Ossett himself. They had steered the police away from the whole subject of shipping. The suggestions had apparently been discreet, but quite firm. A man of Lydiate’s political sensitivity would not have misunderstood. Why had they done that? To protect specific interests—friends, supporters, men who would reward them amply? Or because it was genuinely irrelevant to the sinking? But that raised the question as to how they could know such a thing, unless the government also knew far more about the sinking than they had told the police, or the court.

  Comparing police notes with instructions from Lydiate, it was increasingly clear that certain pieces of evidence to do with eyewitness accounts had been buried within irrelevant testimony. Because they were actually irrelevant? Or because such accounts would be inconvenient to officials such as customs and excise men, port authorities, one or two members of the Home Office? One testimony was labeled as interfering with a current investigation into smuggling, a case Monk knew nothing about. He suspected it was fictitious.

  Similarly, with very careful reading of what was left of the guest list, the numbers of survivors and dead did not tally with the list. The guest list had been difficult to get hold of, and then suddenly it had reappeared from being mislaid. Had it been altered, names erased, because some people who should not have been there were listed originally? But why would someone have to hide being on a pleasure boat? Perhaps if they had lied about their whereabouts, or were keeping company with the wrong people?

  Some people had not been questioned at all, let alone investigated. Or had they been discreetly not mentioned because their presence was found to be irrelevant?

  Or maybe this was merely the degree of error one might expect in a highly emotional case pushed to the limit for quick results, castigated by the press, interfered with by politicians.

  The atrocity had been monumental. The shock waves had spread throughout the country, and no doubt to neighboring countries, particularly France. Perhaps it was inevitable that a government minister like Lord Ossett should have kept his finger on the pulse of the investigation. He had to have feared the possibility of something like it happening again.

  Nevertheless, cumulatively all these directions and enquiries had failed to encompass all the evidence and come up with an accurate picture. There seemed to have been considerable misinterpretation, due to ignorance of the river and its people. And there had been a foreseeable prejudice against the regular police by those who resented them usurping what they viewed as a Thames River Police job. They were only small lies, withholding of information, but together they added up to larger error.

  Above all, what was striking was the general weakness of the accounts by eyewitnesses. They were swayed so easily by horror, fear, loss, pressure, or simply the wish to please those who were questioning them. Not to mention some clearly desired attention, hoped for reward, or saw the tragedy as an opportunity to take a little revenge here and there.

  WHEN HE HAD COMPLETED his review and compared his conclusions with those of Orme and Hooper—who largely agreed with him—Monk went to see Lydiate at his home.

  It was a very pleasant house in Mayfair, a highly fashionable area. It was set in a Georgian terrace with elegant façades and rows of white columns in a gentle arc between the pavement and the steps up to the front doors. Monk found number 72, and pulled the shining brass lever for the bell.

  A few moments later a butler answered and welcomed him in. Monk followed the servant across the marble floor and to the door of a comfortable, book-lined study.

  Lydiate rose from the desk, told the butler to leave the decanter of whisky and glasses. The man inclined his head and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

  “Please sit down.” Lydiate indicated the other beautifully upholstered captain’s chair with its polished woodwork and leather seat. He looked tired, as he had the last time Monk had seen him, and no more at ease, in spite of being in his own home.

  He offered Monk whisky, which Monk declined. Lydiate’s tension was palpable; he wasn’t hostile, but rather more like a patient waiting for bad ne
ws from his doctor.

  Was the quick blow more or less merciful than careful explanations? This would not be easy for either of them.

  “We’ve been over all the reports,” Monk began. “Thank you for giving me access to them. I don’t believe that any of my men have seen anything in them that your men didn’t.”

  None of the tension in Lydiate relaxed. In fact, if anything, it increased. There was a tiny muscle twitching in his temple.

  It was time for honesty.

  “It was the omissions that were interesting, the people you chose not to speak to, or were instructed not to.”

  “Such as whom?” Lydiate was not defensive so much as confused.

