The Dark Assassin (22 page)

Monk was
embarrassed, and angry with himself for being so. Why should he? Mrs.
Kitching's was an honest grief; there was nothing in it to apologize for.

He thanked her
with deep sincerity and then excused himself.

By midday Monk
was back across the city at the construction works again. This time he found
Aston Sixsmith aboveground and able to speak more easily. There was no point in
asking him about Mary. He would be unlikely to know anything of use, but he
might know something of the relationship between the two brothers. He would
have to be far more circumspect here. Sixsmith would be loyal out of the need
to guard his job, even if not from personal regard.

"Was Mr.
Toby Argyll aware of Havilland's fear of tunnels?" he asked. They were
standing on the bare clay at least a couple of hundred yards from the nearest
machine, and the noise of it seemed distant in the brief winter sun.

Sixsmith pulled
his wide mouth tight. "I'm afraid we all were. If you were watching the
man, you couldn't miss it. And to be honest, Mr. Monk, it's part of your job to
look for the man who'll crack because he's a danger to everyone else,
especially if he's in charge of anything. I'm sorry." His highly
expressive face was touched with sadness. "I liked Havilland, but liking's
got nothing to do with safety. If he'd gone barmy or started telling the men
that there was a river going to break through the walls, or choke-damp in the
air, or a cave-in coming, he'd have started a panic. God knows what could have
happened." He looked at Monk questioningly to see if he understood.

Monk understood
completely. A man of Havilland's seniority and experience losing his nerve
would be enough to create hysteria that could bring about the precise disaster
he was afraid of. At the very least it would disrupt work, perhaps for days,
and consequently the next project would be sure to go to a rival.

"Did you
suspect it could be deliberate?" he asked.

Sixsmith was
momentarily puzzled. "Deliberate weakness? He'd make himself unemployable
anywhere else, which would be stupid. Why would any man do that? And he and
both the Argyll brothers were friends. Family, in fact."

"I meant
sabotage, for a suitable reward," Monk explained, but it sounded ugly as
he said it, and he saw the revulsion in Sixsmith's face.

"From
another company?" Sixsmith's lips curled. "If you'd known Havilland,
you wouldn't even ask. He might have hid his weaknesses, and he might even have
been something of a coward, but he was absolutely honest. He'd never have sold
out. I'd lay my own life on that. And believe me, Mr. Monk, when you work with
a man on things like that"-he jabbed his thumb downwards towards the
tunnels beneath them-"you get to know who to trust, and who not to. Get it
wrong and you don't always live to talk about it."

"So both of
the Argyll brothers must have known of Havilland's fears, and that he was
possibly a danger?"

Sixsmith's face
tightened and he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I'm
afraid so."

"And was
Mary a danger also?"

Sixsmith
considered for a moment before answering. "Not really. She had very little
idea of what she was talking about.... Can't you call it an accident-Mary's
death, I mean?"

Monk noticed
that he had not mentioned Toby's death. "Both of them?" he asked.
"Mary and Toby Argyll, too?"

A flash of
understanding lit Sixsmith's eyes. "Would have to be, wouldn't it?"

"Well, if
hers wasn't suicide, then his wasn't either," Monk said reasonably.
"The only alternative would be murder. Could he have meant to push her
over? She went over backwards, hanging on to him."

Sixsmith
breathed out slowly. "Trying to save herself, or trying to pull him in
with her, you mean?" His face brightened. "Changed her mind, and
trying to save herself.' There you are. Unfortunately she was too late. Already
lost her balance, and his too. Tragedy. Simple."

"You didn't
say 'but Toby would never hurt her,' " Monk observed.

Sixsmith looked
at him very steadily, and now his expression was unreadable. "Didn't I?
No, I suppose I didn't. Got to get back to work now, Mr. Monk. Can't afford
delays. Costs money. Good day." He walked away easily with a long,
swinging stride.

Monk stood still
for a moment, sharply aware again of the cold- and the noise of engines. The
next thing he needed to ascertain was the exact time James Havilland had died,
or as near as the police surgeon could tell him.

"What the
devil for?" the surgeon demanded when Monk found him in his consulting
rooms. He was a lean man with a harassed air, as if constantly put upon and
always trying to catch up with himself. "You come to me two months
afterwards and ask me what time the poor man shot himself?" He glared at
Monk. "Haven't you anything better to do? Go and catch some thieves! My
neighbor's house was broken into last week. What about that?"

"Metropolitan
Police," Monk replied, not without pleasure. "I'm Thames River
Police."

"Well, poor
Havilland died of a gunshot," the surgeon snapped. "Not a drop of
water anywhere near him, even tap water, never mind the damn river!" He
glared at Monk with triumph. "None of your business, sir!

Monk kept his
temper with difficulty, and only because he wanted the information. "His
daughter believed he was murdered-"

"I know
that," the surgeon interrupted him. "The grief unhinged her. A great
shame, but we don't have a cure for grief, unless the priest has. Not my
field."

"Her death
was very definitely from drowning in the river," Monk went on. "I saw
her go in myself, and that could have been murder." He saw the doctor's
startled look with satisfaction. "Unfortunately, the young man who may or
may not have pushed her overbalanced and went in himself," he continued.
"Both were dead when we pulled them out. I need to investigate her
accusation, even if only to lay it to rest, for both families' sakes."

"Why the
devil didn't you say so, man?" The surgeon turned away and began to look
through a stack of papers in a drawer behind him. "Fool!" he muttered
under his breath.

Monk waited.

