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“I was young then,” Gillander said ruefully. “Used to work on smaller boats as a deckhand, sailing up and down the coast. Across the Atlantic now and then and way out east. I first got to know him in San Francisco when I was finding work where I could. He made one of the biggest gold strikes of all. Created a kind of empire, over the past few years. Never gambled it away, like some people. Built himself a nice place, but invested some of his fortune in things that paid, and went on paying. Gold, trade for the things people need, more money, more trade—gold again.” There was no hard edge to Gillander’s voice, no envy.
“But you went for freedom and adventure on the open seas,” Monk observed. He understood that far more. He had never wanted power other than that which gave him safety for work and let him owe no one. The rest of what was worth having was health, skill, courage, being answerable to nobody. Great wealth tied you to its service, whether it was land, trade, or gold.
He had a sudden memory of a coastline of pale hills in the sunlight, wild rocks, seas that leaped high and white where they crashed onto the shore, a haze of amber light as the day was dying, luminous over the water.
Gillander was watching him curiously. Did he see the memory in Monk’s face, and the momentary loss of time and place?
Monk brought the subject back to the suspected robbery, moving his position to face Gillander more completely. “This robbery we think is planned…against Clive—he’s the wealthiest, and maybe most vulnerable along this stretch of the river.”
“And you obviously think I know something about it?” Gillander was direct again, staring at Monk almost challengingly.
“I think there’s another mind at the back of it,” Monk answered. He was playing his hand far more openly than he had intended, but he did not want to be caught trying to be devious, and failing. The more he spoke to this man, the more he feared that Gillander actually knew more about him than he did himself, at least for a short space of time in the gold rush, twenty years ago. Had he known Clive as well? He thought back to his interview with the man. Clive had given no sign of knowing Monk at all. Had he forgotten him? Or never known him? Or the whole matter was simply of no importance to him?
“Do you know who?” Gillander asked.
“There have been some suggestions made,” Monk replied. “Why? Do you?”
Gillander gave a slight shrug. “Well, Clive has many enemies. Anyone that rich has to have. But most of them are from the early days. Why would anyone wait so long?”
“Opportunity,” Monk said immediately. “Clive’s been here in England only a couple of years. Things like this take planning. Maybe he was too powerful in California for anyone to dare.”
“So you’re looking for a Californian?” Gillander looked amused.
“Or an Englishman,” Monk said with an answering smile. “Or a European of any other sort. There was every nationality under the sun in San Francisco in ’49. Take your pick.”
“So there was,” Gillander agreed. “Then you’re looking for anyone who feels that the uncrowned king of San Francisco twenty years ago would be a good person to rob here on the Thames—now.”
Monk decided to tell Gillander the exact truth, as Miriam had suggested it. “I think it might be revenge,” he said, watching Gillander closely.
Gillander was unnaturally motionless, but for so short a time Monk considered he might have imagined it.
“Again, why wait so long?” Gillander said then, moving his shoulders a little as if suddenly uncomfortable on his seat.
Monk felt the prickle of excitement, like scenting the prey, seeing movement where something was hiding, waiting, breathing in the darkness.
“So long?” he asked. “Not so long when you think of the journey, the planning necessary.”
Gillander said nothing.
Monk smiled back at him. “Or were you assuming that the revenge had to be for something that happened long ago? Say in ’48 or ’49?”
Gillander was too agile-minded to lie. He must see the pitfalls ahead. What was it he imagined Monk knew?
“Those were the wildest years, the biggest claims,” he said carefully, still watching Monk. He seemed to discount Hooper in the exchange. Was that because Monk had been there, and Hooper had not?
Monk actually knew nothing, but Gillander did not know that.
“You’re implying revenge for something lost?” Monk said with a lift of surprise in his voice. “I was thinking of something personal…perhaps an attempted murder, the seduction or ravishing of a woman. Something closer to a man’s heart than money.”
Gillander did all he could to keep absolute composure, but tiny things betrayed him: a second’s holding of the breath, a tightness across the shoulders, a pallor to the skin of his handsome face. “And Aaron Clive is to be the victim?” He forced a lift of disbelief into his question. “Mrs. Clive is well, and unseduced or ravished. No one attempted to kill her, or Clive.” He realized his error. “That I know of…of course….”
“You know them both well?” Monk said innocently.
There was color now in Gillander’s cheeks. “I was a young man, very young, twenty, of no account, when I knew them in ’49. I ran errands.” He indicated the ship with a wave of his hand. “I got all this since then. Sorry, but from what little I do know of Aaron and Mrs. Clive now, I don’t think your idea makes any sense.”
“What about Piers Astley?” Monk suggested almost casually, but never taking his eyes off Gillander’s face.
“Piers Astley?” Monk knew Gillander was repeating the name to give himself time to think.
