The Shifting Tide (32 page)

“I see.” Rathbone was beginning to understand more. “Now he has gone back on it, and you want me to pursue it in law?”

The ghost of a smile crossed Monk’s face, but so grim it was worse than nothing at all. “No. The alleged murderer is in custody. He took me to the ivory, and he admits he was the only one to go on board and below deck. The other man stayed above and couldn’t have killed Hodge, didn’t even know he was there. But Gould swears he found Hodge senseless but unharmed. He thought he was just dead drunk. I believe him. And I promised I would get him the best defense I could.”

Rathbone was now deeply troubled. Monk was the least gullible of men, and this story was absurd, on the face of it. There had to be something else of crucial importance that Monk was not telling him. Why not? Rathbone leaned back against his desk. It was uncomfortable, but while Monk was standing he did not feel able to sit. “Why do you believe him?” he asked.

Monk hesitated.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth!” Rathbone said with an edge that surprised himself. Something of the darkness inside Monk was disturbing him, although he had heard nothing yet except the story of a very ordinary robbery, and a concealed murder. That was it—why would Monk, of all men, hide a murder in this way? “The rest of it!” he demanded. “For heaven’s sake, Monk, haven’t you learned to trust me yet?”

Monk flinched. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Now his voice was low. His eyes were hollow, only horror left.

Rathbone was truly afraid. “I’m asking for the truth.” He felt his throat so tight the words were forced out. “Why do you think this man is innocent? Nothing you’ve said so far makes sense of it. If he didn’t kill Hodge, who did and why? Are you saying it was one of the crew, or Louvain himself?” He jerked his hands, slicing the air. “Why would he? Why would a shipowner give a damn about one of his crewmen? What is it? Blackmail, mutiny, something personal? What would a shipowner have personal with a seaman? I’m no use to you half blind, Monk!”

Monk stood perfectly still, a momentous struggle raging inside him so clearly that Rathbone could only stand and watch, helpless and with a cold hand tightening inside him.

The clerk knocked on the door.

“Not yet!” Rathbone said tensely.

Monk focused his eyes; his face was even whiter than before. “You must listen . . .” he said hoarsely, his voice a whisper.

Rathbone felt himself go cold. He brushed past Monk to the door, opened it and called for the clerk. The man appeared almost instantly.

“Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day,” Rathbone told him. “An emergency has arisen. Apologize and tell them I will see them at their earliest convenience.” He saw the man’s face crease in bewilderment and dismay. “Do it, Coleridge,” he ordered. “Tell them I am very sorry, but the circumstances are beyond my control. And do not interrupt me or come to the door for any reason until I send for you.”

“Are you all right, Sir Oliver?” Coleridge asked with deep concern.

“Yes, I am. Just deliver my message, thank you.” And without waiting he went back into his office and closed the door. “Now . . .” he said to Monk. “Tell me the truth.”

Monk seemed to have ceased struggling with his decision. He was even sitting down, as if exhaustion had finally taken him over. He looked so ashen Rathbone was afraid he was ill. “Brandy?” Rathbone offered.

“Not yet,” Monk declined.

This time it was Rathbone who could not sit down.

Monk began, looking not at Rathbone but somewhere in the distance. “Shortly after engaging me, Louvain took a woman to the clinic in Portpool Lane. I don’t know whether he knew of Hester from me, or if he knew of the clinic before, and possibly that was why he hired me rather than someone else. Don’t interrupt me! He said the woman was the cast-off mistress of a friend, which may or may not be true.” He ran his hand over his face. “Three days ago, in the evening, a rat catcher called Sutton came to me at home with a message from Hester.” At last he looked up at Rathbone and the pain in his eyes was frightening. “The woman, Ruth Clark, had died, and in dressing her for the undertaker, Hester discovered buboes in her armpits and groin.”

Rathbone had no idea what he was talking about. “Buboes?” he said.

“Black swellings,” Monk answered, his voice cracking. “They’re called buboes—that’s where we get the word
bubonic
.” He stopped abruptly.

The silence was as dense as fog while very slowly the meaning of what he had said sank into Rathbone and filled him with indescribable horror.

Monk was staring at him.

“Bubonic?” Rathbone whispered. “You don’t . . . mean . . .” He could not say it.

