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“Beata York has come to help at the clinic in the last few days. I like her very much. There’s far more depth to her than I realized. I suppose I never thought about her. I just hated her husband for what he did to Oliver. She hasn’t said anything specific, but I have a feeling that she probably had far more reason to loathe him than I do.”
Monk was startled. “What?” he said abruptly.
“She has said nothing, but I saw the look in her eyes if she had occasion to mention him. When he took his fit, he was attacking Oliver with his cane, you know? He was going to strike his face, his head.”
“She told you that?”
“No, of course not. Oliver did.”
“What made you think of it now?”
“Hatred,” Hester replied. “York hated Oliver because he was all the things York was not. Inner things, I mean, the things that matter.”
He looked at her, still not understanding.
“McNab hates you for some reason,” she explained swiftly. “You can never win because you will always be better than he is.”
The warmth spread inside him, as if he had drunk a sweet flame. “Do you think so?”
“Yes, I do.” She smiled. “But don’t let it go to your head! I’m saying it because I don’t think McNab will let it go. I don’t think he can. It has him by the neck. He has to keep trying to destroy you, and probably not only you, but the River Police as well.” She was watching him to see if he had grasped the enormity of what she was saying. “You’ve got to fight him, William. Find out if this plot is real, or if it is his invention in order to trip you up.”
“It won’t damage the River Police,” he told her.
“It might, if you make the wrong judgment. If the plot is real and you know about it and did nothing, then Aaron Clive won’t forgive you. Just as he won’t if it is all invented, and he takes massive precautions, and nothing happens, or was ever going to. He won’t accept being made a fool of.”
“How do you know so much about him? Don’t tell me your street people know him. He’s been in England only a couple of years, and his reputation is perfect.”
“Of course it is,” Hester agreed impatiently. “And it probably always will be. Even should rumors exist, he has the power to squash them, and those who spread them.”
“How do you know this?” He smiled slightly, sinking a little deeper into the enveloping comfort of the chair. “You’ve never even met him.”
“Beata lived in San Francisco for years,” she replied. “She is very far from a stupid woman, William. She saw his rise to power, and she knows Miriam Clive very well, too. Please…tread softly. Be sure of everything….”
—
NEXT MORNING MONK AND Hooper stood together on the dockside watching the light rise over the water, gray and wind-dappled, dark silhouettes of the ships riding easily at anchor. Ferries pulled across from the south side, oars rising and dropping rhythmically. They were back again trying to separate the truth and lies about the escaped prisoners, and whether there was any link between them, or not.
“Already looked into Applewood,” Hooper said, squinting a little into the rising sun. “He’s back in prison, up north. Can’t find any trace of Seager. Looks as if he’s gone to ground. But he’s a Liverpool man, so he could be up there.”
“Interesting,” Monk said thoughtfully. “Does that mean there’s no plot, or just that McNab gave us the wrong names, intentionally or not?”
“Bluff or double bluff?” Hooper smiled with wry humor. “Maybe we can make him bite his own tail, d’you think?” He sounded hopeful.
“He’ll use our strengths against us, if we let him.” Monk believed that. His loathing of McNab had deepened, but so had his respect. He had been guilty of underestimating him before and he did not intend to do it again. “I wish I knew exactly how clever he is.”
“Better to set them against each other, and then step well back.” Hooper was smiling now.
“Them?” Monk asked.
“Him and Clive,” Hooper said.
“You don’t like Clive, do you?” Monk was surprised how much he regarded Hooper’s opinion of people. He was not used to accepting anyone else’s judgment, even Orme’s. Was that a strength or a weakness? Or both?
“He got rich by luck.” Hooper was still looking out at the water. “He stayed rich by cleverness. Right friends, right enemies. And don’t forget, he probably knows more about you than you do yourself. He’ll be as sweet as honey until you cross him, but he’ll be like biting on a wasp if you become a threat. Or if he thinks you will.”
“I’ll remember,” Monk promised. It was a warning he took seriously. Nevertheless Hooper’s suggestion of turning Clive and McNab against each other was a good one.
—
