by Anne Perry
Then he would make for the wharf, not the stairs.
It was already mid-afternoon and the light was failing. A grayness crept up from the river and robbed everything of what little color there was. The mist deadened Caleb’s flying footsteps as he raced across the stones to the edge of the water and the flight of steps downward. The constable was only a couple of yards behind him.
Monk’s breath labored in his lungs but his ankle was easing.
Caleb disappeared down the stairs and the constable after him. Then there was a yell and a heavy splash, then a scream of fear, choked off almost instantly.
Monk reached the edge of the wall just as a second constable came behind him.
Caleb was on the steps, feet wide apart, balanced, laughing, his head thrown back. The constable was thrashing around in the water, sinking, dragged down by his boots and his heavy clothing.
“He’ll drown!” Caleb shouted, looking at Monk. “You’d better pull him out! You can’t leave him, Mr. Righteous!”
There was a barge about ten yards out, the first of a string moving slowly upriver with the incoming tide, low in the water, heavy with bales covered over with dark canvas. The bargee in the stern looked at the man in the water and threw his hands wide. He could not stop the impetus of his vessel. There were another dozen behind him, like railway carriages.
Monk hesitated only a moment. The constable was drowning. His face was white with terror. He had not the faintest idea how to swim and his own panic was killing him. There was a piece of timber lying on the edge. Monk threw it in and waited long enough to see it float.
The instant was enough. Caleb charged up the steps again, thrusting past him and onto the river wall, racing upstream towards the Artichoke Tavern fifty yards away.
The second constable arrived, swerving to go after Caleb and leave Monk to rescue the man in the water.
“Get him!” Monk shouted, jabbing his arm down the steps towards the water, and spun on his heel to run after Caleb.
The constable gasped, saw his colleague struggling, clasping for the wood, and swung around, plunging down the steps after him.
Monk sprinted along the hard pavement behind Caleb, who seemed to be veering away from the edge as if he would go around to the front of the tavern and the door. Why? Had he friends there? Reinforcements? He could hardly hope to hold off half a dozen police! There was no escape through the back—it fell sheer into the rising tide.
Monk was only fifteen yards behind him.
Then suddenly Caleb swerved again, turned on his foot and picked up speed, running straight towards the river. He was going to kill himself after all. He ran even faster and at the dock made an almighty leap. Only then did Monk realize what he meant to do. The barge was only twenty feet from the shore. He landed awkwardly, sprawled across the canvas, and all but pitched off the far side, but he was on it and already it was carrying him away.
With more rage than judgment, Monk backed off to give himself a launching distance, then in desperation leaped as well.
He landed with a numbing crash on the third barge. The breath was knocked out of him, and it was several seconds before he could even think to rise. When he did his hands were grazed and he found it hard to expand his lungs and gasp in the damp, darkening air. He could see the dim shape of the bargee, but he was barely aware of the sergeant on the river wall shouting and gesticulating, he was swearing wildly, his face contorted with fury. Certainly he did not even try to understand what he was saying. There was only one thought in his mind—get Caleb.
He straightened up and started to make his way forward, moving with his arms wide, keeping his foothold on the wet canvas with difficulty.
The barges were close, but there were still several feet of dark, filthy river water between the bow of one and the stern of another. If he fell he would be between the two, and would be crushed long before he could be drowned.
Caleb was on the lead barge, facing him, leaping up and down on the spot in mockery. He put his hands to his mouth to cup the sound.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Come and get me! Come on, Mr. Policeman! I killed Angus, didn’t I? I destroyed him! He’s gone forever! Finished! No more smart clothes, no more virtuous wife by the fireside! No more church on Sunday and ‘Yes Sir,’ ‘No sir,’ ‘Aren’t I a good boy, sir’!” He folded his arms across his chest, flat, hands down, then flung them wide. “Dead!” he cried. “Gone forever! You’ll never find him. Nobody’ll find him, ever! Ever!”
