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“And Owen?” Gillander asked. “Replace him, too?”
“For what?” The man’s expression filled with disgust. “He scarpered to France to get out of Pettifer’s way. He’s a sly little sod, Owen, but he was scared witless.”
“Of Pettifer?” Gillander managed to look amused.
“O’ McNab, you great fool!” the man snarled, almost under his breath. “Pettifer was his man. He’ll find someone else. God knows who’ll be alive or dead by the end of this one.”
“Was he behind the plan?” Gillander now looked dubious.
“Why do you care?”
“If Clive is going to be taken down, I want to know about it,” Gillander replied. “Might be something in it for me.”
“Best thing in it for you is to get the hell out of here, and keep yer mouth shut,” the man said almost under his breath. He looked at Monk, then back at Gillander. “And take this one with yer. Smells like River Police to me. And not many o’ them’s crooked, but watch yer back!” He emptied his ale tankard and left, lurching from side to side as he made his way to the door.
The thoughts raced around Monk’s head. So Pettifer had killed Blount, and tried to kill Owen. For McNab? Or for some reason Monk had not even thought of yet? Was the great plot a mirage?
Gillander was looking at him, waiting for a response.
“Thank you,” Monk said quietly. “I think we should get out of here.”
“You believe him?” Gillander asked as they moved through the crowd to the door, and into the cramped street. The rain was coming down hard and the gutters were now overflowing.
“It all fits,” Monk answered. “McNab’s plans, whatever they were, have been stalled because Pettifer was killed instead of Owen. Maybe it doesn’t really have anything to do with Clive, except incidentally. And maybe Piers Astley doesn’t have anything to do with it, either…at least not if he really is dead.”
They came out of the alley onto the riverbank. The Summer Wind was riding easily. It was almost slack tide.
“He is,” Gillander said softly. “I told you. Poor devil…”
“Did Clive keep the details from Mrs. Clive to save her feelings?”
“Astley was murdered,” Gillander said with a sudden savagery. “I suppose Clive might have kept the details from her….” His face was quite suddenly filled with pain, and an intense pity. “Piers was a good man. One of the best. In some ways he was out of his element there…straightest man I ever knew, and loyal to a fault.”
“They never found who killed him?” Monk asked, feeling as if he were intruding on a private grief.
Gillander stared out over the water, the light catching his eyes and an expression on them that was unreadable.
“Not yet…but she will.”
MONK SAT CLOSE TO the fire and saw the steam rise from his wet trouser legs. He did not bother to change b
ecause he was tired out. He had told Hester what he had drawn from the revelations about his past in San Francisco, what he knew and what he guessed. Now all he wanted was to eat his supper and go to bed. He had swallowed the last of his baked apples and cream, and was trying not to fall asleep.
“They say Owen is almost certainly in France,” he said, moving to a different subject.
“And Blount is dead,” Hester replied. “So I suppose Owen did rather better. Do you think Pettifer meant to kill him, as Gillander said?”
“I think there’s a lot about Pettifer that I don’t know, and I need to find out,” he replied.
“What about the other experts McNab told you about? Are you sure they’re real?”
“Yes, of course I am! Did you think I wouldn’t check? I don’t trust McNab to tell the truth on anything, if a lie would serve him better.” He had not told her the whole story of Nairn, but enough of it for her to have some idea. He was ashamed of it, but more than that, if she understood the depth of McNab’s hatred, with the reason for it, she would be more afraid for him.
“And where are they now?” she asked very quietly.
He had not checked on that. He had inquired, but not followed up. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s no word of them.”
She did not answer, but the anxiety deepened in her face. She was silent for several minutes, then she changed the subject completely.
