Acceptable Loss

by Anne Perry

  Monk considered carefully how to make the best use of this delicate piece of information. Was this the message that had taken Mickey out to the boat, and then upriver toward Mortlake to meet his death? Who was it from? What had he believed he was going for? It must have been urgent, to take him back out again at that hour.

  Tosh would be very unlikely to tell Monk. Nor would he tell him who the messenger was or where he’d come from. It would too easily implicate him in being party to the murder that had followed. He would simply deny it all, say that Butterworth was wrong, probably made it all up. A good lawyer would demolish the story in minutes.

  He must build a chain of evidence. Who was the weakest link? ’Orrie Jones. That was where to begin.

  He found ’Orrie in a boatyard patiently sanding a piece of wood. There were other men around, all sawing, planing, chiseling, carefully fitting planks, easing tongues into grooves. The ground was covered with sawdust, and it was in the air with the smell of wood and sap, and there was the constant, irregular sound of friction, banging, and someone whistling half under his breath.

  Lower down, closer to the water’s edge, one old man with tattooed arms was caulking the sides of a boat, his feet now and then shifting as the water seeped up through the shingle and soaked his boots.

  They were sheltered from the breeze. The tide slurped on the stone of the slipway. There was a smell of river mud and wet wood.

  ’Orrie looked up and saw Monk approaching, and his face took on a look of infinite weariness.

  “You again,” he sighed. “In’t it enough yer ’ang the poor bastard, yer gotta ’it every nail inter ’is coffin as well?”

  “Have to be sure it fits, ’Orrie, just like those pieces you’re putting together.”

  “So wot is it now, then?” ’Orrie’s good eye swiveled around.

  “When did Mickey ask you to row him out to the boat?”

  “I dunno!”

  “Yes, you do. Think!”

  ’Orrie met his eyes and gave him that rare focused look of total clarity. “Why? What does it matter now? Don’t make no difference to ’oo killed ’im.”

  “You tell the defense lawyer that, ’Orrie. If you can’t answer, he’ll pick your life apart detail by detail, and—”

  “I dunno when ’e decided ter go out ter the boat!” ’Orrie protested angrily. “But ’e din’t ask me until a bit before eleven. I know ’cos I jus’ started a pint, an’ I ’ad ter put it down.”

  “At the pub?”

  “O’ course at the pub! D’yer think I were pullin’ it out o’ the river?”

  “I don’t care where you got it. Why did Mickey decide so late? Were you at his beck and call anytime?”

  ’Orrie stiffened. “No, I weren’t! I weren’t ’is bleedin’ servant. Summink came up.”

  Monk nodded, trying to curb his impatience and look encouraging. “An appointment, unexpectedly?”

  “Right!”

  “And he thought it was important enough to go? Not so convenient for him either. Was he angry? Or afraid?”

  “No, ’e weren’t. ’E were ’appy.”

  “Why?”

  ’Orrie drew in his breath, looked at Monk, weighed up his best advantage, and decided to answer. “Well, it don’t matter now. The poor sod’s dead, eh? ’E thought as it were a good chance o’ new business. But don’t waste yer breath askin’ me wot, ’cos I dunno.”

  “Of course you don’t. Did he come for you personally, or did he send you a note?” He made his tone deliberately insulting. “Maybe someone read it for you?”

  “I read it meself!” ’Orrie snapped. “Jus’ ’cos I got a walleye don’t mean I’m stupid.”

  “Really? What did you do with the note?”

  “I kept it ’o course. Never know when yer gonna need paper for summink.”

  ’Orrie fished in his trouser pocket and slammed a grimy piece of paper onto the wood he was working with. He glared at Monk.

  Monk picked up the paper and saw written in an untidy but obviously educated script:

  Excellent new opportunity for business. Meet you on the boat, midnight. Be there, or I’ll give it to Jackie.

  And underneath was a further note scrawled in a completely different hand:

  Meet me at the dock, 11 o’clock. Don’t be late. Mickey.