Monk started off towards him, floundering on the canvas piles, stumbling and regaining his balance, taking a wild leap across the dark water to the barge ahead, landing splayed and bruised on his hands and knees. He scrambled forward again, oblivious of pain or danger.
The bargee was yelling something but he ignored it.
They had passed the Blackwall entrance to the South Dock. Ahead of them was the Cubitt Town pier, then the curve of the river around the Isle of Dogs. He could no longer see the lights of Greenwich on the far side. The fog and darkness were closing in. The marshes to the left were a dim outline. There were other boats, but he saw them only from the corner of his eye.
He leaped to the front barge just in time to see Caleb apparently overbalance, land on his knees, then disappear over the side. Then he heard his laughter coming up from the water and just as he reached the edge himself, a rowing boat pulled away, one man heaving on the oars, another crouching in the stern, seemingly terrified.
Monk swore savagely. He swung around to the bargee, although even as he did, he knew it was pointless. The man had no way on earth of changing course. The heavily laden barges were tied together and going upstream on the tide.
“Monk!”
Where was the voice coming from?
“Monk! Jump, man!”
Then he saw the second rowing boat with the sergeant and another constable in it. Without a second’s hesitation he jumped, landing in it and sending it rocking so violently it all but overturned. The constable at the oars let out an oath. The sergeant grabbed him roughly and forced him down on the duckboards at the bottom, and the boat righted itself and plowed forward again.
“After ’im!” the sergeant shouted unnecessarily.
They sat in silence, Monk still half crouched. The constable at the oars dug them into the water with all the strength he possessed, hurling his weight against them so violently that for several strokes the boat veered and bounced, then he settled down to an even pace and picked up speed.
There was hardly any light now. The late afternoon had drawn in and the overcast sky had robbed what little there was and the rising river mist distorted shapes. Foghorns sounded eerily. The lights of a clipper appeared, shadowed spars towering above them, drifting like giant trees in the sky. They rocked roughly in its wake.
“Where is the bastard?” the sergeant said between his teeth, peering forward through the gloom. “I’ll get that swine if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Bugsby’s marshes,” Monk answered, straightening his legs to sit up properly. “I’ll wager he’s going downriver again.”
“Why?”
“He’ll know we have men in Greenwich, and people who would say where he went. But he knows the marshes and we don’t. We’ll never get him once he’s ashore there in the dark.”
The sergeant swore.
The constable pulled harder on the oars, his back straining, hands rubbed to blisters. The boat sped over the misty, dark-running tide.
The shore loomed up before they were prepared. There were no lights, only the mud banks catching the last of the daylight in thin, shining strips, and the soft, seeping sound of the rising water in the marsh reeds.
Monk scrambled forward and jumped out into mud up to his calves. It took a surprising effort to pull himself loose from its ice-cold, sucking grip.
But twenty yards downstream he could see another figure on a firmer stretch, and the black shape of a boat pulling away, as if it had landed the devil himself and would flee for s
alvation.
The constable was out behind him, cursing at the mud. Together they squelched and struggled over the slime onto firmer shore, floundering towards Caleb, who was already trying to run.
No one shouted again. They all three plunged wildly through the deepening mist as the rising wind blew wraiths of it around them, then away again. The sergeant brought up the rear, dogged and determined, swinging inland a little, driving Caleb towards the point, cutting off his retreat back towards Greenwich.
It was another fifteen minutes of exhausting, heart-pounding, leg-aching pursuit before at last they cornered Caleb with his back to the river and nowhere else to turn.
He held his gloved hands up, open wide. They could no longer see his face, but Monk could imagine his expression from his voice in the darkness.
“All right! Take me!” he yelled. “Take me to your petty little courtroom, and your charade of a trial! What will you convict me of? There’s no corpse! No corpse!” And he threw his head back and roared with laughter. The sound of it echoed across the dark water and was swallowed in the mist. “You’ll never find a corpse—you fools!”
