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.
“Then what do you want? Why are you here?”
“I want to know who killed Alberton.”
Taunton shook his head. “Why?”
For a moment Monk could not answer. Was that really what he had been like, a man who did not care that three men had been murdered, or who had done it? Did his need to know require explaining?
Taunton was still staring at him, waiting for the answer.
“It doesn’t matter to you.” Monk jerked himself out of his thoughts. “Where is Shearer?”
“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him for close on two months. I’d tell you if I knew, just to get rid of you. Believe me!”
Monk did believe him; the fear in his eyes was real, the smell of it in the room. Taunton would have given up anyone, friend or foe, to save himself.
How had Monk ever been willing to trade with such a man? And worse than that, larger and far uglier, to make profit by trading with a man whose money came from slaving! Had Dundas known that? Or had Monk misled him, as Taunton implied?
Either thought made him sick.
He needed the truth, and he was afraid of it. There was no point in seeking an answer from Taunton; he did not know. What he believed of Monk was indictment enough.
Monk shrugged and turned on his heel, going out without speaking again. But as he walked past the man at the desk in the hall, his thoughts were not on Taunton, or Shearer, but on Hester and her face in his mind’s eye as she had spoken of slavery. To her it was unforgivable. What would she feel if she knew what he now knew of himself?
Already the thought of it bowed him down, crushed him inside. He walked out into the sun, and was cold.
9
For the first time since he had been married, Monk was reluctant to go home, and because he dreaded it, he did it immediately. He did not want time to think any more than he had to. There was no possibility of avoiding seeing Hester, meeting her eyes and having to build the first lie between them. Earlier in their knowledge of each other they had fought bitterly. He had thought her opinionated, quick-tongued and cold-natured, a woman whose passion was all bent towards the improvement of others, whether they wished it or not.
And she had thought him selfish, arrogant and essentially cruel. This morning he would have smiled at how happy they both were. Now it twisted inside him like a torn muscle, a pain reaching into everything, blinding all other pleasures.
He opened the door and closed it behind him.
She was there, straightaway, giving him no time to recompose his thoughts. All his earlier words fled.
She misunderstood, thinking it to do with his search along the river.
“You found something ugly,” she said quickly. “What is it? To do with Breeland? Even if he’s guilty, that doesn’t mean Merrit is.” There was so much conviction in her voice he knew she was frightened that somehow she
