by Anne Perry
The men rested on their oars. It was just about slack tide.
“Right, sir,” one of them said. “Where’d yer be wantin’ ter begin, then?”
It was time to seek the counsel of experts.
“If a man wanted to sink a barge with the least chance of its being found, where would he choose?” he asked. It sounded ridiculous even as he listened to himself.
Overhead, gulls wheeled and cried. The wind was rising and the water slurped against the sides of the boat, rocking it very gently.
It was the man who had begun helping Monk dress who answered.
“In the lee o’ one o’ the sandbanks,” he answered without hesitation. “Water’s deep enough ter ’ide a barge even at the lowest tide.”
“What would sink a barge?” Monk asked him.
The man screwed up his face. “Not much, actual. Mostly age, overloading, which some fools do.”
“But if you wanted to sink one?” Monk pressed.
The man’s eyes widened. “Bash an ’ole in it, I reckon. Below the waterline, o’ course. Not the bottom. That’s made of elm. Too ’ard. Sides is oak.”
“I see. Thank you.” He had all he needed. Now there was no avoiding putting on the rest of the suit and going over the side and into the murky water.
A few more pulls on the oars, five minutes perhaps, and he was climbing into the diving suit with the help of two of the men. It looked rather like a very baggy, all-in-one jacket and trousers made of two layers of waterproof cloth with india rubber between. It felt as though he were pulling on a heavy sack, but with arms and legs in it.
He had had no idea how difficult it would be to force his hands through the tight india rubber cuffs. He was obliged to grease his hands with soft soap and then narrow his palms as much as possible while an attendant opened the cuff and he pushed his hand into it so violently he was afraid he was going to tear his flesh.
The dresser nodded with approval. If he noticed the cold sweat on Monk’s face he made no comment on it.
“Sit down!” he ordered, pointing to the thwart behind Monk. “Gotta get yer boots on, an’ yer ’elmet. Gotta make sure everything’s right.” He bent down and began the process with the enormous weighted boots. “If they in’t right, you’ll lose them in the mud. Sucks summink awful down there. an’ ’old still while I put on yer breastplate. That comes loose an’ yer a gonner.”
Monk felt his stomach clench as his imagination visualized the darkness and the bottomless, greedy mud. It cost him all his self-control to sit obediently motionless while the helmet was placed over his head and screwed, metal rubbing against metal, until it was tight. The front glass was left off for now. Monk was surprised by the almost crushing weight of the helmet. The air hose was passed under his right arm and the end attached to the inlet valve, then the breast line was brought up under his left arm and secured. Next came the belt and the heavy, razor-sharp knife in its leather sheath. The man looped a rope around Monk’s waist.
“ ’Ere now, ’old this in yer ’and, and if yer get in trouble pull on it six or seven times an’ we’ll get yer up. That’s w’y we call it the lifeline.” He grinned. “This ’ere other rope we’ve tied to yer, we’re gonna tie the other end ter the ladder-we don’t wanter lose yer-least not until we’re paid.” He laughed heartily.
“All right, lad?” the man asked.
Monk nodded, his mouth dry.
He looked at the brown water around their vessel, still drifting idly on the slack tide, and felt as if he were about to be buried alive. The three men were busy at their tasks, careful, professional.
Trace sat on the other thwart, dressed exactly the same. He smiled, and Monk smiled back, wishing he felt as confident as the gesture implied.
One of the men straightened up. “All right, boys, let’s get the pump going!” There was a loud click-clack, and in a moment Monk felt the air rush into his helmet. The man smiled. “Aye, it’s working all right. Now, don’t you worry, lad. Just ’member ter stick close ter the other feller an’ ’ow ter inflate yer suit wi’ that valve, an’ yer’ll be fine.” He did not sound quite as confident now, as if at this final moment he had realized just what a novice Monk was, and the risks he was taking.
The front glass of his helmet was screwed into place and for a moment Monk was overcome with panic. He gasped for air and drew it into his lungs. Gradually his wild heartbeat subsided.
“Right,” the man said with a slightly forced smile. “Time ter go!”
Monk lumbered towards the ladder, thinking with each step that the weight of the helmet would buckle him at the knees. He climbed down awkwardly, and when the water was to his waist two fifty-pound leads were fastened to his chest and back. He gasped at the sudden increase in weight.
He was handed a waterproof lantern with a candle in it.
His suit began to inflate slightly as the air expanded it. Now he appreciated why it needed to be so large on him.
Trace was already below him in the water, almost submerged.
The river closed over his head and in moments he was blinded by gloom. The only contact with Trace and the surface was by rope, and he tried to unscramble what the men had told him: Stay calm. Don’t panic. Remember, you are not on your own. Pull on the rope if you’re in trouble. We’ll get you up.
The pressure built up in his eardrums. He swallowed to clear it.
Gradually his sight cleared a little as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. He could make out the form of Trace, coming towards him, taking Monk by the hand.
With leaden feet just touching the muddy bottom, Monk followed after him.
