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“It is an impossible situation,” Ossett went on. “What else is there, but what your own eyes tell you? But clearly even the most honest people, when terrified and bereaved, can make mistakes, or become uncertain afterward.” He folded his hands across his stomach. “Be careful, Monk. The newspapers are making a very large issue of this. And—as I dare say you will have noticed—they are angry that we have not yet found all those to blame, but very few have much sympathy with Beshara. He’s a nasty piece of work, whether he is guilty of this particular crime, or not.”
Monk understood exactly what Ossett was saying and agreed with him. It was Ossett’s reasons that troubled him. Was he offering advice for Monk’s own sake, as if perhaps Monk might not have thought of such things? Was it an attempt at commiseration for the difficulties Monk now faced? Or was it as Monk feared: a very skillfully phrased warning not to question too far into a matter which, for all its violence and grief, was still better left undisturbed?
Under his mask of office, Ossett was as tense as a dog on guard, the emotion barely held within him. Was his fear general, amorphous, or hideously specific? Further violence? Even worse, miscarriage of justice? Diplomatic crises to do with blame for the atrocity? With whom? The French? Did it really have anything to do with the Suez Canal, or was that a distraction from the reality?
“Monk!” Ossett’s voice cut sharply across his distraction.
“Yes, sir,” Monk said quickly. “I appreciate that the eyewitnesses were men recounting in some distress what they recollected, and in many cases wishing desperately to be of any assistance at all. This case might be larger than any other, but it is not different except in scale. Either we want to have as much of the truth as we can find, and act only in accordance with it; or we are willing to blame anyone, and probably hang them, regardless if they are guilty or not. And, of course, consequently allow the real guilty parties to escape. If the latter is the case, then I need it in writing, or I may very well find myself charged with being an accessory.”
Suddenly Ossett lost the control he had been guarding since Monk had come in. The veneer over his pain was as thin as a coat of varnish.
“Don’t be a damn fool, man!” His voice creaked with emotion. “If you can’t act in the best interests of your country without some idiotic and totally impossible written permission, which would excuse anything you choose to do, even murder and treason, then you are not fit for a reasonable position of any kind, let alone the one you hold—at Her Majesty’s pleasure, I might add! In fact you are not even fit to be called a loyal subject.”
It looked like rage in his face, close to hysteria, but Monk knew now that it was fear. What could a man of Lord Ossett’s power and influence be so deeply afraid of?
“I am loyal to Her Majesty,” Monk said quietly. “My only higher loyalty is to the honor of justice and the law. At least I believe it is. I have never before been in a position where I perceived them not to be the same.”
The color bled from Os
sett’s face. For several seconds he said nothing, and then he spoke slowly, choosing each word.
“You misunderstand me. Perhaps I was not clear.” He swallowed. “There are aspects of this case that you are unaware of, and will remain so, for reasons that should not need explaining to you.” He pushed a lock of hair back off his brow. “It is distressing, profoundly so, and I apologize for my loss of temper. This whole matter is abnormal to me. The crime was horrific, and therefore acutely sensitive in public opinion. I made an error in giving it to the Metropolitan Police. I appreciate that now, and you have my apologies. You are now handed back a case that is far more difficult to solve than it would have been in the beginning. The waters have been muddied, perhaps hopelessly. It is a matter not only for detection but for delicacy and discretion.”
Ossett hesitated, still finding his thoughts slowly, as if treading on ice already cracking beneath his feet.
“It may be necessary to admit defeat, but it will leave a highly dissatisfied public, no longer believing in the power or the skill of their police force. That is a result I profoundly desire to avoid. Lies are difficult, dangerous, and usually immoral. But the truth is not always the answer either. There may be a fire in a theater, but to shout it out is still dangerous, even fatal. I’m sure you take my point without the necessity of elaboration.”
Monk was startled by the wave of pity he felt for the man. “Yes, sir. I understand, and I will make certain that my men do also. It is not yet impossible that we will find whoever is guilty, and it may include Habib Beshara as an accessory.”
Ossett smiled bleakly, the anger had melted away.
“That would be the best answer imaginable,” he said with a faint smile. “If I can be of assistance in any way at all, ask me. Regardless, keep me informed. That is an order.” He kept his eyes, tense and dark with misgiving, on Monk’s to assure himself that Monk had understood.
“Yes, sir.” Monk rose to his feet and excused himself.
Outside in the sun he walked slowly, his mind still turning over what he had heard, and even more the intense depth of emotion that he had seen in Ossett.
He claimed that appointing Lydiate and the regular police instead of the Thames River Police was a misjudgment, clumsy but understandable. Under normal circumstances, Monk would not have questioned that explanation. But after talking to Lydiate, Monk had felt that the man been put in charge because he was impressionable, and perhaps more easily manipulated. What was the truth?
Why was Beshara’s motive, or anyone’s, so difficult to find? Why had Lydiate and his men not pushed harder to find it, clarify it, and prove it so the jury understood? Was it a motive that, if revealed, would be acutely embarrassing to the government? Or to some major supporter of the government? A financial giant? Heaven knew there were enough of them in the shipping world. Some of the finest and richest port cities in Britain had been built on the wealth of those who shipped slaves across the Atlantic.
What else? The Opium Wars were as ugly as anything committed by any nation, but they were old history now.
Did it have anything at all to do with Egypt and the canal through Suez, or was that a convenient diversion? That was where there might be a possible current diplomatic clash that would matter—with the French. Or was it Egypt, and the Turkish Empire to whom Egypt was subject?
He crossed the street to the shady side of the pavement, still deep in thought.
CHAPTER
11
MONK HAD ORME AND Hooper continue to pursue the witnesses along the river, and look for any who had not testified in court.
Monk himself considered Habib Beshara and the mounting number of times his attempts to speak with the man personally had been denied for one reason or another. He was ill and too weak to talk, or there was restlessness in the prison and it was not convenient, not safe, or the governor, Fortridge-Smith, was occupied with other matters and unavailable. Each reason alone was understandable. Collectively they amounted to obstruction. He read through all the reports on Beshara twice, shuffling papers in his office in the Wapping Police Station, looking in the backs of drawers, among the records of other cases to see if pages had been mislaid. There seemed to be so much that was missing: details of Beshara’s life, friends, enemies, debts, and weaknesses, anything that could be followed through to learn more of him.
It was all facts, no flavor of the man. There was no history to him, nothing at all about who he was before he appeared in the London docks, already speaking English and with a considerable art in making money across the line of the law.
He had said his family was prominent in one of the small villages very close to the Suez Canal, which had profited them greatly, but he had said little as to in what way.