  “Some of the survivors …”

  Lydiate bit his lip. “That was a cruelty I was advised against, and I admit I was happy to obey. The few we did speak to could tell us absolutely nothing useful. It was brutal to ask them to relive such a nightmare.” There was pain in his face, and a soft note of disappointment in his voice.

  “Investigation is often painful,” Monk said in reply. “Most of it is also useless, but sometimes memory returns and something comes up.”

  “Such as what?” Lydiate sounded dubious.

  “When I was going over it again, thinking about it one evening as I crossed the river from Wapping back home, I remembered a moment before the explosion. I saw a figure leaping off the Princess Mary into the water. He was there against the light only for an instant, then the whole bow went up in flames and I forgot about him.”

  Lydiate leaned forward a little. “A figure. A man jumping before the explosion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would anyone leap off before? Are you certain you are not transposing the events in your memory?”

  “Yes, because I saw him against the evening sky, not against flames. If he was responsible for the explosion, then he was escaping—”

  “Into the water? Hardly!” Lydiate interrupted.

  “There was a small boat in the water, near the ship,” Monk explained. “Later, I was interviewing a survivor, one of the first off. He was picked up by a ferry, near the ship, and there was another passenger in it already, soaking wet, but dressed as a waiter or servant, not a guest.”

  Lydiate sat back with a long sigh. “Not Beshara,” he said softly. “He was caught having been at the dockside, and not dressed as you describe. He only went into the ship at Westminster when they boarded. He got off again somewhere around Limehouse, judging by the longest possible time for a fuse.”

  “Eyewitness’s testimony,” Monk pointed out. “Which we now know might not be entirely accurate. Did you find anything that could be considered a decent motive since we last spoke?” Monk pressed.

  “No,” Lydiate shrugged as if it were an old wound aching again.

  Monk would like to have let him off the hook, but he could not afford to. “I saw a lot of direction from government ministers,” he said. “Do they normally interfere with police investigation this much?”

  “It was a spectacular case,” Lydiate pointed out, a touch of defensiveness in his tone. “It was imperative we clear it as swiftly as possible, for several reasons. Justice demanded it. Public safety was at issue. And for reasons of international diplomacy we needed to be seen to have solved the whole thing and dealt with the perpetrators.”

  “Because there were important people on board?” Monk said. “Some of them foreign?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And constant interference was considered the best course of action?” He allowed his disbelief to ring sharply in his voice.

  “They were distressed,” Lydiate protested. “Everyone was.”

  “All the more reason to keep a cool head. I presume you told him as much?”

  “Lord Ossett?” Lydiate’s eyebrows rose sharply.

  “You’re in command of the police.” Monk made no allowances.

  “I don’t think you quite grasp the situation—” Lydiate began.

  “Then help me!” Monk cut across him. “Whoever sank the Princess Mary and drowned nearly two hundred people is still out there and, for all we know, ready and willing to do it again! Unless you know something about who it was that you are not telling me?”

  Lydiate went white.

  Monk moved forward instinctively, to catch him were he to faint.

  Lydiate righted himself with an effort. He did not apologize, but the shame of it was in his face.

  “I had little choice in the course of my investigation. These were powerful suggestions—”

  “Pressure!” Monk said for him.

  “Yes, I suppose so.” He looked down. “I thought it was just a judgment call, an encouragement to guide me, make me aware of the desperate importance of dealing with the tragedy quickly and firmly.”

  “Did you need pressure to do that?” Monk could not afford to let him off the hook.

  “I would have done it differently, left to myself,” Lydiate said quietly.

  “What pressure did they bring to bear?” Monk replied. “Your job? Your home? Your fitness for leadership?”

  Lydiate gave him a look of disgust. “Do you think I would have changed my direction of enquiry for any of those reasons? Would you?”

  Monk found the answer died on his tongue. He should not have asked.