He lost all sense of time. He was amazed how difficult it was to keep his balance. The tide was far more powerful than he had foreseen, pulling one way and another at him as current eddied and swirled, sometimes going one way at chest height, the opposite way at his thighs and knees. More than once he found himself falling and regained his footing with difficulty. And all the time he was acutely aware that only one thin hose of pumped air supported his life, one thin set of ropes could pull him back to the surface.
The ground sloped up beneath his giant boots. They were on the mud bank. It was hard work trying to climb up it. He was sweating as he went, but his hands and feet were cold. The murky water swirled around his head, a brown, blinding mass.
The dim figure of Trace was still just ahead of him, close enough to hold his hand, but was no more than a deepening of the gloom.
Time seemed endless. He longed for light. This was all an idiotic idea. What had made him think the barge had been sunk, simply because he could find no trace of its going back upstream again? And if it were down here, what did that prove? Only that fraud had been the intention all along. Would it prove by whom? Or who had murdered Alberton?
It was impenetrably dark ahead. How long had they been down here?
Trace was still guiding him along, turning slowly in the water, raising his other arm.
Monk lost his balance again. He should have left this to professionals. Except he could not; he must find this himself, hold the proof in his own hands, see everything there was, miss nothing, destroy nothing.
Still holding Monk’s hand, Trace swung his arm around and pointed. Ahead of them was a deeper murk, blocking off even the swirling brown of the water.
Trace started to move again and Monk followed, agonizingly slowly.
Then suddenly his feet were swept from under him and he felt a hard yank on the ropes. Awkwardly he tried to look down at what had caught him. It was the boards of a sunken wreck.
Trace was climbing up onto an angle of the boat.
Monk went after him. The effort to move made his muscles ache. They seemed to be on a deck, slipping slightly as the bow settled deeper into the mud. Moving hand over hand they found the cabin.
It took a long, slow examination, a foot at a time, holding on to each other, to discover what was inside.
It was Trace who found the crates. It was impossible to tell ho
w many there were of them, but moving with infinite slowness they found at least fifty. Far more than Monk had expected. More like the original shipment to Breeland.
But why here at the bottom of the river and not on their way over to America, or to the Mediterranean?
Monk felt Trace’s hand on his shoulder. He could see almost nothing. There was barely sufficient light to tell which way the surface lay.
He reached out for Trace, then drew back his hand, now numb with cold. This was no time to be foolish.
A hand came after him. Then he felt the rest of the body, a shoulder, perhaps a head. It bumped into his helmet and something covered the glass in front of his eyes.
Hair! Loose human hair in the water! Trace was drowning!
Monk reached up and clasped the arm, trying to pull desperately on the rope at the same time. He must get help! What had happened?
There was no resistance on the arm, no weight! God Almighty! It was loose … just an arm, bloated and almost naked! He could dimly make out where his fingers had sunk into the flesh, like squeezing soft fat.
He felt himself gag, and only just controlled himself from retching. The rest of the body was there, almost whole, huge, disintegrating at the touch.
He saw Trace’s light in the gloom, waving around. Another body floated across his vision and disappeared.
It made no sense. Who were they? Why were they dead? He forced himself to govern his revulsion and move slowly after one of them. Deliberately he felt around until he found the head. He shone his light on it, close up, trying not to look at the unrecognizable features. The bullet hole was still there, not easy to see in the white, half-eaten flesh of the forehead, but plain enough in the splintered skull.
It seemed to take endless time swishing around almost helplessly in the current inside the cramped cabin, bumping into each other, into the trapped and hideous corpses, before they ascertained beyond doubt that there were three men, all of whom had been shot dead.
Trace came right up to him, holding Monk by one arm and touching his helmet to Monk’s. When he spoke, incredibly, Monk could hear him almost as normal.
“Shearer!” Trace said distinctly, waving his other arm, with the lantern, in the direction of one of the corpses.
Shearer. Of course! This abomination was why no one had seen Walter Shearer since the night of Alberton’s death. He had been loyal to Alberton after all. He had followed the barge down here, and been shot with these other two. Were they the ones who had actually committed the murders? Why? On whose orders?
He made a sign of acknowledgment, then turned and blundered out of the fearful cabin and stopped abruptly as his air hose tightened and almost broke. Terror stifled his breath. He was covered in cold sweat. Trace! Of course! He would die down here in this filthy water, alone with his murderer. He would never see light again, breathe air, hold Hester in his arms or look at her eyes.
When Monk left home that afternoon, Hester had tried, at first, to busy herself with domestic tasks. Mrs. Patrick arrived at exactly two o’clock, the agreed time. She was a small, thin woman with crisp white hair full of natural curl, and very blue eyes. Hester judged her to be about fifty years old. She had a strong face, albeit a little gaunt, and a brisk manner. She spoke with a slight Scottish burr. Hester could not place it, but she knew it was not Edinburgh. She had too many memories of that city to mistake its tones.
Mrs. Patrick, neat in a white, starched apron, began to clear up the kitchen and consider what other tasks needed doing: clean and black the small stove, put on the laundry, scrub the kitchen floor, clean out the larder and make a note of what needed restocking, take out the rugs, sweep the floors, beat the rugs and return them, hang the laundry out, and do the ironing from the previous day. And of course prepare the dinner.
