HESTER KNEW THE MOMENT Monk came in through the door that there had been a major change. There was something more than tiredness in his face: a mixture of surprise, anger, and resolution. If he did not tell her what had happened, then she would press him. But first she would pretend that she had not noticed and allow him time to choose his words and tell her when he had caught his breath, and had a cup of tea.
Actually he left it until after they had eaten, and they were sitting by the door to the back garden, open to let in the summer breeze. He was sorely trying her patience. Even Scuff was aware that something was amiss. He looked at her, then at Monk, started to speak, and changed his mind. He excused himself and went upstairs.
“What’s the matter with him?” Monk asked as they heard Scuff’s feet on the stairs.
“He’s wondering what it is you’re not saying,” Hester replied. “He won’t ask you … but I will. What is it?”
He gave a bleak smile. “You know me too well.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to stop being so evasive. It was not a time for word games. But from the look in his eyes it was too serious even for that.
“Wouldn’t you ask me?” she said more gently. “If I were so troubled about something?”
“That’s different,” he started, then realized his mistake. “I was finding the right words. I’m still not sure that I have them.”
“Try anyway,” she said, controlling with effort the fear mounting inside her.
He had not told her about McFee’s evidence. He did so now. She had been at Beshara’s trial. She did not need to have any part of its importance explained to her. The evidence against him had been cumulative. It was like a house of cards. To remove any part of it would make it collapse on itself.
“Who have you reported it to?” she asked quietly, trying to assess the weight of the problem, and the potential damage.
“Lydiate. He deserved to know. He told Lord Ossett, who sent for me.” He gave a little grunt. “And Ossett has given the case back to me.”
“You’re taking it?” She made it a question, although she knew the answer. The only alternative was one Monk would never have accepted.
“I have to,” he said flatly, but he was searching her eyes, not for answer so much as understanding as to why he had to.
“Where do you begin?” She said “you” deliberately, not because she did not intend to help, but because she would do it her own way, and not necessarily discuss it with him until such time as she had learned something of use.
“Back to the beginning,” he answered. “Ever since that night there’s been something at the edge of my memory. I didn’t know whether it was important or just part of the general horror and sense of helplessness. But it came back to me when I was on the ferry. That evening Orme and I were rowing toward Wapping, but from the south. We were facing backward, as always, so we were looking directly at the ship, and she was faster than we were, and gaining on us. I was watching her, and I saw a man on the deck, and he jumped off into the water, just seconds before the explosion. Afterward I put it all together, as if he’d been part of the explosion, but he wasn’t. He leaped several seconds before.”
“Escaping …” she said slowly, realizing what it meant. “He set the fuse. Man? Just one?”
“Unless anyone went over the other side, away from us, yes, one.”
“Beshara did it alone?” she said doubtfully.
“I’m not sure now that he had anything to do with it at all,” Monk replied. “But whoever laid the explosives or detonated them in the first place, there are a hell of a lot more people involved now.”
She knew he was watching her, waiting to see if she understood all the things he had not yet said about the investigation and the trial, the commuting of the death sentence to life in prison, then the attack on Beshara in prison, which had so nearly been fatal.
She wished there were some way he could avoid accepting the case. The coldness inside her was fear, and there was no way at all she could think of to protect him.
She even played with the idea of asking him to find whatever solution they wanted, short of blaming an innocent man: to say it was an Egyptian who had escaped, gone back to the Middle East, a conspiracy of some sort, not involving anyone still in England; to say it quickly, before they knew beyond doubt that it was not true.
Then she was ashamed of herself. She might understand any woman who asked a man she loved to do such a thing, but it could only be because she thought his morality would allow it. Monk’s would not. She had known that since their first dark days together after the murder of Joscelyn Grey.
And what could she ever tell Scuff, if he knew she’d done that? Don’t do anything dangerous! If it gets really tough, to hell with the right. Just run away!
Outside the light was fading. The starlings were circling back and settling in the trees.
“What is it?” Monk said quietly.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Just thinking. You’ll … be extremely careful, won’t you? Perhaps …” She was fumbling for words, ideas. “Perhaps it would be a good idea if whatever you do, you do it so many people know? I mean people other than Orme and your own men.”
