by Anne Perry
Monk stared at him. “Well?”
Hooper spoke very quietly. “One of us is in this, sir. None of us knows who we can trust, and who we can’t. You should be asking that, sir, not out in the water where you can meet with an accident.”
“I can meet with an accident in any dark alley, just as we all could,” Monk replied between his teeth. “Or are you afraid for yourself on the water with me?”
Surprise, then anger, took the smile from Hooper’s face. “No, sir. I reckon I’d be a match for you, if it came to that. And you don’t like that dark water and the currents any more than I do.”
Monk was too startled to reply for several seconds, and then he laughed. The black, bitter humor he felt was too close to pain, but it broke a certain tension inside him. “I’m coming at it from the other end,” he said. “I don’t know who the hell it is, from here. Maybe if we catch some of the kidnappers, they will show us who’s the inside man, God help him. Come on.” He moved away from the desk and this time Hooper followed him.
Out on the water they were busy with movement and surrounded by the sound of the river. Silence was easier, but the unanswered question was still there between them. Monk had trusted Hooper without ever having to think about it. He was straight about everything, even to the point of awkwardness. When he needed to be tactful, he resorted to silence. And yet he could be extremely gentle when he saw injury. He could convey understanding in the simplest language. What was it now that he could not trust Monk to know? The thought of how ugly it must be frightened Monk. A part of what he so liked in Hooper was his lack of complexity, of the kind of secrets that haunted Monk himself. He was not pleased to see himself so shallow.
They moved swiftly, still catching the low tide, but it was already past slack water and it became harder as they went down past Limehouse, along the stretch toward the Isle of Dogs.
Monk’s thoughts grew darker as the morning light showed the wharfs and docksides more clearly. Some of them stretched far out into the river, the water swirling around the broken stakes and half timbers where the boards had rotted away in places. The mud-banks were clearly visible now, but at full tide they disappeared. A conjuring trick twice a day. Now you see them, now you don’t. At high tide the dockside vista looked peaceful, even rich, while men were busy unloading the treasures of the earth, come in from every place you could think of, and many you couldn’t.
If Hooper had betrayed them, what conceivable thing had made him do it? Perhaps someone he loved was a hostage as well? Yet he had never spoken of anyone at all. He seemed a man utterly alone. All his friendships were with the men he worked beside—Monk himself, most of all. Was that a sham?
Monk thought of himself before the accident, the self he saw only from the outside. He had apparently had no real friends; allies, colleagues—yes, but not anyone to whom anything of his dreams and his fears could be shown. Perhaps his accident had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, even with all the confusion that had followed it, and the overwhelming tension that he himself had committed the crime that he was sent to solve.
Monk and Hooper landed at King’s Arms Stairs along Limehouse Reach and went ashore. They were both casually dressed, as if they were seamen paid off from some ship and ready to find another, but not in any great hurry. Monk altered the upright way he walked and mimicked Hooper’s easy roll, as if on a gently pitching deck. He pulled his cap further forward on his head to shade his eyes, which were steady, steel-gray, with an intelligence most people remembered. They found several groups of men, and Monk let Hooper do the talking. As inconspicuously as possible, he watched the ones who were idling, overhearing, and also watching.
They spent quite a while in a busy public house with beer and sandwiches, talking, apparently casually. After they had finished and lingered a bit, Hooper stood up.
“Outside the Dancing Bear in twenty minutes,” he said. “Better not be early. Looks too keen. And it’s pretty obvious. Sitting ducks, if anyone’s that way minded.”
They arrived accordingly a few minutes before the time. Five minutes later, they saw a shadow move across the open space and disappear close beside them, in the darkness against the wall. They heard nothing.
“Got some news, Patch?” Hooper asked in a perfectly normal voice.
Patch squawked loudly and demanded to know if Hooper was trying to kill him. “Could’ve scared the life out of me!” he accused.
“Money?” Hooper replied.
