A Sunless Sea

by Anne Perry

  “And Lambourn was two months dead by that time,” Monk added. “Then we’re left with someone connected to Lambourn. What could someone think he said or confessed to Zenia Gadney that was worth killing her for—and killing her like that?”

  “To make us think it was a lunatic, and to do with Limehouse and her profession, not with Lambourn,” Orme answered.

  Monk did not argue. “And what made Lambourn kill himself when he did? Why not sooner, or later?” he asked, as much to himself as to Orme. “What changed so terribly?”

  Orme said nothing. He knew he was not expected to reply.

  THAT WAS ALSO WHAT Monk asked Lambourn’s assistant a couple of hours later. He was a young doctor named Daventry, somewhat unhappy at now working for Lambourn’s replacement, who was a stiff, busy man who had no time to speak with Monk himself, and was only too happy to find an excuse to send him to someone else.

  Monk did not phrase his question quite so boldly. He was standing in a brightly lit laboratory full of jars and bottles, vials, burners, basins, and retorts. All kinds of glass and metal equipment stood around on surfaces. One complete wall was obscured by stacks of files.

  “You worked closely with Dr. Lambourn before his death?” Monk began.

  “Yes,” Daventry answered, pushing his wild, dark hair out of his eyes and looking at Monk aggressively. “What are you after now? Why can’t you leave him alone? He was a good doctor, better than that—” He stopped abruptly. “Don’t waste my time. What is it you want?”

  Monk was pleased he found someone loyal to Lambourn, even if it might make his own task more difficult.

  “I’m River Police, not government,” he said.

  “What difference does that make?” Daventry challenged him. Then he peered forward to look more closely at Monk. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I’m just tired of hearing Dr. Lambourn run down by a lot of people who didn’t know him and didn’t believe his findings.”

  Monk changed his approach instantly. “You did believe in them?” he asked.

  “I don’t know for myself.” Daventry was scrupulously honest. “Except bits here and there. I collected some of the figures for him. But he was meticulous, and he never included anything he couldn’t verify. Even cut some of my findings because I didn’t double-check it with at least two sources.”

  “About opium?”

  “Among other things. He worked on all kinds of medicines. But, yes, that was the one he cared about most recently.”

  “Why?”

  Daventry’s eyebrows shot up. “Why?” he said incredulously.

  “Yes. What was he researching, and for whom?”

  “The public’s use of opium, because it’s killing too many people. For the government, who else?” Daventry looked at Monk as if he were a particularly stupid schoolchild. He saw the confusion in Monk’s face. “The government is looking to pass a bill to regulate the use of opium in medicines,” he explained a little wearily, as if he had already said it too many times, to too many people who were apparently incapable of understanding.

  “To stop people buying it?” Now it was Monk who was incredulous. A small dose of opium, as in a “penny twist,” was the only way to kill pain, other than to drink oneself insensible to it, and to everything else. “Why, for heaven’s sake?” he asked. “Nobody’ll pass an act like that, and it would be impossible to police. You’d have two-thirds of the population in jail.”

  Daventry looked at him with heavy exasperation. “No, sir, just to regulate it, so that if you go to buy something with opium in it—such as Battley’s Sedative, which is much like laudanum, except it’s with calcium hydrate and sherry, not distilled water and alcohol—you’ll know for sure how much opium it contains. And that it’s pure opium, not opium cut with something else.”

  “Opium cut with something else?” Monk was puzzled.

  “Do you know what’s in Dover’s Powder, sir?” Daventry asked.

  Monk had no idea. “Apart from opium? No,” he admitted.

  “Saltpeter, tartar, licorice, and ipecacuanha,” Daventry told him. “What about chlorodyne?”

  Monk did not bother to answer this time. He waited for Daventry to list that as well.

  “Chloroform and morphine,” Daventry said. “But that’s not what matters the most. If your child is crying with toothache, or a bad stomach, which one are you going to give him: Godfrey’s Cordial, Street’s Infant Quietness, Winston’s Soothing Syrup, or Atkinson’s Infant Preservative? How much opium is in each of them, and what else is in them?” He shrugged. “You don’t know, do you? Neither does your average harassed mother who’s getting half the sleep she needs, and probably half the food, and maybe she can’t read well or understand figures, either. What would you say to having them regulated so she doesn’t have to worry about it?”

  “Is that what they’re proposing?” Now Monk’s interest was sincere and sharp, almost as sharp as Daventry’s own.

  “Part of it, yes.”

  “And Lambourn was getting the facts for them?”

  “Yes,” Daventry agreed, warming to it as he realized Monk’s understanding. “And on other things, but opium was the chief thing.”

  “Why would anyone be against it?” Monk was puzzled.

  “Lot of money in opium,” Daventry replied. “Start telling people what they can and can’t sell, you’ll get their backs up. Also it means the government knows about it all. Under the counter as well as over. People who sell opium—and you’d be surprised at who some of them are—are very happy to hear how many people’s lives are made easier by it, but not how many children die of overdoses, or how many people get dependent and then can’t do without it. They don’t want to be blamed for those unfortunate side effects.”

