A Sunless Sea

by Anne Perry

  “To be admired,” he said gravely. “Do you know of any family she has?” He intentionally spoke of her still as if she were alive.

  Mrs. Scalford considered that for several moments, sipping her tea.

  “She did ’ave a man,” she said finally. “Come reg’lar, until a couple o’ months ago. Dunno if ’e were a brother, or mebbe ’er dead ’usband’s brother, or wot. Could be ’e looked after ’er.”

  “But he stopped coming about two months ago?” Monk pressed. In spite of himself, he sat forward a little.

  “In’t that wot I jus’ said?”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I told yer, young man. I don’t know ’er ter ’ave ’er explain all ’er business to me. I jus’ see people come an’ go along the street. I spoke to ’er ’alf a dozen times, mebbe. Good morning, an’ nice day, that kind o’ thing. I see ’er go past ’ere an’ I know ’ow she’s feeling ’cos yer can see that much in a person’s face.”

  “And how was she feeling, Mrs. Scalford?”

  “Most times she were neither good nor bad,” she replied with a sigh. “Like most folks, I s’pose. Some days she ’ad a really pretty smile. I reckon as she were ’andsome when she were younger. Got a bit tired-looking now. S’pose we all do.” Without thinking she put her hand up and smoothed her own white hair.

  “And the last two months?” he asked.

  “Yer mean since ’e stopped coming? Sad. Terrible sad, she were, poor thing. I seen ’er walking along ’ere with ’er ’ead ’angin’, an’ draggin’ ’er feet like she lost all ’er spirit.”

  “Could he have been someone close to her? A brother, maybe?” he asked.

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Why d’yer want to know all this, then? Yer ’unting for summink? Wot’s she got ter do with the River Police?”

  “She’s missing, Mrs. Scalford,” Monk said grimly. “And we’ve found the body of a woman we think may be her.”

  She went pale and her shoulders stiffened as if she hardly dared breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. He meant it. “We could be wrong.” He pulled the constable’s drawing out of his inside pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to her.

  She took it and held it in gnarled hands, which trembled a little.

  “That’s ’er,” she said huskily. “Poor little beggar! What she ever do ter deserve bein’ cut up?” Her voice dropped even lower. “That’s ’oo yer talking about, in’t it? ’Er wot was cut open an’ left on the pier?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  She looked up at him. “Yer goin’ ter get ’oo did it and ’ang ’im, ain’t yer?” It was a demand as much as a question. She was shaking now, her cup clattering in its saucer.

  “If you help,” he answered, taking the cup from her and putting it down. “Tell me more about this man who visited her, and stopped coming two months ago. Can you describe him for me? And don’t tell me you don’t remember him. Of course you do. I’d lay odds you could describe me, if someone else came and asked you.”

  She smiled as if in some bleak way it amused her. “Course I could. Ain’t many around ’ere as looks like you.” There was approval in her voice and he saw a glimpse of the young woman she must have been half a century ago.

  “So tell me,” he prompted.

  She gave a deep, weary sigh. “I s’pose I better ’ad. I dunno, mind, but I reckon as she were one o’ them tarts that ’as just one customer, like, an’ either ’e got tired of ’er, or ’e died.” She nodded toward the window. “I saw ’er goin’ up and down ’ere a few times since, an’ I thought, yer poor cow, yer ain’t going ter find much lookin’ like that. Only them as is desperate. An’ a man only gets ter pick up ’er age o’ tart if ’e in’t got the money fer a younger one.” She shook her head slowly, the sadness so deep in her, Monk had no doubt now that she saw herself as she could have been.

  “Can you describe him?” he asked again.

  She returned her attention to the present and looked him up and down, thinking. “Almost your height, I should think, but bonier. Kind o’ more awkward. Gray ’air, goin’ thin across the top. Clean shaven. Well dressed, like a gentleman, but ordinary. I lay odds ’e didn’t pay ’is tailor like you pay yours.”

  “Thank you,” Monk said drily. “Anything else? A coat? An umbrella, perhaps?”

  “No. Coat in the winter, not in October, when he last come. Never saw ’im with a brolly. Saw ’im close, too, once. Nice face ’e ’ad. Sort of … gentle. He looked kind of sad, an’ ’e smiled at ’er.”

