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“Yes. So what was he doing?” Orme raised his eyebrows and stared at Monk.
“Fiddling the whole shipment,” Monk concluded.
“Right!” Orme agreed. He watched Monk closely.
Hooper was leaning against the wall, his ankles crossed, listening.
Monk gave it words. “Which means he lied when he testified. If he saw Beshara at all, it wasn’t when he said it was!”
“And if it was somewhere else, but still Beshara,” Orme pointed out, “then Beshara wasn’t where anyone said he was!”
“Yes,” Monk said slowly. “Yes. I wonder how many said what they thought we wanted them to say—”
“Not us!” Orme interrupted, a shadow across his face. “Lydiate’s men …”
“Police,” Monk explained. “The authorities, the State. We all wanted it tidied up as soon as possible. Deal with it and forget it. Punish someone, then move on. It’s natural. The government would have pushed us, too, had we been on the case.”
Orme said nothing. It pained him, but he was a fair man. He could not argue.
“I wonder how many of them could tell one man from another in a hurry, just a glimpse of a face. Could you, Orme?” Monk pursued it. “If they were people you didn’t know,” he added.
“No,” Orme conceded. “But I wouldn’t swear to it …” He stopped.
Monk smiled.
“Maybe I would,” Orme said very quietly. “Maybe I’d get surer of it the more times I said it, and the more I thought of all of them that had gone down. An’ maybe I’d think the police grateful to me, and off my back forever asking me what I know.”
“And maybe,” Monk added, “if I had a lot of business I’d sooner that the police weren’t poking into too much, I’d look to be in their favor for a while.”
“You going to Lydiate?” Orme asked. No one would like the investigation being opened up again, after people had begun to forget it and move on with life. Beshara was a man with a reputation for dealing and bribing. He was not an innocent, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if he wasn’t guilty of sinking the Princess Mary, he was guilty of other things for which he had not paid.
“I have to,” Monk replied. “To Lydiate, anyway. It’ll come out, sooner or later.”
Orme nodded and gave a downward twisted smile. There was no need for him to add anything. Their thoughts were the same.
MONK DID NOT WANT to tell Lydiate in his office. He would allow the man time to accept it alone, or reject it, and possibly dispute it. He invited him to one of the small pubs along the river where there were seats overlooking the water. Everyone else there would be too busy watching the boats or listening to the occasional song to bother overhearing two men talking over a pint of ale and a pie.
Lydiate arrived after Monk. He was casually dressed, attempting to blend in, but he still looked like a gentleman. His careful grooming, and the grace with which he walked, would always give him away.
He came over carrying a tankard of ale and sat down next to Monk on the bench. It was only when he was closer, in the lower, more direct evening light off the water, that Monk noticed how tired he was. The fine lines on his face seemed to drag down, and there was little color in his skin. The experience of the Princess Mary case had weighed heavily on him. He had had to be closer to the reality of it, the massive loss, than his position usually required of him. This was going to be bitter.
“Put away a petty thief yesterday,” Monk began. There was no kindness in stringing it out, beginning with pleasantries. “But while I was doing so, he inadvertently gave me some information about another man involved in the robbery. That was odd, because the other man had a perfect alibi. I checked it very carefully.”
Lydiate was studying his face, waiting.
Monk looked at him. “He was with one of the witnesses who saw Habib Beshara at the time he was supposed to be putting the dynamite on board the Princess Mary.”
“But …” Lydiate began, and then sighed. “I suppose there’s no doubt?”
“Not that I can see. It raises the whole question of how many others were saying what they thought we wanted them to.”
“He fitted perfectly,” Lydiate said, more to himself than to Monk. “He was an unpleasant man, and for sale. He’d committed many other small acts for money, which he knew were going to end in brawls, or worse. But admittedly, this was far more serious. He had a record of dislike of the British, small acts of vandalism.” He took a sip of his ale, then put it down, as if it tasted sour to him. “This was far more serious than anything else we’ve know him to do, but it wasn’t out of character.” He looked at Monk. “Everyone was so keen to help. We weeded out a hundred or more who only wanted the limelight, or thought they knew something and were nowhere near. Lord Ossett’s people called every day.”
He did not need to add more than that. Monk could imagine the pressure. He had experienced it himself, in other cases, albeit to a lesser degree. He was familiar with the constant calls, the demands for results.
He looked at Lydiate and saw the weariness in him. Had those who demanded answers any idea what they were asking? Or the danger of error when there was such hunger for quick solutions? It was juggling the possibility, even the probability, of lies. First one, then another to explain the first, then more and more to prove the ones you had already built on.
“It’s political,” Lydiate said suddenly, anger and pain in his voice. “This damned canal is going to change so much! Everybody with money invested in shipping, import and export, travel, is trying to foresee what differences it’ll make, and guard themselves against loss. For decades, ever since Trafalgar, we’ve been lords of all the major seaways in the world.” He shrugged very slightly, his expression rueful. “Now suddenly there are shortcuts! The Mediterranean is the center of the world again and we’re on the edge. We can be bypassed, and fortunes are going to be made and lost!”