  He waved his hands around to encompass everyone in general. “Nobody wants to remember the Opium Wars. You’d be surprised whose fortunes were built on the opium trade. Don’t want to rake all that up. Make yourself a lot of enemies.”

  “Do you know this for yourself, or did Dr. Lambourn tell you?” Monk asked gently.

  The blush burned hot up Daventry’s young face. “Dr. Lambourn told me most of it,” he replied, so quietly Monk barely heard him. “But I believe it. He never lied.”

  “So far as you know …” Monk smiled to rob the words of some of their sting.

  Daventry’s expression was bleak, but he did not argue.

  “Why do you think he took his own life?” Monk asked.

  Daventry’s face filled with a deep distress. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Lambourn?”

  “I’ve met her. Why?”

  “She thinks he was murdered.”

  Daventry’s eyes were brilliant. He caught his breath in sharply. “To hide his research? That would make sense. I can believe it. Are you going to find out who did it?” That was a very definite challenge, with all the sting of contempt if the answer were no.

  “I’m going to find out if it’s so, first of all,” Monk told him. “Where is this research now?”

  “The government people took it,” Daventry said simply.

  “But you have copies, working notes, something?” Monk insisted.

  “I haven’t.” Daventry shook his head. “There’s nothing here. I know because I’ve looked. If he kept it at home, they’ll have taken that, too. I told you, there’s a lot of money at stake—and a lot of people’s reputations as well.”

  Several answers rose to Monk’s lips, but he did not make any of them. He could see in Daventry’s eyes that he did not know where Lambourn’s papers were, and he was even more distressed by it than Monk was.

  “How did Dr. Lambourn take the government rejection of his research?” he asked instead. That was what he needed to know. Was that the reason Lambourn had taken his life? Was the disgrace deeper than Monk had at first assumed it to be? Was it not just this report, but his whole reputation in other fields that was ruined?

  Daventry did not reply.r />
  “Mr. Daventry? How did he take the rejection? How important was it to him?” Monk insisted.

  Daventry’s expression hardened. “If he really took his own life over it, then something happened between the last time I saw him and that night,” he answered fiercely, his voice charged with emotion. “When he left here, he was determined to fight them all the way. He was certain his facts were right and that a pharmaceutical act is absolutely necessary. I don’t know what happened. I can’t think of anything anyone could say to him that would have made it different.”

  “Could he have found a mistake in his figures that altered their validity?” Monk suggested.

  “I don’t see how.” Daventry shook his head. “But if he really had been wrong, he’d have admitted it. He wouldn’t have gone out to One Tree Hill and killed himself! He just wasn’t that sort of man.”

  “I’M AFRAID HE WASN’T nearly as good as he believed himself to be,” one of Lambourn’s more senior assistants said unhappily, half an hour later. Nailsworth was a good-looking young man, and very confident. He smiled at Monk with a down-curved twist to his lips as if in apology. He shrugged. “He formed a theory and then looked for evidence to prove it, ignoring anything that called it into question.” He smiled again, too easily. “Really, he should have known better. He used to be excellent. Perhaps he had a health difficulty we weren’t aware of?”

  Monk looked at the man with dislike. “Yes,” he agreed a trifle acidly. “It is totally unscientific, in fact not even strictly honest, to create your theory and then look only at the facts that fit it. Even worse to bend the facts to make them fit, and then claim to have been impartial.”

  Monk was being sarcastic and expected a quick defense, but he was disappointed.

  Nailsworth nodded. “I see you understand. I suppose there’s a certain logical pattern to solving crimes as well.”

  “Indeed.” Monk was unexpectedly angry. “Perhaps you would guide me through the logical steps you followed before deciding that Dr. Lambourn’s research was in error, and that he was unable to accept that fact.”

  “Well, it’s tragically clear that he was unable to accept his own failure,” Nailsworth said tartly. “Unfortunately one can hardly avoid that conclusion!”

  Monk stopped him. “Undeniably he is dead. But please start at the beginning, not at the end.” His smile was more a baring of the teeth. “As you would if you were creating a theory yourself. Facts first.”

  Nailsworth’s eyes were hard and bright. “Dr. Lambourn collected a great number of facts and figures about the sale of opium in different parts of the country and wrote them up in a report,” he said icily. “The government compared them with other information they had, from several other sources, and found that Lambourn was in error in too many instances, and that his conclusions were flawed. They rejected his report and he took it very hard. It questioned his standing as a scientist and as a doctor. For some reason this whole issue of opium was one he took far too personally. He staked his reputation in it, and lost. Ending in the one fact you don’t dispute, he is now dead, having cut his own wrists.”

  His eyes never moved from Monk’s face. “I’m sorry. He was a very agreeable man, and I think he had every intention of being honest, but he allowed his emotions to govern his thought.” He sounded anything but sorry. There was condescension perhaps, but not grief. Monk wondered what Lambourn had done to sting Nailsworth’s vanity so deeply.

