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“Possibly not. Certainly not alone. If it weren’t necessary, I wouldn’t ask you again.”
Hall was quiet for several moments, as if thinking this over. Then he nodded for Monk to continue.
“Who picked you up out of the water?” Monk asked.
“Ferryman. ’E might ’ave said ’is name, but what did it matter?”
“Are you sure it was a ferry?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“It might matter. Were you the first person in the boat, apart from the ferryman himself?”
“No. There were one other man in it. ’E were ’elpin’ all ’e could.”
“Do you remember him?”
“No …”
“But a man?”
“Yeah.” His face crumpled. “Weren’t many women as were got out. I … I couldn’t find me ma …” He stopped, his voice choking. “I swam around looking for ’er, calling out … but she were gone …”
Monk could imagine it, the increasing panic as hope faded, the desperate search among the survivors, going from place to place, asking. Had he ever found her body? He must bring the man back to the present. It seemed uncaring, but it was probably better than the memory he was reliving.
“And the man, what was he wearing? Party clothes? Black suit, fitted jacket, white shirt?” he asked.
Hall frowned, searching his memory, finding the image. “No jacket, least, not like … it was like them jackets waiters wear, waistcoats, to move easy in, just …”
Monk felt a sharp jolt of excitement, recognition of a moment of truth. Could this have been the man he had seen leap off the Princess Mary just before the explosion?
“Anything else you remember about him?” He clung to the tiny thread, afraid to pull too hard and have it disintegrate. “Voice, actions? Did the ferryman seem to know him? A name?”
“I … I can’t remember.” Hall shook his head, like a dog coming out of water. “I can’t remember what anyone said.”
“Anything at all that you can think of?” Monk pressed.
“No! No, ’e said something, but I can’t remember. I was so desperate, none of it made sense. I’m sorry …”
Monk reached out and grasped Hall’s hand. He had been there, seen it all.
“What did the police ask you?” he said quietly.
“Police? Nothing really, just if I’d seen anything before the explosion. Where I was, that kind o’ thing. I weren’t any ’elp to them.”
“They didn’t ask anything about after the explosion?”
“No. Nothing. They knew I’d been rescued, and that I’d lost my ma. Nothing else.”
Monk withdrew his hand slowly.
“I think you might have been a great help to me, Mr. Hall,” he said with growing conviction. “I appreciate it, and I grieve for your loss.” Hall nodded, too full of emotion to risk words again, which anyway would have been inadequate to the weight of meaning.
Monk asked others but no one else had more to add to what he already knew, just confirmation. What stood out, over and over, were the omissions, the questions Lydiate’s men had not asked, and the people they had not spoken to. They had inquired about events leading up to the explosion, and hardly anyone had had more than a few passing observations to offer: anonymous people who played music, waited on them with drinks or at table. Most of the evidence that was of value came from the deckhands. It could have implicated Habib Beshara, or almost anyone else with a darker than average skin.
Crossing the river again at dusk, on the way home, Monk was haunted by his disjointed memories of the screams, the bewilderment, and the look of abiding pain in the faces of survivors. When it came down to reality, what mattered except the lives of those you loved? All that was precious was made up of passions and of love, of belief in a purpose beyond the habits of living from day to day.
The meaning of it all could be taken in a few moments. What would his life be without Hester, and now also without Scuff?