Monk nodded almost imperceptibly.

“But . . . but that’s . . . medieval . . . it’s . . .” Rathbone stopped again, refusing to believe it. He could not get his breath; his heart was hammering and the room was swaying around him, the edges of his vision blurred. He reached out his hands to grasp the desk as he overbalanced sideways and sat down hard and awkwardly, oblivious of bruising himself. “You can’t have that . . . now! This is 1863! What do we do? How do they treat it? Who do we tell?”

“No one!” Monk said violently. He was between Rathbone and the door, and he looked as if he would physically prevent him from leaving, with force if necessary. “For God’s sake, Rathbone; Hester’s in there! If anyone got even an idea of it they’d mob the place and set fire to it! They’d be burned alive!”

“But we have to tell someone!” Rathbone protested. “The authorities. Doctors. We can’t treat it if no one knows!”

Monk leaned forward; his voice was shaking. “There is no treatment. Either they survive it or they don’t. All we can do is raise money to buy food, coal, and medicines for them. We have to contain it, at any cost at all. If we don’t, if even one person gets out carrying it, it will spread throughout London, throughout England, then the world. In the Middle Ages, before the Indian Empire or the opening up of America, it killed twenty-five million people in Europe alone. Imagine what it would do now! Do you see why we must tell no one?”

It was impossible, too hideous for the mind to grasp.

“No one!” Monk repeated. “They have men with pit bulls patrolling day and night, and anyone attempting to leave will be torn to pieces. Now do you see why I have to find out if the disease came in on the
Maude Idris
, and if Hodge died of the plague, and his head was beaten in so no one would think to look for any other cause of death? He was buried straightaway. I don’t know whether Louvain knew about him or the Clark woman or not. I have to find the source. I can’t let Gould be hanged for something he didn’t do, but not ever, even to save his life, can I tell what I know. Do you see?”

Rathbone found it almost impossible to move or speak. The room seemed to be far away from him, as if he were dreaming rather than seeing it. Monk’s face was the only steady thing in his sight, at once familiar and dreadful. Seconds ticked by in which he expected at any instant to wake up in a sweat and a tangle of bedclothes.

It did not happen. He heard hooves in the street outside, and the hiss of carriage wheels in the rain. Someone shouted. It was all real. There was no rescue, no escape.

“Do you see?” Monk repeated.

“Yes,” Rathbone replied at last. He was beginning to. There was no one to help; no one could. He frowned. “Nothing they can do? Doctors? Even now?”

“No.”

“What do you want from me?” He refused to visualize it; the reality was more than he could endure. He needed to be busy. It would excuse him from knowing anything else; he would be doing what he could. “Did you say the man’s name was Gould—the thief, I mean?”

“Yes. He’s held at Wapping. The man in charge is called Durban. He knows the truth.”

Rathbone was jolted. “The truth? You mean he knows whether Gould killed Hodge or not?”

“No! He knows how Ruth Clark died!” Monk said sharply. “He knows we have to find the rest of the crew from the
Maude Idris
. He and I have been looking, and we haven’t found any trace of them yet.”

“God Almighty! Aren’t they on the ship?” Rathbone exclaimed.

“No. The crew now is only skeleton, just four men, including Hodge. They were supposedly enough to guard it until it can come in for unloading,” Monk replied.

Rathbone gulped, his heart pounding in his chest. “Then they could be anywhere! Carrying . . .” He could not even say it.

“That’s why I haven’t time to search for the truth to clear Gould,” Monk answered, still looking at Rathbone steadily.

Rathbone started to ask what one man mattered when the whole continent was threatened with extinction, and in a manner more hideous than the worst nightmare imaginable. Then he knew that in its own way, it was the shred of sanity they had to cling to. It was one thing that perhaps was within their power, and in that they could hold on to reason, and hope. When he spoke his voice was rough-edged, as if his throat pained him. “I’ll do what I can. I’ll go and see him. If I can’t find out who did kill Hodge, at least I may be able to raise reasonable doubt. But isn’t there something else I can do? Anything . . .”

Monk blinked. There was not even the ghost of his usual humor in his face. “If you believe in any kind of God, I mean really believe, not as a Sunday conformity, you could try praying. Other than that, probably nothing. If you ask your friends for money for Portpool Lane, and you haven’t before, they’ll become suspicious, and we can’t afford that.”