  “He went to her house?”

  “Course ’e did. What d’yer expect? They was going to do whatever they did in the street?”

  “Might have gone to some other place,” Monk pointed out.

  “No, ’e went inter ’er ’ouse.”

  “For how long?”

  “ ’Alf hour, mebbe more.”

  “But you saw him?”

  “Course I saw him. Couldn’t tell yer if I ’adn’t, could I? You suddenly gone soft, or summink? You find ’im! She don’t deserve to be cut up like that.” She swallowed with difficulty, struggling to overcome her anger.

  “What I mean, Mrs. Scalford, is did he come when it was clear daylight, when you could see clearly who came and went to the house?”

  “In’t nothin’ wrong wi’ me eyes.” She thought for a moment. “Afternoon, it were, usually. Funny, come to think of it. Why wouldn’t ’e come when it were dark?”

  “I don’t know,” Monk replied. “But I shall find out.”

  There was little more to be learned from the old woman. He thanked her, left, and went on along the street.

  Almost opposite number fourteen he spoke to Mr. Clawson, who kept a general hardware store.

  “Not that I know of,” Clawson said indignantly when Monk asked him if he had seen Zenia Gadney with anyone other than the one man he already knew had visited her. “We may be a bit shabby around ’ere, but we’re perfectly respectable,” he added, sniffing hard and wiping his hands on the sides of his apron.

  Monk wondered if it was worthwhile trying to persuade Mr. Clawson that he had not meant to imply otherwise, but decided it was not worth the effort. Everyone around seemed concerned with keeping up appearances.

  “So if she were on the streets, then she went somewhere else to do it?” Monk asked a trifle abruptly.

  “I dunno wot she did!” Clawson was angry now. “I took it as she were a widow. Always looked a bit … sort o’ … sad. Put a good face on it, poor soul, but I think things were ’ard for ’er.”

  “Did she ever come in here, Mr. Clawson?” Monk looked up and down the shelves of sewing articles, kitchenware, patent cleaning liquids, and boxes of nails, screws, and tin tacks. There were also neat wooden drawers for snuff and various potent remedies for one ache or another. He noticed one marked CLOVES for toothache, another with PEPPERMINT for indigestion. Several were unmarked except with letters representing longer words not spelled out, pills for liver or kidneys, creams for itching, ringworm, or burns. And of course there were the usual penny twists of opium, the cure for almost every pain from cramps to sleeplessness.

  Clawson followed his glance. He looked less comfortable. “Now and then,” he said. “For ’eadaches, and so on. She didn’t always keep so well. People don’t.”

  “Any illness in particular?”

  “No.”

  Monk knew the man was lying; the question that mattered was why. There was nothing wrong with selling remedies. Most small local shops did.

  “It would be better, Mr. Clawson, if you told me whatever you know about her, rather than oblige me to pull facts out of you one by one.”

  “You got some complaint about her?” Clawson asked. He was a small man, blinking up at Monk through black-rimmed spectacles, but just at that moment he looked angry and ready to defend a woman he knew against the intrusive questions of an outsider.

  “None at all,” Monk answered him soberly. “The opposite.
We are afraid that someone has hurt her, so we need to know who it could be.”

  Clawson’s face tightened. “ ’Urt ’er? ’Ow’d they do that, then? She never done anything wrong. Why’d you want to go looking into that? ’Aven’t you got any proper crimes to go after? She was just a poor woman past ’er youth, ’oo got by best as she could. She didn’t bother no one. She didn’t go around the streets dressed cheap an’ she didn’t bother no man wot was mindin’ ’is business. Let ’er be.”

  “Do you know where she is now, Mr. Clawson?” Monk asked gravely.

  “No I don’t. Nor I wouldn’t tell yer if I did.” Clawson was defiant. “She in’t ’urting no one.”

  Monk persisted. “Do I understand correctly, she used to have one friend who came to see her regularly, until about two months ago, and after that she fell on hard times and had to go out and find the odd bit of business, just to pay her way—but she was discreet about it?”