  Monk looked at the paper a few moments longer, feeling the texture of it between his fingers. It was good paper, pale blue and smooth, torn from a larger sheet.

  He turned it over and saw on the other side what had apparently been part of a longer letter, or a list. This one was written in ink, but the words were harder to decipher, as if it were another language, perhaps Latin, although, with only half of some of the words, it was hard to tell. The letters were well formed, the script disciplined. He wondered where it came from.

  “Thank you, ’Orrie,” Monk said in a whisper, letting his breath out slowly. “That is just about perfect.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  THE CHARGES HAD BEEN withdrawn against Rupert Cardew, and he was released from custody.

  Once again the case was open.

  Monk stood in the station at Wapping with the note ’Orrie had given him in his hand. It was strong evidence, but against whom? The pencil had smudged until it was only just legible, and the dirt and finger marks on that paper made it impossible to place. It could have been written by anyone.

  Monk was not even certain if it was the man behind the blackmail, except who else would Parfitt have turned out for at that time of night? Anyone else he would simply have told to come at a more convenient hour. Who else but someone he knew, and trusted, would he have met alone, at night on the boat?

  “Has to be,” Orme agreed. “But we aren’t going to tie it to anyone, with the note in that state. All it proves is that someone baited him to go there. And we know it was premeditated anyway, and with Cardew’s cravat.” Orme picked up the paper, turning it over in his hands. “Any idea where it came from?” he asked, squinting a little as he tried to read it, then looking up slightly at Monk.

  “No,” Monk said honestly.

  “Ballinger?” Orme said.

  “Could be. Parfitt knew who it was from, or he wouldn’t have gone. Obviously he knew him well enough that no signature was necessary.”

  Orme’s face was grim in the yellow glare of the lamplight. Outside, the wind was rising, and it was beginning to rain. It was going to be a choppy crossing on the ferry.

  “Has to be the man behind the blackmail,” Orme said quietly. “We have to get it right this time.”

  Monk felt a faint heat in his face, a remembrance of shame. Orme had never referred to it, but Monk had let them both down with his carelessness in the Jericho Phillips case. He had underestimated Rathbone’s skill and his dedication to the processes of the law. After all his years dealing with crime, he had still been naïve because his emotions had been so intensely involved. He must not ever make that mistake again. Rathbone was his friend, and he would feel a desperate pity for him if Ballinger were guilty, but Monk must not for an instant forget that if that were so, then Rathbone would be the enemy, and would fight with every art and skill he had to defend Arthur. He would for any client—that was his duty. But for Margaret’s father, he would go to the very edge of the abyss. Perhaps even further. Wouldn’t Monk himself, for Hester?

  Orme shook his head. “We’ve got nothing except coincidence,” he said warningly. “Lot of possibles that won’t carry any weight with a jury. Maybe wouldn’t even get us to court.”

  “I know,” Monk told him.

  “Ballinger’s a highly respectable man,” Orme went on. “One of their own, so to speak. A solicitor. His wife and daughters’ll be in the gallery, all looking sweet and supportive, and like they believe every word he says. What we’ve got are out of the gutter, and look like it. ’Orrible Jones, with his eyes all over the place, like a horse that’s been spooked. Crumble, all quiet and sneaky. Tosh Wilkin, who’s a villain if ever I
saw one. Hattie Benson, who’s a prostitute, an’ scared stiff. Looks like she’s lying, even when she isn’t.”

  “All right!” Monk said sharply. “I know! We haven’t got enough.”

  “We’ve got the ferryman, Stanley Willington, but he just bears out what Ballinger says himself. Picked him up at Chiswick, took him over the river, and brought him back again. And of course he has Mr. Harkness swearing to his being in Mortlake all the time between. It’s all very tidy, and hard to shake. He had time to row down as far as the boat, then back again, and catch a hansom to where Willington picked him up. And we know from Harkness that he was a strong rower, but will Harkness say that on the stand, when he understands what that means?”