“Hester, I don’t know who else is complicit in this,” he said patiently. “It stretches a long way! I might be telling the very people I’m trying to catch!”
She clenched her fists in her lap, where he could not see them. “I know that, William! That is precisely what I mean. If they know that there are plenty of other people who know all that you do, there would be no point in hurting you! In fact, it would only make matters worse for them.” She sat motionless, holding her breath for his reaction.
He laughed, but it had a harsh note to it, not of anger but fear. The fact that she knew it too made it impossible for him to deny without putting a barrier between them that neither of them could live with. However much he might wish to protect her, they had experienced too much together for him to pretend now.
“That’s probably good advice,” he conceded. “I’ll keep Orme in the picture, and probably Hooper. I’m beginning to appreciate what a good man he is. Maybe I’ll speak to Runcorn too.”
“Promise me you will!” she urged. “Especially Runcorn! He’s a … a safety escape.”
“I know. Fancy that, after all these years of hating each other.”
There was a lot she could have said about that, but this was not the time.
“William …”
He was waiting, watching her.
“You don’t know how high up this goes,” she began tentatively. As an army nurse she had more experience than he with the hierarchy of authority, men who felt that a threat to their authority was a threat to their lives, and to question orders was treason. They might break, if the pressure were overwhelming, but could not bend.
“No, I don’t,” he agreed, smiling at her because he understood what she was trying to say, and why there were no words. “And you’re right … a degree of openness is the only safety. It really is a bag of snakes, isn’t it!”
SCUFF STOOD IN THE kitchen doorway, taller now than Hester, an achievement he was immensely pleased about.
“Another cup of tea?” she asked without turning around.
He sat down at the kitchen table, dropping his bag of school books on the floor. “Not yet,” he replied. “Wot’s ’appened?”
She must include him as if he were an adult. In wisdom of the street, he was so more than she. If she in any way excluded him she would not be able to make up for it later.
“One of the people who gave testimony in court about seeing Beshara in a certain place was lying,” she told him. “Or at best he was badly mistaken. That means that now all the evidence needs to be questioned to see what else could be wrong. They call it an ‘unsafe’ verdict.” She wanted to see if he understood.
“ ’E din’t do it, then?” he summed it up.
“We don’t know. But it means it hasn’t been proved that he did. So they are asking that the River Police take the case back and start all over again.”
Scuff’s eyes widened. “Can they do that? Take it from us, mess it all up, then say, ‘ ’Ere y’are, ’ave it back!’ ”
“Yes, it looks as if they can,” she admitted.
“I’d tell them ter—” He remembered who he was speaking to and blushed.
She tried to hide her smile, failing conspicuously. “I’d be tempted to as well,” she agreed. “But that would be like saying that you didn’t think you could do it. And somebody has to. All those people are still dead. It’s not just a matter of finding the guilty ones; it’s clearing the innocent ones as well.”
He looked at her for a long, steady moment, and then he nodded. “Yeah. So ’ow are we goin’ ter start, then?”
She felt a sudden sting of tears in her eyes and blinked an extra time. “First we think very carefully, and make plans—which we keep to ourselves.”
“O’ course,” he agreed. “We will tell ’im when we know anything, though, won’t we?”
“Yes, the moment we are sure it makes sense,” she agreed. “The important thing is that we tell each other, just to keep safe. You must promise me?”
He hesitated.
“Scuff! If you don’t tell me where you are going to be, I will be so worried about you I won’t be able to think straight myself. If I didn’t tell you, wouldn’t you worry?”
“ ’Course I would! You—” Then he saw he was cornered. “Yeah … that’s fair … I s’pose.”
She smiled and held out her hand.
Soberly he took it and they shook on the deal.
She could remember most of the evidence in the trial, and checking on that was a good way to start. She wrote everything down, trusting that Scuff would be able to read her writing. She had long practiced making it clearer than character and nature had intended. A mistake in medical notes could be fatal.
“ ’Oo are they?” he asked, taking the paper from her and scowling at it.
“All the people who say they saw something, or somebody,” she replied. “As clearly as I recall.”
He searched her face. “You think they’re lying?”
