Slaves of Obsession (32 page)

In the morning he began on the river, speaking to dockers and bargees yet again, this time not about the movement of the guns but about Shearer. It took him till early afternoon to find anyone who knew Shearer and was willing to talk about him, but all he could say reinforced what Monk had already heard from the men at the warehouse. Shearer was hard, ambitious, competent, but to all outward appearances loyal to Daniel Alberton. He was not spoken of with liking, but there was a definite respect in the men’s faces and in the tone of their voices.

It left Monk further confused. The picture of Shearer that emerged did not sit easily with the facts. He walked along the street almost unconscious of the passing traffic, the heavily laden wagons, the men shouting to one another, the cranes rising and lowering, the jostling crowds of masts as the tide jiggled the boats, the occasional gull wheeling overhead.

Shearer had disappeared, that seemed unarguable. The guns had gone to America, as had Breeland and Merrit. Alberton and the two guards were dead, murdered.

The barge with the guns had gone down the river towards Bugsby’s Marshes, and was untraceable after that. Breeland and Merrit seemed to have traveled by train to Liverpool, but the only train in which they could have gone had left before the murders, and thus before the guns had left the warehouse.

It seemed Shearer’s involvement was the only fact which could link all three things together and make any kind of sense of them.

Someone must know more of Shearer, and might even know of the ship which had come up the Thames as far as Bugsby’s Marshes and loaded the guns and then weighed anchor and gone out to sea again. Was it a British ship or an American one?

Perhaps what he had already learned would be enough to raise reasonable doubt as to Merrit’s guilt, if there were no prejudice and jurors were able to disregard their emotions. But it would certainly not be sufficient to clear her name. There would always be those who would believe her guilty, simply
that it had not been proved. She had got away with it. That was only a little better than hanging, a kind of life in limbo. Although if she returned to America with Breeland, perhaps England’s opinion of her would matter less.

But was it also enough to save Breeland from the rope, against the hatred there was for him, the conviction in the public’s mind that he was guilty? And would he inevitably drag her down with him?

Not that it made any difference to what Monk had to do. Probabilities of a verdict one way or the other were Rathbone’s business, although he was certain Rathbone would want to know the truth as much as he did. Someone had bound up three men and shot them through the head. He needed to know who that someone was, beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or not.

He went into the nearest shipping office and asked to speak to the clerks.

“Shearer?” A young man in a tight jacket repeated the name. “Oh, yes, very good fellow. Agent for Mr. Alberton.” He sucked in his breath. “Terrible business, that. Awful. Thank goodness they got the man who did it. Kidnapped the daughter too, by all accounts.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“When did you last see Shearer?” Monk asked.

The clerk thought for a few minutes. “Doesn’t deal with us a lot,” he replied. “Certainly I haven’t seen him for a couple of months or more. I expect he’s very busy, what with poor Mr. Alberton gone. Don’t know what’s going to happen to the business. Good reputation, but won’t be the same without Mr. Alberton himself. Very reliable, he was. Knew a lot about shipping, and trade too. Knew who had what, and always paid a fair price, but nobody’s fool. Can’t replace that, even though Mr. Casbolt is brilliant at the buying, so I hear. Terrible shame.”

“I can’t find anybody who has seen Shearer since Mr. Alberton’s death,” Monk told him.

The clerk looked surprised. “Well, I never. Knew he thought the world of Mr. Alberton, but didn’t think he’d go
off like that. Thought he’d stay around to look after the business best he could, for the widow’s sake, poor woman. Goes to show, you never know, do you?”

“No. Who did Shearer deal with mostly, if not you?”

“Pocock and Aldridge, up on the West India Dock Road. Big place. Ask anyone.”

Monk thanked him and left. It was some distance to the West India docks, so he took the first hansom he saw and arrived twenty-five minutes later. He paid the driver and alighted, then turned towards the building, and suddenly he knew exactly what it would be like inside, as if he had visited it frequently and this were only one more routine call.

