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Hamilton Rand had taken Hester for the obvious reason that he needed her skills. He was a chemist, not a doctor, and he had no practical experience of nursing, let alone caring for a man dying of white blood disease, and either the victim or the instigator of an experiment.
Rand would keep Hester alive as long as she was more help than trouble to him. Did she realise that? Hester was a fighter – one to fight first and think of the cost afterwards. Not this time! Not if she wanted to live as badly as Monk wanted her to. It was terrifying how much of his happiness was tied to her presence, her love, her belief in him. He wondered if he would even have had the will to carry on when he had no memory, no knowledge of who he was if she had not believed he was worth fighting for.
He had become a better man in order to live up to what she saw in him, and he could not see in himself.
That was a chill thought. What might he have been if they had never met, or if she had abandoned him in the darkest days of his awakening after the accident? He had in a sense been given a new life, a chance to recreate himself in a better mould.
Without being aware of it he had increased his speed. He hailed a hansom and gave the driver the Wapping Police Station address. He had no idea what to do next to find Hester. He had made enquiries as to any other property Radnor might own, asking all Radnor’s known associates, business or social, though he had few friends. No one knew of anywhere.
Hooper looked up the moment Monk came in. He was still pale and moved with the occasional wince of pain. Monk would like to have given him leave to recover, but he could not do without him. He thought with deep loss of how often Orme had run the station in the early days while Monk was learning the ways of the river, getting to know the men and they to trust him.
Orme’s death had moved them all deeply. There was grief in each man’s face in unguarded moments. They would have missed him cheerfully were he at home down the river, fishing, swapping gossip with his neighbours, tending his garden. They would all intend to drop by some day and see how he was, share a cup of tea, or a mug of ale at the tavern. Even if they never did it, the possibility was there.
They would have cursed his absence, but with a smile. Now it was irrevocable.
Monk missed not only Orme’s skill and all the quiet managing he did without speaking of it, but more than that, he was aware as never before of his own loneliness in command. There was no one to catch his omissions, smooth out the occasional roughness he created with his manner, his still imperfect knowledge of the water and its customs. Most of all he missed the warmth of feeling Orme had created with his trust in eventual good. He had never spoken of faith, but something of it was there beneath his words.
‘Morning, Hooper,’ Monk said with as much cheer as he could manage. ‘Been to Radnor’s house. Searched the place but found nothing useful, except the name of his lawyer. The man’s not obliged to tell us anything. Radnor’s not wanted by us, even as a witness.’ He realised how futile it sounded. ‘But if he has property somewhere else it could be where they’ve gone to.’
Hooper took the piece of paper Monk handed him, but it was clear from his expression that he did not believe it would be useful any more than Monk did.
‘Anything gained?’ Monk asked.
‘No, sir. But Laker’s following up on McNab. He’s got a few connections in Customs. I think the bastard left us in the wind on purpose.’
Monk agreed with him, but with the added misery of believing that it was in repayment for some old wrong he felt Monk had committed against him. He had lain awake struggling to remember what it was, but nothing whatever came to him.
Hooper was watching him, waiting for a response.
‘I think it’s personal to me,’ Monk said quietly. It was difficult to admit. All of his men were now paying for whatever it was, and he couldn’t even tell them because he didn’t know himself. It might be better than his imagination conjured up . . . or worse.
He must give Hooper some reply. Should it be the truth – that he could not recall anything but vague shadows and snatches from before his carriage accident? How could he expect his men to have confidence in him, knowing that?
But Hester trusted him. John Devon had, even Runcorn had learned to. Was the real issue that he did not trust Hooper? What would he make of it, on top of the death of Orme?
What was he thinking now? That Monk was evasive at best, at worst a liar.
‘Come into my office,’ he said at last, then turned and led the way.
Once in the room he closed the door and remained standing, Hooper facing him, now looking even graver than before.
‘McNab,’ he said awkwardly. He hated having to do this, but he had trusted Hooper with his life many times before now. Perhaps it was unfair not to have trusted him with this earlier. But when was the right time to tell anyone such a thing.
Hooper was waiting silently, his eyes steady on Monk’s face.
‘It may be my fault. I don’t know, because after the end of the Crimean War I had a very bad traffic accident. When I woke up in hospital I couldn’t remember anything. I mean not anything at all. Not my name, what I looked like, where I lived. I learned a lot about myself from others, from deduction. I never told anyone at that time except one colleague. I didn’t dare, because I was totally vulnerable.’
He saw the amazement and the compassion in Hooper’s eyes.
‘I could remember most of my skills, bit by bit. Perhaps they are part of my nature. And I gradually and often painfully learned who liked me and who didn’t, but not always why. I never got any memory back. I learned how to function without it. Hester believed in me, more than I did in myself.’
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He saw the quick flash of understanding in Hooper’s face. He knew Hester and could not be surprised.
‘I don’t know if McNab has a grudge against me, but it looks like it. I have no idea what it is, or whether it is based on a genuine wrong or not.’ The next thing was the hardest to say, but he had to acknowledge it. ‘But I wish Orme had not paid my debt. If it’s real, it should have been me.’
‘Real or not, McNab shouldn’t have collected, sir,’ Hooper replied. ‘If we collect from everyone we think owes us, we may not have enough to pay all that we owe, when others come collecting.’
