Revenge in a Cold River (29 page)

“I have to know,” Miriam said huskily. “I needed Monk to find his killer.”

“Why? There's nothing you can do now.” It hurt to say it but it was true.

“I don't need to. Knowing will be enough. I will show the world that Piers, the most honest, loyal, and brave man in all those wild days, was betrayed by his closest friend.”

Although Miriam couldn't say his name, Beata's fears about Aaron were undeniable. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Miriam's eyes blazed with anger. Her voice was choked with it. “As sure as I can be.”

“Then why have you waited so long? Why now?” It made no sense.

“Why has McNab waited so long?” Miriam demanded.

That was a question Beata did not want to answer. It was Monk's secret to give or keep, not hers.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked instead.

“You expect me to trust you, but you won't trust me!” Miriam said.

“Yours is your secret; mine is Monk's to give or keep.”

“How much do you want to save him?” Miriam demanded.

“You'd let him hang for something he didn't do?” Beata challenged her. “That won't get you your…your vindication of Piers.” Was that all she meant? Or was it really only revenge?

Miriam sat perfectly still. “Why did McNab wait so long? What is it that you are not willing to tell me? If you want my help, then trust me!”

There was no way of evading it now and still trying to save Monk. Beata swallowed hard, and told her.

“Monk had a carriage accident about thirteen years ago. He can't remember anything before that. Nothing of San Francisco at all. And McNab knows that!”

Miriam stared at her. “So he can't help me!” Her body clenched as if she were trapped. “Poor devil, he can't even help himself.”

“Stop it,” Beata said sharply. “Don't you dare give in! You waited until now—why? Why didn't you do anything about Aaron if you knew he killed Piers? What do you need Monk for anyway?”

“I learned only recently that Aaron killed Piers. Fin Gillander brought me proof.”

“Then what else do you need?”

“It is proof to me, not to anyone else.”

“What proof?”

“Piers's shirt, soaked in blood, and the deeds to a strip of land along the American River where there was gold, signed over to Fin by Aaron. It's payment for Fin swearing Aaron was somewhere else when Piers was shot.”

“Then what do you want from Monk? Surely this is proof enough?”

“It could have been anybody's shirt,” Miriam replied. “I knew it was Piers's because I made it for him. I recognized my own stitching, the unevenness here and there, the rhythm of the backstitching, but there is only my word for it. And what would that be against Aaron's?”

“Gillander's word?” Beata asked.

Miriam looked a little embarrassed. “He adores me. People would assume he would say anything to back me up, even about the deed.”

Beata was about to ask her if she was sure, but she saw it in her eyes: the pain; the helplessness; the terrible, bitter disillusion; the crumbling of beliefs.

“I see,” she said softly. “And you thought Monk might have known the truth, or at least have been able to deduce it. And do what? Ruin Aaron?”

“Along with Fin's testimony, he might have known enough to prove that Piers went there to that place on Aaron's orders, and died doing his job…by Aaron's orders.”

“You have no doubt?”

“None. I wish I had. God in heaven, Beata! Do you think I want to believe the man I'm married to now killed my first husband, whom I loved beyond words, so he could have me? I feel…vile! Used and…dirty, like something you buy and sell, because you want to own it. Do you think my flesh doesn't crawl every time he touches me?”

Beata did not need to imagine that; she knew it not only in her mind but in her body's memory, like old pain reawakened.

“McNab knows about Monk's memory loss, which is why he now feels able to take his revenge,” she said. “He knows Monk can't defend himself—he daren't even take the stand to testify.” She spoke slowly. “And that means Aaron probably has to.”

“Yes…I suppose he does.” Miriam closed her eyes. “I wonder if he has any idea that I know about his part in Piers's death, and he's waiting for me to act. God damn McNab!”

“He was using you,” Beata said with an edge of bitterness. “What are you going to do about it?” That was a definite challenge, and it was meant to be. She was desperate, and had no intention of allowing Miriam to escape.

Miriam stared at her, waiting, thinking.

“God may very well damn McNab, eventually,” Beata went on. “In the meantime, it is up to us! You know a great deal about McNab, if you think about it. You must tell Oliver, and be prepared to testify to it, if it helps Monk. Think hard what you know, what you remember of every conversation. What did McNab want of you?” She leaned forward. “I know you think you were using him, and perhaps you were, but he came here equally as much to use you!”