It was unnerving. He had no idea why he would have come here, or when. It was no time he could recall since the accident. He strode across the pavement, almost bumping into a thin man in gray, and without apologizing, he went up the few steps and pulled the door open.

Inside was completely strange to him, not as he had seen it in his mind’s eye at all. The proportions were more or less the same, but there was a desk where he had not seen it, the walls were the wrong color, and the floor, which had been the most individual feature, tiled in gray-and-white marble, was now wooden.

He stopped abruptly, confused.

“Mornin’, sir. Can I ’elp yer?” the man behind the desk asked.

Monk collected himself with difficulty. He found he was fumbling for words, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“Yes … I need to speak to …” The name Taunton came into his mind, but he had no idea from where.

“Yes, sir? ’Oo was it yer wanted?” the man asked helpfully.

“Do you have a Mr. Taunton here?”

“Yes, sir. Would that be the elder Mr. Taunton or the younger?”

Monk had no idea. But he must answer. He went with instinct rather than sense.

“The elder.”

“Yes, sir. What name shall I say?”

“Monk. William Monk.”

“Right, sir. If yer’d care ter wait, sir, I’ll tell ’im.”

The message came back within minutes, and Monk was directed up a stair that curved graciously onto a landing. He could not remember what the man in the hall had said, but he had no hesitation in turning left and walking to the end of the corridor. This was familiar, a little smaller than he recalled, but he even knew the feel of the handle when he touched it, recalled the catch as the door stuck before it swung wide.

The man inside the comfortable room was standing. There was surprise in his face, and unease in the angles of his body. He was a little older than Monk, perhaps fifty. His hair was receding, auburn in color, his cheeks ruddy. Monk knew that Mr. Taunton the younger was his half brother, not his son, a taller, darker man with a sallow complexion.

“Well, well,” Taunton said nervously. “After all these years! What brings you here, Monk? Thought I’d seen the last of you.” He looked puzzled, as if Monk’s appearance confused him. He could not help staring, first at Monk’s face, then at his clothes, even his boots.

Monk realized that Taunton was older than he had expected. He could not recall him with a full head of hair, but the gray in it was new, the lines in his face, a certain coarsening of features. He had no idea how long it had been since they had last met, or what the circumstances were. Was it to do with police work, or even before that? That would make it twenty years or more, well into the past that Monk had lost completely, not even patched together from fragments learned here and there, people he had come across in investigations since the accident.

He could not afford to trust that Taunton was a friend; he could not assume that of anyone. The little he knew of his life showed he had earned more fear than love. There might be all manner of old debts left unpaid, his and others’. This was a time when he wished fiercely that he knew himself
better, knew who were his enemies, and why, knew their weaknesses. He was without armor, without weapons.

He searched Taunton’s face, and saw no warmth in it. The expression was guarded, careful, but already there was a beginning of pleasure, as if he had seen a vulnerability in Monk, and it pleased him.

Monk racked his mind for something to say that would not betray his ignorance.

“The place has changed.” He played for time, hoping Taunton would let slip some information, so at least he would know how long ago they had last met, perhaps even the mood, whether their enmity was open or concealed. Because with every passing second he was more and more certain that it was enmity.

“Twenty-one years, I make it,” Taunton said with a faint curl of his lip. “We’re doing well. Did you think we couldn’t have the odd renovation here and there?”

Monk looked around the office. It was well appointed, but not luxurious. He allowed his observation of it to reflect in his expression—unimpressed.

The color deepened in Taunton’s cheeks.

“You’ve changed too,” he said with a faint sneer. “No more fancy shirts and boots. Thought you’d have had everything made ’specially for you by now. Fall on hard times, did you?” There was a keen undertone of pleasure in his voice, almost relish. “Dundas take you down with him, did he?”

Dundas. With blinding clarity Monk saw the gentle face, the intelligent, clear blue eyes with laughter deep in the lines around them. Then as quickly it was overtaken by grief and a raging helplessness. He knew Dundas was dead. He had been fifty, perhaps fifty-five. Monk himself had been in his twenties, aspiring to be a merchant banker. Arrol Dundas was his mentor, ruined in some financial crash, blamed for it, wrongly. He had died in prison.