Finally the man
pulled out a couple of sheets with triumph and waved them in the air.
"There you are. Very cold night. Lay on the stable floor. Warmer than
outside, colder than the house. Should say he died no later than two in the
morning, no earlier than ten. But as I remember the household staff say they
heard him up at eleven, so that gives you something."

"Anything
medical to prove he shot himself?" Monk asked.

"Like what,
for God's sake? That's police work. Gun was on the floor where it would have
fallen. If you're asking if he was shot at point-blank range, then yes-he was.
Doesn't prove he did it himself. Or that he didn't."

"Any sign
of a struggle? Or didn't you look?"

"Of course
I looked!" the surgeon snapped. "And there was no struggle. Either he
shot himself, or whoever else shot him took him by surprise. Now go and bury
the dead decently, and leave me to get on with something that matters. Good
day, sir."

"Thank
you," Monk said sarcastically. "It's as well you deal with the dead.
Your manner wouldn't do for the living. Good day, sir." And before the
doctor could respond, he turned on his heel and marched out.

It was already
approaching four o'clock and the winter dusk was closing in. Funny how the
weather always became worse as the days began to lengthen after Christmas. It
was snowing lightly in the street, and within an hour or two it would start to accumulate.
He began to walk, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

So there had
definitely been no fight. There was no evidence of a break-in, and nothing had
been stolen. Someone had sent Havilland a note, almost certainly requesting a
meeting in the stable. Either that person had taken Havilland by surprise and
shot him, making it look like suicide, or Havilland had shot himself,
presumably after the unknown party left.

If it was the
former, then the person had gone to some considerable trouble to make it look
like suicide rather than a quarrel or a burglary interrupted. Why? Surely it
would have been simple enough to make it seem as if Havilland had seen or heard
something and disturbed a thief. That would not have implicated anyone. So why
the appearance of suicide?

The answer was
glaringly obvious: to shame him, to discredit anything he might have been
saying during the last few weeks of his life. If that was the case, then it had
to be Alan or Toby Argyll-or both. Mary had known it, had possibly been on the
verge of finding proof, and had paid for it with her life as well.

Without
realizing it, Monk had been walking towards the police station, as if he had
already made up his mind to go back. Why could it not have been anyone in
charge of the case but Runcorn? Any other police superintendent would have been
easier. At least he assumed it would; he might have made many enemies, and he
was absolutely certain he had no friends he could call upon. If there were any
debts of kindness to be collected from the past, he had forgotten them, along
with everything else. The crimes he had solved as a private agent had not
endeared him to the police.

He was still
walking because it was too cold to stand still. He increased his speed, and
five minutes later he was outside the police station. Ten minutes after that he
was telling Runcorn what he had found out, and what he feared.

Runcorn sat
silently, his face furrowed with thought.

"I'm going
ahead with it," Monk said, then instantly wished he had not. In one
sentence he had excluded Runcorn and made a challenge of it. He saw Runcorn's
body stiffen, his shoulders hunch a little. He must retrieve the mistake,
whatever it cost, and quickly. "I think you will, too," he said,
swallowing hard, "now that you know about the letter. We'll do more if we
do it together." That sounded like an offer, and he meant it as one.

Runcorn stared
at him. "Metropolitan Police and River Police?" His blue-gray eyes
were filled with amazement, memory, something that could almost have been hope.

Monk felt the
old guilt back like a wave. They had been friends once, watched each other's
backs in times of danger with an unquestioning trust. It was he who had broken
that trust, not Runcorn. Now Runcorn must be wondering if this was just another
trick.

Runcorn's face
set hard. "If one of the Argylls-or both-had a man murdered to hide what
he knew, then I'll see that justice is served," he said grimly. "And
I won't let that girl stay buried as a suicide if she was murdered. Right,
Monk." He rose to his feet. "We'll start again along the street where
Havilland lived. I know neither of the Argylls was Havilland's actual killer
because they were both well accounted for. I got that far, on Mary's word. Toby
was in Wales, a hundred miles away, and Alan was at a party on the other side
of the city with a hundred witnesses. His wife's word I wouldn't believe, but
twenty members of Parliament I have to. But whoever shot Havilland must have
been there. Maybe someone saw him, heard him, noticed something. Come on!"

Monk followed
eagerly. There was an element of recapturing the past in walking the dark,
bitter streets beside Runcorn. They moved from one place to another, finding
off-duty hansom drivers huddled around a brazier, or local police on the beat.
They separated to ask the questions and waste less time, but still they learned
nothing. It was snowing again now, big, lazy flakes drifting out of the sky
into the lamplight and settling feather light on the ground. Monk began to
wonder more honestly what time had given Runcorn in the years since they had
started out as equals. Monk himself had been badly hurt, lost his profession,
been to the edge of an abyss of fear, of a self-knowledge unendurable even now.
At the last moment it was Hester who had helped him prove to everyone-above all
to himself-that he was not the man he dreaded he might be.

Monk had little
enough materially. His reputation was dubious. He was still clumsy when it came
to command. He had much to regret, to be ashamed of. But he had won far more
than he had lost. He had solved many cases, fought for the truth, and mostly he
had won.

Far above any of
that he had personal happiness, an ease of heart that made him smile in repose
and look forward to going home at the end of the day, certain of kindness, of
trust and of hope.

What did Runcorn
have? What gave him pleasure when he closed the office doors and became merely
a man? Monk had no idea.

They stopped at
a public house, where they each drank a pint of ale and ate a pork pie with
thick, crumbly pastry. Then they set out again. They left black footprints on
the white of the pavement. The reflection of the pale street made the lamps
look yellow, like eerie moons on stalks. Their breath was visible, like smoke.
Carriages passed them in the street, hooves muffled by snow. It was midnight.