by Anne Perry
Exeter appeared to consider it for some time. “Of course,” he said at last. “You are quite right. I went to Doyle. I’ve known him for years. Always found him…reliable. But I suppose the poor man has never faced a situation like this before. Thank God, there are not many kidnappings in London. At least not for that kind of sum.” He nodded with a shadow of a smile. “He raised it for me. He liquidated certain assets immediately. Used his influence, and his word, to get the money very quickly. I…I thought we had met their demands…” He blinked quickly and turned away, avoiding Hooper’s eyes. His voice was thick with emotion as he continued. “We did exactly what they said! And still…”
“I know, sir. You were not at fault,” Hooper said quickly, to save Exeter from having to repeat again the dreadful events. “If something went wrong, then it was at their end.”
“Good God, man!” Exeter said furiously. “If…if something went wrong?”
Hooper stayed perfectly steady. “It is possible, sir, that they never intended to give her back to you.”
Exeter looked as if Hooper had struck him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that is a possibility. The other possibility, perhaps more likely, is that Mrs. Exeter recognized one of the men, and either he killed her to save himself, or one of the others killed her to save all of them. The person she knew could have implicated all of them, sooner or later.”
Exeter stared at him as if seeing the depth of his character for the first time. This very ordinary-looking ex-seaman had arrived at the possibility before him. “Maybe you are right,” he said slowly, only just loud enough for Hooper to hear him. “Of course you are. And if Doyle was involved, Kate had met him. She was good at speaking to ordinary people—tradesmen and so on, and never forgetting their names. It’s a skill.”
Hooper thought it was hardly a skill; it was a decency. And Doyle was hardly a tradesman, but that was not the point now. If she thought of him as such, that would only add to Doyle’s sense of exclusion.
“Do you really think Doyle could have done this?” Exeter was frowning now. “How would he know people such as the…creature that you found in the boat, with his throat cut? And are you sure he—Lister, wasn’t he called?—was involved? That is only a deduction, isn’t it?”
“It seems very likely, sir. Lister had been spending what were for him huge amounts of money. He was known to be violent on occasion, and when we followed him he was keeping company with other violent men.”
“Not a lot to go on,” Exeter pointed out. “Doyle had the connection. He knew about the kidnapping. God! When I recall his sympathy and apparent shock when I told him about it! He looked…shattered…but it makes sense. Have you any connection between Doyle and this fellow…Lister?”
“We followed Lister and know he met up with Mr. Doyle. And Miss Darwin recognized him, sir.”
“What!”
“Miss Darwin recognized him, sir,” Hooper repeated.
“What do you mean, recognized him? When in hell’s name did she ever see him?”
Hooper felt the blood rush up his face. Had he made a mistake in telling Exeter this? “She was with Mrs. Exeter when the man took her on the—”
“I know she was!” Exeter cut across him. “But when did she see him again, to recognize him?”
Hooper’s mind raced. “She did not name him, sir.” He had to admit to taking Celia to the morgue and showing her the corpse. Exeter would be furious with him. He could understand it. In his place, he would have felt the same. “She identified his body as the man she had seen on the riverbank,” he finished.
Exeter’s face paled. “God Almighty, man. You took Celia to look at the corpse, with his throat cut, of the man who kidnapped her cousin in front of her and then hacked her to death? Are you insane? You…you…Words fail me!” His face was flushed with rage.
“He was cleaned up, sir, and his throat was not visible. She saw only his face.”
“And that makes it all right? What kind of a man are you? Maybe the women in your society are used to that kind of thing, but Miss Darwin is a lady! She might be poor and from the least successful side of the family, in all respects, but she is…”
Hooper kept his temper with difficulty, but his anger was evident in the timbre of his voice, if not in his actual words. “Miss Darwin behaved herself with perfect composure, Mr. Exeter, as a lady would, in my experience. Mr. Monk’s wife, whom I have the privilege of knowing, was a nurse in the Crimea, with Florence Nightingale, and has seen more bloody corpses than all the police force put together, and certainly than you or I have. Neither she, nor the ladies with her, many of them from noble families, screamed or fainted or generally got in the way. Birth and death are both bloody, and frequently intimate and painful, and women usually do the attending to both.”
Exeter drew in his breath sharply, then his face eased into blankness. “You are perfectly correct,” he said with amazement. “I had never thought of Celia being any use at all, but perhaps she has at least that quality. Either that, or insufficient imagination to be horrified. I hope she did not identify this wretched man simply to please you.”
Hooper had had that thought as well, and had dismissed it. Now he was angry with Exeter for suggesting it, and yet he had no right to be. “So do I, sir. I hope it every time someone identifies a potential criminal. She did not see him for very long on the riverbank, but I believe her. She is observant.”
“You hardly know her well enough for such a judgment, Mr. Hooper.” Exeter’s face was slack with surprise as another thought came to him. “Unless, of course, that was not the first time she had seen him? Is that what you were suggesting?”