8
THE SERGEANT never for a moment hesitated about charging Caleb with the murder of Angus Stonefield. However, when the Crown Prosecutor came to consider the case, it was a different matter. He debated the evidence before him, and in the middle of the day sent for Oliver Rathbone.
“Well?” he demanded, when Rathbone had reviewed what they knew and heard the tale of Caleb’s arrest. “Is there any point in bringing him to trial? In fact have we sufficient evidence even to proceed with a charge?”
Rathbone thought about it for some time before replying. It was a rare bright winter day and the sun shone in through the long windows.
“I have some knowledge of the case,” he said thoughtfully, sitting with his elegant legs crossed, his fingertips placed together. “Monk consulted me some time ago about the evidence necessary to presume death. He was acting for Mrs. Stonefield.”
The prosecutor’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting,” he murmured.
“Not really,” Rathbone answered. “Poor woman was convinced in her own mind of what had happened, and understandably wished to be in a position to appoint someone to continue the business, before it was too severely damaged by Stonefield’s absence.”
“So what do you know that might assist this case?” The prosecutor leaned back in his chair and regarded Rathbone steadily. “I’m inclined to believe Stone did kill his brother. I should very much like to see him answer for it, but I’m damned if I’ll send to trial a case we cannot win, and which will leave the wretched man vindicated, as well as making us a laughingstock.”
“Oh, indeed,” Rathbone agreed heartily. “It would be sickening to have him acquitted for lack of evidence, and the moment after have the corpse tum up, with proof of his guilt, and not be able to do a damned thing about it. That’s the trouble, we have only the one shot. It must hit the mark, there is no second chance.”
“Considering that as children both men were wards of Lord Ravensbrook, it may well be a case which attracts some attention,” the prosecutor went on, “in spite of Stone’s present highly disreputable way of life. It will be interesting to see who defends him.” He sighed. “If there is a need for defense.”
“The wretched man has admitted killing his brother,” Rathbone said grimly. “Boasted of it, in fact.”
“It will still be very tight. We have no corpse, no absolute evidence of death …”
“But a great deal of circumstantial evidence,” Rathbone argued, leaning forward. “They were seen together the day Stonefield disappeared, even seen quarreling. Stonefield’s torn and bloodstained clothing has been found, and no one has seen him since.”
The prosecutor shook his head. “Still possible he’s alive somewhere.”
“Where?” Rathbone demanded. “Jumped a ship and sailed to China or the Indies?”
“Or America?”
“But from a Pool of London quay, downriver, at what time?” Rathbone argued. “For America it would more likely be Liverpool or Southampton. Come to that, what time was it he was last seen? Was the tide going out or coming in? Couldn’t jump a ship on the incoming tide, unless he ended up in London again. And why would he do that? He had nothing to gain and everything to lose.” He sat back in his chair again. “No. You’d never persuade a jury he simply took flight. From what? He had no debts, no enemies, no incipient scandal. No, he’s dead, poor devil. Probably buried in one of the common graves of the Limehouse typhoid victims.”
“Then prove it,” the prosecutor said grimly. “If his lawyer is worth his pay, you’ll have a very hard job, Rathbone, a very hard job indeed. But I wish you luck.”
When Rathbone returned to Vere Street he found Monk waiting for him. Monk looked appalling. His clothes were as immaculate as always and he was freshly shaved, but his face was haggard, as if he were ill and had not slept. When he stood up to follow Rathbone into his office, without permission, he moved as though his entire body ached. From his appearance he might have been in the later stages of rheumatism. Rathbone had very ambivalent feelings about him, but he would never have wished him ill … a slight reduction in arrogance and self-confidence, perhaps, but not this. It disturbed him more than he was prepared for.
“Close the door,” he ordered unnecessarily. Monk was in the act of doing so, and stood against it for a moment, staring at Rathbone as he went around the desk and sat behind it. “You got Caleb Stone, I know. I’ve just come from the Crown Prosecutor’s office. It would help a great deal to have more evidence.”
