Slaves of Obsession (9 page)

M
ONK STARED DOWN
in horror at Alberton until the sound of Casbolt choking brought him abruptly to the realization that they must act. He turned around to see Casbolt was haggard, apparently incapable of moving. He looked as if he might faint.

Monk went over to him. He took him by the shoulders, forcing him to turn away. His body under Monk’s hands was rigid and yet curiously without balance, as if the slightest blow would knock him over.

“We … we should do something.…” Casbolt said hoarsely, stumbling and leaning heavily on Monk. “Get … someone … Oh God! This is …” He could not complete the sentence.

“Sit down,” Monk ordered, half easing him to the ground. “I’ll look around and see what I can. When you’re fit to, you go for the police.”

“M-Merrit?” Casbolt stammered.

“I don’t think there’s anyone else here,” Monk answered. “I’m going to look. Stay where you are!”

Casbolt did not reply. He seemed too stunned to move unaided.

Monk turned back and walked across the cobbled yard to the bodies of the two men lying close to each other. The nearest one was strongly built, thickset, and although it was hard to tell in his doubled-up position, Monk guessed he was of less-than-average height. His head and what was left
of his face were covered with blood. The hair still visible was light brown with no gray in it. He could have been in his thirties.

Monk swallowed hard and moved to the next body. This second man seemed older; his hair was sprinkled with gray, his body leaner, his hands gnarled. His clothes had been pulled away from his shoulders at the back, and there was an almost bloodless cut on his skin below and to the side of his neck. It was T-shaped. It must have been made after death.

Monk walked back to the first man and looked more carefully. He found the same thing on his shoulder, half obscured by the way he had fallen, although there was so little bleeding this cut also must have been made after his heart had stopped. It was a curious, savage thing to do to a dead man. Was there great hatred behind it? Or some other bitter purpose? It had to matter, or why would anyone waste time remaining here to do it? Surely after such a murder one would escape as quickly as possible?

At first Monk had been too appalled to touch the flesh to see if it was still warm. He must do it now.

He glanced across at Casbolt, who was sitting on the ground, staring at him.

He bent and touched the dead man’s hand. It was growing cold. He touched the shoulder under the jacket and shirt. There was still a trace of warmth in the flesh. They must have been killed two or three hours ago, at perhaps about two in the morning. Alberton must have arrived not long after midnight. The other two must be the watchmen normally employed.

The relief would be coming soon. He could hear the sound of carts in the street beyond the gates, and now and then voices. The world was awakening and beginning its day. He stood up and walked over to where Daniel Alberton lay, curled over in the same grotesque position. The shooting here had been neater. More of his face was recognizable. The same T-shaped mark was cut into his shoulder.

Monk was startled at how angry he felt, and how grieved.
He realized only now how much he had liked the man. He had not expected such a sense of loss. He understood why Casbolt was so shattered he could barely move or speak. They had been lifelong friends.

Nevertheless he must make Casbolt get mastery of himself and go to find the nearest constable on duty, and have him fetch a senior officer and the mortuary wagon for the bodies. He turned and began to walk back. He was almost up to Casbolt when his foot kicked something solid in the mud over the cobbles. At first he thought it was a stone and he barely glanced at it. But a gleam of light caught his eye and he bent to look. It was metal, yellow and shining. He picked it up and brushed off the caked mud. It was a man’s watch, round and simple, with engraving on the back.

“What is it?” Casbolt asked, looking up at him.

Monk hesitated. The name on the watch was “Lyman Breeland” and the date was “June 1, 1848.” He put it back exactly where it had been.

“What is it?” Casbolt repeated, his voice rising. “What have you got?”

“Breeland’s gold watch,” Monk said quietly. He wished he could offer more compassion, but nothing he said would alter the horror of it, and they needed to act. “You had better gather your strength and go and fetch the police.” He looked closely at Casbolt’s white face to judge if he was up to it. “There’s bound to be a constable on the beat somewhere near here. Ask. There are people about. Someone’ll know.”

