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“What the devil for?” the surgeon demanded when Monk found him in his consulting rooms. He was a lean man with a harassed air, as if constantly put upon and always trying to catch up with himself. “You come to me two months afterwards and ask me what time the poor man shot himself?” He glared at Monk. “Haven’t you anything better to do? Go and catch some thieves! My neighbor’s house was broken into last week. What about that?”
“Metropolitan Police,” Monk replied, not without pleasure. “I’m Thames River Police.”
“Well, poor Havilland died of a gunshot,” the surgeon snapped.
“Not a drop of water anywhere near him, even tap water, never mind the damn river!” He glared at Monk with triumph. “None of your business, sir!”
Monk kept his temper with difficulty, and only because he wanted the information. “His daughter believed he was murdered—”
“I know that,” the surgeon interrupted him. “The grief unhinged her. A great shame, but we don’t have a cure for grief, unless the priest has. Not my field.”
“Her death was very definitely from drowning in the river,” Monk went on. “I saw her go in myself, and that could have been murder.” He saw the doctor’s startled look with satisfaction. “Unfortunately, the young man who may or may not have pushed her overbalanced and went in himself,” he continued. “Both were dead when we pulled them out. I need to investigate her accusation, even if only to lay it to rest, for both families’ sakes.”
“Why the devil didn’t you say so, man?” The surgeon turned away and began to look through a stack of papers in a drawer behind him. “Fool!” he muttered under his breath.
Monk waited.
Finally the man pulled out a couple of sheets with triumph and waved them in the air. “There you are. Very cold night. Lay on the stable floor. Warmer than outside, colder than the house. Should say he died no later than two in the morning, no earlier than ten. But as I remember the household staff say they heard him up at eleven, so that gives you something.”
“Anything medical to prove he shot himself?” Monk asked.
“Like what, for God’s sake? That’s police work. Gun was on the floor where it would have fallen. If you’re asking if he was shot at point-blank range, then yes—he was. Doesn’t prove he did it himself. Or that he didn’t.”
“Any sign of a struggle? Or didn’t you look?”
“Of course I looked!” the surgeon snapped. “And there was no struggle. Either he shot himself, or whoever else shot him took him by surprise. Now go and bury the dead decently, and leave me to get on with something that matters. Good day, sir.”
“Thank you,” Monk said sarcastically. “It’s as well you deal with the dead. Your manner wouldn’t do for the living. Good day, sir.” And before the doctor could respond, he turned on his heel and marched out.
It was already approaching four o’clock and the winter dusk was closing in. Funny how the weather always became worse as the days began to lengthen after Christmas. It was snowing lightly in the street, and within an hour or two it would start to accumulate. He began to walk, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
So there had definitely been no fight. There was no evidence of a break-in, and nothing had been stolen. Someone had sent Havilland a note, almost certainly requesting a meeting in the stable. Either that person had taken Havilland by surprise and shot him, making it look like suicide, or Havilland had shot himself, presumably after the unknown party left.
If it was the former, then the person had gone to some considerable trouble to make it look like suicide rather than a quarrel or a burglary interrupted. Why? Surely it would have been simple enough to make it seem as if Havilland had seen or heard something and disturbed a thief. That would not have implicated anyone. So why the appearance of suicide?
The answer was glaringly obvious: to shame him, to discredit anything he might have been saying during the last few weeks of his life. If that was the case, then it had to be Alan or Toby Argyll—or both. Mary had known it, had possibly been on the verge of finding proof, and had paid for it with her life as well.
Without realizing it, Monk had been walking towards the police station, as if he had already made up his mind to go back. Why could it not have been anyone in charge of the case but Runcorn? Any other police superintendent would have been easier. At least he assumed it would; he might have made many enemies, and he was absolutely certain he had no friends he could call upon. If there were any debts of kindness to be collected from the past, he had forgotten them, along with everything else. The crimes he had solved as a private agent had not endeared him to the police.
He was still walking because it was too cold to stand still. He increased his speed, and five minutes later he was outside the police station. Ten minutes after that he was telling Runcorn what he had found out, and what he feared.
Runcorn sat silently, his face furrowed with thought.
“I’m going ahead with it,” Monk said, then instantly wished he had not. In one sentence he had excluded Runcorn and made a challenge of it. He saw Runcorn’s body stiffen, his shoulders hunch a little. He must retrieve the mistake, whatever it cost, and quickly. “I think you will, too,” he said, swallowing hard, “now that you know about the letter. We’ll do more if we do it together.” That sounded like an offer, and he meant it as one.
Runcorn stared at him. “Metropolitan Police and River Police?” His blue-gray eyes were filled with amazement, memory, something that could almost have been hope.
Monk felt the old guilt back like a wave. They had been friends once, watched each other’s backs in times of danger with an unquestioning trust. It was he who had broken that trust, not Runcorn. Now Runcorn must be wondering if this was just another trick.
Runcorn’s face set hard. “If one of the Argylls
—or both—had a man murdered to hide what he knew, then I’ll see that justice is served,” he said grimly. “And I won’t let that girl stay buried as a suicide if she was murdered. Right, Monk.” He rose to his feet. “We’ll start again along the street where Havilland lived. I know neither of the Argylls was Havilland’s actual killer because they were both well accounted for. I got that far, on Mary’s word. Toby was in Wales, a hundred miles away, and Alan was at a party on the other side of the city with a hundred witnesses. His wife’s word I wouldn’t believe, but twenty members of Parliament I have to. But whoever shot Havilland must have been there. Maybe someone saw him, heard him, noticed something. Come on!”
Monk followed eagerly. There was an element of recapturing the past in walking the dark, bitter streets beside Runcorn. They moved from one place to another, finding off-duty hansom drivers huddled around a brazier, or local police on the beat. They separated to ask the questions and waste less time, but still they learned nothing. It was snowing again now, big, lazy flakes drifting out of the sky into the lamplight and settling feather light on the ground. Monk began to wonder more honestly what time had given Runcorn in the years since they had started out as equals. Monk himself had been badly hurt, lost his profession, been to the edge of an abyss of fear, of a self-knowledge unendurable even now. At the last moment it was Hester who had helped him prove to everyone—above all to himself—that he was not the man he dreaded he might be.
Monk had little enough materially. His reputation was dubious. He was still clumsy when it came to command. He had much to regret, to be ashamed of. But he had won far more than he had lost. He had solved many cases, fought for the truth, and mostly he had won.
Far above any of that he had personal happiness, an ease of heart that made him smile in repose and look forward to going home at the end of the day, certain of kindness, of trust and of hope.