“I know that!” Monk said savagely, moving away from the door and sitting painfully in the chair opposite the desk. “Maybe the police will set up a proper search and find the body. I imagine they’ll go on dragging the river. Something I was hardly equipped to do. Although this much later, they’d have to be lucky to find it. They could always search the Greenwich and Bugsby marshes. For someone of Angus Stonefield’s standing they’d think it worth it.”
“They might also think it worth it to get a conviction, now that they have made an arrest,” Rathbone said with a slight smile. “They have rather committed themselves. They won’t want to be obliged to let Caleb Stone free. He’d be insufferable. He’d be a hero to every villain from Wapping to Woolwich. But you know that better than I.”
“What does he think?”
“The prosecutor?” Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “A chance, but he’s not optimistic. Would you like a cup of tea? You … look …” He hesitated, not sure how literal to be.
“No—yes.” Monk shrugged. “Tea won’t help.” He made as if to stand up, too restless to wait, but then apparently found it painful, and reclined back into his chair.
“It was a rough chase?” Rathbone said with a dry smile.
Monk winced. “Very.”
Rathbone rang his bell and when the clerk appeared he ordered tea.
“I want it, even if you don’t. Now, tell me why you’ve come. It wasn’t to know the Crown Prosecutor’s opinion of the case.”
“No,” Monk agreed, then remained silent for several seconds.
Rathbone felt a chill inside. For something to have affected Monk this deeply it must be very ugly indeed. He had another appointment in twenty minutes. He could not afford delay, and yet he knew impatience would be clumsy, and he had no desire to add to the burden, whatever it was.
Perhaps Monk sensed his urgency. He looked up suddenly, as if having reached a resolve. His jaw was clenched and there was a muscle flicking in his temple. His words came out in a tight, level, carefully controlled monotone, as though he dared not allow any emotions through or it would all explode beyond his mastery.
“I met a woman some time ago, by chance, on the steps of the Geographical Society in Sackville Street. We became acquainted and I saw her several times after that. She was charming, intelligent, full of wit and enthusiasm.” His voice was a flat concentrated monotone. �
�She expressed interest in the Stonefield case, because I was looking to find trace of Angus Stonefield. The long and short of it is we spent an evening together walking around Soho area looking for places where either Angus or Genevieve Stonefield might have met a lover. Of course we didn’t find anything. I don’t know if either of us expected to. It was an evening of enjoyment, away from the restrictions of society for her, and from the misery of poverty and crime for me.”
Rathbone nodded but did not interrupt. It sounded very natural. He had no idea what was coming.
“I took her home in a hansom—” Monk stopped, his face white.
Rathbone said nothing to fill the silence.
Monk took a deep breath and gritted his teeth.
“We were passing along North Audley Street and were forced to slow because one of the large houses had been holding some social event and the guests were leaving. Suddenly she tore open the bodice of her gown, stared at me with passionate hatred, then shrieked and threw herself out of the moving hansom. She landed sprawled in the street, picked herself up and ran, screaming that I had assaulted her.”
It was preposterous, but it was not a story utterly new to Rathbone. He had heard of hysterical women inviting advances and then suddenly and without the slightest warning that a man could see, losing their heads and accusing assault. Usually the matter could be kept private with a little sensible discussion and the exchange of money—or a promise of marriage. Money was preferable—it was a far cheaper price in the long run. But why would anyone do such a thing to Monk? She could hardly wish to marry him. No society woman could marry a private agent of inquiry. And he had no money. Although possibly she did not know that. He dressed like a wealthy man.
Monk had a letter in his hand. He held it out.
Rathbone took it and read it, then folded it up and laid it on his desk.
“That puts rather a different complexion on the subject,” he said slowly. “It would appear from this that it is revenge she wishes. I assume you have no idea why, or you would have mentioned it.”