by Anne Perry
Suddenly his stomach knotted, and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He saw the rest of it as it turned in the water. It was a body—a woman’s body, fully clothed in dark fabric, a boot on the one foot he could see. Her face was only a pale blur, just beneath the water.
He scrambled down the steps, heedless of slipping or getting himself soaked, and reached the water line just as the current carried her almost out of his reach. It was strong and, beyond the steps, deep. He lunged forward for her, as if she might still be alive, although everything in him knew she was not.
He felt the bottom of her skirt and pulled. She swung around, held on to by him and carried by the current. There was no point in calling for help; there was no one else on the pier. Clinging on to her, he was carried off the steps into the deep water himself. His coat hampered his movement, and he felt the stakes of the pier scrape against his shoulder and bruise his arm. He had no footing at all. The water was deep under him.
Where were the next steps, where he could hope to get a foothold, or a handhold? The river was strong and ice cold, and he was soaked through already. What an immensely stupid thing to do. He didn’t even know for sure that it was Bella! But he did know. He was certain, even as he clung on to her, winding his hands into the fabric of her dress so the strength of the water would not rip her away from him. Why? He couldn’t help her now.
Suddenly he was aware of a darkness beside him, and then something wooden hitting his shoulders.
“ ’Ere! Grab that, mate!” a voice shouted at him.
The wood hit him on the shoulder again. It was an oar. A ferryman was offering him an oar to hold on to. He grabbed it hard with one hand, keeping the other on Bella’s body in case the river took her away again. He pulled and felt the oar drawing him toward the side of the boat.
“Hold on, mate!” the voice called out again. “I’ll take the girl first. You hang on to the gunwale.”
He felt Bella move as the man struggled to lift her out. It seemed to take him forever. Monk’s hands were growing colder and weaker; he could not hold on to Bella any longer, and he felt her slip away.
Then an arm came and gripped him. He used what strength he had left to heave himself over the gunnel and roll onto the hard boards of the floor inside the ferry boat, gasping.
The ferryman let him be and put his shoulder into getting the boat to the nearest steps and then moored.
Monk was dazed. He sat up slowly, taking a moment or two to make his arms and legs work. He was shaking with cold.
The ferryman was shouting, bellowing for help. “ ’Ere, mate. Stand yourself up and get onto the dry, will yer? Else you’ll get froze to death. I’m sorry, the lady’s gone. Reckon there was nothing you could ever ’ave done anyway.” He looked at someone beyond Monk. “Come on, yer great nelly! Come and get her up the steps, then! I’m not letting him die of cold, after I took that much trouble to get him out o’ the water!”
Monk was hardly aware of the arms helping him up. There seemed to be at least two others, apart from the ferryman.
“Thank you,” he said with intense gratitude.
The man’s voice was filled with pity. “I’m sorry, mate, there ain’t nothin’ you can do now.”
“I know,” Monk answered him. “I saw her in the water. I couldn’t just let her be…washed away with the tide, like rubbish.”
“Do you know who she is?” He put his hand on Monk’s arm, strong and steady, as if he feared Monk might collapse.
“Yes. Bella Franken. I think she was murdered.”
“Then we’d better get the police. And you’d better stay here, like. Right?”
“Right.” Monk gave a twisted smile. He could feel the emotion well up inside him, close to hysteria. “Get Runcorn. I think this is his patch.”
“Do you know Mr. Runcorn, then?”
“Yes. Tell him it’s Monk.”
“Jeez! You’re Monk of the River Police? Never thought you’d be such a fool as to get in the water after a corpse. ’Ere—she isn’t…?” He stopped, his voice choked with emotion now.
“No,” Monk told him more gently. “She isn’t anybody I really know.”
“Thank the Lord for that!” The ferryman’s voice cracked for a moment.
“Send someone for Runcorn,” Monk repeated. “And thaw me out before I’m bloody dead as well!”
“Right! Right, sir. Just you ’ang on.”