“I ain’t got no money. Leastways, none that I’m gonna give you. What do you want to know? I dunno who cut that woman up. Bloody barbarian, if you ask me.”
“You know about spending money,” Hooper replied. “Maybe you know where it came from? You know the fences around here. You know the pawn shops. And most of the time you know who’s done a good job recently, and got a bit to spend. Now you tell me who’s got money you don’t know where it came from.”
“What’s it worth?”
It was Monk who replied. “It’s worth a blind eye, next time you need me not to see something. This man’s nasty, cut up a helpless woman and took the money anyway.” The minute the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was a tactical error. Now Patch would be more afraid of the man than of Monk. How could he repair it? He deliberately softened his voice. “Someone paid him. That’s the man we want.”
“How the hell do I know?”
“You know someone’s got a lot of money, and you don’t know where from,” Monk replied. “That’ll do for a start.”
“No, I don’t! I just told Mr. Hooper I do ’cos I’m scared of him. And I owe him one, for letting me go sometime.”
“That’s right,” Monk agreed. “It’s comfortable to have Mr. Hooper on your side, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…right! He’s straight, Mr. Hooper is.”
“It will be even nicer to have me on your side and to have me owe you one, believe me. And it would be very nasty at times to have the shoe on the other foot. I’m good at remembering. And I’m good at forgetting, when it suits me.”
Patch hesitated.
There was silence but for the drips of water from the eaves and the distant murmur of the river. “And I can be discreet,” Monk went on. “Or not…”
“It were Lister. Casual like. Does a job here and a job there. Bit of a dresser, he is. Likes nice coats. Don’t know where you’ll find him. Prob’ly down the river from here. Other side. Deptford way, maybe. I’m not going with you, and you can’t make me.”
“Need a bit more,” Monk said, breathing easily, controlling his sudden, sharp interest.
“Like what?”
“Favorite pub? Habits? Something so we know it’s him. There’s more than one ‘Lister.’ ”
“Pig ’n’ Whistle. But he don’t drink beer. Likes that Irish stuff—Guineas—or what you call it. And that’s all!”
“That’s enough,” Monk replied. “Unless, of course, that’s all fluff out of your head!”
“It ain’t! You owe me, Mr. Monk. And it’ll bite you in the end if you don’t keep your word! I’ll make sure o’ that.”
Monk and Hooper went back to the boat, rowed downstream and across, and moored at the nearest stairs to the public house. They had quite a long walk and knew that when they got there, they might have an even longer wait before they heard mention of or saw Lister, who had recently come into a sizeable amount of money.
It actually took them the rest of the afternoon and a lot of other gossip before they found him. Lister was a slender man of average height, but he seemed more than ordinarily spry, moving with the nimble elegance of a dancer or a fighter.
“Interesting,” Hooper said quietly. “Seen him before?”
“No. Wonder where he’s come from,” Monk replied.
“Want to bet me that that coat’s new?”
“No takers,” Monk said. �
�Only the second or third time on, I’d say.”
“Bought with blood money?” Hooper moved his weight as if to stand up.
Monk put a hand on his arm and pulled him back. “Let’s watch him for a while, see who he knows, what he does.”
Hooper sat back down. “Better we follow him than take him in here,” he said almost under his breath. “We may not be able to make anything stick. If we follow him, we’ll learn who his contacts are. Follow them to the power behind him. Maybe backtrack a little? See who he’s been seeing over the last few days? It’s the first promising lead we’ve had. Give me one of the other men who worked with us on the night.”
Monk hesitated. If Hooper was the traitor, and Monk did not trust him and let him know that by refusing, then it would be obvious and Hooper would know. “Good idea,” he said quietly. “I’ll get as much background on Lister as I can and have him bring it to you. A couple of days should tell us if Lister could be our man. But who’s behind him? And, Hooper…”
Hooper looked at him.
“They’re dangerous. Be careful.”
Hooper smiled.
Monk stood up and walked away to pay the bartender for his drink, and for Hooper’s, too.
