Death of a Stranger (6 page)

“Now all we can do is wait,” she said at last.

“She gonna be all right?” the big man asked.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “We’ll do all we can.”

“I…” He swallowed. “I’m sorry if I were a bit short wif yer first off. I’m s’posed ter keep an eye after ’er, but she don’ belong ’round ’ere. Dunno wot ’it ’er, ’alf the time.” He passed a huge hand over his face, as if he could wipe away his emotions. “Strewth! Why’d the stupid little cow go moufin’ off ter someone? Times I’ve told ’er ter keep ’er mouf shut! But they in’t got the wits they was born wif, some o’ them! Fink ’cos a man pays ’em money ’e’s gonna treat ’em nice? Some o’ them swine fink ’alf a crown buys yer soul. Bastards!” He made a low growl in his throat as if he were going to hawk and spit, then changed his mind.

“You can’t do anything more for her now,” Hester said gently. “You might as well go home.” She turned to Livia Baltimore. “And you should go home, too. I suppose your carriage is still somewhere close by?”

“Yes,” Livia agreed very quietly. Hester wondered what reception she would get from the maid. Probably icy with disapproval she dared not voice, but she might very well be handing in her notice in the morning-and shattering the invalid Mrs. Baltimore with outraged accounts of the whole episode. Livia would need all her courage and her patience to deal with that.

“Thank you for your help,” Hester said with a very slight smile. “If I learn anything that might be of use to you, I shall tell the police.”

Livia took a card out of her reticule and handed it across.

“Please do. Either write or call.”

“I will,” Hester promised, knowing Livia hesitated.

“I’ll walk yer to yer carriage,” the big man offered.

Livia looked startled, then relieved. A flash of light crossed her face which could even have been humor. “Thank you,” she said, then went out of the door into Coldbath Square, followed by the man.

It was ten minutes later that Bessie returned with Lockhart, tired and disheveled as always, but perfectly willing to help.

“You don’t eat proper!” Bessie chided him, as she had apparently been doing ever since she had found him. “Steak and kidney pudding, you need!” She went over to the stove. “I’ll get you some ’ot tea. Best I can do. But it’s yer own fault!” She did not explain what she meant by that, and Lockhart shot a wry look at Hester, but there was affection in it. He understood Bessie better than she understood herself.

Hester explained what they had done for the girl and took him over to her.

He looked at her carefully, for a long time, but he could not tell Hester the one thing she needed to know, whether there was internal bleeding or not.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head and looking at the girl with pity. “I just don’t know. But if she’s still no worse by morning, she might survive it. I’ll come back midday or so. Until then, you can do as much for her as I can. You’ve made a good job of the bones.”

It was a little after seven, and full daylight, when Hester awoke to find Bessie standing over her, her eyes bright, her hair struggling out of its fierce knot, her dress even more rumpled than usual.

“She’s come ’round!” she said in her penetrating whisper. “Don’ look too good, poor creature. Yer’d better see to ’er. Kettle’s on. Yer look like summit out o’ the morgue yerself, an’ all.”

“Thank you,” Hester said a trifle dryly, sitting up and wincing. Her head throbbed and she was so tired she felt worse than when she had lain down. She swung her legs to the floor and stood up, aware now of the girl on the other bed only yards away from her, eyes open, face so white it seemed hardly warmer than the pillow.

“Don’t move,” Hester said gently. “You’re safe here.”

“I’m all broken inside.” The girl breathed the words rather than spoke them. “Heavens, I hurt!” Her voice was soft, her diction clear, not that of the streets.

“I know, but in time it will ease,” Hester promised, hoping it was true.

“No, it won’t,” the girl said with resignation. “I’m dying. That’s my punishment, I suppose.” She did not look at Hester but stared up at the ceiling with blank eyes.

Hester put her hand over the girl’s, touching it very lightly. “Your bones will heal,” she told her. “I know it hurts now, but it will get better. What shall I call you?”

“Alice.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, but she was too weak and too tired to sob. She was also too broken to be held in anyone’s arms.

“Just rest,” Hester said, aching to be able to do more for her. “You’re safe here. We won’t leave you alone. Is there anyone you would like me to tell?”

“No!” She turned to look at Hester, her eyes frightened. “Please!”

“I won’t if you don’t wish it,” Hester promised. “Don’t worry!”

“I don’t want them to know,” Alice went on. “Let me just die here and be buried… wherever they put people no one knows.” She said it without self-pity. She was asking for an end, privacy, not help.

Hester had no idea whether the girl would recover or not. She was uncertain how to help, or if she could. Perhaps the best thing would be to leave her, but she could not do that. She was compelled by her own inner will for life not to allow someone else to give up. To be beaten was another thing, but she was not there yet.

“Who did this to you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to stop them? Before they do it to someone else?”

Alice turned her head a little. “You can’t stop him. No one can.”

“Anyone can be stopped, if you know how, and if enough of us try,” Hester said decisively. “If you help. Who is he?”

Alice looked away again. “You can’t. It’s legal. I owe him money. I borrowed too much, then I couldn’t pay it back.”

“Who? Your pimp?”

Alice stared up at the ceiling. “You might as well know. There’s nothing more he can do to me now. But I don’t know his name, not his real name. I was respectable then, a governess! Can you imagine that? I used to teach gentlemen’s children. In Kensington. I fell in love.” There was immeasurable bitterness in her voice and it was so little above a whisper that Hester had to strain to hear her. “We got married. We had six months of happiness… then I realized he gambled. Couldn’t help it, he said. Maybe he was right. Anyway, he didn’t stop… he began to lose.” She took a deep breath and gasped with pain. It was a moment or two before she could continue.

