Dark Assassin

by Anne Perry

  Monk realized with surprise that Runcorn wanted Mary Havilland to be right; he simply could not see the possibility.

  “Muffled by something?” Monk asked.

  Runcorn shook his head no more than an inch or two. “Nothing there. Powder burns on his skin. If he’d wrapped a towel or a cloth around it to deaden the sound, that’d account for why nobody heard it, or maybe didn’t recognize it for a shot, but then the cloth would still be there, and it wasn’t. Unless…somebody took it away!” He did not quite make it a question, but it was in his eyes.

  “No sign of anyone else there?” Monk asked, seeking the same hope.

  “Not a thing, and I looked myself.”

  Monk believed him. Not only was Runcorn not easily a liar, there was a painful hunger in him to believe better of Havilland than the circumstances justified. Even now, two months later, it was still there.

  Monk asked the next, obvious question. “Why? What was so wrong that he’d shoot himself in his own stables in the middle of the night?”

  Runcorn pressed his lips together and hunched his shoulders a little more. “I looked.” There was an edge of defense in his voice. “As far as anyone knew, his health was excellent. He ate well, slept well enough, walked often. We checked into his affairs; he certainly was more than comfortably off. No unaccounted expenditure. He didn’t gamble. And if anyone was blackmailing him, it wasn’t for money. If he had a mistress, we never found her. If he had bad habits, we saw no sign of them, either. He drank very little. Never been seen the worse for it. Wife died seven years ago. Had two daughters. Jenny, the elder, is married to Alan Argyll, a very successful businessman.”

  Runcorn took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Havilland worked for Argyll’s company as an engineer in the big rebuilding of the sewers. Well respected, well paid. Seemed to get on all right, at least until recently, when Havilland took it into his head that the tunnels were dangerous and there was going to be an accident one day. We couldn’t find any evidence for it. Argyll’s safety record is good, better than most. And we all know the new sewers are necessary, urgently so.”

  “And Mary?” Monk asked. He wanted to fault Runcorn, to find something the superintendent had forgotten or done badly, but he couldn’t.

  Runcorn’s face softened. “The poor girl was beside herself with grief,” he said defensively, as if he felt he needed to protect her memory from Monk’s intrusion.

  Monk liked him the better for that.

  “She couldn’t believe he would do such a thing,” Runcorn went on. “Said he was on a crusade, and people in crusades get killed sometimes, but they don’t shoot themselves. She said he was on the edge of finding out something about the tunnels, and someone killed him to stop him doing that. Lots of money at stake. Fortunes to be made, and I suppose lost, in all this. And reputations.”

  “What do you believe?” Monk asked.

  “Asked a few questions about him,” Runcorn said unhappily. “According to the men in the works, he’d gotten a bit eccentric. Scared stiff of tunnels and holes, so they said. Used to shake and go white as a ghost, break out in a sweat.” He lifted one shoulder very slightly. “Happens to some people. Others it’s heights, or spiders, or snakes. Whatever. Usually think of women being frightened of that sort of thing, but it doesn’t have to be. Worked a case once with a woman who fainted at the sight of a mouse. Can’t think why, but it doesn’t have to have a reason. Knew another one terrified of birds, even a harmless little canary.” He stopped. All the lines of his face sagged, making him look older, more tired than before. “He did seem obsessed with the dread of an accident, and as far as I could see, there was no reason for it.”

  “What did Mrs. Argyll think of her father in this?” Monk asked, remembering Jenny Argyll’s stiff back and carefully controlled face.

  “Blamed herself for not seeing how far his madness had gone,” Runcorn answered, weariness and confusion in his eyes. “Said she would have had him better looked after if she’d known. Not that there was a thing she could’ve done, as her husband told her. As long as he breaks no laws—and Havilland didn’t—a man’s entitled to go as daft as he likes.”

  “And Mary?”