“What time will Mr. Monk be home?” she enquired while Hester was sitting in the office out of the way, stitching on a shirt button.
“I don’t know,” Hester replied honestly. “He’s gone diving.”
Mrs. Patrick’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”
“He’s gone diving,” Hester explained. “In the river. I’m not sure what he expects to find.”
“Water and mud,” Mrs. Patrick said tartly. “For heaven’s sake, why would he be doing such a thing?” She looked at Hester narrowly, as if she suspected she had been lied to regarding the nature of Monk’s employment.
Hester was very keen to keep Mrs. Patrick’s services. Life had been altogether much easier since her advent. “He is still trying to find out who killed Mr. Alberton in the Tooley Street murder,” she said tentatively.
Mrs. Patrick’s eyebrows were still raised and a trifle crooked, her mouth twisted into profound skepticism.
“There are other guns,” Hester went on, not sure if she was making matters better or worse. “Something went down the river on the barge from Hayes Dock. It might have been to pay the blackmailers.”
Mrs. Patrick had not intended to admit that she had been following the case. She disapproved of reading about such things, but the words were out of her mouth before she realized their implication. “That was why they asked for Mr. Monk in the first place, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Hester admitted.
“If you ask me, they don’t exist.” Mrs. Patrick smoothed her apron over her narrow hips. “I reckon as Mr. Alberton did that himself … probably sold the guns to the pirates anyway!”
“That wouldn’t make any sense,” Hester argued. “If there were no blackmailer then he could sell them anywhere he wanted.”
“Highest bidder,” Mrs. Patrick said darkly. “Money, mark my words, that’s what’ll be at the bottom of it … the love of money is at the root of all evil.” And with that she turned and went back to the kitchen and her duties.
Hester sat for another fifteen minutes turning it over in her mind, then she went through to the kitchen herself and informed Mrs. Patrick that she was going out and had very little idea when she would be back.
“You’re not going along the river?” Mrs. Patrick asked in some alarm.
“No, I’m not,” Hester assured her. “I’m going to consider the question of blackmail again, more carefully.”
Mrs. Patrick grunted and returned her attention to the sink, but her square, stiff shoulders were eloquent of her mixed satisfaction and disapproval. She was obviously not at all certain that the position she had accepted was a wise one, but it was undoubtedly interesting, and she would not leave just yet, unless it seriously threatened either her personal safety or her reputation.
Hester went again to see Robert Casbolt. She hoped to find him at home. If not she would have to seek an appointment with him in his offices, or wait there for him to return from whatever business had taken him away.
Fortunately he was at home, apparently reading. An ancient manservant informed her Mr. Casbolt would be happy to see her, and led her, not into the golden room in which they had talked before, but to an upstairs room which was, if anything, even more beautiful. French doors opened onto a balcony which overlooked the garden, at the moment full of flowers and quiet in the sun. The room was done entirely in soft earth colors and creams, extraordinarily restful, and Hester felt immediately comfortable in it.
Casbolt welcomed her, inviting her to be seated in one of the chairs facing the garden, a little to the left of a magnificent Italian bronze lion.
“It’s beautiful!” she said, moved by something more than mere admiration. There was a tenderness in the room, as if it were a place apart from ordinary life.
He was pleased. “You like it?”
“More than that,” she said honestly. “It’s … unique.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed simply. “I spend time here alone. When I am out it is locked. I am glad you see its quality.”
Hester hoped even more profoundly that it was not as Mrs. Patrick suggested, but she must face the truth. If Alberton had intended to deal with the pirates in any manner at all, or had given them to
believe he would, then perhaps his death had nothing to do with the American civil war but was a matter of money, or perhaps after all those years, an old vengeance for Judith’s brother’s death. Since Casbolt was her cousin, and obviously cared for her deeply, perhaps he even knew that, or had guessed it since. If it were either of these two answers, she longed for it to be the latter. A vengeance would be understandable. Any man might well have hungered to exact some kind of justice in the circumstances, and reached where the law could not.
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Monk?” Casbolt asked graciously. “I feel we owe you so much, believe me, you would have only to name your favor.”
“We still do not know who was responsible for the crimes.” She chose evasive words and she spoke softly. Somehow in this lovely room it would seem coarse to use words like murder when euphemisms would be understood.
He looked down at his hands for a moment. He had fine hands, strong and smooth. Then he raised his eyes.
“No, and I fear we may not,” he answered. “I had believed it was Breeland himself, or Shearer at his instigation. I am delighted that Rathbone proved it was not Merrit, and not learning who it was is a small price to pay for that.”
“It is not necessarily a trade, Mr. Casbolt,” she argued. “Merrit is perfectly safe now. I have considered the matter quite carefully, and I have wondered if it does not stem back to the original letter of blackmail over which you first consulted my husband. After all, they asked for guns as a payment for their silence. And they have been silent.”
He frowned, uncertainty in his face. He hesitated for several moments before replying.
“I’m not sure what it is you believe, Mrs. Monk. Do you think they killed Daniel and stole the guns, because he would not yield to their demands? Was Breeland simply caught up in it by an unfortunate accident of timing? Is that what you are suggesting?”