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“The river?” Clive’s eyes widened. He sat back a little in his chair. “The Thames, as opposed to the Barbary Coast? For a man like you?”
Monk met his eyes unflinchingly. “I’m English, blood and bone. This is my heritage. Go down the Thames, slowly, and you pass through history, from the Roman legions of Julius Caesar to the Greenwich Observatory, where the world’s time is set, from zero longitude.”
“Is that what you love?” Clive said curiously. “The heart of empire? How very English.”
“No,” Monk said with sudden realization. “It’s dawn farther east, the huge skies over the Estuary with the wild birds flying over with such purpose and certainty, as if they know something we don’t.”
For once Clive was silent.
“It’s worth caring for,” Monk added. “All its teeming life, good and bad, it’s something to care about.”
Clive did not answer. He returned instead to the subject of the possible robbery, and remained with it until it was exhausted and Monk excused himself. He had done all he could to forewarn Clive of an event neither of them believed in.
As he was walking away toward the road he saw Miriam Clive coming toward him. She was wearing a deep burgundy-colored morning dress and a jacket trimmed with black fur. Again he was startled by her appearance. Her beauty was fierce, almost exotic, with high cheekbones and wide, dark eyes, but it was the passion in the mouth that most caught the attention. It was a face to reflect storms of the soul.
“Good morning, Mrs. Clive,” he said politely.
She stopped, as if pleased to see him. “Good morning, Commander Monk. I hope it is not business that brings you here?”
“Only precaution,” he replied. “Mr. McNab still seems to think it is possible, if unlikely, that someone may attempt a robbery.”
She concealed all emotion in her expression. “Mr. McNab? Really.”
“I believe you know him, at least slightly?”
She moved one slender shoulder in what was almost a shrug.
“I am acquainted with him. I think he is something of an opportunist. I would take what he says with a degree of skepticism. But I’m sure you already know that.”
He was aware that she was watching him closely. Did she care what he thought of McNab?
“Of what he says to me, yes,” he agreed. “But to you?”
Miriam drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, her decision made. He had placed her in a position where she had to answer, or deliberately evade it.
“Yes,” she said with a charming smile. “I wanted to find out more about you from McNab. I knew Piers was dead but I need to know who killed him. McNab told me you are the best detective in London, and of course you were in San Francisco at the time of Piers’s death. I knew that if anybody could succeed in finding the truth, it would be you, and I had to convince you to help me.”
“But what difference would it make to you now?”
She smiled still. “In knowing who did kill Piers, Mr. Monk, then I also know who did not. That is sometimes even more important, don’t you think?”
She was lying. He was absolutely certain of it, yet what she said was absolutely true; it was just not what she meant. Did she want the truth in order to hide it forever? Or to manipulate someone? What could McNab have to do with it, other than as a means of contacting Monk?
“I’m sorry I’ve been of no help to you,” he said as courteously as he could.
Her face was completely unreadable. “Not at all, Commander. You have helped me understand a great many things. My old friend Beata speaks of you most highly, and I am sure she is right.” She glanced beyond him, across the river to where the Summer Wind lay at anchor. “And of course, Mr. Gillander,” she added. She turned back to Monk. “Good day.”
“Good day, Mrs. Clive,” he replied. In spite of himself, he watched her until she turned the corner toward Clive’s office and disappeared.
—
WHEN HE ARRIVED BACK at the Wapping Station, Hooper was pacing the floor waiting for him. He swiveled around on his heel and grasped Monk by the arm, half-dragging him outside again onto the dockside.
“I’ve got it,” he said urgently. “Laker found for certain that it was Pettifer that shot Blount, possibly on McNab’s orders. But we’ve got McNab. It’ll never stand up in court, but we know what happened with the gunrunners and the raid, and that McNab’s directly responsible for it. We can finish it our own way.” His face was alight with the certainty of it, and in spite of himself Monk felt a surge of exhilaration.
“How? If you can’t prove it…” he asked. Questions filled his mind. Could he afford to challenge McNab? McNab would fight for his freedom, his life. If he went down, he had the means and the will to take Monk with him.
Hooper’s smile was wolfish. “Mad Lammond,” he replied.