  “Probably not,” Monk conceded. He took the piece of paper from where Orme had left it on the desk. “We need to make enough sense of this, for certain. The man who killed Mickey Parfitt wrote this to lure him to his death. God knows, no man better deserved it.”

  “I know.” Orme gave him a tight smile, understanding in his eyes, and a surprising gentleness. “We’ve still got to find him.”

  MONK WENT BACK TO Chiswick to learn more about the boat and its patrons. It was late October, more than a month since Mickey Parfitt’s body had been found floating at Corney Reach. The air was much colder. The last echoes of summer were completely gone, and the leaves were falling. It had stopped raining, but there was a smell of damp in the air, and occasionally a drift of wood smoke from bonfires. The late flowers were richly bronze and purple, heavier, darker than the blue and gold of spring. The few stubble fields he passed were brazen, almost barbaric in their beauty, vividly and unmistakably waning.

  It had always been Monk’s favorite season. He had flashes of memory sometimes of the great barren hills of Northumberland, where he knew he’d been born, so different from the lush easiness of the south. The earth there seemed to be all bones, no flesh, the skies unending. He would go back one day soon and see if it was still as beautiful, or if it was only the familiarity then that had made it seem so.

  Now he had to follow the dirt and violence of Mickey Parfitt’s life and all the people he had known, used, cheated, and betrayed.

  It was time to face the details of what had happened on the boat. Monk had been putting it off, perhaps as much for himself as for them, but he must speak to the boys himself, gently, persistently, ruthlessly. He must have the hospital matron there as a witness, so nothing rested on him alone, but this time he could not allow her to intervene. He realized how deeply he had been dreading it, why he had sent Orme instead of going himself, telling himself that Orme had children and would be better at it.

  It took him two days of gentle, endlessly repeated questions, and it hurt more profoundly than he had imagined. The matron looked at him as if he had been a criminal himself, but she did not stop him more than two or three times. His assumption about Crumble had been correct: cook, companion, laundryman, gang master for cleaning chores, and jailer. Sometimes, here and there, abuser as well. The boys’ pale, blurred, and frightened faces reflected more misery than anger. They were too young to understand that it could all have been wildly and beautifully different. They might well have known hunger, cold, and exhaustion, but without the added horror. They could have had safety in sleep, been touched only in tenderness, or in the occasional, well-earned chastening. They could have been spared all their lives from the obscenity of degraded human appetite, from the sight of men who despised others because they despised themselves.

  Now, having questioned the boys, it was Monk who had dreams he could not bear. He woke in the night, his body aching and drenched in a sweat, tears on his face. He lay in the dark, staring up at the faint shadow patterns on the ceiling as the wind moved in the trees outside. He wanted to waken Hester, even if he did not tell her why, just so he would not be alone with what was in his mind. Even if he just touched her, felt the warmth of her …

  But she would hurt for him. She would need him to explain it, at least a little, and how could he do that? If he gave it words, it would re-create the reality in his mind—the white faces, the frightened eyes, the small bodies shivering with memory, self-loathing, and the terror of new pain.

  And she would think of Scuff. She would wonder about all the other children, and that was a burden, selfish of him to share just to lighten it a fraction for himself.

  Could he tell her without weeping? Perhaps not. She could not heal his sense of horror for him. He would keep it closed inside him. She would always know it was there, because she had seen Phillips’s boat, but she did not need to hear it again and see it through his eyes. Memory was a necessary tool in life; sometimes it was a blessed thing, and sometimes it was a curse.

  If he even got up, he would disturb her. He might pretend there was nothing wrong, but his need, his pain, would creep through. She would unravel it all.

  He turned over, as if he were half-asleep, and lay on his other side. He would go back to sleep in some time, and, if he were lucky, the dreams would be different.

  HE WOKE EXHAUSTED THE following morning, his eyes gritty and his head aching. Hester did not even ask him how he was. She looked at him, her face bleak and tender, and words would have been superfluous anyway.