  Runcorn sighed. “That’s the thing. Poor girl refused to accept it. Determined her father was right and wouldn’t let it rest. Started reading all his books, asking questions. Broke off her engagement to Toby Argyll and devoted herself to clearing her father’s name. Wanted him buried in consecrated ground if it took her her life’s work to do it.” His voice sank even lower. “Now it looks as if the poor soul’ll lie beside him. Do you know when they’re going to do that, because—” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat, then glared defensively at Monk as if challenging him to mock.

  Monk had no desire to. In his mind’s eye he could see again and again the figure of Mary tipping over the rail, clinging on to Toby Argyll, and the two of them plunging down into the icy river. He still did not know what had happened; nothing was clear, and he ended up not remembering but imagining, because he wanted her not to have done it herself.

  And he remembered the strong bones and the gentle mouth of the white face they pulled out of the river, and that Mrs. Porter had said she was a woman of opinions and the courage to declare them.

  “No, not yet. But I’ll tell you when I do. Have to tell the butler, Cardman, as well.”

  Runcorn nodded, then looked away, his eyes too bright.

  “You said you found where he bought the gun.” Monk changed the subject.

  Runcorn did not look at him. “Pawnshop half a mile away. Owner described him close enough. He was wearing a good coat, dark wool, and a scarf. Nothing odd in that, especially on a November night.”

  “Not very specific. Could have been anyone.”

  “Could have, except it was the same gun. Had one or two marks and scratches on it. He was certain enough.”

  “But why would Havilland have killed himself?” Monk persisted.

  Runcorn shook his head. “Alan Argyll told me he was becoming an embarrassment to the company. He was reluctant to say so, but he was going to have to dismiss him. Havilland was upsetting the men, causing trouble. Argyll felt very badly about it, but he had no choice. Couldn’t let everyone suffer because of one man’s obsession. Said he hadn’t told his wife, and certainly Mary didn’t know, but he had intimated as much to Havilland himself. He begged us not to tell them, especially Mary. It wouldn’t alter his suicide, and it would reduce him in their eyes. In fact, it would make suicide seem more rational. Maybe he did tell her after all.” There was no relief in his face, no sense of resolution.

  “Poor man,” Monk said. “If he told her at last and she went off the bridge, taking Toby Argyll with her, he’s going to feel a guilt for the rest of his life.”

  “What else could he do?” Runcorn said reasonably, his face still puckered in distaste.

  “If Havilland was murdered, who did Mary think was responsible?”

  “Her brother-in-law,” Runcorn replied unhesitatingly. “But he wasn’t. We checked up—he was out all evening at a function and went home with his wife a little after midnight. She’ll swear for him, and so will the servants. Footman waited up; so did the lady’s maid. No way he could have been there. Same for his brother, before you ask.”

  “He lives close by. No servants to swear for him,” Monk pointed out.

  “He was out of London that night,” Runcorn responded. “Wasn’t within a hundred miles. Checked on that, too.”

  “I see.” There was nothing left to argue. He stood up with a strange hollowness inside him. “Thank you.”

  Runcorn rose as well. “Are you giving up?” It sounded like a challenge. There was a note in it close to despair.

  “No!” Monk exclaimed. In truth, though, he had no idea where else to look for evidence. Inevitability closed in on him.

  “Tell me,” Runcorn said, frowning, “if you find anything. And…”

  “Yes, I will,” Monk promised. He
thanked him, and left before it could grow any more awkward. There was nothing else for them to say to each other, and the brief truce was best unbroken by not trying.

  Monk returned to Wapping station and spent the afternoon in the general duties that were part of his new job. He disliked the routine, especially writing reports and even more reading other people’s, but he could not afford to do less than his best. Any error or omission could be the one that spelled failure. He must succeed. He had no other skills than for his work and most certainly no other friends like Callandra Daviot who could or should help financially.

  At five o’clock it was completely dark. Worse than that, there was a heavy fog rolling in from the east, shrouding the river so closely he knew he would not find a boatman to attempt rowing him across. Already the streetlamps were dimming, blurred yellow ghosts fading altogether after twenty yards, so the night was impenetrable. The mournful baying of the foghorns on the water broke the silence, and there was little else to be heard but the steady drip of water and the slurp of the tide on the steps and against the embankment.