  “My sister,” Lydiate replied slowly, forcing the painful words out softly. “She is married to a man who is peculiarly vulnerable: not just to disgrace but to a grief he could not bear, because it would be compounded with guilt. His daughter by his first wife has committed an indiscretion that, if revealed, would cause her ruin. It was not a crime! A … a desperate error of judgment.” He swallowed. “If I allowed that to happen my loss would be compounded by guilt also. I understand that very well. I was not compassionate to my sister when she needed me in the past; too busy with my career. Too full of judgment. I will not make that mistake again.” He faced Monk now, quietly defiant; ready to take whatever blame was given.

  Monk felt a monumental anger, not against Lydiate but against the person who had known this and deliberately given the case to a man that he could manipulate in this way. Now it was all very clear why the matter had been taken from the River Police.

  What would he have done himself, if the threat had been to Hester? Please God, he would never have to find out! However, this did not alter the fact that he still had to pursue every aspect of the sinking of the Princess Mary, including the motive for it, wherever it led. The passion and confusion, the fiasco of Beshara’s arrest, trial, sentence, and now the attempt on his life, had made it imperative. Did whoever was behind this need him silenced, and was willing to reach out, even into prison, in order to make certain of it?

  “Why was Beshara reprieved?” Monk asked Lydiate.

  “I don’t know,” Lydiate admitted miserably. “I was told it was to do with his illness, which seems absurd, since it is apparently incurable. I assumed it was some kind of concession to the Egyptian embassy.”

  “Or that the government wanted to know who else was involved,” Monk pointed out. “And wanted to know who paid him!”

  “I believed that the motive was hate, revenge for something that happened in Egypt,” Lydiate answered.

  Looking at him, Monk knew that Lydiate really believed what he was saying. And why shouldn’t he? Monk had originally thought such a motive made sense as well, but he also hadn’t accepted it without question. That explained why the case was given to Lydiate—he was a man who was clearly vulnerable to such subtle and corrosive persuasion.

  “And what do you believe now?” he asked as gently as he could.

  “I have no idea,” Lydiate confessed. “I would go back to the beginning, without presupposition.”

  Monk said nothing. He was working blindly, and with the whole case already contaminated.

  When Lydiate offered him whisky again, he accepted.

  CHAPTER

  9

  SCUFF DID NOT HAVE any clear plan in mind when he
bypassed the road toward school and turned in the direction of the river instead. He knew only that now the regular police had messed up the case of the Princess Mary, and got the wrong person almost killed, and still stuck in prison, and had given the whole thing back to Monk. He was left with having to sort out the problem—if he could!

  It was warm already. The sun glittered bright and hard on the water, making him squint a little.

  Of course there was no way Monk could keep the police’s mistakes concealed. He had to go back to the very beginning and untangle all the knots. How was he supposed to do that? It wasn’t just a matter of witnesses telling lies; it was people saying something over and over until they believed it, and then getting all angry and scared when someone suggested it wasn’t true.

  Now it was too late, and nobody remembered what they’d really seen or done anyway, even if they wanted to tell the truth. People would make fun of them, laugh at them, and most likely never let them forget it. Who wanted that? Scuff had experienced it and it was horrible. Much easier to insist you were right, regardless of anything anyone else said. Just stick it out! Who could prove you wrong weeks afterward?

  Better than being labeled a fool who didn’t know what was right in front of your own eyes!

  He reached the steps. The tide was high and slapping over the concrete, making it slippery. He climbed onto the ferry carefully and paid for his passage across the river. He needed to be on the north bank, because the Princess Mary had gone down nearer to it, and, as far as he knew, most of the stops had been on that side. Then he walked steadily along the dockside downstream toward the Isle of Dogs.

  He found one little urchin who was inquisitive, and probably hungry.

  “Find anything good?” Scuff asked him casually.

  The urchin sized him up, and did not know quite what to make of him. “Wot yer lookin’ fer, mister?”

  “Mister!” Scuff felt instantly taller, and at the same time alienated. “Mister?” What did the boy think he was? Some kind of stranger here?