For an instant Hooper had no idea what Exeter meant. Then it came to him in a rush of profound anger. It took him a moment to hide it. Exeter must not know the regard Hooper had for this woman he had met only three times, and so briefly. He breathed in and out slowly, as if pensive rather than controlling his emotions. “I was not suggesting such a thing, sir. I have no reason to suppose any of you met Lister before, except perhaps Mr. Doyle. And I am sure you would tell me if you had any evidence of that.”
“How could I have?” Exeter demanded. “I have never seen this…Lister!”
“No, sir. I forgot that. If you think of anything else that might be of use in tracing the money through Mr. Doyle’s hands, his foreknowledge of the ransom and its amount, anything at all—”
“Yes, yes. I’ll tell you,” Exeter assured him. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I was short with you. This is all terribly hard for me. Nothing is as I thought it was…as I believed. It is all…” He shook his head.
Hooper rose to his feet. “Appalling, sir. I can hardly imagine,” he said quietly.
CHAPTER
12
MONK LISTENED CLOSELY AS Hooper told him about his visit to Harry Exeter. They were sitting in Monk’s office with the door closed. The kidnapping was still at the forefront of everyone’s minds although it was a week and a half since the event. It was a failure that ached like a deep wound. They were becoming used to it, and there were always other cases to deal with: robberies, smuggling, stolen goods moved from place to place, in and out of their jurisdiction, and violence here and there, usually bar brawls that got out of hand, occasionally a knifing or a body thrown into the water. But the murder of Kate Exeter was deliberate and unnecessary, and a failure of which they were forewarned and yet had still succumbed.
“But you think Miss Darwin’s identification was good?” Monk asked a second time, studying Hooper’s face. He was not a handsome man in a traditional way, but he had a good face. The strength in it was gentle; there was nothing coarse in him. Monk was overwhelmed with a sudden wave of hatred toward whoever had betrayed them and sown the seed of this darkness. Good men were unfairly doubted, robbed of a trust they had earned—more than earned—through danger, boredom, physical hardship, and pain. Yesterday h
e had followed up on young Bathurst’s paperwork on the arrest of a thief, and Marbury had seen him do it. Would he tell Bathurst? Or simply think that Bathurst needed more guidance?
One of his men had let him down, but in a sense he himself had let them all down. He repeated his question to Hooper in slightly different words. “You think she is right, not just trying to help, to do something for Kate, without thinking it through?”
“She is very…sensible,” Hooper said slowly. “If you met her, you would know what I mean. She understands that truth is the only thing that helps.”
“Are you sure?”
Hooper thought for a moment and then answered, “Yes, I am.”
Hooper was a good judge of character. Monk had come to rely on him more and more. He thought of the trust he had placed in Orme, when he was alive. That was a loss they all still felt. Sometimes Monk remembered a familiar phrase that Orme had used or passed a place on the river he had loved, and a shadow would pass over his face.
“Who betrayed us, Hooper?” he said suddenly. “Could Lister have told us, and that was why he was killed?”
Hooper’s eyes widened a fraction. Perhaps because it had not occurred to him? Or because he realized Monk must trust him to ask him that?
“I don’t know,” Hooper replied. “I knew it wasn’t you or me. And I trust Laker. He’s a cheeky devil, and ambitious, but I trust him. He wants to be like you,” he smiled. “Or even better. And that means being straight with everybody, whether they like it or not.”
Monk winced and felt the heat climb up his face. He had not done much to deserve that kind of praise lately, and he realized with surprise how valuable it was to him. “What about Bathurst?” he asked. “Are you satisfied about him?”
“Yes,” Hooper replied. “That leaves Marbury and Walcott. But so much about this case isn’t how it looks, and everything is to be questioned. Exeter even tried to make me doubt Miss Darwin’s identification.”
Monk waited. He could see that Hooper was fighting some emotion. Whatever Exeter had said, it disturbed and also angered him. Was that because he felt something for the woman? It looked like that, from his expression.
Hooper lifted his head. “He half suggested that she wasn’t a reliable witness, that she was likely to be overcome with horror or emotion, and her judgment affected.”
“Isn’t that fair?” Monk asked, surprised that Hooper should not see that himself.
“Because she’s a woman?” Hooper said with disbelief. “What, and confused, overemotional? Like Hester?” He used her first name quite naturally, as if this was how he thought of her. “Or the other women who work with her at the clinic, or did in the Crimea?”
Again, Monk felt the heat rise up in his face. “So, Exeter views women as weak and suggestible? I wonder if that was how he saw Kate.” He found that hard to believe when he remembered Exeter’s face when he spoke of her, or the few incidents he had recalled in Monk’s company. Did he have conflicting ideas? Kate, and then other women? Did he even know other women, apart from Celia Darwin, who was family and of little more interest to him than a servant? He had spoken of her dismissively before.
“He tried to make me doubt Miss Darwin’s identification of Lister,” Hooper repeated.
“Perhaps he wants to believe the kidnapper is still alive, either to get information or to feel the pain of punishment,” Monk suggested.
“I think Doyle’s part of it.” Hooper picked up the other thread of the conversation. “He wants to be something he can’t be without a lot more money than he’ll ever earn at the bank. Exeter took him to a gentlemen’s club, according to the woman at the public house where he drinks.”
“Exeter or Doyle?”
