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“Oh . . .”
Then, in turn, he told her what Runcorn had said.
“It isn’t proof, is it?” she agreed. “But they must have rerouted the track for some reason, and Miss Harcus said they were expecting an enormous profit which must be kept secret.” She looked at him very steadily. “What are you going to do?”
It made it easier for him that without question she assumed he was going to do something.
“Go back to Liverpool,” he replied. “Try to find out exactly what mistakes Arrol Dundas made that he was caught.” He saw her eyes widen and heard her indrawn breath, let out again without speaking. “For this case,” he replied. “Not the past.”
&
nbsp; She relaxed and smiled.
He went back to the same lodgings in Liverpool where he now felt familiar, even welcome. The first thing was to find if Katrina Harcus had been born here. It would be in the early 1830s, to judge from her age. That was just before the compulsory registration of births, so it would be a matter of finding a record of her baptism in a local church. There was nothing to do but go from one parish to another enquiring. He telegraphed Rathbone to that effect.
It took him four weary and tedious days to find the entry in the records of a small Gothic church on the outskirts of Liverpool. Katrina Mary Harcus. Her mother was Pamela Mary Harcus. Her father was not listed. The inference was obvious. Illegitimacy was a stigma from which few recovered. He felt a stab of pity as he saw the solitary entry. He stood in the faintly dusty aisle where the sunlight fell in vivid jewel patches from the stained-glass windows, watching the parish priest walking towards him. Perhaps it was not so surprising that Katrina had left home and gone to London, where she was unknown, even friendless, to seek some future better than the taint of being a bastard which would follow her everywhere here.
“Did you find it?” the minister asked helpfully.
“Yes, thank you,” Monk replied. “Does Mrs. Harcus still live in the parish?”
The Reverend Rider’s bland, pleasant face filled with sadness. “No,” he said quietly. “She died nearly three months ago, poor woman.” He sighed. “She used to be such a charming creature, full of life, full of hope. Always saw the best in everything. Never the same after . . .” He checked himself just before speaking. “After her benefactor died,” he finished.
Was that a euphemism for her lover, Katrina’s father?
“Were things hard for her after that?” Monk asked solicitously. He was affecting pity for the vicar’s sake; ordinarily he would have felt it, but at the moment he simply could not afford the emotional energy to let it fill him as it should.
“Yes . . . yes.” Rider pursed his lips and nodded his head. “To be alone, in failing health and with little means is a hard thing for anyone. People can be very unkind, Mr. Monk. We tend to look at our own weaknesses with such charity and other people’s with so little. I suppose it is because we know the fierceness of the temptation to our own, and all the reasons why that exception to the rule was understandable. With other people we know only what we see, and even that is not always the truth.”
Monk knew more exactly what he meant than the vicar could have known. His loss of memory had forced him to see his own actions with that partial and outward eye, mostly through the lens of others, and understanding nothing. To be judged that way was acutely painful. He could feel closing on him the threat of answering for wrongs committed in a time he could not remember, and as if by another man. He had tried so hard to shed the old ruthlessness, the indifference. Was the past not now going to allow him that?
But he had no time for indulgence of his own feelings, however crowding and urgent.
“Yes,” he agreed, to avoid the appearance of abruptness. “It is a narrowness common to most of us. Perhaps a little time being judged, instead of judging, would be a salutary thing.”
Rider smiled. “Perceptive of you, Mr. Monk.”
“Do you know who her benefactor was? Perhaps the father of her daughter, whom I knew, and attempted to help with a particular problem she was seeking to address.”
“Knew?” Rider said quickly, catching the past tense.
“I am afraid she is dead.” Monk did not have to pretend the grief. And it was more than guilt that he had not prevented it; it was a loss for someone who had been full of passion and urgency, much of which he had shared, even though she had not known it.
Rider looked crushed, a great weariness filled him. “Oh, dear . . . I am sorry,” he said quietly. “She was always so very full of life. Was it an accident?”
“No.” Monk risked the truth. “She was murdered . . .” He stopped as he saw the shock in Rider’s eyes, almost as if he had walked into something unseen and without any warning found himself bruised and on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized. “I should have told you less frankly. I am concerned because I fear they may have arrested the wrong man, and there is little time to learn the truth.”
“How can I help?”
Monk was not sure, but he asked the obvious question. “Who was her father? And how long ago did she leave here?”
“About two years ago,” Rider answered, frowning in concentration.
“And her father?” Monk pressed.
Rider looked at him ruefully. “I don’t see how it can have anything to do with her death. It was many years ago. All those involved are dead now . . . even poor Katrina. Allow them to rest in peace, Mr. Monk.”