  “Yes. What of it?” Clawson demanded. “There’s ’undreds o’ women like ’er, do the odd favor, to make ends meet. Fancy bastard like you comes round ’ere, wi’ yer swank clothes and shiny boots, askin’ questions. I don’t know where she is, an’ that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Did you learn about the body that was found on the pier, the day before yesterday?”

  Clawson’s response was instant. “She wouldn’t know anything about that, an’ neither do I.”

  “I imagine you don’t,” Monk agreed, sorry for what he was about to say to this little man who was so quick to defend a woman he barely knew. “But if Mrs. Gadney is not at home, and we don’t find her alive and well, then we will know that the body was hers.”

  Clawson went white and grabbed the counter to steady himself. He stared at Monk, unable to find words.

  “I’m sorry,” Monk said sincerely. “Now perhaps you understand my need to know more about her. I have to find out who did that to her, and to be frank, Mr. Clawson, I very much want to. The more I hear of her, the more I want to find him.”

  Clawson closed his eyes, his fingers still white-knuckled. “She were a quiet little woman ’oo came in ’ere an’ bought a penny twist of opium for ’er ’eadaches, an’ ter pass the time o’ day, because she were lonely,” he said. “When ’er one … customer … stopped coming by, she were all on ’er own. If she went out there to make a few shillings for ’erself, or even for a bit o’ comfort, it don’t mean she should get cut up an’ murdered! You find that animal wot did it an’ cut ’im up the same! There’s a few folk around ’ere as’ll be glad ter ’elp yer.” He opened his eyes and glared at Monk.

  “I’ll find him,” Monk promised rashly.

  Clawson nodded slowly, happy to believe. “Good.” He nodded again. “Good.”

  Monk left him and finished inquiring along the rest of the road, and in one or two local shops in the nearby streets. But by the end of the day he was tired and hungry, and he had learned nothing more that was of any value.

  As he stood on Limehouse Pier waiting for the ferry, he went over what he knew in his mind. Was that what had got her killed? Inexperience and desperation caused by the sudden death of her solitary supporter? Had he died, or merely abandoned her? Or had some domestic crisis meant he could no longer indulge himself in keeping a mistress? It seemed tragically likely.

  Who was he? No one had given a description of him that would identify him out of thousands of outwardly respectable, middle-aged men in London, or even beyond it. Perhaps he saw her so infrequently because he lived some distance away and came to London on business? Then he could be as far as Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham. It would be almost impossible to find him.

  “WE’D BETTER FIND THIS man who knew her,” Orme said the next morning as they stood by the riverside on the dock at Wapping New Stairs. The tide was high and the river was running fast, just after the turn. The wind was rising again and there was a keen edge to it. There usually was when it came from the east, and the open water.

  Monk pulled his coat collar a little higher. “I’ll do what I can to find him. He could have come from anywhere.”

  “Hansom cab,” Orme suggested. “Sounds from what you say as if he wasn’t local. He wouldn’t come by omnibus. Want me to help? I got nothing to follow up or down Narrow Street. All blind, or she never went there, except with a woman friend once or twice. Mostly she were just alone.”

  “No. You’ll do better with the locals around Limehouse Pier up to Kidney Stairs,” Monk replied. “Somebody saw her, and they must have seen him, too. They’d notice anyone not local. We just need to waken their memories.”

  “They’re terrified,” Orme replied grimly. “Papers aren’t helping. They’ve got everyone in such a sweat they’re looking for a monster, something raving and slavering like an animal with a kill.”

  “Only on the inside,” Monk said, shaking his head. “On the outside he probably looks like anyone else. How long does it take people to learn that? Poor woman probably thought he was perfectly ordinary, maybe just awkward.”

  “What a trade,” Orme stared across the water. “God know how many of them get beaten or killed.”

  “Not as many as die of disease,” Monk said grimly, thinking of all those whom Hester had helped in her clinic on Portpool Lane.

  “I’ll start looking,” Orme promised, fastening his coat. Giving a little salute, he turned and walked along the dockside, hunched against the wind, then down the steps to the boat.