Monk wanted to smash the sneering face in front of him. He felt the rage burn up inside him, knotting his body, making it difficult even to swallow, his throat was so tight. He
must control it, hide it from Taunton. Hide everything until he knew enough to act and foresee the results.

How much did Taunton know of Monk since then? Did he know he had joined the police? Monk could not be sure. His reputation had spread widely. He had been one of the best and most ruthless detectives they had had, but he might never have had occasion to work here in the West India docks.

“A little change of direction,” he answered the question obliquely. “I had certain debts to collect.” He allowed himself a smile, wolfish, as he intended it to be.

Taunton swallowed. His eyes flicked up and down Monk’s very ordinary clothes, the ones he had chosen in order to be inconspicuous on the river and in the docks.

“Doesn’t look like they amounted to much,” he observed.

“I haven’t collected them all yet,” Monk answered, the words out before he gave them thought.

Taunton was rigid, his hands moving restlessly by his sides, his eyes never leaving Monk’s face.

“I don’t owe you anything, Monk! And after twenty-one years, I don’t know who does.” He let out a little snort. “We always did very well by you. Everybody made their profit. No one got caught, far as I know.”

Caught! The word struck Monk like a physical blow. Caught by whom? Over what? He did not dare ask. What had Dundas been accused of in the end, what was it that had ruined him? Monk could remember only the fury he had felt, and the absolute conviction that Dundas was innocent, blamed wrongly, and he, Monk, should have known some way to prove it.

But was it something to do with Taunton? Or did Taunton know about it because everyone did?

Monk hungered to have the truth, all of it, more than almost anything else he could think of. It had haunted him ever since the first shafts of memory had struck him, fragments, emotions, small moments of recollection gone before he could perceive anything more than an impression, a feeling, a look on someone’s face, the inflection of a voice,
and always the sense of loss, a guilt that he should have been able to prevent it.

“Worried?” he asked, staring back at Taunton.

“Not in the least,” Taunton replied, and they both knew it was a lie. It hung in the air between them.

For once Monk was pleased that he inspired fear. Too often his ability to intimidate had disturbed him, made him feel guilty for that part of him which must have liked it in the past.

“Know a man named Shearer?” He changed the subject abruptly, not to discomfort Taunton but because he did not know what else to say to him about the past. Above all Taunton must not guess that Monk himself did not know.

“Shearer?” Taunton was startled. “Walter Shearer?”

“That’s right. You do know him.” That was a statement.

“Of course I do. But you wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t know that already,” Taunton answered. He frowned. “He’s an agent for shipping machinery and heavy goods, marble, timber, guns mostly … for Daniel Alberton—or he was, until Alberton was murdered.” His voice dropped. “What’s that to do with you? Are you in guns now?” He shifted his weight slightly.

Monk could smell fear, sudden and sharp, physical rather than the slow anxiety there had been before. Taunton’s imagination had taken a leap forward. When he spoke again his voice was a pitch higher, as if his throat had tightened till he could scarcely breathe.

“Is it something to do with you, Monk? Because if it is, I want no part of it!” He was shaking his head, stepping backwards. “Working for men who make their money slaving is one thing, but murder is something else. You can swing for that. Alberton was well liked. Every man’s hand’ll be against you. I don’t know where Shearer is, and I don’t want to. He’s a hard man, gives no quarter and asks none, but he’s no killer.”

Monk felt as if he had been hit so hard his lungs were paralyzed, starved for air.

Taunton’s voice rose even higher. “Look, Monk, what
happened to Dundas was nothing to do with me. We made our deal, and we both kept our sides of it. I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me. If you cheated Dundas, that’s between you and … and the grave, now. Don’t come after me!” He held up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “And I want nothing to do with those guns! There’s a rope waiting at the end of those. I’m not shipping them for you, I swear on my life!”

Monk found his voice at last.

“I haven’t got the guns, you fool! I’m looking for the man who killed Alberton. I know where the guns are. They’re in America. I followed them there.”

Taunton was stunned—nonplussed.