  She got up and went to the kitchen, raked out the ashes, and lit the stove, banking it up to get hot quickly. It was early, and she did not waken Scuff. Today was Sunday. They could stay here together, perhaps even go to church, like a regular family. Scuff liked that because everyone could see them together, see that he belonged.

  She gave Monk piping hot tea and fresh toast with his favorite jam, then sat opposite him at the table. There was no sound in the kitchen, and the only light was from the gas bracket on the wall casting a yellow glow, shadows everywhere.

  When he had said nothing for several minutes, she prompted him.

  “Do you really want to find who killed Parfitt?” she asked quietly, pushing the toast across the table toward him.

  “Yes, of course I do!” he said vehemently, then looked at her face. He knew he had to be more honest; even a half lie to her built a barrier he could not live with. “No, not entirely. Parfitt was vile, and if it was one of his victims, I’d be happy to let him go. If it was one of the boys, or even two or three of them, I don’t even know if I’ll arrest them. Even if I could prove which ones, I might not try to.”

  She said nothing.

  He took the toast and buttered it.

  “But if it’s the man behind the whole trade, probably behind Phillips as well, then yes, I want to find him. And I want to hang him.”

  Monk fished the note out of his inside pocket where he carried it, carefully, in an envelope. It was both a talisman and a weight dragging him down. He took the note out of the envelope and put it on the table between them, well away from the jam or the teapot. “This was written by a literate person, adult. It’s a strong hand, used to writing.”

  She looked at him, then down at the torn piece of paper. She picked it up and read it. “But you have no idea who wrote it?”

  “No. It’s good-quality paper and perfectly ordinary pencil. The envelope’s mine.”

  She turned the note over in her hands. The silence seemed to stretch until he could hear the ticking of the clock on the mantel over the stove. Her shoulders were stiff; a tiny muscle clenched in her jaw was flickering.

  “Hester?” His voice was quiet and yet filled the room.

  She looked up at him. “The words are Latin. They’re medicines. This is part of a list of things we order regularly for the clinic.”

  He stared at her. This was the last thing he had expected her to say.

  “You recognize the handwriting?” he asked.

  “Claudine’s,” she said. “But she could have given the list to several people.”

  “Margaret,” he replied. “Isn’t she the one who keeps the money, and buys such things?”

  “Yes. But so does Squeaky, sometimes.” Her voice was tight, full of grief.

/>   He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. He knew what she was afraid of. Squeaky had kept a brothel when they’d first met him. He had seemed on the surface to have reformed his ways, under duress, perhaps, but still quite genuinely. He had even taken a kind of pleasure in his respectability. Had it all been an act to cover an even darker side? Had they been too blinded by hope and wish to look at him more closely? How big a descent was it from running a brothel for women to investing in pornography with boys?

  Monk felt a little sick. He knew how much Hester had believed in all the people in the clinic, considered them friends, colleagues, people she trusted with a common passion.

  “I have to ask him,” he said. “I can’t—”

  “No,” she cut across his words. “I will. I won’t let him dupe me, I promise.”

  “Hester …”

  She stood up. “I will. Now—today.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “I know.”

  He looked at her stiff, straight back, the way she walked, the very careful manner in which she picked up the plates and put them into the basin to wash, deliberately, as if in a moment’s absence of mind she might grip them so hard she would break one.

  Perhaps he should let her speak to Squeaky. Then she would not feel so powerless, so incapable.

  “I’ll wait outside,” he told her.

  She was standing at the basin, and she turned to give him a swift look, something close to a smile. “I’ve got to leave bread out for Scuff, and butter and jam. I’ll waken him, and then I’m ready.”

  SQUEAKY LOOKED UP FROM his ledger as Hester came into his room and closed the door behind her.

  “You look as if you lost sixpence and found nothing,” he said dourly. “Her ladyship giving you difficulties?”

  “No, not at the moment,” she replied. She took the envelope out of her pocket, and then the list as well. She put them both on the table in front of him, but kept her finger on the list, leaning forward a little so her weight was on her hand.