“Doyle, although I gather Exeter’s been in there a couple of times. Slumming, showing he’s one of the men!” The expression on Hooper’s face was a mixture of derision, disgust, and pity. “Fool,” he said under his breath.
They stayed and turned over every possibility again, but no new thought arose. Eventually Hooper left, and a few moments later Monk took the ferry home across the river.
He was pleased to see Hester and glad of the warmth of the sitting room, but he wished he had progress to tell her, or at least that someone had proved conclusively that he could not have been the one to betray them to the kidnappers. But with Hester, Monk could not even try to pretend. It was not for her sake, but mainly for his own. He had to have one relationship without even the smallest lies, no shifting of position to make himself look better, no wondering if she would find out this or that. Everything would be different, shallower, without the shadows that made it real.
He went to bed early, too tired to think of anything to say. Sleep might repair some of the frayed edges of his temper.
But he did not sleep. He lay stiff and awkward, listening to Hester’s breathing become deeper, softer, as she drifted off. Somewhere outside and far away a church clock chimed midnight, then one, then two. The wind rose a little and whined round the ridges of the roof. It would be freezing out there, a few yards away, above the slates. It seemed all the warmer in here. He wanted to wake Hester and hold her in his arms, have her tell him none of his men had betrayed him. That good things in the world were still as he had believed. How infinitely childish! He turned over and put his back to her, to stop himself from doing anything so self-absorbed.
“William?” she said quietly.
Damn! He had woken her anyway. Should he pretend to be asleep?
“William?” she repeated.
He did not answer. He felt her moving beside him, pushing the covers back and climbing out of bed. She walked across the floor and took her robe off the peg on the back of the door. She put it on and, hugging it around herself, went outside onto the landing.
He waited, but she seemed gone for ages. He would not go to sleep until she returned.
When she did, the light was on on the landing. She came in and put the bedroom light on, too. She was carrying a small tray with two mugs of tea.
“We’ll talk it through,” she said, as if picking up a conversation they had left in the middle.
He thought of arguing, but it was ridiculous to deny it now, when really what he wanted was truth. Tousled, he sat up, pushed his hair off his face, and accepted the hot mug of tea. He sipped it very carefully. He was surprised how good it tasted.
She put her own mug down, climbed into bed beside him, and then sipped hers, too. “Are you still worrying about who betrayed you?” she asked after a moment or two.
“I wish I could find another answer, but we were the only ones who knew exactly where we were going in, and there were several possible ways. They were waiting for us and took us by surprise, one by one.”
“Could there have been a lot of them? One for every possible way in?” she asked.
He thought for a moment. “The more there were of them, the more to split the money. And the more risk of one of them turning informer. They could have been more…I suppose.”
“Could it have been Exeter himself, unintentionally? Someone had to help him get the money. You said it was a very great deal. He wouldn’t have had it in the house!”
“Bank manager, Doyle.”
“Did he know what it was for?”
“Yes, Exeter told him. He had little choice, to raise that much so quickly. If he sold everything, he’d have had to do it at a loss, and in a hell of a hurry.”
“Does he trust this Doyle?”
“I think he did. Not that there was a lot of choice in that either.” He stared at her. “Are you thinking that whoever took her would know he’d go to Doyle?”
“Well, it’s not a great feat of the imagination, is it?” she said reasonably.
“No…” The more the idea settled in his mind, the more it seemed to fit in with all the facts they knew.
“Could he
have told Doyle what the arrangements were, perhaps without realizing how much he was giving away?” Hester went on. “He’d be desperate to get the full amount of money by the time they demanded it. Time was against them all.”
“All?” He took another sip of his tea. He found it oddly relaxing, the heat of it, although it was not cold in the bedroom.
“The kidnappers as well,” she answered. “The longer they had her, the more chance of something going wrong. Perhaps it did.”
“They murdered her, Hester. Slashed her…”
“I know. But perhaps she tried to escape? Or maybe she knew one of them. They might not all have been pirates, or smugglers, or whatever they were. We don’t know who they were, do we? Apart from the man in the boat, who spent his money too openly?”
“Are you thinking it was someone she knew? They both knew? An enemy of Exeter’s, of his own social class?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Not likely. Not to know Jacob’s Island the way these men did.”
“I suppose not. But couldn’t one of them have known it, and have hired the others? Do you know Exeter’s background?”
“Not in river pirates and kidnappers!”
“Isn’t he very rich, indeed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how he made his money? All of it?”
“You’re letting your imagination run away with you; he makes it in business: building, draining land, and trading. He’s thoroughly respectable. I did check that!”
“William,” she said patiently, “respectability can be bought, and quite a lot of it at a reasonable rate! Put money in the right places and you’d be amazed how it opens doors. A lot of them anyway, though some aren’t for sale.”
He suddenly realized again the gulf between his past and hers. Her parents had been gentry—not nobility, but well acquainted with the aristocracy and their beliefs and manners, from the inside—not looking on from beyond a circle of familiarity. She had occasionally entertained uncles and aunts, cousins with titles. And in her work with Miss Nightingale she had met many titled and privileged people, perhaps nursed their sons in the desolation of battle, when all men are equally vulnerable, wounded and sharing the commonality of death.