AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you asking if there can be a failure like that—money stolen, a beloved wife hacked to pieces, the only kidnapper we could identify murdered, and now, too, the young woman who might have known some secret about that money—and there are not profound emotions involved?” Monk could not keep the bitterness from his voice.
“Not to mention whoever in your team told the kidnappers the details of your plan on Jacob’s Island,” Runcorn said. “But was that in the name of money, fear, or the hunger for some old revenge?”
Hooper had a sudden flash of memory. It was a windy deck, sunlight bounced off the water, and the sound of sails cracked in the wind as a ship came about with the rush of water and fear. Then it was gone again. Sometime in the past he had deliberately driven it from his memory. He knew that. It was the one certainty.
He concentrated, forcing his mind to clear and answer the man. Monk must not see this in him, the confusion and fear.
“No,” he said abruptly. “We are narrowing it…”
“Hard thing to do, narrow down suspicion like that,” the man with the crooked nose replied. “Not nice to suspect the men you’ve worked with, trusted your life to, of betraying you. Big thing for a man to live with.” He never took his eyes from Hooper’s face.
For Hooper, it was as if they were the only men in the room—or on the deck! Was it him? Was it Twist? It had been twenty years since the mutiny on the Mary Grace.
There was silence around him. Was everyone staring at him, wondering why he did not answer? “Yes,” he said slowly. “And a terrible thing to suspect a man of, if he isn’t guilty. You might learn that and trust him again. But he knows you thought it of him. Will he ever trust you?”
Now all the men in the room were definitely staring at him. He was conscious of Monk above all, but of Runcorn, too.
“I guess you’re still looking,” the crooked-nosed man said. “Still, if you catch this banker fellow, perhaps he can tell you.”
“Maybe,” Runcorn said briskly. “But that’s Commander Monk’s job. It’s ours to find out who killed this poor woman and get hold of him.”
“With enough evidence to hang the bastard,” one of the other men added. “She was only a slip of a thing. Could practically lift her with one hand, when she wasn’t soaking wet. Clothes carry a woman down even faster than a man.” He had been one of those who carried her body, and his voice was choked with pity.
No one answered. This close to the river, everyone had their recollections of people drowning. The fact that she had been dead before she went in was beside the point.
“Right!” Runcorn recalled their attention. “Question, everyone: Did she go in this side of the river or the other? Speak to ferrymen, anyone else on the river around dusk. You know the regular passengers crossing that sort of time. Find them and see if anyone saw anything at all. Bargees, lighter-men—bit late for them to be out, but try. Ask and see what they can tell you. She was supposed to keep her appointment at half-past seven. She probably left the north bank about seven, if she came that way. Cabdrivers? Peddlers? Dockworkers? Ferrymen, whether they carried her or saw her when someone else did. Get started!”
“Yes, sir,” half a dozen men replied, and they left, some of them giving orders as they went.
Runcorn turned to Monk, his face suddenly gentle with pity. “I’m going to see what else the police surgeon can tell me. There may be something about the way she died that will tell us more about who killed her. Bruises come up after death—that kind of thing. You need to follow Doyle and find whatever kind of a man you need to tell you what money he took, and how. This kidnap seems to be more of a bloody mess than any other I’ve seen. Believe me, Exeter might be a decent enough man, and I daresay you like him—”
“That’s got nothing to do with it!” Monk said a little irritably. “What happened to him shouldn’t happen to anybody! I don’t need to ask you how you’d feel if it was your wife! You’d be as gutted as I would be if it was Hester.”
Runcorn went pale, as if even the thought was a blow so hard he did not know what to do with it.
Hooper wondered if that was what was gnawing at Monk: the knowledge of how fragile happiness was. One sharp cut with a knife, one slip of a foot on wet stones, and it could be gone. It almost took your courage away to grasp at it at all. Much safer not to care so much. But that was not a choice for some. Not for Monk. Hooper thought it was not for him either. To be afraid to care was to deny life itself.
“Hooper!”
Hooper straightened up. “Yes, sir?”
“Go and see what you can find out about Doyle,” Monk told him. “Where was he last night? Where does—did—Bella Franken live? Could he have gone there yesterday evening and followed her to the ferry? Anyone see him today? What time did he get in to the bank this morning, if he was there? Any sign that he was out last night? Anything at all?”
“Yes, sir.” Hooper was glad to accept any duty that took him away from the Greenwich Police Station and Runcorn’s men. And he wanted to find whoever had killed Bella Franken every bit as much as Monk himself. Even though he had not met her, he felt her courage and her vulnerability.
* * *
—
HOOPER’S FIRST DUTY WAS to go to the bank and inform Doyle of Bella’s death. Possibly she had family outside the city. He would have to find that out, because they would need to be told as well. That was always the worst part of any death, worse even than finding the body. One could find ways of dealing with horror or grief of one’s own; it was other people’s grief for which there was no answer.
He took the ferry back across the river again and then a hansom cab to Nicholson’s Bank. He walked in at the rear door. They were not busy yet, and he approached a young clerk who was carrying a pile of ledgers. “My name is Sergeant Hooper, and I require to speak to Mr. Doyle,” he said quietly. “It is regarding a matter of tragedy, and I need to see him immediately. Will you please take me to him? I’m sure he is busy with clients’ affairs, but this will not wait.”
The young clerk drew breath to argue, but looking at Hooper’s face, th
e words died on his lips. “Yes, sir. If you will come this way…” He led him to the manager’s office. He knocked on the door, and as soon as it was answered, rather peremptorily, the clerk went in.
“There is a policeman here to see you, sir, and he says it’s regarding a tragedy that cannot wait.” He opened the door wider for Hooper to pass him.
