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“Jus’ sayin’,” Orme replied.
“Thank you. Theft is important, but murder, if it is murder, is more so.”
Orme gave a little downward smile. “ ’E won’t say it’s murder. An’ it’s the people ’oo’re stole from ’oo run the river. That’s where the money is.”
“You’re a wise man,” Monk conceded. “Remind me of that again in a day or two. Meantime, it’s dead women like Mary Havilland to whom we owe justice as well.”
Monk took a hansom to the burial and picked up both Runcorn and Cardman. They rode in silence to the church. They were early, but it seemed appropriate to stand on the short strip of withered grass and wait, three men united in anger and grief for a woman one had known all her life, one only the last two months of it, and the third not at all.
They stood stiff in the icy wind, each in his thoughts, oblivious of the traffic or the bulk of the workhouse black against a leaden sky.
The gravediggers had done their job; the earth gaped open. The small cortège was led by the minister, whose unsmiling countenance was like the face of doom, followed by Jenny Argyll in unrelieved black and so heavily veiled her face was invisible. Monk knew her only because it could be no one else with Alan Argyll, although she took no notice of him at all, nor he of her. They looked as isolated as if the other were not there.
Was Argyll thinking only of his dead brother? The bitterness in his face suggested it.
There was no service, nothing said of the hope of resurrection. It was without mercy. The wind whipped the mens’ coattails, and the ice it carried stung the bare skin of their cheeks, making them red in contrast with white lips and hollow eyes. Monk looked once each at Runcorn and Cardman, then did not intrude further on their bereavement.
Monk turned to the minister and wondered what manner of God he believed in, whether he did this willingly or under protest because he had a wife and children to feed. Monk was overwhelmingly grateful that his own faith was not hostage to financial need, his own or anyone else’s. He should pity the man his bondage, and yet there were no questions in the minister’s face.
It was over almost before Monk realized it. Without a word, the cortège departed. In silence, Runcorn, Cardman, and Monk left, in opposite directions.
“Suicide,” Monk’s superior said brusquely when Monk went into his office early in the afternoon. “For God’s sake, man! She jumped right in front of you, and took with her the poor devil who was trying to save her! Don’t make it even worse for the family by drawing it out!” Farnham was a big man, broad-shouldered and heavy-bellied. His long-nosed face could break into a sudden smile, and there were those who spoke of certain acts of kindness, but Monk felt uneasy in his presence, as if never certain he would be true to the best in himself. Farnham had sought authority and won it, and now he wore it with intense pleasure.
Arguments of belief or intuition would only be mocked. Anything Monk put forward would be seen as enlightened self-interest for the River Police. “It probably is suicide, sir,” he agreed aloud. “But I think we should make certain.”
Farnham’s eyebrows rose. He had trusted Durban and known where he was with him, or at least he had assumed he did. He resented the fact that now he had to learn the strengths and weaknesses of a new man. He was sufficiently aware of what had really happened not to hold Monk accountable for Durban’s death. But Monk had survived, and Farnham blamed him for that.
“Not much is ever sure in police work, Monk,” he said sourly.
“Thought you would have known that!” The criticism was implicit.
Monk swallowed his impatience. “Not about what happened on the bridge, sir. I’m thinking of what she was investigating to do with the sewer tunnels and their construction.”
“Not our concern!” Farnham snapped. “That’s the Metropolitan Police.” The distaste with which he said that was exactly what Monk had expected, had already seen in him in the few weeks he had been here. It was part of what Farnham disliked in Monk himself, and the fact that he had been dismissed from the Metropolitan Police was conversely a point in his favor.
“Yes, sir,” Monk agreed with difficulty. “But if there is something, and it causes a real disaster and we knew about it, or at least had a chance to find out, do you think they’ll see it that way?”
Farnham’s eyes narrowed. “You can have a couple of days,” he warned. “If you find something worth pursuing, then give it to them, on paper, and keep a record of it here! Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Monk thanked him and left before Farnham could change his mind or add any further restrictions.
He began by learning as much as he could about the vast network of new and old sewers and how they interconnected. It was an immense complex, intended to take the ocean of waste from London’s three million people eastwards away from the city and its present egress into the river, and instead process it through large purification works closer to the sea. Then the surplus water could be released, comparatively clean, and the solid waste otherwise disposed of. It was a brilliant feat of engineering, costing a king’s ransom of money, but for the capital of the Empire and the seat of government for a quarter of the world, it was absolutely necessary.
It took more time to find the exact place of the Argyll company in it, and he was surprised how large it was. It must have cost a considerable effort and influence to obtain it, and no doubt would not be easily forfeited. They had three sites close to one another. Two were cut-and-cover, like the crevasse that Hester
had described, but one was too deep for that method. They were actually tunneling, burrowing like rabbits under the ground, scraping out the earth and rock and carrying it back to the entrance to get rid of it. The necessity for this was created not only by the depth but also by the fact that other rivers and gas lines crossed above it in several places and could have collapsed had they been exposed by the more open method.
He searched but could find no adequate map that charted all of London’s old wells, springs, and submerged rivers or the old gutters, drains, and waterways that had altered over the course of the centuries. Clay slipped. Some earth absorbed water; some rejected it. Some old drains, dating back to the Roman occupation, had survived. Some had been broken or had caved in, and the land had subsided, diverting them deeper or sideways. The earth was a living thing, changing with time and usage. No wonder Sutton, whose father had been a tosher and knew all the waterways large and small, was now frightened by the vast steam engines that shook the ground, and by the knowledge that men were digging, shoveling, and moving earth, disturbing what was settled.
Monk was circumspect about mentioning the Havillands’ name, but he would not learn anything further of use if he did not. It gave him a wry, half-sour pleasure that it was far easier now than in his independent days because he could use the power of the River Police to ask for what he wanted. He was cramped by rules, hemmed in and robbed of freedom by the necessity of answering both upwards to Farnham and in a sense downwards to Orme and the other men. He could not lead if he could not inspire men to follow him. The mere holding of office could force obedience for a while, but it could not earn the respect or the loyalty that were what mattered. He would not replace Durban anywhere except in the records on paper.
He made detailed enquiries of clerks at the construction offices regarding old maps, earlier excavations, waterways, the nature of soil, graveyards, and plague pits—anything that might affect new tunneling. He was told of James Havilland’s investigations.
“And Miss Mary Havilland?” he insisted. “Did she explain her involvement? Weren’t you curious that a young woman should know anything about such matters, or care?”
“Yes, I was,” the clerk agreed. “That’s ’ow come I remember. As ’e were ’er father, she told me, an’ ’e were dead, she were doin’ what she could ter finish ’is work. ’E worked fer one o’ the big companies, Argyll Company.”
“She told you that?”
