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Lydiate gave him a look of disgust. “Do you think I would have changed my direction of enquiry for any of those reasons? Would you?”
Monk found the answer died on his tongue. He should not have asked.
“My sister,” Lydiate replied slowly, forcing the painful words out softly. “She is married to a man who is peculiarly vulnerable: not just to disgrace but to a grief he could not bear, because it would be compounded with guilt. His daughter by his first wife has committed an indiscretion that, if revealed, would cause her ruin. It was not a crime! A … a desperate error of judgment.” He swallowed. “If I allowed that to happen my loss would be compounded by guilt also. I understand that very well. I was not compassionate to my sister when she needed me in the past; too busy with my career. Too full of judgment. I will not make that mistake again.” He faced Monk now, quietly defiant; ready to take whatever blame was given.
Monk felt a monumental anger, not against Lydiate but against the person who had known this and deliberately given the case to a man that he could manipulate in this way. Now it was all very clear why the matter had been taken from the River Police.
What would he have done himself, if the threat had been to Hester? Please God, he would never have to find out! However, this did not alter the fact that he still had to pursue every aspect of the sinking of the Princess Mary, including the motive for it, wherever it led. The passion and confusion, the fiasco of Beshara’s arrest, trial, sentence, and now the attempt on his life, had made it imperative. Did whoever was behind this need him silenced, and was willing to reach out, even into prison, in order to make certain of it?
“Why was Beshara reprieved?” Monk asked Lydiate.
“I don’t know,” Lydiate admitted miserably. “I was told it was to do with his illness, which seems absurd, since it is apparently incurable. I assumed it was some kind of concession to the Egyptian embassy.”
“Or that the government wanted to know who else was involved,” Monk pointed out. “And wanted to know who paid him!”
“I believed that the motive was hate, revenge for something that happened in Egypt,” Lydiate answered.
Looking at him, Monk knew that Lydiate really believed what he was saying. And why shouldn’t he? Monk had originally thought such a motive made sense as well, but he also hadn’t accepted it without question. That explained why the case was given to Lydiate—he was a man who was clearly vulnerable to such subtle and corrosive persuasion.
“And what do you believe now?” he asked as gently as he could.
“I have no idea,” Lydiate confessed. “I would go back to the beginning, without presupposition.”
Monk said nothing. He was working blindly, and with the whole case already contaminated.
When Lydiate offered him whisky again, he accepted.
CHAPTER
9
SCUFF DID NOT HAVE any clear plan in mind when he
bypassed the road toward school and turned in the direction of the river instead. He knew only that now the regular police had messed up the case of the Princess Mary, and got the wrong person almost killed, and still stuck in prison, and had given the whole thing back to Monk. He was left with having to sort out the problem—if he could!
It was warm already. The sun glittered bright and hard on the water, making him squint a little.
Of course there was no way Monk could keep the police’s mistakes concealed. He had to go back to the very beginning and untangle all the knots. How was he supposed to do that? It wasn’t just a matter of witnesses telling lies; it was people saying something over and over until they believed it, and then getting all angry and scared when someone suggested it wasn’t true.
Now it was too late, and nobody remembered what they’d really seen or done anyway, even if they wanted to tell the truth. People would make fun of them, laugh at them, and most likely never let them forget it. Who wanted that? Scuff had experienced it and it was horrible. Much easier to insist you were right, regardless of anything anyone else said. Just stick it out! Who could prove you wrong weeks afterward?
Better than being labeled a fool who didn’t know what was right in front of your own eyes!
He reached the steps. The tide was high and slapping over the concrete, making it slippery. He climbed onto the ferry carefully and paid for his passage across the river. He needed to be on the north bank, because the Princess Mary had gone down nearer to it, and, as far as he knew, most of the stops had been on that side. Then he walked steadily along the dockside downstream toward the Isle of Dogs.
He found one little urchin who was inquisitive, and probably hungry.
“Find anything good?” Scuff asked him casually.
The urchin sized him up, and did not know quite what to make of him. “Wot yer lookin’ fer, mister?”
“Mister!” Scuff felt instantly taller, and at the same time alienated. “Mister?” What did the boy think he was? Some kind of stranger here?
Use it. The child was being practical, surviving. Without thinking about it Scuff put his hand in his pocket and felt to see how much money he had. It was mostly pennies, but he also had a threepenny bit and two or three sixpences. Sixpence was too much to give anyone! But for a really good piece of information he might share a cup of tea and even a sticky bun.
He must be inventive, quickly.
“You got anything off the Princess Mary?”