  IN THE END IT took Monk only two days to trace the man who had visited Zenia Gadney every month. He began with asking all the local hansom cab drivers, but they were unable or unwilling to help. They did not look closely at faces, and early October was a long time ago. It seemed that the man Monk was looking for had picked cabs at random, sometimes on Commercial Road East, at other times on the West India Dock Road, or even walking east to Burdett Road. It was painstaking and time-consuming to find out even this much, but finally he narrowed down his search to half a dozen people and eliminated them one by one.

  In the end he was left with Joel Lambourn of Lower Park Street in Greenwich.

  Rather than approach him at home, Monk decided to ask a little about him at the local police station, and thus face the man armed with at least a degree of knowledge.

  The desk sergeant looked up at Monk as he came in. His round face was politely blank. “Morning, sir. Can I help you?”

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” Monk replied, introducing himself. “I am making inquiries about an event that may involve a Mr. Joel Lambourn, who lives in your area.” He saw the man’s face crease in sudden, sharp sadness.

  “I’m not sure as I can ’elp you, sir,” the sergeant said coldly. “Don’t really know nothing about it, sir. Sorry to be a bit formal, like, but may I see summink as proves to me ’oo you are? Can’t go talking about people without knowing.” He did not bother to hide his hostility.

  Puzzled, Monk produced his warrant card as proof of who he was.

  “Thank you, sir.” The chill remained. “What is it you think we may be able to ’elp you with, Mr. Monk?” Deliberately he omitted the courtesy of rank.

  “Do you know Mr. Lambourn?”

  “Dr. Lambourn, sir,” the sergeant corrected him smartly. “Yes, I did know ’im to speak to.”

  “You did? You don’t any longer?” Monk was puzzled.

  “Seein’ as ’e’s dead, may God rest ’im, no I don’t,” the sergeant snapped.

  “I’m sorry.” Monk felt clumsy. He could not have known, but perhaps he should have guessed. “Would that have been about two months ago?”

  The sergeant winced. “Are you tellin’ me as you didn’t know?” Clearly that was incredible to him.

  “No, I didn’t,” Monk answered. “I’m inquiring into the murder of a woman whose body was found on Limehouse Pier, five days ago. It was likely that Dr. Lambourn knew her. I was hoping he might be able to tell us something more about her.”

  The sergeant looked startled. “That poor
soul what was cut up by some bleedin’ butcher? Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but you got that wrong. Dr. Lambourn was a quiet, very respectable gentleman. Wouldn’t ’urt anyone. An’ ’e wouldn’t know any woman in that way o’ business.”

  Monk wished to point out that many people appeared different in public from the way they might be in private, in the darkness of a backstreet far from where they lived. However, he could see in the man’s face that he was not open to any such suggestion about Lambourn.

  “What kind of a doctor was he?” he asked instead. “I mean, what sort of patients did he treat?”

  “ ’E din’t treat patients,” the sergeant replied. “ ’E studied, learned things about sickness an’ medicines an’ such.”

  “Do you know what kind of illnesses?” Monk persisted. It might not matter at all, but so far Dr. Lambourn was the only person who seemed to have known Zenia Gadney as more than just a casual neighbor. So he would take any details he could get.

  “No,” the sergeant replied. “But he asked a lot of questions about medicines, especially opium and laudanum, and stuff like that. Why? What’s that got to do with this poor creature you got in Limehouse?”

  “I really don’t know, except that she took opium sometimes, for headaches and things.”

  “So does ’alf England,” the sergeant said derisively. “ ’Eadaches, stomachaches, can’t sleep, baby’s crying, cutting its teeth, old folks got rheumatics …”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Monk conceded. “What was Dr. Lambourn studying that he asked about opium and the medicines containing it? What sort of questions did he ask, do you know?”

  “No, I don’t. He was always a very quiet gentleman, with a good word for everyone. Not meaning any disrespect, Mr. Monk, but you must ’ave been misinformed some’ow. Dr. Lambourn was as decent a man as you’ll find anywhere.”

  Until he had further information on the subject, he would gain nothing by arguing. He thanked the sergeant and walked outside into the street. Lambourn may well have paid Zenia Gadney sufficient money to live on, but he could tell them nothing now, and he could not possibly be responsible for her death, since he himself had apparently died two months earlier. Still, Monk would like to know more about him, even if only for the light it would throw on Zenia Gadney’s life.