A faint flush stained Miriam's cheeks. “You don't need to keep on reminding me. I can see it. He wanted to implicate Monk in something he wouldn't be able to escape from. That's clear now.”

“What did you think it was?” That sounded too critical. She might have been no wiser in Miriam's place. She could barely imagine the fury and the grief Miriam must have felt when she realized the truth of Piers's death. “I mean what did he pretend it was? It might help to know.”

“I learned from Fin Gillander that Monk had been in San Francisco twenty years ago,” Miriam said quietly. “I couldn't recall him at first, but Fin recognized him straightaway and knew what kind of man he was, simply in so much as Fin liked him. He said they did many things together, or at least in the same fashion. Their paths crossed quite often. They've both changed, of course. People do, in twenty years. Fin is forty, and Monk must be fifty. And Monk is certainly different in that the anger inside him is gone. Whatever he was looking for, he's found it.”

“And he's about to lose it again!” Beata interrupted sharply.

Miriam looked at her and the pain in her face was temporarily naked. Beata realized with a rush, as if suddenly drowned in the force of a wave, that Miriam had never recovered from Piers's death and that Aaron had never been more than an ease of the loss, and now that, too, had been shattered. Everything gentle or good in him had been wiped out by the knowledge that it was he who had killed Astley, directly or indirectly. The fact that it had been out of desire for Miriam only added guilt to the grief.

“I'm sorry,” Beata said quietly. “But we have no time for pain now. We have to find a way of proving that Pettifer's death was an accident, caused by his own panic. Monk doesn't know who killed Piers, or anything else about San Francisco and the gold rush. If he ever did, it's gone from his memory. I'll tell Oliver all you know, including about the land deed on the American River, and the shirt. But first we must prove that Monk did not have any reason to hurt Pettifer.”

Miriam frowned. “How? We don't know anything about the enmity between McNab and Monk.”

“I know that,” Beata said. It felt dark, terribly dark, and heavy inside her as if she could not breathe. “But we must try. I shall go and see Hester. I am only getting to know her now but I think she will accept anyone's help. I would in her place. You will think of everything you can that McNab asked you about Monk.”

Miriam swallowed hard. “Yes…of course.”

H
ESTER MOVED THROUGH THE
days leading up to the trial as in a nightmare. Everything she thought of to prove Monk's innocence seemed to melt into nothing as soon as she grasped hold of it. In her mind McNab grew to almost demonic brilliance.

Rathbone came to Paradise Place one evening and she asked him what she could do, what proof there was.

“There must be something!” she said desperately. Monk had loathed McNab—nobody doubted that—but he had done nothing to him.

They were sitting in the parlor. It seemed dark and peculiarly empty. After his initial arrival to support her, Hester had forbidden Scuff to leave his studies to come home, at least until the trial began. His work and other people's needs were a kind of respite.

Rathbone looked pale and there were lines of tenderness in his face.

“It wouldn't help to prove that McNab was responsible, even if we could prove that William had never heard of Pettifer,” he said with as much gentleness as he could manage. He would never care as she did, but Monk was his closest friend, and they had fought many battles side by side. It had been Monk who had finally saved Rathbone when he was exhausted, deeply afraid and facing imprisonment, possibly for years.

“Well, what will help?” She heard her own voice slipping out of control. “If McNab were responsible, then why would William have wanted to harm Pettifer, let alone kill him? If he could have been persuaded to testify against McNab, the last thing William would want would be Pettifer dead!”

“Because our proving it doesn't help,” Rathbone said miserably. “If we prove it now, that doesn't show that Monk believed it back when Pettifer died. It isn't really time that counts, it's what he thought was true then.”

“We've got witnesses….” She tailed off without finishing the sentence. They were Monk's men, friends, colleagues, other River Police. The prosecution would point that out instantly. Hester herself could have testified, but she knew, before Rathbone said anything at all, that she could never be put up for cross-examination. It would be only minutes before a decent prosecution would draw from her that Monk had no memory! With every new thought, the noose closed tighter.