“The guns!” Casbolt cried, staggering to his feet, swaying for a moment, then going at a shambling run towards the great double wooden doors of the warehouse.

Monk followed after him and had almost caught up with him when Casbolt yanked at the handle and it swung open. Within the visible part of the warehouse there was nothing at all, no boxes, crates, or anything else.

“They’re gone,” Casbolt said. “He’s taken them … every last one. And all the ammunition. Six thousand rifled muskets and above half a million cartridges to go with them. Everything Breeland wanted and five hundred more besides!”

“Go and find the police,” Monk told him steadily. “We can’t do anything here. It’s not just robbery, it’s triple murder.”

Casbolt’s jaw fell. “Good God! Do you think I give a damn about the guns? I just wanted to know if it was he who did this. They’ll hang him!” He turned and walked away, stiff-legged, a little awkwardly.

When he was out of the yard and the main gate closed, Monk began again to examine the whole place, this time more closely. He did not go back to the bodies. The sight of them, beyond all human help, sickened him, and he did not feel there was anything he could learn from them. Instead he looked closely at the ground. He began at the entrance, it being the one place any vehicle must have come. The yard was cobbled, but there was a definite film of mud, dust, smudges of soot from nearby factory chimneys, and the dried remnants of old manure. With care it was possible to trace the most recent wheel tracks of at least two heavy carts coming in, probably backing around and turning so their horses faced the exit and the wagons were tail to the warehouse doors.

He paced out roughly where the horses would have stood, possibly for as long as two hours, to load six thousand guns, twenty to a box, and all the ammunition. Even using the warehouse crane it would have been an immense task. That would explain what the men were doing for the two hours between midnight and their deaths—they had been forced to load the guns and ammunition first.

He found fresh manure squashed flat by at least two sets of wheels.

Would they have left any carts outside waiting?

No. They would draw attention. They might be remembered. They would have brought them all in at the same time and had them wait idle in the yard. It was large enough.

Obviously, Breeland had had accomplices, ready and only waiting for the word. Who had the message come from? What had it said? That they were ready, wagons obtained, even a ship standing by to take them out on the morning
tide? The police would look into that. Monk had no idea when the river tides were. They changed slightly every day.

He walked all around the yard, and then the inside of the warehouse, but he found nothing more that told him anything beyond what was already obvious. Someone had brought at least two wagons, more probably four, sometime last night after dark, probably about midnight, and killed the guards and Alberton, and taken the guns. One of them had been Lyman Breeland, who had dropped his watch during the physical exertion of loading the cases of guns. It was conceivable it had been in some other exertion, a fight between his own men, or with the guards, or even with Alberton. The varieties of possibility did not alter the facts that mattered. Daniel Alberton was dead, the guns were gone, so was Breeland, and it appeared as if Merrit had gone with him, whether or not she had had any idea what he planned. If she was now with him willingly or as a hostage there was also no way to tell.

Monk heard wheels stop outside and the yard gate opened. A very tall, thin policeman came in, his limbs gangling, his expression at once curious and sad. His face was long and narrow, and looked as if by nature it was more suited to comedy than this present stark death. He was followed by an older, more stolid constable, and behind him an ashen-faced Casbolt, shivering as if with cold, although it was now broad daylight and the air mild.

“Lanyon,” the policeman introduced himself. He looked Monk up and down with interest. “You found the bodies, sir? Along with Mr. Casbolt here …”

“Yes. We had cause to believe something was wrong,” Monk explained. “Mrs. Alberton called Mr. Casbolt because her husband and daughter had not returned home.” He knew the procedure, what they would need to know, and why. He had been in similar positions himself often enough, trying to get the facts that mattered from shocked and bereaved people, trying to weed out the truth from emotion, preconceptions, threads of half observations, confusion and fear. And he knew the difficulties of witnesses who say too much, the shock that makes one need to talk, to try to convey
everything one has seen or heard, to make sense of it long before there is any, to use words as a bridge simply not to feel drowned by the horror.

“I see.” Lanyon still regarded Monk closely. “Mr. Casbolt says you used to be in the police yourself, sir. Is that right?”