Monk shrank into himself, trying to find a little heart of warmth within his body.
The ferryman moved back, and for a moment or two, Monk did not know where he had gone. Only moments later, there were more men about, regular police. He was helped to his feet, shuddering with the almost living cold of his wet coat clinging to him. He could hardly feel his feet, although he could just manage to find them enough to stand up. The men made him walk. He had no idea how far. He became dizzy, needing their strength not to buckle and fall.
Eventually, he was aware of being inside a room and someone taking his coat, then his jacket and trousers. Someone was handing him a rough towel, and then a kind of shirt and dry trousers. There was a mug of hot tea in his hands, and somebody helped him to drink, holding it steady for him.
He heard the voice, and the moment after he saw Runcorn’s bulk in the doorway and then beside him.
“What the hell are you doing, Monk? You look absolutely god-awful. Who is she? And who killed her?”
“She’s Bella Franken, bookkeeper at Nicholson’s Bank, who worked for the manager, Mr. Doyle. She was coming to meet me. She had something to give me, but it’s gone somewhere down the river. I think it was some important figures.”
“But they got to her first,” Runcorn said quietly. “You better tell me more about it. You’re in no fit state to manage this—and don’t argue with me. She was washed up on my patch, and so were you!”
“But…” Monk said, then tried to sip the tea in his mug.
Runcorn took it from him and held it to his lips so he could drink. “You’re in no condition to investigate this,” he said when Monk had his mouth full of tea. “You’ll catch your death if you don’t go home, have a hot bath, and put on dry clothes. This needs following up now. Fresh witnesses, if we can find them. Either way, the ferryman who pulled you out and people on the last ferries that crossed. Many people are regulars. Anyone who was around here in the last hour or two.”
He gave Monk another sip or two of the tea. For a large, usually clumsy man, he was surprisingly gentle. His quick, unexpected marriage had changed him. He believed in all the best in himself. Before that, Monk had believed in the worst in him and let him know that, something he now regretted. But perhaps they had both changed since then.
“Why were you going to meet this woman?” Runcorn asked.
“She found some discrepancies in some figures and was bringing them to show me.”
Runcorn screwed up his face in clear disbelief. “At the Greenwich Pier, in the dark? For heaven’s sake, Monk, if you’re going to lie, at least make it credible. And you need help, whether you want it or not. This Exeter case has got you down. Don’t blame you. It’s horrible. But you’re not chasing young bookkeepers in the dark, on the dockside, over some petty fraud in a bank. You don’t know the first thing about bookkeeping. Anyway, the bank is miles from the river.”
Monk was too tired and too cold to argue. In spite of all their vast differences, it was pleasant to be able to rely on Runcorn. The man was not always as quick in thinking as Monk, as he had proved, but the fact no longer irritated Monk. Runcorn had other qualities, including common sense, and Monk trusted him.
“It’s to do with the kidnapping case,” he said, without prevaricating. “Doyle was Exeter’s banker, and I think he may have helped the kidnappers.”
“What a filthy thing to do! What makes you think that?” Runcorn’s voice reflec
ted his disgust.
“If you think about it, there aren’t so many men, however wealthy, that could come up with that sort of money in ready cash, at short notice.” He looked up and saw the understanding in Runcorn’s face.
“Selected out of enmity, but access to the cash,” Runcorn summed it up. “And this girl knew it?”
“Looks like it.” Suddenly Monk was overwhelmed again with the thought of Bella’s death. The coldness of the river ached in his bones, and he could see her dead face in the water, whether his eyes were open or closed. “I have made a hell of a mess of it so far. I should at the very least have met her somewhere safer!”
“Who suggested Greenwich Pier?” Runcorn asked.
“She did, but I could have said somewhere different!” Monk was sharp. Guilt and sorrow cut deeply; she’d been a young woman full of character.
“How did she tell you where and when?” Runcorn asked.