There were others who would help, if they could think of anything to do. Scuff was knotted up so tightly with fear for Monk that he could not concentrate on the work he loved. Both he and Crow spent more and more time scouring the riverbanks for information that could damn McNab. At the clinic in Portpool Lane, Squeaky Robinson was calling in every favor and making every threat that might work, and a few that had no chance whatever. Even Worm, the nine-year-old orphan whom Scuff had found a home for there, was out at all hours, up and down the riverbank, asking and listening.

M
ONK SLEPT LITTLE THE
night before the opening of the trial. Every noise seemed to intrude on his thoughts. Men coughed, moaned, cursed; one or two even wept. Like him, they were all alone, cold, and above all, afraid. There was probably little any of them could do to affect their fate now. It lay in the hands of others, sometimes others who did not care.

Was it better or worse to have those supporting you whose lives would also be darkened forever if you were found guilty? It hurt almost beyond bearing to think of Hester, or for that matter of Scuff. What of the men he would let down, if they believed him guilty? What of the River Police themselves, Hooper and all the others, stained by his failure?

The thought of McNab winning was enough to make him almost choke for breath. But neither rage nor pity was now any help. They were barriers in the way of thought. It was only intelligence and self-control that could save him. Or a miracle! Did he believe in miracles?

What did he believe in? It was a little late to decide now.

T
HE TRIAL BEGAN WITH
the usual formalities. These they drew out over precise notes, which scraped on Monk's raw nerve edges.

He stood in the dock of the Old Bailey high above the courtroom and looked sideways at the gallery. It was full. He should have expected that, and yet it was disconcerting. How many of those people hated the police and were here to see one of them brought down? How many had been helped by law or police at one time or another, and would rather see him vindicated?

He searched for Hester, and saw the side of her head, the light shining on the fair streak in her hair. Who would love her, if he were hanged? No one, not as he did! She would be the widow of a hanged man. Would she always believe he was innocent? Or would she, in time, give in to the pressure, the sheer weight of everyone else's certainty?

They were beginning at last. Sorley Wingfield was prosecuting. He was a lean, very dark man with a cutting sense of humor. He had probably called in a few favors to get this case. His dislike for Rathbone was deep and long lasting, and he was bound to know that this one was personal to Rathbone. It was Rathbone's first really big case, the first capital case, since his return to the bar after his disgrace.

Monk did not admire Wingfield for taking his revenge for other losses on such an easy win. Like shooting at a sitting target, a living one that could face fear and pain.

The judge was Mr. Justice Lyndon, a man he knew very little about, except that Rathbone had said his reputation was good. But then he would hardly have said otherwise, when the outlook was more than dark enough as it was.

The first witness to be called by Wingfield was Hooper. He climbed the steps up to the witness stand, looking pale-faced and profoundly uncomfortable. He was dressed in River Police uniform and stood a trifle awkwardly, as if the shoulders of the coat were too tight on him. Monk could not remember seeing him in it before. He usually wore an old seaman's pea coat.

He swore to his name and occupation, facing Wingfield as if he were flotsam clogging up the waterway. He had a gift for conveying contempt with barely the movement of an eyelid.

“You work for the Thames River Police, out of the station at Wapping? Is that correct, Mr. Hooper?” Wingfield asked smoothly.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you have been recently promoted, to take the senior position assisting Commander Monk, the accused?”

“Yes, sir.” Hooper's dislike of Wingfield was in his tone as well.

“The position until recently was held by a Mr. Orme?”

Hooper was wary. “Yes, sir.”

“Would that be the same Mr. Orme who was killed recently in a skirmish on the river involving a gun smuggler?” Wingfield asked with an air of innocence.

Rathbone rose to his feet. “My lord, there is no argument as to Mr. Hooper's identity, or that he has an honorable record of service in the River Police and was recently promoted upon the death of Mr. Orme, who had been due to retire. And just in case Mr. Wingfield is disposed to take up the court's time with the subject, Mr. Hooper has an honorable record in the Merchant Navy. Nothing is known against his character here, or anywhere else, and he has been many times commended for his courage.”

One of the jurors smiled.

Wingfield looked irritated, but he was too confident of ultimate victory to take exception. Monk could see it even from where he sat.