Rathbone froze. Margaret might go to the clinic. He felt the blood draining from his body. “Margaret . . .” he whispered.

“She knows,” Monk said very quietly. “She won’t go in.”

Rathbone began to see the full horror of it. Hester was in Portpool Lane, imprisoned beyond all human help. Monk knew it, even as he tried to reassure Rathbone about Margaret, while he himself could do nothing but try to find the rest of the crew. Rathbone could only try to save one thief from hanging for a murder he probably had not committed. And Margaret could do no more than struggle to raise, from a blind society which could never be told the truth, enough money to provide food and heat as long as there were survivors, and do it without telling anyone the truth—not even him.

“I understand,” he said quietly, overwhelmed with gratitude—and shame. “I’ll give her money myself, but I’ll ask no one else. Speak to me when you can, and if there is anything else I can do, tell me.” He stopped abruptly, not knowing how to offer Monk money without offending him. And yet it was absurd to let a fear of asking stand between them now.

“What is it?” Monk asked.

Rathbone put his hand in his pocket and pulled out six gold sovereigns and small change in silver. He passed over the sovereigns. “In case you need it for transport, or anything else. I don’t imagine Louvain is still paying you.”

Monk did not argue. “Thank you,” he said, picking up the coins and putting them in the inside pocket of his coat. “I’ll tell you what I find, if I do. If you want me for anything, leave a message at the River Police station at Wapping. I’ll call in there, or Durban will.” He stood up slowly, as if he were stiff and it hurt to move. He smiled very slightly, to rob his words of offense. “Nobody’s going to pay you for defending Hodge.”

Rathbone shrugged and did not bother to reply.

As soon as Monk left, Rathbone poured himself a full glass of brandy, then looked at it for a moment, seeing the light burn through its golden depths like a topaz in a crystal balloon. Then he thought of Monk going out alone to the dark river and the backstreets where he must look for a ship’s crew carrying death, leaving Hester in a place which must surely be as close to hell on earth as was possible, and he poured the brandy back into the decanter, his shaking hand spilling a little of it.

He barely spoke to Coleridge on the way out, only sufficient to be civil to the anxious enquiry for his well-being. Outside on the footpath he hailed the first hansom that passed, running out into the street to clamber into it and giving Margaret Ballinger’s address.

He sat down as the cab started forward. At last he understood her extraordinary behavior yesterday. She had honor! She must have been desperate to raise money for Hester, and of course she could not possibly tell anyone why! How farcical, like some insane, satanic joke—she was trying to save them all, and she could not tell them.

But why had she not told him? If she had sent him some message he would have come immediately, and she could have told him somewhere in private. . . . His brain was racing, skidding off the rails like a high-speed train with a drunken driver, no control. When had Margaret heard? The same day as Monk, or not? Perhaps she had had no time to tell Rathbone? Perhaps she had not trusted him? Or was she protecting him from having to know about it?

Why would she do that? Did she know the horror of disease that rose like a tide inside him, drowning reason, courage, even sense? He had never been a moral coward in his life, nor a physical one. He had faced danger—not willingly, but certainly without ever quailing or even imagining running away.

But disease was different. The terror, the nausea, the delirium, the inescapable certainty of death, helpless and without dignity.

Why was the hansom taking so long? Rain was causing traffic congestion as drays, hansoms, and private carriages all fought for space in the narrow, wet streets, trying not to bump into each other and tangle, or mash wheels and break them in the dark.

What a relief it would be to see Margaret, tell her that he knew, savor the precious time together before . . . What? He went to try to defend Monk’s thief and she to—please God, not the clinic! No, she would not be able to! Monk had said no one would be let in or out. Thank heaven for that! His body broke out in a sweat of relief. He was ashamed of it, but it was impossible to deny.

But Hester was in Portpool Lane alone. She had only the street women and Bessie to help her, and Squeaky Robinson, for whatever that was worth—probably nothing. He would be the first to run away. And she would have to set the dogs on him. Rathbone refused to imagine that. But she could. She would do it. She would know what it would mean if he escaped and carried the plague to the rest of London. She would have the courage, the strength of mind.