“When I was at the bank seeing Doyle. Damn him! Why had I not insisted she meet me somewhere safe, with people around?” He could have found a way to send her a note, if he had tried.
“Like where?” Runcorn asked, the corners of his mouth pulled down.
“I don’t know! Any main street near wherever she lives! A public house. Even my house. It’s not far from the pier.”
“She didn’t even make it to the pier,” Runcorn pointed out. “Monk, Doyle or whoever has done this was going to get her somewhere. He’s desperate. If she really has proof of embezzlement, or straight-out theft, he couldn’t afford to let her give it to you. Kate Exeter’s was one of the worst murders in London in ages. Whoever did it will swing for it. No mercy, no excuses. And precious little gentleness on the way.”
“Double murder,” Monk pointed out. “Kate Exeter, then one of the kidnappers. He’s not such a great loss, but he was still a human being.”
“And now three, with that poor girl,” Runcorn added. “Does it matter who gets him, as long as we do? And I hate to remind you, but it’s the truth, and one we can’t ignore: I’ve been following this case with interest and I’m aware somebody betrayed you and took the money at Jacob’s Island. You won’t be all right until you’ve found him, too.”
“I know.” Monk said it in a tight, husky voice. “Here, give me my mug of tea. You don’t have to hold it for me, I’m steady now.”
“You’re not,” Runcorn argued, but he let Monk have the mug. “Then you’re going home. You’re only a damn nuisance here, and we need you alive—and not with pneumonia or croup tomorrow morning. Sanders will walk with you up the hill to be sure you make it.”
“The ferryman—” Monk began.
“Yes, I’ll question him, see if he saw her or anything else. And I’ll thank him for fishing you out. Do you take me for a barbarian?”
Monk did not bother to answer that. In the past, he had made exactly that hasty and mistaken judgment. “I’ve got to see if she had any papers,” he said quietly. “That’s what she said she was bringing.”
“I’ll go look,” Runcorn stood up slowly. “I didn’t know her. It won’t be so hard for me. You stay here.”
Monk wanted to argue with him, but it was a kindness, another healing of an old wound, and he didn’t want to reject it. And he didn’t want to look at Bella’s dead face. He nodded and watched Runcorn go out the door.
Runcorn came back in about fifteen minutes. He had a package in his hand. “Wrapped in oiled silk,” he said. “Still wet, but it’s India ink. Waterproof…enough to read, anyway. Clever girl…it’s…” He gave up looking for the right thing to say. “I’ll hold on to these and get an accountant to look at them properly. This murder is on my patch and I think maybe you need a helping hand with finding how it all fits together.”
Monk could only agree.
CHAPTER
14
HOOPER LOOKED UP FROM the desk he shared with Laker and saw Monk standing in front of him. In the hard morning light, he looked terrible. He was wearing his standby coat, not his good one, and he had a gray muffler round his neck, up to his chin. He had not shaved with his usual punctiliousness and his skin appeared colorless. It would be foolish to ask him if there was anything wrong; clearly there was.
“I went to Greenwich to meet Bella Franken last night,” Monk said before Hooper could ask. “She had more to say about Doyle.”
Hooper’s first thought was that she had told Monk which of his men had betrayed them. Of course, they had to find out, but as long as they did not, they could hold each man independently innocent. Hooper felt the misery grip hard inside him. For the moment, he could not think of anything in the world more painful than betrayal. “What did she say?” He heard his own voice as if it were someone else’s, unconnected with his thoughts.
“Nothing,” Monk answered. “She was dead. In the river. I tried to pull her out, but it was too late…far too late.” Monk looked as if he was apologizing. His face was filled with sorrow and a degree of guilt. “A ferryman helped pull us both out of the river.”
“Us?” Hooper demanded. Already he was beginning to feel the coldness that Monk carried with him.
“I saw the body there,” Monk was saying, “floating. I had nothing to pull her out with except my arms. Otherwise, she’d have gone with the tide, maybe got caught up in rubbish, and eventually mangled to bits, unrecognizable, even gone out to sea.”
