find Baltimore. But they were on double track all of that distance. He knew the route probably as well as Baltimore himself.
The train was gathering speed. The gray streets and roofs of the city were sliding away. There were more trees, open land.
There were foot warmers in the compartment, one close by him, but he was still cold; in fact, he started to shiver. There was nothing he could do about Baltimore until the first stop. His mind was filling at last with the knowledge he had forced from it since the moment he had realized about the brakes, and that it could happen again.
There had been no murder of Katrina Harcus, at least not from the roof in Cuthbert Street. He could see her face with its brilliant eyes as if she were in the seat opposite him. But nothing was the same as it had seemed. It was clear now: she had orchestrated the whole thing with passion and extraordinary skill, even to tearing the button off his coat and clasping it in her hand when she fell-jumped.
It made him cold to the pit of his stomach to know that she had hated him enough to leap deliberately into the darkness and crash, breaking her body on the stones beneath, into the abyss of death and whatever lay beyond it, simply to know that he would be destroyed with her.
And how close she had come to succeeding!
It was a dark and fearful thing to be hated so deeply by another human being. It could never be retrieved, because she was dead. He could not explain himself, tell her why, soften any of the tearing, wounding edges.
And she was Arrol Dundas’s daughter! That was an indelible wound never to be eased away.
He sat huddled, avoiding the eyes of the other man in the compartment, until the first stop, then he got out, as did everyone else. When the whistle blew for the next leg of the journey he got into one of the first-class carriages and moved from compartment to compartment through the polished wood, the warmth, the soft seats, but Baltimore was not there.
He got out again at the next station and moved forward, and at the next. Time was getting short. He felt a flutter of panic. He found him at last in the front carriage. He must have gone forward also, to speak to every one of his guests. Indeed, he was talking to a portly gentleman with a glass of champagne in his hand.
Monk must attract his attention, if possible in a manner which would not cause embarrassment. He moved discreetly until he was close enough to grasp Baltimore ’s arm by the elbow, firmly, so he could not brush him off.
Baltimore turned to him, startled by the pain. He recognized Monk after a second’s hesitation, and his face hardened.
“Mr. Baltimore,” Monk said levelly, staring at him without blinking. “I have news for you from London which you need to hear as soon as possible. I think privately would be best.”
Baltimore took his meaning and was eager not to mar his moment of triumph with an awkward interview. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I will only be a moment. Please enjoy yourselves. Accept our hospitality.” He turned to Monk, saying something under his breath as he half pushed him out of the door into an unoccupied compartment of the carriage they were in.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “I thought by now they’d be questioning you on Dundas ’s money! Or is that what you’re doing? Attempting to escape!” His face hardened. “Well, I’m damned if I’ll help you. My father told me on the night of his death how you tried to put him out of business. What was that for? Revenge because he exposed Dundas?”
“I tried to save hundreds of lives-without putting you out of business!” Monk said between his teeth. He kept his grasp on Baltimore ’s arm. “For God’s sake, just hold your tongue and listen. We haven’t much time. If-”
“Liar!” Baltimore snarled. “I know you made my father sign a letter that he would never manufacture the brakes again. What did you threaten him with? He’s not an easy man to frighten… what did you do to him?” He snatched his arm away from Monk’s grip. “Well, you won’t frighten me. I’ll see you in jail first.”
“Why do you think your father agreed to it?” Monk demanded, containing his temper with intense difficulty as he stared at Baltimore ’s arrogant, angry face, and felt the train sway and jolt beneath them as it gathered speed, hurtling towards the long incline, and the viaduct beyond. “Just because I asked him?”
“I don’t know,” Baltimore replied. “But I won’t give in to you!”
“Your father never did favors for anyone,” Monk said between his teeth. “He stopped manufacturing the brakes after the Liverpool crash because I paid to have the enquiry return a verdict of human error, not to ruin the company… but on condition he signed that letter never to make them anymore.” He startled himself with the clarity with which he remembered standing in Nolan Baltimore’s magnificent office with its views of the Mersey River, and seeing Baltimore sit at his desk, his face red, his head shaking with shock and fury as he wrote the letter Monk dictated, and then signed it. The sunlight had been streaming across the floor, picking out the worn patches on the lush, green carpet. The books on the shelves were leather bound, the wood of the desk polished walnut. This was the piece at last! This was it! It made sense of it all.
Now Jarvis Baltimore stared at him, his eyes round and wide, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. He gulped and tried to clear his throat. “What… what are you saying? That the Liverpool crash…” He stopped, unable to put it into words.
“Yes,” Monk said harshly; there was no time to spare anyone’s feelings. “The crash was due to your brakes failing. There were two hundred children on that excursion train!” He saw the blood drain from Baltimore ’s skin, leaving it pasty white. “And there must be a hundred people on this one. Order the driver to stop while you still can.”
“What money?” Baltimore argued, struggling to deny it, shaking his head. “How would you get enough money to silence an enquiry? That’s absurd. You’re trying… I don’t know why-to cover yourself! You stole Dundas ’s money. You had charge of it all! You didn’t even leave anything for his widow-damn you!”
“ Dundas ’s money!” Monk tried not to shout at him. They were both swaying back and forth now. The train was gathering speed fast. “He agreed to it. You don’t think I would have touched it otherwise, do you? The man was in jail, not dead. I gave them all there was, apart from the little bit for her, but hell-it wasn’t much! It took almost everything there was to make them keep silent on the truth.”
Baltimore was still fighting it. “ Dundas was a fraudster. He’d already cheated the company of-”
“No, he wasn’t!” The truth was there at last, bright and sharp as daylight breaking. “He was innocent! He warned your father that they hadn’t tested the brakes well enough, but nobody listened to him. He had no proof, but he would have got it, only they framed him for fraud, and after that nobody believed anything he said. He told me… but there was nothing I could do either. It was only his word, and by then he was branded.”
Baltimore shook his head, but the denial died on his lips.
“It took all the money I could scrape together,” Monk went on. “But it saved the company’s reputation. And your father swore he’d tar Dundas with the same brush if I didn’t succeed. We couldn’t sue the driver. Better he be blamed than everyone put out of work. We took care of his family.” He felt a stab of shame. “But that wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t his fault… it was your father’s. And now you’re going to do the same-unless you stop this train.”
Baltimore shook his head more fiercely, his eyes wild, his voice high-pitched. “But we’re supplying those brakes all over India! There’s tens of thousands of pounds of orders!” he protested.
“Recall them!” Monk shouted at him. “But first tell the driver to stop this bloody train before the brakes fail and we come off the viaduct!”
“Will… will they?” Baltimore said hoarsely. “They worked perfectly well when we tested them. I’m not a fool.”
“They only fail on an incline, with a certain load,” Monk told him, shards of memory falling into place more vividly every moment. He could remember this same feeling of urgency before, the same rattle of wheels over the rail ties, the roar of movement, steel on steel, the knowledge of disaster ahead.
“Most of the time they’re excellent,” he went on. “But when the weight and the speed get above a certain level and with a curve in the track, then they don’t hold. This is a far heavier train than usual, and there’s exactly such a place just before the viaduct ahead. We can’t be far from it now. Don’t stand there, for God’s sake! Go and tell the driver to slow up, then stop! Go on!”
“I don’t believe it…” It was a protest, and a lie. It was clear in Baltimore ’s frantic eyes and dry lips.
The train was already gathering speed. They were finding it harder to stand upright, even though Baltimore had his back against the carriage wall.