  Monk left at half past five to begin the long walk up towards London Bridge, where if he was very fortunate he might find a hansom to take him over, and as far as Southwark Park and home.

  He buttoned his coat, pulled his collar up, and set out.

  He had gone about a quarter of a mile when he was aware of someone behind him. He stopped just beyond one of the mist-shrouded lamps and waited.

  An urchin came into the pale circle of light. He looked about nine years old, as much as one could see of his face through the grime. He was wearing a long jacket and odd boots, but at least he was not barefoot on the icy stone.

  “Hello, Scuff,” Monk said with pleasure. The mudlark had been of help to him in the Maude Idris case, and Monk had seen him a dozen times since then, albeit briefly. Twice they had shared a meat pie. This was the first time he had seen the boots. “New find?” he asked, admiring them.

  “Found one, bought the other,” Scuff replied, catching up with him.

  Monk started to walk again. It was too cold to stand still. “How are you?” he asked.

  Scuff shrugged. “I got boots. You all right?” The second was said with a shadow of anxiety. Scuff thought Monk was an innocent, a liability to himself, and he made no secret of it.

  “Not bad, thank you,” Monk replied. “Do you want a pie, if we can find anyone open?”

  “Yer won’t,” Scuff said candidly. “It’s gonna be an ’ard winter. You wanna watch yerself. It’s gonna get bad.”

  “It’s pretty bad every winter,” Monk replied. He could not afford to dwell too long on the misery of those who worked and slept outside, because he was helpless to do anything about it. What was a hot pie now and then to one small boy?

  “This in’t the same,” Scuff replied, keeping step with Monk by skipping an extra one now and then. “Them big tunnels wot they’re diggin’ is upsettin’ folk down there. Toshers in’t ’appy.”

  Toshers were the men who made their living by hunting for and picking up small objects of value that found their way into the sewers, including a remarkable amount of jewelry. They usually hunted together, for fear of the armies of rats that could rapidly strip a man down to the bone if he was unlucky enough to lose his footing and injure himself. And there was always the possibility of a buildup of methane gas given off by the sewer contents, and of course a wave of water if the rain was torrential enough.

  “Why are the toshers unhappy?” Monk asked. “There’ll always be sewers, just better ones.”

  “Change,” Scuff said simply, and with exaggerated patience. “Everybody’s got their stretch, their beat, if yer like, seen’ as yer a policeman o’ sorts.”

  “I’m a perfectly regular policeman!” Monk defended himself.

  Scuff treated that assertion with the silence it deserved. In his opinion Monk was a dangerous novice who had taken Durban’s position out of a misguided idea of loyalty. He was miserably unsuited for it and was much in need of the guidance or protection of someone who knew what they were doing, such as Scuff himself. He had been born on the river, and at nine years old—or possibly ten, he wasn’t sure—he knew an enormous amount, and was not too proud to learn more every day. But it was a heavy responsibility to look after a grown man who thought he knew so much more than he did.

  “Is there going to be a fight over the new stretches?” Monk asked.

  “Course there is,” Scuff replied, sniffling. “An’ lots o’ folk gotta move their places. ’Ow’d yer like it if some bleedin’ great machine came an’ crashed your ’ole street down wi’out a word, eh?”

  Scuff was referring to the entire communities on the edge between honest poverty, close to destitution, and the semi-criminal underworld who lived nearly all their lives in the sewers, tunnels, and excavations beneath London. To drive a new tunnel through the old was like putting a hot poker into a wasps’ nest. That had been Orme’s analogy.

  “I know,” Monk replied. “Mr. Orme has already warned me. I’m not doing this alone, you know.” He looked from left to right through the thickening fog to see if he could see the lights of any kind of food or hot-drink peddlers. The cold was like a tightening vise around them, crushing the heat out of their bodies. How did an urchin like Scuff—so thin he was merely skin and bone—survive? The baleful cry of the foghorns was growing more frequent on the water, and it was impossible to place the sound in the distortion of the mist.

