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Hester thought of Monk, remembering how he had looked when he came home after fishing the dead out of the river all night, and then diving to look at those left in the wreck before they raised it. It must have been like a battlefield under the water. She had seen enough of them on land. She thought that with time she would have forgotten, but she never did.
She forced her mind back to the present and practical things.
“Do you think Kate might know some details about the boat, if the party was talked about?” she asked. “There’ll be other girls who wanted to go, and didn’t. Or whose friends went. Let’s see what the gossip is. There could be bits and pieces which, if we put them together, make something useful.”
“Certainly,” Claudine said quickly. “I dare say we’ll get a lot of nonsense, wishful thinking, and gossip having to do with old scores, but we’ll sort it out.”
MONK WAS FRUSTRATED THAT he could do nothing to help the ongoing investigation. And he was still angry with the insult to the River Police. He found himself talking to his men more, encouraging them, even praising them at times. It was not his usual habit, and he knew he was saying to them what he felt the authorities should have: They had earned better regard than this.
Going upriver from Wapping toward Westminster, he found himself digging deep into the water and throwing all his weight behind the oar, forcing Orme to pull harder as well. His mind was full of questions about who had placed the dynamite, and why. The theft he was now investigating barely touched his thoughts.
Was Runcorn right and it was political? Personally he still thought smuggling was also a possibility. There was a lot of money in that, a fortune, if one really big shipment made it through all the barriers. The sinking of the boat might have been away to get the goods, whatever they were, past customs somehow; it might also convince the original owner that they were destroyed, lost forever!
Would Lydiate’s men even think of such a thing? Or know who to ask, in order to find out?
Darker ideas invaded his mind. Was there corruption involved, and that was why the River Police were excluded? They knew the water officials, the excise men! They would be far less easily deceived by a web of lies. He drove the oar in deeper. The boat slewed slightly, because Orme had not been ready for such a surge forward.
Monk should apologize. More than that: He should measure his stroke more evenly.
It was a bright day, full of little shivering gusts that made the ripples scurry first one way then the other.
They rowed in silence, passing the usual river traffic of lighters, ferries, cargo-laden barges, and freighters low in the water. There were very few pleasure boats, although the weather was steadily improving.
He caught Orme’s eye once or twice and knew his mind was filled with the same thoughts. He could see the suppressed anger in Orme’s weathered face mirroring his own. This exclusion was an insult to the whole force. It didn’t matter that the case was difficult, that maybe no one would solve it completely. This was their river, their beat.
They swung the boat shoreward and pulled in toward the bank just short of Westminster Bridge. This was where most of the pleasure boats left to go either up the river toward Kew Gardens, Lambeth Palace, and the little river islands; or downstream through the Pool of London, the Tower, the Isle of Dogs, and eventually Gravesend and the wide estuary to the sea.
They tied up and climbed out into the dock. It was good to stand after the long row.
Orme shook his head. His eyes were narrowed against the sun, and the cap he always wore was pulled down over his brow.
“Anyone could get on or off here,” he said flatly, voicing what they were both thinking. “All you need is a peacoat on and a cap, and you’d be invisible. We don’t even know who we’re looking for. He could be anyone! Waterman, laborer, tourist, or even a gentleman. Or a soldier on leave.”
“He must have been checked as he boarded,” Monk replied. “He was either guest or crew.”
“Crew,” Orme said quietly. “Guests would have been known by name, and the survivors spoken to. That’s a risk he wouldn’t take.”
“I wonder if they’ve thought to check that no guests got off again before she set sail,” Monk thought aloud.
Orme gave a tight smile. “Don’t think much of them, do you!”
“I wouldn’t like to go through that guest list looking for whoever set the bomb off,” Monk replied. “They’ll have to do it, just in case they miss something. But apparently there’s a lot of money, power, and privilege involved, people who don’t expect to account to the police for anything.”
Orme gave him a wide-eyed stare.
“All right,” Monk agreed. “If they’ve any sense at all, Lydiate’ll make damn sure they don’t miss it! I wonder who was paid to turn a blind eye … and what they thought it was about.”
Orme didn’t answer, but turned slowly, gazing around the sheds and ticket offices, entrance booths and places for passengers to wait in an orderly fashion, without spilling over into the road above.
The wind had dropped here. The small sailboats barely moved, their hulls and slack sails reflected in the water. There were few sounds except the slurping of the tide and an occasional shout.
A string of barges came past slowly, lightermen balancing with an odd, almost awkward grace in the sterns. A ferry wove in and out, and then docked gently at the steps twenty yards downstream.
“Of course the dynamite itself could have come on board with the catering,” Monk went on. “Orme, who are the invisible people?”
Orme looked startled. “What?”
“Who are the invisible people?” Monk repeated. “The ones who are always here, so much so that we end up not really seeing them; just like postmen, delivery boys, cabdrivers, maids coming out to shake carpets or fetch water, fill coal scuttles.”