Hooper did not argue with that. He knew it was true. The Thames yielded up many bodies, but no one knew how many it kept.
“They called the police,” Monk went on, still standing in the same spot. “Runcorn. He’s going to help us with the case. I told him she was connected with the bank that Doyle works in, and she was bringing me some papers. Of course, they’ll be sodden now, but perhaps still legible. Runcorn has them, as he’s taken on investigating Bella’s death.”
“You think they might prove Doyle has the money?” Hooper said doubtfully. “Surely he wouldn’t put it in his own bank? And why kill Kate in the first place?” But the answer was obvious. “You think she saw him, and of course she’d recognize him immediately. That was stupid of him. If she hadn’t, they would have given her back and got clear away.” It made no sense to him. “Something happened…”
Monk moved at last. He walked over to the pot of tea sitting on the hob and poured himself a mug, then came back to Hooper, carrying it in his hand. “I don’t think Doyle took all the money. Maybe some. Payment for his part in it,” he went on.
“What? As extra muscle for the fight on Jacob’s Island?” Hooper said with open disbelief. “A local bank manager?”
Monk was too tired for sarcasm. He sat down in the second chair and sipped at his tea, not even noticing how stewed it was. “No, and the risk of being seen was obvious. I think he found the ideal victim for the kidnappers—that’s what he was paid for—and of course maybe by Exeter, too, for help with the ransom…” His voice trailed off, heavy with disgust.
“Kate Exeter? Why?” Although Hooper thought he knew.
“Harry Exeter. A man who had a lot of money in liquid assets that he could lay his hands on in a matter of days, without having to sell anything, which takes time and draws attention. And Exeter is a man who loved his wife to the degree that he wouldn’t try to bargain or trap them. He’d just do it, no questions asked,” Monk explained.
Hooper weighed this in his mind. “Then it was Doyle who knew Bella Franken had seen the books and worked out how he fiddled them, and he who followed her and killed her. Have you told Exeter yet?”
“No, but I think he won’t be surprised. He lost his wife, a friendship he trusted, and his money, all in one night.” Pity appeared naked in Monk’s eyes for a moment. “And we still don’t know who betrayed us. That can’t have been Doyle. We were the only ones that knew exactly what we were going to do, where we were going in, what route. He’s probably never been to that part of the r
iver in his life. How many men have? Most avoid the place like a plague pit!”
Hooper did not reply immediately. What they had deduced made sense, but it was very far from being enough to arrest anyone. There were pieces missing that could be any shape, any size, and alter the meaning in almost any way at all. The papers Runcorn had taken from Bella’s drowned body were now in the hands of an accountant.
“We’re going over to Greenwich to see Runcorn,” Monk interrupted Hooper’s thoughts. “See if he’s got anything at all.”
* * *
—
IT WAS A SHORT trip over the river and then a quick walk up from the pier to the Greenwich Police Station. It took them well over half an hour, even at a brisk speed, and the watery sun was rising in pale colors across the river as they arrived at the door. Runcorn was waiting for them, as were several other men. Greenwich was on the river, so the River Police and the regular police quite often cooperated with each other; only occasionally was there a clash of jurisdiction. Today was going to be one of the better collaborations. Everyone knew of the Jacob’s Island kidnap case, and of the critical things the newspapers had said of the River Police’s failure to capture the men responsible. Everyone received such blame at one time or another, but it never got any easier, particularly when you felt the fault yourself most clearly of all.
Hot tea was handed round, and thick slices of bread were toasted at the open door of the stove.
“Right,” Runcorn began. “Police surgeon doesn’t have a lot to tell us. Healthy young woman, poor soul.” His voice caught for a moment and he swallowed and moved on. “Neck was broken. No water in her lungs. I assume that was a mercy. No other damage that he could see, so it looks as though she never put up a fight. Caught unawares, like—”
“Or it was somebody she trusted,” Monk cut in.
