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“Of course!”
“Then it sounds as if he did put Owen off somewhere,” Monk concluded. “Of course, Owen could still be in France by now. What do you know about him?”
There was the faintest gleam of satisfaction in McNab’s eyes, as if he were savoring something in his mind. “Forgotten, have you?”
Monk felt a stab of fear, as if suddenly he had been thrown back into
the days just after the accident, when he felt dislike around him, tension in people he could not place, and had no idea why. He dismissed it. McNab was playing games, perhaps in revenge for Pettifer’s death, reminding Monk that he knew his weakness. Pettifer might have been a good man, when he wasn’t terrified. Perhaps he had had a particular fear of drowning. Some people had.
He looked McNab directly in the eye and saw the gleam fade again.
“I know his record,” he lied, referring back to Owen. “I want to know what you observed of him. Surely you know more than the list of convictions?” He leaned forward a little. “Is he clever, or lucky? An opportunist or a planner? Does he have friends or is he a loner? What are his weaknesses? Carelessness? Disloyalty, so too many enemies? Is he greedy and doesn’t know when to stop and take his gains and quit? Has he got something he’s afraid of, like Pettifer and the water, for example?”
Fury lit McNab’s face, making it momentarily ugly rather than merely plain.
“How like you to ask,” he said very softly. “He’s not afraid of heights, or falling, if that’s what you mean.” He watched Monk with extraordinary intensity, as if daring Monk to look away from him. There was an emotion inside him that was impossible to read, except that it was filled with pain. That much burned through everything else.
Monk was put off an instant answer.
McNab waited.
What could Monk say that would not show he had been disturbed by the sudden moment of savage reality, whatever it had meant? One thing he was now sure of: Whatever lay between himself and McNab, McNab remembered it very clearly, and he did not. He was losing his balance on the edge of the unknown.
“I want to catch the man,” Monk said calmly. “The more I know of him, the better chance I have. Who is this schooner captain? What do you know of him?”
“Fin Gillander,” McNab responded. His voice still had a rough edge to it, as if it cost him an effort to reply to such an ordinary question. “American, I think, or sounds like it. Good-looking man, arrogant. Thinks that because he’s got a fast ship he owns the seas. Damn fool, if you ask me. Owen told him he was the police and Pettifer the criminal. At least so he claims. I think he’s a bit of a chancer. I daresay Owen slipped him a few guineas to take him downriver.”
“Really?” Monk could not help being sarcastic. “And where did Owen get a few guineas from, seeing as he’d just been convicted in court and escaped on the way to prison? Or is that not true, either?”
McNab hesitated. He had been caught out, and they both knew it. For an instant it was there in his eyes, and Monk had the sudden cold feeling that he had overplayed his hand. He must fill the silence.
“You don’t trust Gillander? Perhaps he did put him ashore, whether by arrangement or not. Did Owen have help in his escape?” he suggested.
McNab smiled slowly and the tension eased out of the moment.
“Thought you’d never get to it. Looks as if he did. Has no friends that we know of, but hires out to the highest payer, so there are allies.” He took a deep breath, hesitated a moment, then spoke again, this time even more carefully. “He did quite a lot of work for Aaron Clive at one time. You know him? Big import and export business. Has warehouses along the stretch of river Owen was making for. And where Gillander was moored. Now that you’ve got a reason to, you could ask Clive—nicely, of course—what he can tell you about Owen. He might know more about him than just his skills. Very powerful man—indeed, very, very rich. I should think he doesn’t know people without finding out what he’s dealing with. Him having made his fortune in a single place, like.” The smile was back in his eyes. “But you’ll know that…better than I do.”
Monk had no idea what he was talking about. “I’ve heard of him,” he said slowly. “Met him when Owen escaped…”
McNab’s eyes widened. He was smiling. “That the first time? Really?”
It was a trap, and yet Monk had no idea how. He could hardly say that he had met him before. Aaron Clive was not a man one forgot.
“He never crosses the police path,” Monk answered.
“Oh…on the river.” McNab was now smiling even more widely. “No, I imagine not. I was thinking of long ago. Years.”
“I thought he’d only been here a couple of years.” Monk knew he was right about that. He knew of the major businesses and landowners along both banks of the river. It was his job.
“Oh…he has,” McNab agreed. “I was thinking of…the past. California, perhaps? I heard San Francisco was a pretty small town, just a few hundred people, before the gold rush.”
Now Monk was as chilled through as if he had just been pulled out of the river again. McNab was playing some absurd game with him. It was there in his face, the gloating, and yet the same crazy courage as lights a man’s eyes when he places a bet on the table that he knows he cannot cover, should he lose. Monk had seen that look before.
How could he reply? What could he say that would not betray his vulnerability? The gold rush in California had begun in 1848, but it was common knowledge that the big rush was 1849. Was he supposed to know more? It was before his accident.
McNab was watching him. He had to respond.
“What on earth does Owen have to do with the gold rush?” he said with as much disbelief as he could manage. “They panned for gold mostly. They certainly didn’t use explosives.” He said that as if he were certain of it, but did he know that, or was he guessing?