“Not necessarily. But they might have been saying what they thought people wanted to hear. Have you ever seen something happen, and then asked three different people what it was?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, understanding bright in his face. “They all remember it different. You reckon that’s what ’appened ’ere?”
“Maybe. But they’ve said it so many times now that they’re remembering what they said, not what they saw. We need to know what evidence is there that’s not about faces and memories. Or at least is not from people who’ve already testified; they will feel that they can’t afford to go back on what they said now, because they’ll look stupid, and everyone will know. And, of course, they could be charged with perjury—lying in court when you’ve sworn to tell the truth.”
“You mean we need to speak to the people what isn’t noticed, like?”
“People who aren’t noticed,” she corrected automatically.
“Them too,” he grinned. “I can find out. An’ before you tell me, I’ll be careful. I know people who the police don’t. Even the River Police.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him it should have been “whom.”
“Thank you. And be careful! Whoever really did it could still be out there.” Now she had misgivings about including Scuff in the hunt. Hurt feelings were much easier to deal with than if Scuff should be physically harmed. “People who will blow up a boat with two hundred men and women on it won’t think twice about drowning one inquisitive boy!” she said sharply.
He winced. “I know,” he answered almost under his breath. “Or one woman either. Is that going to stop you?”
“It’s going to make me very careful indeed,” she replied.
He looked at her absolutely levelly. “Good. I’ll tell Monk that, if he asks me.”
She would dearly like to have clipped his ears for impertinence, but that would keep for another time. “I’m going to the clinic,” she told him. “To see what help I can get from Squeaky Robinson, and anyone else.”
Hester arrived at the clinic to find it very pleasantly free of urgencies. Perhaps the summer weather had helped. There were the usual slight injuries, bruises, dislocations, a cut or stab, but none of them life-threatening. Nor were there any of the chronic diseases of colder seasons: no pneumonia, bronchitis, or pleurisy.
“Morning,” Squeaky said cheerfully as she came into his office, which was lined with bookshelves and locked cupboards. There were engravings on the wall that Squeaky said were worthless, and she knew were very good indeed. As usual he had the ledgers open and spread out across the table, and the top off the inkwell. It made him look busy, should Claudine come in and ask him to do anything that he did not want to—something Claudine knew perfectly well. “We need money,” he added.
“I know,” Hester replied, ignoring the subject. She knew from Claudine that the situation was far from desperate.
“You haven’t been here for days,” Squeaky complained. “How do you know?”
“We always need money,” she answered with a smile, pulling out the chair opposite the desk and sitting down. “Is this a sudden crisis, or just the usual state of affairs?”
He looked at her carefully, assessing her mood. “Usual,” he said with uncharacteristic candor. “What’s wrong?”
She could seldom fool Squeaky. Actually she very rarely tried. Quite simply and in as few words as possible, she told him about Monk being given back the case of the Princess Mary, and why he could not refuse it.
Squeaky grunted. “So we’ve got to sort it, then?” he concluded. “Could have told them in the beginning it wouldn’t work, putting them regular police on it. Stupid sods …”
“They’re not stupid,” Hester said reasonably. “They just don’t know the river …”
“Not the police, the government!” Squeaky said indignantly. “They’re covering up something, just bad at it, like everything else. Now everybody’s going to know. It’s a wonder they can even get their clothes on straight, that lot! Couldn’t cover their backsides with a bed sheet!”
Hester swallowed her laughter at the vision in her mind. “We still have to sort the mess,” she pointed out.
“Why? To save them what made it? Or to get vengeance on whatever evil bastard drowned all these people?” he asked reasonably.
“I prefer the word ‘justice’ to ‘vengeance,’ ” she answered.
He pulled a face, but made no comment.
“But it’s fair, either way,” she continued reasonably. “If I’d lost somebody I’d want a better answer than this. And it makes us look terribly incompetent. What faith can anyone have in justice if this is all it can do? This doesn’t comfort the innocent or scare the guilty into thinking twice.”
Squeaky shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder about you. You bin to war, you seen hundreds of men hurt and dying, you seen what boneheaded idiots the military are. You seen hospitals where they don’t change nothing, and don’t learn nothing, you seen the police and the government and the streets, not to mention this place!” He swung his arm around, indicating the warren of a building around them. “And you still believe in fairies! I sometimes wonder if you’re all there!” He tapped his head.