So Lanyon had never heard of him. He was not sure whether he was pleased or not. It meant they started without preconceptions now. But what about later, if he heard Monk’s reputation?

“Yes. Not for five years,” he said aloud.

For the first time Lanyon gazed around, his eyes ending inevitably on the crumpled bodies twenty yards away.

“Best look at them,” he said quietly. “Surgeon’s on his way. Do you know when Mr. Alberton was last seen alive?”

“Late yesterday evening. His wife says he left home then. It will be easy enough to confirm with the servants.”

They were walking towards the bodies of the two guards. They stopped in front of them and Lanyon bent down. Monk could not avoid looking again. There was a peculiar obscenity in the grotesqueness of their positions. The sun was high enough to shed warmth into the yard. There were one or two small flies buzzing. One settled in the blood.

Monk found himself almost sick with rage.

Lanyon made a little growling sound in his throat. He did not touch anything.

“Very odd,” he said softly. “Looks more like a sort of execution than an ordinary murder, doesn’t it? No man sits like that because he wants to.” He reached out his hand and touched the skin at the side of the nearest man’s neck, half under the collar. Monk knew he was testing the temperature, and that he would come to the same conclusion he had earlier. He also knew he would find the T-shaped incision.

“Well …” Lanyon said with an indrawn breath as he uncovered the cut. “Definitely an execution, of sorts.” He looked up at Monk. “And the guns were all taken, Mr. Casbolt said?”

“That’s right. The warehouse is empty.”

Lanyon stood up, brushing his hands down the sides of
his trousers and stamping his feet a little, as if he were cold or cramped. “And they were the best-quality guns—Enfield P1853 rifled muskets—and a good supply of ammunition to go with them. That right?”

“That’s what I was told,” Monk agreed. “I didn’t see them.”

“We’ll check. There’ll be records. And daytime staff. The constable will keep them outside for the moment, and the new watch, if there is one.” He glanced at the bodies again. “The night shift can’t tell us, poor devils.” He led the way over to where Alberton lay. Again he bent down and looked closely.

Monk remained silent. He was aware of the constable and Casbolt in the distance, examining the warehouse itself, the doors, the tracks in the thin film of mud, crisscrossing where the wagons had backed and turned, where they must have loaded the cases of guns.

Lanyon interrupted his thoughts.

“What does
T
stand for?” he said, biting his lip. “
T
for thief?
T
for traitor, perhaps?” He stood up frowning, his long face full of anger and sadness. He was a plain man, but there was something likable in him that dominated one’s impression. “This Mr. Breeland who wanted to buy the guns is American, that right?”

“Yes. From the Union.”

Lanyon scratched his chin. “We heard the Union army executes its soldiers something like this, when it has to. Very nasty. Can’t see the need for it, myself. Ordinary firing squad seems good enough to me. I suppose they have their reasons. Why didn’t Mr. Alberton sell him the guns? Was he a Southern sympathizer, do you know?”

“I don’t think so,” Monk answered. “He’d just committed himself to sell them to the Southern buyer and he wouldn’t go back on his word. I don’t believe for him there is any question of ideological difference between the sides, just his own honor in keeping a promise.” He found that oddly difficult to say. He saw Alberton alive in his mind, and then the crumpled figure on the ground, its face almost unrecognizable.

“Well, it cost him dear,” Lanyon said quietly.

“Sir!” the constable called out. “I got summink ’ere!”

Lanyon turned.

The constable was holding up the watch.

Lanyon walked over, Monk close behind him. He took the watch from the constable and looked at it carefully. The name in script was very clear to read.

“Looks like someone found this already,” he said, glancing at Monk.

“I did. I cleared the name, then put it back.”

“And I presume you would have told us?” Lanyon observed with a sharp glance. He had very clear, pale blue eyes. His hair was straight and tended to stick out.

“Yes. If you hadn’t retrieved it yourselves. I assumed you would.”

Lanyon said nothing. He took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and marked the cobbles, then gave the watch to the constable, telling him to look after it.

“Not that it matters much where it was,” he remarked.