* * *
—
CELIA WAS AT HOME in the early evening when there was a knock on the front door, and a moment later Mary knocked on the sitting-room door, then came in looking startled.
“There’s a Miss Bella Franken to see you, Miss Darwin. She says it’s regarding a financial matter, and…and Miss Katherine.”
“A financial matter? What on earth has it to do with me?” Celia was totally confused. “You had better ask her to come in.”
Mary withdrew, and a moment later a young woman came into the parlor. She was small and neat, and dressed almost completely in black.
“I’m sorry to intrude at such a tragic time, Miss Darwin. I feel as though I should have come sooner. I am not certain if you will care, at this moment, but I should not decide for you.”
“Decide about what, Miss Franken? Please do sit down and be comfortable. May I offer you something? At least tea? It is a bitter night outside.”
“I feel guilty that I did not come before, but I was not certain. I was afraid it would be…”
“What is it, Miss Franken?” Celia wanted to be civil to this young woman, but this was trying her patience. Grief dwarfed everything else.
“I work for Mr. Doyle, at Nicholson’s Bank.”
For a moment Celia did not see the connection.
“Which has the money of Mrs. Exeter’s trust…”
“It is not mine to give, or not to give, Miss Franken. I don’t care in the slightest about it. The trustee, my cousin Maurice Latham, did consult me…” She was finding it hard to keep her composure. The whole tragedy was a fresh, deep wound. “I…I hardly care about the loss of the money. Perhaps you don’t understand, but it was never mine.”
“I know that, and I am more profoundly sorry than I can say,” Bella answered softly. “But I have to tell you. I cannot keep it secret. I have reason to believe that there has been steady embezzlement from it, over a period of years. It is quite a large amount, if I am correct. I…I cannot disturb Mr. Exeter over this now.”
“Then Mr. Latham…”
Bella Franken sat motionless, her back rigid, the small muscles in her neck tight. “Mr. Latham and Mr. Doyle, the bank manager, are the trustees.”
“Oh…” Realization washed over Celia in waves. Maurice! A thief! Or Mr. Doyle, the manager? “Could…could either one of them do it without the other knowing?”
“Not if they were taking care,” Bella Franken replied. “Of course, if they were not checking, it might not be noticed.” She looked extremely uncomfortable. “I have to go to the police. I wished to tell you first. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Celia said quietly. “You must do so; it is only right. We cannot overlook theft. Or maybe we can clear it up, find that it is our mathematical error.” She smiled a little weakly. “You must be cold. Will you take some tea? Or even cocoa?”
“Yes…thank you.” Bella Franken glanced at the curtained window, and Celia was sharply aware of how dark and cold it was outside. It must have been a strong impulse that had brought her here.
“Excuse me.” Celia rose to her feet again and left to go and ask Mary to bring two large mugs of hot cocoa. Perhaps tomorrow she should go to Mr. Hooper and tell him about this? Seeing him again was an oddly comforting thought. She found herself smiling when she took the tray from Mary and returned to the parlor.
But after she opened the front door to say goodbye to Bella Franken and felt the icy wind and watched the young woman leave, alone in the dark, she stood in the hall and thought again about going to see Hooper. What would he think of her? That when Kate was killed, all she could think of was the money she was not going to inherit, because it had been taken by Kate’s killers? It was gone anyway. Did it matter? Not in the slightest to Celia. And yet it did matter to her what Hooper thought of her. Let Bella Franken tell the police. She understood it.
CHAPTER
8
HOOPER REMAINED IN THE public house after Monk left, nursing a pint of ale and gazing around the room as if deep in thought. To an extent, that was true, but his eyes kept returning to the figure in the well-cut jacket with the fancy lapels. Was Lister one of the kidnappers? He was thin, narrow-boned with little visible muscle on him, which was why his coat hung so elegantly, but that did not mean he was weak. Hooper had known men like that at sea. They were far stronger than they looked, and they had the endurance that many a heavier man did not. Long-distance runners were made like that!
