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“Runcorn has arrested Exeter,” Monk stated simply.
“For what?” Hooper asked. “Why?”
“Apparently Fisk took the bookkeeping pages to an embezzler he knew, who said that Doyle snatched up some of the ransom, but Exeter took the bulk of it, by a long way.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Hooper looked totally bew
ildered. He must have known from Monk’s face to expect something hard and ugly, but this took him completely by surprise. “Why on earth steal your wife’s inheritance, which will be yours anyway, and then give your bank manager part of it? Whatever for?”
“You don’t know?” Monk said.
“Me? Of course I don’t know!” Hooper’s voice was fraying audibly. “Do you?”
“No, I don’t. But Runcorn said Exeter came out of it very well. Richer than he went in.”
Hooper was silent.
“That’s one thing I intend to ask Fisk, when I see him,” Monk went on. “Is he somehow framing Exeter for this?”
“Who? Fisk?”
“Yes, Fisk. What do you know about him, Hooper? And don’t tell me you don’t know anything. Fisk knows you, anyway.”
Hooper stood still. He seemed incredibly familiar to Monk, as if he had known him as long as he could remember. They had faced all sorts of victories and defeats together, hardships and pleasures. He remembered sharing a single ham sandwich after a long night on the river. He had first seen the real beauty of wild birds when Hooper had pointed to a pair of swans flying high over the estuary in a stainless sky. Monk thought of them as lonely. Hooper had seen the certainty in them, the knowledge of where they were going.
And yet he was also a stranger, a stranger in pain. But there was no way to avoid it now. He had come this far. He must go all the way.
Monk waited.
Hooper faced him. “I used to be a seaman.”
“I know.” Monk sat down.
Hooper sat slowly in the other chair, awkwardly, as if he were too stiff to bend easily. “I came ashore about twenty years ago.”
“Does this have to do with Fisk?”
“Yes. Though not a great deal. He was a seaman also.”
“On the same ship, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“Go on…”
“I was the first mate then.” Hooper spoke quietly, more as if he were avoiding an old wound than to keep him from being overheard.
Monk was unsurprised. He himself had been to sea, but he knew it only in second-long flashes. However, he did remember that first mate was next after the captain in a merchant ship.
“Ledburn, the captain,” Hooper continued, “was a big, fair-haired man, quite young. His father had seen to it he got the place. Big-moneyed family. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. Changed his mind when he should’ve stood firm, then stood firm when he should’ve changed. Not an uncommon fault. Lots of us do that, one time or another.”
Monk listened, waiting. The pain in Hooper’s face told him something very bad was coming.
“He kept the log, of course,” Hooper went on. “I warned him about writing ones and sevens. Put a cross on the seven, I told him, and watch your threes and eights.”
Monk could not push him to get to the point. But he could see that Hooper was working up to it. He needed time.
“He made a mistake,” Hooper continued. His voice was getting quieter and a little rougher, as if his throat hurt. “Read a seven as a one. Found that out afterward. Got us off course into a strong current, and the wind changed and we were in trouble.”