Perhaps she should have been hurt, but she wasn’t. “It’s called survival, Squeaky. Now, we must begin with the people we know. Who do we have in here at the moment that could help?”
He looked dubious. “Don’t know as they want to …” he pointed out.
“They want to,” she assured him. “It’s the price of medicine next time they’re cold, sick, hurt, or scared.”
His face lit up. “I think I just seen a fairy! Little one, up in the air—with wings!”
“Good. I’m going to see Claudine.” Hiding her smile, Hester stood up and went out of the room.
She found her in the pantry with its shelves of powders, leaves, bottles of lotion or spirits, creams, and bandages. She was assessing what supplies they had, and how much more of anything they needed, or could afford. After the briefest greeting—they knew each other too well to need more—Hester began to assist. When they had reached a satisfactory conclusion, she told Claudine roughly what she had already explained to Squeaky. They discussed it further in the kitchen over a cup of tea. Claudine was angry.
“I said they had no right to take the investigation from Mr. Monk in the first place,” she said bitterly as she added the boiling water from the kettle into the already warmed teapot. It was an old and very battered pewter one that somebody had thrown out, but it made an excellent cup of tea, and the crooked spout still did not drip. The crockery also was mismatched, but not chipped. What did it matter if a bluebell cup sat on a wild-rose saucer? Or poppy or daisy on anything else?
“And now that they’ve made a complete mess of it, hand it back,” she added indignantly. “It’s like being given cold porridge that somebody else has already half eaten.”
“What a disgusting thought!” Hester turned her mouth down. “But regrettably accurate.”
“What are we going to do?” Claudine also automatically included herself in the problem. “There were quite a few prostitutes at that party, we know, from the survivors and the bodies. We’ll get help. And I dare say some will speak to us who wouldn’t to the police.”
“I’m counting on it. I’ve already told Squeaky that cooperation in this is the price of help in the future: sick, injured, or just hungry.” Hester bit her lip, looking very steadily at Claudine. “I’ve never put a price on it before. I don’t like doing it.”
Claudine did not hesitate. She had been watching Hester’s face as she listened, and she knew trouble when she saw it. Her own long, unhappy marriage had taught her a lot about bargains and prices. Since working at the Portpool Lane clinic, a new world of possibilities had opened up to her, most particularly the realization of her ability to make friends, to be clever, helpful, and liked by the oddest of people. Years ago she would have helped prostitutes with suggestions for their salvation, and considered it her Christian duty. Most of her acquaintances would still do that, or less.
Now she knew prostitutes as individual people. Some she liked, some she didn’t. She helped them in practical ways regardless. They were to be treated in whatever way was possible for their illness or injuries: fed, and occasionally given better clothes, warmer ones. No comment was made on their occupation. That generous silence had not come easily to her, at first.
Now Claudine amazed Hester.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said firmly. “Sometimes you can do too much for people. No self-respect in always taking. Price can be part of value. It’s time we showed them that. They’ll be the wiser for it.”
Hester thought about it for a moment or two, and realized with surprise how deeply she agreed. And she was relieved because up to then she had felt guilty about it. Nursing help was never conditional, no judgment involved, except as to the best treatment. But food, shelter, clothes, dignity … that was different. Above all other things, worth could not be given.
“Good,” she agreed.
The information about the party on the Princess Mary was teased out slowly, and with much impatience on Squeaky’s part. He counted every spoonful of food given in reward as if it were a potato off his own plate.
He quarreled with Claudine over the portions, and was amazed to come out of it second best. He had had no idea she had such spirit. It was disconcerting, and yet he was also oddly pleased, as if a protégée of his had developed a sudden talent.
One of the most unfortunate was a particularly recalcitrant young woman named Amy.
“Describe the people you saw at this party,” Claudine asked her. “How did they speak? How were they dressed? It’s your business to size up what money people have and whether they’ll spend it or not.”
“More’n I got, that’s for sure!” Amy responded. “Yer should ’ave seen some o’ their dresses.”
“Not good enough!” Squeaky snapped.
“I dunno,” she said tartly, glaring back at him. “Wot’s it ter you, anyway? They’re all dead now, in’t they? Yer can’t buy an’ sell ’em anymore.”