He did not want to be noticed staring at Lister. He shifted his apparent attention to a spot a couple of yards away, where he could still see him if he moved. On the surface, Lister was not a bad-looking man, but the longer Hooper saw him, the more he noticed a predatory air about him. It was temporarily disguised behind his wide, thin-lipped smile. There was little warmth in it. More like jubilation, as if he had won something.
Hooper remembered an officer like that whom he had known in the Merchant Navy. Mellis was very seldom unfair. The rules were strict and he was very careful about breaking them only when he was certain he could get away with it. And he always did. The thing that first reminded Hooper of Mellis was the way Lister fingered the lapel of his jacket. Mellis had had a similar mannerism: a liking for the texture of fine material, and a certain vanity, a consciousness of how he looked. He was a very good judge of character, most of the time. The only big mistake he had made was in Hooper. And it had cost them all, in the end.
But Hooper did not want to remember that. He had put it so completely out of his mind that years had gone by without his thinking of it, except first thing in the morning, when he had woken from a bad dream. He still had them, saw some of it all over again. But until now, with the question of betrayal so sharp in the air and Monk wanting to know everything about men’s pasts, it came back more often, more easily. He found himself guarding his tongue, keeping silent rather than risk a slip.
Was Lister anything like Mellis? Or was the resemblance coincidental, a trick of the light and a single mannerism, just another man who liked to dress well?
He wondered who Monk would send to take his place following Lister. He would have chosen Laker in other circumstances, but suspicion had rested on all of the men who had been on the kidnap raid. There had not been enough light for any of the kidnappers to recognize them, any more than they could recognize the kidnappers. All they’d been aware of had been shadows, movements, creaks, and splashes, which could easily have been a rat or simply the tide, until the blow came and it was too late. All Hooper knew about the man who had attacked him was that he was not as tall as Hooper, but then Hooper was tall, and the man was fast and strong and had taken Hooper completely by surpr
ise. The other policemen had said the same.
Lister rose to his feet at last, settled what seemed to be a sizeable bill—he must have been buying drinks all round—and then went out a side door to an alley. Did he know he was being watched? Or was that just his habitual way of leaving? If it was nothing more than the closest entrance to the direction he was going, then Hooper would go out of the front door and round the side to the left, quickly, and catch him before he turned off and was lost.
Hooper caught up with him fifty yards later and stayed well back. If Lister was aware he was being followed, he gave no sign of it.
Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at a pawn shop. Hooper waited outside, across the street. After nearly half an hour, Lister came out, holding in his hand a very fine gold pocket watch. He admired it in the streetlight for several moments before slipping it into his inside pocket and attaching the long gold chain through his buttonhole. It would take a fast and very slick pickpocket to remove it, and Hooper imagined Lister would be prepared for that and deal with the man accordingly. He was obviously pleased with his new treasure. He walked down the street as if he owned that, too, a swing in his stride.
Hooper followed him until Lister went to his lodgings at about eleven o’clock that night. It was dark and cold. There was already a frost. Hooper went home, ready to be up at six to find Lister again. He doubted the man would be up early, after the amount he had drunk during the evening. A sharp headache was a possibility.
It took him a long time to fall asleep. His thoughts shifted to the anxiety never far from his mind. Which of his own men had betrayed them, and not only them, but Exeter, and the wife he had loved so deeply? And what other secrets would the search lay bare? Perhaps it was selfish in the face of such grief to think of personal fears, not yet realized, but he could not discard them. When he lay alone and silent in the dark, there was nothing to hold them at bay.
In the end he turned to pleasanter things to force the darkness out of his mind and let the peace of the night take over. He wondered about Celia Darwin. There was a grace, a calm dignity about her that even the grief of Kate’s death could not take from her. She was a woman who could stand with peace of mind in the middle of other people’s chaos. The more he thought of it, the more it seemed like a kind of beauty now complete, more lasting than perfection of face or charm of coloring.