gray, and in the cold morning light he had not noticed it.
“We should follow his path, as well as we can. I should have done that earlier. They told me it was all to do with the report being rejected, and I believed them.”
“Nothing on the report from Gladstone yet,” Monk responded. “Who did Lambourn give it to?”
“His brother-in-law, Barclay Herne,” Runcorn said. “He told me he passed it on before getting it back and destroying it.”
“Which may or may not be true,” Monk observed.
“He’d have to say that. If he didn’t, his own guilt in suppressing it would be obvious,” Runcorn pointed out.
“Perhaps he edited out whatever was the problem for him.” Monk was reasoning to himself as much as to Runcorn. Even as he spoke he did not really believe what he was saying.
Runcorn looked at him critically. “If it wasn’t to do with the labeling of opium and the damage it could do if that wasn’t correct, why would Lambourn even put it in the report? Even if Hester is right about these needles, and the addiction, it has nothing to do with the Pharmacy Act.”
Monk did not reply. Runcorn was right and they both knew it.
They finished their tea and sat in silence for several moments.
Then a different idea flashed into Monk’s mind, sharp and bright.
“Perhaps they destroyed the report because there was nothing wrong with it,” he said urgently.
Runcorn looked totally blank.
Monk leaned forward. “There was nothing in it that damaged anyone, nothing that didn’t make sense. Lambourn knew about the opium addiction and knew who was feeding it, but he didn’t include it in the report because it wasn’t relevant to it. It was Lambourn himself they needed to destroy, so he would never speak of it.”
“Ah!” Comprehension lit Runcorn’s face. “They needed to discredit him sufficiently to make a suicide believable. God in heaven, what a bloody wicked thing to do! Ruin the man’s reputation so when they murder him it can be accepted as suicide?” He ran his hand over his brow, pushing back the short, thick hair. “No wonder Dinah felt so helpless. I suppose she has no idea who it was? He wouldn’t have told her, for her safety, apart from anything else.”
“Exactly,” Monk agreed. “He found out who was involved while researching this paper, because …” He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Actually all we know for certain is that he found it out recently, too recently for him to have done anything about it before he was killed. So presumably it was during his research. And the people he gave his report to are connected to what Lambourn discovered somehow, because they suppressed his work.”
“We need to know exactly what he did, where he went, who he spoke with in his last week alive,” Runcorn said decisively. “Have you got any men you can spare? We haven’t long, a few days at most. Can Rathbone hold out until after Christmas?”
“He’ll have to!” Monk said desperately. “The trouble is that selling opium is not illegal, even with the syringe needles. Even if we find whoever it is, the law won’t touch him.”
Runcorn frowned. “Depends what else he’s doing,” he said thoughtfully. “Isn’t an easy thing, distributing things people are desperate for, especially if they can’t always pay.” He looked across at Monk, his eyes shadowed, mouth pulled tight.
Monk nodded slowly. “We need to know a lot more about it. Above all, we need to know if we’re right.”
“Hester?” Runcorn asked, almost as if he dared not even make the suggestion.
Monk met his gaze without flinching. “Maybe.”
He stood up and went to the door. “I’ll get Orme,” he answered. “We’ll start immediately.”
“I’ve got a couple I can trust,” Runcorn added, also standing. “Just for the details, anyway. Check with Lambourn’s household servants for times and dates. We may be able to get a ferryman who can help. Lambourn probably used the same ferries all the time. Most of us are creatures of habit.”
Two hours later, they had filled out several sheets of paper with what they already knew of Lambourn’s last week. The information came both from Runcorn’s original inquiry and from what Hester had told Monk about Lambourn’s visits with Agnes Nisbet and other sellers of opium-containing medicines. It was now a matter of honing it with more accurate details of times and places, in the hope of finding the one piece that did not fit, and which had been the cause of his murder.
Monk pushed his chair back from the table and stretched. He had been concentrating so intensely he was stiff, and his back and neck ached.
“Orme, can you check the ferrymen again? They’ll speak to you, even if you have to go back and forth across the water, or pay them to sit still.” He smiled grimly. “Should be an easy fare, no bending the back to earn a few pence, just rest on the oars and remember.” He turned to one of his other men. “Taylor, see if Lambourn spent any time in the opium dens in Limehouse. I doubt it. There’s probably nothing there we don’t already know about, but you’ve got sources. We need to be sure.”
“Yes, sir. Want me to try the Isle of Dogs as well? There’s a fair few dens there, too,” Taylor asked.
“Yes. Good idea. If Lambourn found something he’d have gone back to make certain. Look particularly for opium dealers out of the ordinary.” He looked at Runcorn questioningly. It was the moment when in the past he would have given orders. There would have been a brief struggle for authority, each guarding his own territory. This time he bit back the words and waited.
He saw the flash of recognition in Runcorn’s eyes, and then the relaxing of his body. “I’m going back to Lambourn’s house to question the servants,” he said calmly. “The valet will know when he came and went, and, I dare say, the cook. Between them they’ll have a good idea. When I spoke to them before they were very loyal to him. If they know it’s to prove he was murdered, they’ll help. The difficulty’ll be not putting words into their mouths.” He opened his eyes wide and looked at Monk.
Monk gave him a momentary smile, in an acknowledgment of the changed balance of power between them. “I’m going to find this Agatha Nisbet that Hester told me about, and speak to her again. I want to know what Lambourn said to her, and anything else she knows about him.”
“Good. Where’ll we meet?” Runcorn asked.
“Back here, nine o’clock tonight,” Monk replied.
“My home, ten o’clock,” Runcorn argued. “You can walk from here. And we’ll need that long. Rathbone won’t be able to string the trial much more than a couple of days after Christmas. That gives us only a few more days to find whatever it is.”
Monk nodded. “That’s sense. But make it my house. The kitchen. Hot tea and something to eat.” He looked at Orme.
“Yes, sir,” Orme replied. “Taylor, too?”
“Certainly,” Monk answered. “Paradise Place, Rotherhithe.”
“Yes, sir, I know.” Taylor nodded, smiling as if he had been given some kind of accolade.
It took Monk more than an hour to find the makeshift clinic that Hester had described to him, but far longer than that to oblige Agatha to make time for him and sit down in her tiny office, uninterrupted, and answer his questions.
She was a huge woman, about his height but much larger boned. He could imagine very easily being intimidated by her. Only when he looked at her eyes did he see any of the compassion or intelligence Hester had spoken of.
“Wot d’yer want, then?” she said bluntly. “I in’t got nothin’ to tell the River Police.”
Whatever chance he had of her cooperation, it would die the moment she suspected he was lying. He decided to be as blunt with her as he imagined she would be with him.
“I’m trying to solve the murder of a good man, before his wife is convicted and hanged for it. Or, more accurately, she’s convicted of another murder the same person also committed. I believe the good man, a doctor, was killed because he discovered something very bad about someone connected with the opium trade.”
Suddenly Agatha’s boredom changed to interest.
“That’d be Dr. Lambourn, an’ that poor creature they slit open over on Limehouse Pier. If it wasn’t the
