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“Probably not.”
“Probably!” Monk’s voice rose sharply. “Hell! You can’t hang a man on a ‘probably’!”
“The jury believed you on the evidence. Actually so did I.”
“Is there any possibility I was wrong?”
Runcorn sat absolutely still. “Possibility, I suppose so. Reasonable doubt, no, not a reasonable one.”
“But McNab thought so!”
“Only because he didn’t know about the other cases.”
“Neither did the jury,” Monk pointed out. “Why did the jury convict?”
“Possibly because they believed you and they didn’t believe him. He was an arrogant son of a bitch!”
“So was I, by all accounts!”
Runcorn smiled, a flash of humor in his eyes. “Indeed. But you were the law.” He let it hang in the air with all its responsibility, its power for good or evil. Then he added, “But you were right, he was guilty. McNab just didn’t want to believe it. And I daresay he didn’t want to admit to himself that he hadn’t liked the boy all that much, either. But it’s blood, I suppose. And remembering how things had been when they were children. People always do that, when it’s too late: remember the child as they used to be.”
Monk considered that before saying anything more. He believed Runcorn, but he had absolutely no recollection of any part of it. But it did sound like the man that all the evidence showed he had been. What had he felt? Anything? Had it all been judgment, and a degree of self-righteousness, exactness of the law? Or had he known far more than the main facts that Runcorn had spoken of? Were there other circumstances, details? Who had the girl been, other than a name? Had he known something about her? Parents, friends, even a child of her own? And the dead young man?
“Who was the girl?” he asked. “Was she a prostitute?”
“Just a girl with no home,” Runcorn replied. “Mother married again and threw her out. She probably did whatever she could to survive.” His voice was edged with pity as he said it, and Monk felt the same emotion engulf him.
Then he was drawn back into the present. What did McNab want now? It was years too late for Nairn. Damaging Monk would not clear his name, if that mattered anyway. Was it simply revenge? Was that why Orme had died?
Or had McNab intended it to be Monk himself? Maybe all he had deliberately brought about was a fiasco, instead of a simple operation to arrest gun smugglers and retrieve the actual guns.
Then there was the whole other issue of Piers Astley’s death. That couldn’t have anything to do with McNab. He might be using it, even if Monk couldn’t see why or how. McNab knew Aaron Clive, at the very least, professionally.
Which raised the question to which he had to find the answer—had he been in San Francisco during the gold rush of ’49, even briefly? Could he have known Piers Astley?
He was moving in the dark, tripping over things, possibly even going in circles. He could go on doing this until he fell over and could not get up again. He was being what McNab wanted…passive, too afraid to act. The next thing he would know would be when it was already too late.
He stood up.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, his feelings too deep to find extra and unnecessary words.
“Where are you going?” Runcorn asked anxiously.
Monk gave him a bleak smile. “Not to tackle McNab, don’t worry. I’m going to see Fin Gillander. He might know something about the past in San Francisco that will help with Astley’s death.”
“And he might make it worse,” Runcorn added. “If he’s worked out that you can’t remember. And he could have, if you were in San Francisco.”
“If he knows the truth already? Then if he’s against me, for whatever reason, he’ll do that anyway.”
“Who else knows?”
“For certain? Hester, Oliver Rathbone, and now Hooper.”
“What is Gillander’s interest in this? Seems quite a coincidence that his boat was moored so conveniently for Silas Owen’s escape.”
“That’s something I would like to find out. Along with who killed Blount, and why, what happened to Owen, and exactly how much Pettifer knew about any of it. I have to know if this is a master plan to bring off a big robbery, or if it’s all coincidence, and to do with something else entirely…or nothing.”
“Could that be what McNab wants you to do, make a fool of yourself over nothing?” There was a note of real fear in Runcorn’s voice.