“No, nor they can’t eat a nice hot dinner,” Squeaky retaliated. “Like you can’t neither.”
“You said …” she started.
Squeaky rose in his seat. He was taller than one might have expected, seeing him slouched in the chair.
She glanced at him, her face pallid with fear.
Claudine stood up also. “There is no point in hitting her, Mr. Robinson,” she said coldly.
Squeaky was amazed and angered. He had had no intention of hitting the stupid girl. How could Claudine have thought that of him? It was unjust … and hurtful.
Claudine turned to Amy and regarded her coldly. “If you have nothing else to tell us then you had better leave. You should set about earning your dinner, you’ll get none here. You can go out through the kitchen into the back alley. I’ll take you.”
Amy rose to her feet sullenly and edged around the table, keeping as far from Squeaky as possible. She followed Claudine into the passage and—after many twists and turns—through the kitchen door. She knew she was there by the rich, delicate aroma of frying potatoes and onions that wafted toward her. The crackle and spit of a frying pan suggested someone was making sausages as well. She stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” Claudine asked. “The back door out is at the other side.”
Amy turned round to face her. “I might know summink about ’oo were on that boat—names, like.”
Claudine put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and turned her back toward the door. “Then come back when you’re sure you do.”
“D’yer ’ave that every day?” Amy sniffed and gestured toward the kitchen stove.
“No,” Claudine answered unequivocally. “On you go!”
“I ’membered summink!” Amy protested.
“Did you? What was it, then?”
Amy drew in a deep breath, studied Claudine’s face for a moment, and decided she had better give value for money, now, specifically, for fried sausages, onions, and mash.
“That party were planned least a couple o’ weeks before it ’appened,” she answered with the firmness of truth rather than the flair of invention. “All the guest list wrote up, an’ everything. Least, special guests, people wot should be got special girls for, an’ like that. If yer gonna do it right, yer gotter know wot kind o’ girls different folks go fer.”
“I see,” Claudine replied, as if she did see. “And who would know that information?”
“Big Bessie, o’ course! ’Oo’d yer think? That’s worth an extra sausage, in’t it?”
Claudine considered for a split second. “Yes, I think it is. So Big Bessie would know anyone that was important early. Asked by whom?”
“Eh?”
“By whom were they invited? Who was paying for it?”
“Geez! Ow the ’ell do I know? I got me sausage? Or are yer a liar, an’ all?”
“You have your sausage. You don’t yet have your pudding.”
“Yeah? An’ wot’s pudding?”
“Jam tart and custard.”
That did not require any considering at all. “Wot else d’yer wanna know?”
Big Bessie could be found easily enough. Squeaky would certainly be able to do that, and probably know the appropriate pressure to bear on her to gain the desired information. That it was so carefully planned at all was interesting in itself—well worth a fried sausage.
“I would like to know Big Bessie’s clients, but I don’t imagine you have access to that. Perhaps at least whoever she usually uses to provide the food and drink for such occasions, and music? Or anything else that would be customary.”
“Be wot?”
“Anyone else involved.” Claudine looked narrowly at the girl and saw fear, hunger, and an underlying, constant rage. Her life held little pleasure, and much uncertainty and pain. “If you can bring me anything like that, for certain, or if it’s a guess, then say so—no lies—then it’s worth a meal. We eat every day, about this time.”
Amy weighed her up. “Wot about that ’ol git? Wot if you in’t ’ere?”
“Then tell Mr. Robinson. I shall let him know of our bargain. But don’t lie. He will be very unpleasant if he’s lied to.”
“Yer mean worse than ’e is now?” Amy asked incredulously.
“Yes, I do. Very much worse. But if I’ve given you my word then he will honor it.”
Amy took a deep breath. “Yeah … all right. Now I want me sausage an’ mash. An’ onions!”
“You will have it. Go and sit at the table.”
“YOU DID WHAT?” SQUEAKY demanded of Claudine. “That dozy piece o’ string? You—”
Claudine raised her eyebrows and stared at him coolly. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Robinson?”
Squeaky muttered under his breath, but conceded the victory. It was a very interesting piece of information, well worth a couple of sausages.