Wingfield shrugged and walked a few steps farther forward.

“If my learned friend has finished…?” he said with slight sarcasm.

Rathbone sat down.

“Now, Mr. Hooper, you were, I believe, at Skelmer's Wharf with the accused on the day Mr. Pettifer was drowned?”

“I was,” Hooper agreed.

“Why? What were you doing there?” Wingfield managed to look interested, as if he had no idea what the answer would be.

There was a rustle of anticipation in the crowd.

“Hoping to apprehend an escaped prisoner,” Hooper replied.

“A particular one?” Wingfield said sarcastically. “Or just any that might happen to pass that way?”

One of the jurors laughed nervously. A look of very light irony crossed Mr. Justice Lyndon's face as well.

“A second one to escape the customs officers within the last couple of weeks, sir,” Hooper said rather loudly. “This one we hoped would be still alive. We were only called in when the first one was already dead.”

There was a rustle of movement in the gallery, and this time a quite unmistakable twitch of amusement in Mr. Justice Lyndon's face.

“Drowned also?” Wingfield inquired with his eyebrows high.

“Yes, sir,” Hooper replied. “And shot! In the back.”

“Seems excessive,” Mr. Justice Lyndon observed. “Does this have something to do with Pettifer's death, Mr. Wingfield? Are you accusing Commander Monk of having drowned this man as well?”

“No, my lord. However, it was this man Blount's death that appears to have drawn the River Police into the whole affair,” Wingfield replied.

The judge turned to Hooper. “Do I understand it, Mr. Hooper, that you and Monk hoped to find the second escaped prisoner while he was still alive, for some professional purpose?”

Hooper looked as if he were relieved that someone was at last getting the point.

“Yes, my lord. We had been given the case of Blount's death because of the bullet in his back. We believed there might well be a connection between his escape and this second man's escape from the same force, that is the Customs service.”

“Proceed, Mr. Wingfield,” the judge directed.

“Thank you, my lord.” He looked at Hooper. “Why Skelmer's Wharf? Did you have some information that made you believe he would be there?”

“It was a good, secluded place with a landing,” Hooper replied. “Tide was right, just on the turn. We thought the escapee would make for France and we'd had a tip-off that a fast boat was moored upriver and was maybe part of his escape plan. Good guess, as it turned out.”

“Just a good guess?” Wingfield sneered very slightly. “Is that how you usually apprehend escaped prisoners, Mr. Hooper? On a ‘good guess'?”

“We don't usually lose 'em, sir,” Hooper answered.

There was a ripple of laughter around the gallery, and one of the jurors took out a large handkerchief to hide his amusement.

“Whose idea was it to go to Skelmer's Wharf? Yours, or the accused?”

“We received the tip-off and immediately went in pursuit together.”

“How loyal of you! You are very loyal to your commander, aren't you, Mr. Hooper? Risked your life for him, more than once, if I read your records right?”

“Does the record also say how many times he risked his life for me? Or any of the other men?” Hooper demanded. “Don't suppose your job has room for sticking your neck out for any of the men you work with. More likely have a knife in your hand!”

“Hear, hear!” someone shouted from the gallery, and there were a couple of catcalls and a whistle.

“Mr. Wingfield!” the judge said sharply. “Will you please at least attempt to control your witness?”

“May he be noted as hostile, my lord?” Wingfield said angrily.

“I'm sure we have already observed that he is hostile, Mr. Wingfield. You seem a little late in remarking it,” the judge replied.

Wingfield smiled bleakly. “You have made your loyalties and your predispositions in this case more than clear, Mr. Hooper. I warn you to be very careful indeed that you do not allow your emotions, or your obvious personal interests and ambitions, to cloud your veracity. That means your ability to recollect and speak only the truth…the exact truth, do you understand?”

Hooper's face tightened in anger that must have been visible to the jury. Monk in the dock could see it quite clearly.

“I've no reason to tell you lies, even if I wasn't under oath,” Hooper said quietly. “Speak plain, and I'll speak plain back to you.”

Two of the jurors nodded in agreement.

“So you were waiting at Skelmer's Wharf?” Wingfield prompted. “What happened, Mr. Hooper?”