anything useful. One person admitted seeing three men, considerably the worse for drink, but he was not certain if it was that evening or another. Someone else had seen two women walking to the pier at the right sort of time, and the right day, but definitely not a man.
The boat reached the steps at Wapping and he paid the ferryman and got out. The tide was low and the stones were wet. He had to be careful he did not slip. He reached the top and strode across the open stretch of the dock. The wind was rising as the tide started to flow again, coming in from the sea. It smelled of salt and fish, and now and again an unpleasant odor of effluent. Even so, it was better than the smell of the city streets, and there was a vitality in the air he had come to love. Here the sky was wide. No buildings closed in the vision and there was always light, no matter how dark the weather. Even at night the lamps’ yellow glow marked the ships.
He had no time to call in at the station first. He went straight toward the high street and the first hansom cab he could catch.
He found Rathbone tense but remarkably full of energy. He welcomed Monk into the familiar quiet sitting room. There was a small fire in the grate, in spite of the fact that Rathbone would be in court most of the day.
“Come in. Sit down.” Rathbone indicated one of the leather chairs. “Monk, I need your help. This has suddenly become urgent. Lambourn’s sister gave evidence yesterday, which is pretty damning against Dinah, and Lambourn also. I think she’s much more loyal to her husband than to her brother.”
“Her husband is still alive,” Monk pointed out a little cynically.
Rathbone’s face tightened but he made no comment on it. “Sinden Bawtry was in court for the second time.”
“Protecting the government’s interest in the Pharmacy Act?” Monk asked.
“Possibly. The judge is ruling against me every time he can, even stretching it a bit. I can’t help feeling he’s been instructed.” He continued pacing, too restless to sit himself. “Monk, I’ve suddenly realized what this is about. I don’t know how I can have been so blind! Well, I do. But that’s all irrelevant now.” He paced from Monk’s chair to the door, turned, and came back again.
“Dinah lied about being at the soirée precisely in order that you should arrest her, and she would beg you to have me to defend her!” He watched Monk’s face intently.
Monk was incredulous. Rathbone’s grief over Margaret had damaged his judgment even more than he had feared.
“Dinah Lambourn implicated herself in a particularly obscene murder simply in order to create the opportunity for you to defend her?” he said, unable to keep the disbelief out of his face. “Why, for God’s sake? Couldn’t she simply have contrived an introduction?”
“Not to meet me, you fool!” Rathbone said with a glimmer of bitter amusement. “To get the story of Joel’s death into open court. She saw the opportunity in Zenia Gadney’s murder, and took it. She is willing to risk being condemned to death in order to clear her husband’s name and restore the reputation he earned for diligence and honor.”
Monk’s understanding came when he saw the light in Rathbone’s face, the softness and the grief in his eyes. His body was stiff, and he was thinner than he had been only a few months ago, before the end of the Ballinger case. But this morning there was a vitality in him; he had a great cause to fight for.
Monk had no idea if Rathbone was right or not, but he did not want to crush the possibility.
“What is it you want me to do?” he asked, dreading the answer would be impossible to meet.
“Dinah said Lambourn supported Zenia because she was the widow of a friend of his,” Rathbone answered. “Dinah knew about it almost from the beginning. The money went from the household ledgers, under the initials Z.G. on the twenty-first of every month. If we can prove that’s true, then her principal motive is gone.”
Monk felt his heart sink. “Oliver, that’s what he told her-or else she’s just thought of a very clever excuse for his behavior. It’s-”
“Capable of proof!” Rathbone cut across him urgently. “Trace back where Zenia came from. Look at the records. We know her age-she must have been married within the last twenty-nine years. Find the husband.” He was lit with eagerness now, his voice low and keen. “Find his connection to Joel Lambourn. Perhaps they studied together, practiced medicine together. Somewhere their paths crossed and they became such close friends that Lambourn supported his widow all his life. Even went to see her once a month, unfailingly. That’s a hell of a loyalty. There’ll be ways of tracing it.”
Monk said nothing.
“Find it!” Rathbone repeated more sharply.
“You believe it?” Monk asked, wishing he did not have to.
Rathbone hesitated, a split second too long. “
Monk pushed himself up onto his feet. “Then I’ll reopen my investigation,” he said quietly. “And I’ll get Runcorn to reopen his.”
Rathbone smiled, the ease relaxing his body, hope in his eyes. “Thank you.”
Monk went directly to Runcorn’s office. It was still a long journey eastward and back across the river in a rising wind with sleet on the edge of it. Maybe it would snow for Christmas.
He met Runcorn at the door, just as he was leaving.
Runcorn saw his face and, without speaking, he turned back and went up the stairs to his office, motioning Monk to follow him. As soon as he closed the door, Monk repeated the essence of what Rathbone had told him. Runcorn did not interrupt until he was finished.
Runcorn nodded. He did not ask if Monk believed it.
“We’d better see if anyone knows where Zenia came from,” he said practically. “Trouble is, asking too many people. Better it doesn’t get back to Lambourn’s enemies that we’re still looking.”
Monk assumed for a moment that Runcorn was thinking of his own safety. Then a glance at his face, a memory of him in the firelight looking at Melisande, made him ashamed of the thought.
“Has anyone said anything to you?” he asked. He should have expected it, after the attack in the street, especially given what Rathbone had said about Sinden Bawtry being in court, and his conviction that Pendock was deliberately blocking him at every turn.
Runcorn gave a slight shrug. “Obliquely,” he said, treating it lightly, although Monk heard the slight rasp in his voice. “Not only a warning, more a thank-you in advance, for acting with discretion.”
Monk wondered if he should tell Runcorn that he would understand if he did not wish to pursue the matter. His career might be jeopardized. He remembered how much that had mattered to him in the past, how all the times the next step upward had been the goal.
“We’ll have to be careful.” Runcorn’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Check Zenia, not Lambourn. It would have been easier to check Lambourn’s career and see who he might have been close to and who died about fifteen years ago, but they’d spot that. Zenia’s not a common name. Be a lot harder if she were Mary or Betty.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Wonder if Gadney’s her maiden name, or married. D’you know?”
“We’ll check Gadney for deaths around fifteen years ago,” Monk replied with a sudden lift of enthusiasm. It would be good to work with Runcorn again, as he knew they had at the beginning of their careers. Runcorn would remember it. He wished he could. Perhaps he would have flashes of recall, as he’d had at the beginning of his amnesia, sudden jolts when something was desperately familiar, and for an instant he could see it clearly.
“Then we’d better start now.” Runcorn picked up his jacket again. “It could take awhile. How many more days does Rathbone think we have?”
“A week, maybe,” Monk replied. “He’ll drag it out as long as he can.” Neither of them needed to say that once the verdict was in it would be all but impossible to get the case reopened. Evidence would no longer sway a jury. It would have to be an error in law, or some new fact so irrefutable that no one could deny it, before they would overturn the court’s decision. Time was their enemy, along with the vested interests of money and reputation.
Obligatory civil records of births, deaths, and marriages had begun in 1838, twenty-six years ago. But to