  “ ’Ot-chestnut seller that way,” Scuff said hopefully, sniffing again.

  “Tonight?” Monk doubted it. It would be a bad night for barrows; no one would be able to see them in this.

  “Charlie,” Scuff said, as if that were explanation enough.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Course.”

  “I can’t see anything. Which way?”

  “Don’ need ter. I know where ’e’ll be. Yer like chestnuts?” There was a definite lift in Scuff’s voice now.

  “Hot, I’d eat anything. Yes, I do.”

  Scuff hesitated, as if considering whether to strike a bargain, then his charity got the better of his business sense. “I’ll take yer,” he offered magnanimously. It was clear that Monk needed all the help he could get.

  “Thank you,” Monk accepted. “Perhaps you would join me?”

  “I don’ mind if I do.”

  THREE

  The Portpool Lane clinic was a large establishment, not with the open wards that made nursing easy, but with numerous separate bedrooms. However, it had the greatest advantage any establishment that was devoted to the treatment of the penniless could have: it was rent-free. It had once been a highly disreputable brothel run by one Squeaky Robinson, a man of many financial and organizational skills. He haxd in the past made one serious technical error, and it was that upon which Hester, with the help of the brilliant barrister Oliver Rathbone, had capitalized on. It was then that the brothel had been closed down, its extortion business ended, and the building turned into a clinic for the treatment of any street woman who was either injured or ill.

  Some of its former occupants had remained to work at the more tedious but far safer occupations of cleaning and laundering sheets. Squeaky Robinson himself lived on the premises, and under vociferous and constant complaint kept the books and managed the continuing finances. He never allowed Hester to forget that he was there under duress and because he had been tricked. In turn, she was aware that he had actually, against his better judgment, developed a fierce pride in the whole enterprise.

  After the terrible period during which Claudine Burroughs had come, and experienced such a change in her life, Margaret Ballinger had also finally accepted Sir Oliver’s proposal of marriage. Both women were working at the clinic and fully intended to remain so, leaving Hester with far less responsibility for its welfare, either in the raising of funds to pay for the food, fuel, and medicines or in the day-to-day chores.

  The same bitter morning that Monk began i
nvestigating the death of James Havilland, Hester was checking the account books in the office at the clinic for the last time.

  After the appalling weeks of the previous autumn, when Hester had so nearly died, Monk had demanded that she give up working at the clinic. Although it meant far more to her than a simple refuge for street women who were ill or injured and it filled a need in her to heal, she ultimately acquiesced to Monk’s wishes. Even so, she dragged out the last duties in the clinic, putting off the moment of having to leave.

  She would greatly have preferred to perform this task in the familiar kitchen, where the stove kept the whole room warm and the lamps gave a pleasant yellow glow on old pans polished with use, and odd china of varying colors and designs. Strings of onions hung from the bare beams along with bunches of dried herbs, and at least one airing rack was festooned with laundered bandages ready for use on the next disaster.

  But the ledgers, bills, and receipts as well as the money itself were all in the office, so she sat at the table, feet cold and hands stiff, adding up figures and trying to make the results hopeful.

  There was a brisk knock on the door, and as soon as she answered it, Claudine came in. She was a tall woman, narrow-shouldered and broad at the hips. Her face had been handsome in her youth, but years of unhappiness had taken the bloom from her skin and marked her features with an expression of discontent. A couple of months of dedicated purpose and the startling realization that she was actually both useful and liked had only just begun to change that. She still wore her oldest clothes, which were of good quality but out of fashion now. The newer ones were left at home to be worn on her increasingly rarer forays into society. Her husband was annoyed and puzzled by her preference for “good work” over the pursuit of pleasure, but she no longer believed he had earned the right to inflict further unhappiness upon her, and very seldom spoke of him. If she had any friends of her own aside from those at the clinic, she did not refer to them, either, except insofar as they might be persuaded to donate to the cause.