  “His recommendations were both restrictive and completely unnecessary,” Nailsworth continued. “ ‘Overblown’ was the word they used about his results. He was humiliated, and he couldn’t face it. Now if you have any compassion at all for his family, you’ll leave the matter alone.”

  Monk watched and listened. Nailsworth was deeply angry, but the sharp edge in his voice betrayed something else. Something he dared not show? Some private concern over the opium issue? Jeopardy to his future career, should he speak out of turn?

  As Monk thanked him and walked away, he thought it more likely to be the latter. Would Nailsworth have been in danger had he come forward as sympathetic to Dr. Lambourn?

  Or, Monk wondered, was he now twisting the facts about Nailsworth to fit a theory of his own, already adopted, out of a wish for Dinah Lambourn to have some shred of comfort? Perhaps he was as guilty as any of them of selecting and interpreting the facts to fit the outcome he wanted.

  CHAPTER

  7

  HESTER STOOD AT THE kitchen bench chopping onions to fry with the leftover potatoes from yesterday, and quite a large portion of cabbage. It would make bubble and squeak, one of Scuff’s favorite meals, and—with sausages—one even Monk seemed never to grow tired of.

  She had come home early enough to prepare a pudding as well, for the first time in several days. She ran a clinic for street women, in Portpool Lane, and she had been extremely busy. Lately there seemed to have been even more than usual to attend to.

  The clinic was funded by charity, and Margaret Rathbone had been by far the best volunteer at raising money. But since the trial and death of her father, she had not been to the clinic at all. She regarded Hester as having betrayed her as much as Oliver had, and their friendship was broken—it seemed irredeemably.

  Hester could not change her views. She had thought about it long and painfully, wanting to salvage a friendship that mattered to her. But what Arthur Ballinger had done was not possible for her to overlook just because he was Margaret’s father. Especially the second murder he had committed, a young woman Hester had tried so hard to help. The grief of it still haunted her.

  Finances for medicine, food, and fuel had all been more difficult to find since Margaret had withdrawn her help. Asking for money was not a gift Hester possessed. It required not only charm, but tact, and she had never mastered that art. She had no tolerance of hypocrisy or genteel excuses, and there always came the moment when she spoke too much of the truth. However, Claudine Burroughs had just the other day found the clinic a new patron, so the emergency had passed.

  Scuff was upstairs struggling his way through a book, with a complex mixture of pride and frustration that Hester was sensitive enough to allow him privacy to deal with.

  Maybe this evening Monk would be home in time to eat with them.

  She had just finished chopping the onions when she heard his footsteps in the passage to the kitchen. There was heaviness in them, as if he was tired, and perhaps disappointed.

  She put the knife down and washed her hands quickly to get rid of the onion smell. She was drying them on the towel hung over the rail of the oven door when he came in. He smiled when he saw her, but this could not disguise the weariness in his face. He walked over and kissed her gently.

  “What is it?” she asked when he let her go. “What’s happened?”

  “Where’s Scuff?” He evaded the question, glancing around.

  “Upstairs reading,” she replied. “He’s not as good as he’s pretending to be, but he’s improving. Would you like a cup of tea before supper’s ready?”

  He nodded and sat down on the chair at the head of the table, leaning forward a little to ease his back, and resting his elbows on the scrubbed wood.

  “Nothing on the case?” she asked as she pulled the kettle into the center of the stovetop and took out the tea caddy from the cupboard. There was no need to stoke the oven. It was already full and burning well, ready to cook in.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “The only person Zenia seems to have had any real connection with is a very respectable doctor who was preparing a report for the government on opium use and sales.”

  “Opium?” Hester stopped what she was doing and sat down at the table opposite him, her attention entirely caught. As a nurse, she knew a lot about the vast uses of opium. If one took it for a long time it could become addictive, only seriously so when taken as the Chinese did—not by eating it, but smoking it in clay pipes.

  Briefly Monk explained Joel Lambourn’s connection with the proposed pharma
ceutical bill.

  “What has that to do with Zenia Gadney’s death?” she asked, not yet following his line of thought. “You don’t suspect him, do you?”

  He smiled bleakly. “He committed suicide a couple of months ago.”

  She was stunned. “That’s terrible. Poor man. Why did he take his own life? And if he was dead when she was killed, why are you concerned with him at all? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” he admitted. “I’m not even sure if there is a connection, except that he knew her and seems to have provided for her financially.”

  Hester got up and made the tea and left it to sit for a moment or two to brew.

  “Why did he kill himself?” she asked again. “You are sure it was suicide?”

  “The official verdict is that he did it when the government rejected his report on the damage that unlabeled sales of opium can do. His reputation was destroyed and he couldn’t face it.”

  “Was he so … fragile?” she said doubtfully. “If he really did kill himself, there must have been a better reason for it than that. Was he smoking opium himself? Or did Zenia Gadney end the affair, or threaten to make it public? Would she tell his wife—that he had very odd tastes, or something?” She leaned forward a little, frowning, the bubble and squeak temporarily forgotten. “William, I don’t feel it makes sense, whether it has anything to do with Zenia Gadney’s murder or not.”

  “I know.”