Hester waited.

“I borrowed to get him out of debt… then he left me,” Alice said. “Only I still had to pay back the money. It was then that the moneylender told me he could get me looked after on the streets… especially… if I went into this brothel. It caters to men who like clean girls… ones who speak nicely and carry themselves like quality. Pay a lot more for it. That way I could pay off my debt and be free.”

“And you went…” Hester said slowly. It was so easy to understand-the fear, the promises, the escape from despair. The price might not seem any worse than the alternative.

“Not at first,” Alice replied. “Not for another three months. By then the debt was twice as high. That was two years ago.” She fell silent.

Bessie came over with a cup of beef tea, her eyes questioning.

Hester looked at Alice. “Try a little,” she offered.

Alice did not bother to answer. Her thoughts were inward, remembering pain, defeat, perhaps humiliation more than she would ever forget.

Hester put her arm around Alice’s shoulders and eased her up a few inches. The girl gasped with pain, but she did not resist. She lay as leaden weight against Hester, her splintered arms stiff, her body rigid.

Bessie held the cup to her lips, her own face crumpled with concern, her hands so gentle her touch could hardly be felt as more than a warmth.

It was a quarter of an hour before the tea was finished, and Hester had no idea whether it had helped or not, but she knew of nothing else to try.

Alice sank into a restless sleep, and when Margaret came in at nearly nine o’clock her optimism over raising more funds vanished the moment Hester told her of the night’s happenings.

“That’s monstrous!” she said furiously. “You mean someone out there is lending money to respectable women in financial trouble, and then demanding they pay it back by working in a brothel that caters to men who like to use women they think are decent… to… God knows what!”

“And now with police all over the place they can’t get the trade to pay off, so they are getting beaten,” Hester finished for her. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Fanny is probably another of them, only she’s too frightened to tell us.” She remembered Kitty, who had also spoken well and carried herself with pride. “Heaven knows how many more there are.”

“What are we going to do?” Margaret demanded. There was no doubt in her that they would do something. She expected no less from Hester; it was written plainly in her face and in her brave, candid stare.

Hester did not want to let her down, or any of these women who trusted her to be able to do what they could not. But those reasons were trivial. Above them all was the evil Hester so easily imagined could have happened to hundreds of women she knew-or to herself, had chance been only a little different.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not yet. But I will.” She would ask Monk. He was clever, imaginative, and he never gave up. A very slight warmth opened up inside her at the certainty of his help. He would hate this with exactly the same passion as she did. “I will,” she repeated.

Before Hester returned from Coldbath Square on the morning after Alice’s attack, Monk received a new client in Fitzroy Street. She came into the room with the air of tension and tightly controlled nervousness that almost all his clients showed. He estimated her to be about twenty-three, and not beautiful, although her bearing was so filled with grace and vitality it was a moment or two before he realized it. She was dressed in a dark skirt and matching jacket fitted to her waist, and the cloth of it was obviously discreetly expensive, it sat so perfectly. She was carrying a bag much larger than a reticule, about a foot or more square.

“Mr. Monk?” she asked, but only as a formality. There was an air of purpose about her which made it plain she was there because she knew who he was. “My name is Katrina Harcus. I believe you undertake enquiries for people, privately. Is that correct?”

“How do you do, Miss Harcus,” he replied, gesturing to one of the two large, comfortable chairs on either side of the fireplace. There was a fire burning today. It was spring, but still chilly early in the morning and in the evening, particularly for anyone sitting still, and who might be in a state of some distress. “You are quite correct. Please sit down and tell me what I may do to help you.”

She accepted, setting the bag at her feet. From its shape he guessed it might contain documents of some sort, which already marked her as unusual. Most women who came to him did so about personal matters rather than business: jewelry lost, a servant who had occasioned their suspicion, a prospective son-or daughter-in-law-about whom they wished to know more, but without betraying themselves by asking any of their own acquaintances.

He sat down opposite her.

She cleared her throat as if to dispel her nervousness, then began to speak in a low, clear voice. “I am about to become engaged to marry a Mr. Michael Dalgarno.” She could not help smiling as she said his name, and there was a brightness in her eyes which made her feelings obvious. However, she hurried on without waiting for Monk’s acknowledgment or congratulations. “He is a partner in a large company building railways.” Here her face tightened and Monk was aware of increased anxiety in her. He was accustomed to watching people minutely, the angle of the head, the hands knotted together or at ease, the shadows in a face, anything that told him what emotions people were concealing behind their words.

He did not interrupt her.

She took a deep breath and let it out silently. “This is very difficult, Mr. Monk. I need to speak in confidence, as I would were you my legal adviser.” She looked at him steadily. She had very fine eyes, golden brown rather than dark.

“I cannot conceal a crime, Miss Harcus, if I have evidence of it,” he warned. “But other than that, all you say to me is in confidence.”

“That is what I had been told. Forgive me for having to ascertain it for myself, but I need to tell you things that I would be most distressed were they repeated.”

“Unless it is to conceal a crime, they will not be.”

“And if there is a crime involved?” She spoke quite steadily and her eyes did not flinch from his, but her voice had sunk to a whisper.

“If it is a crime planned, then I must seek to prevent it by any means I can, including informing the police,” he answered. “If it is one that has already happened, then I must share with them any knowledge I may come by, if I am certain it is true. Otherwise I would be complicit in the act myself.” His curiosity was piqued. What kind of help did this very composed young woman want from him? Her manner was unusual; it seemed as if her request was going to be even more so. He realized how disappointed he would be if it proved to be a case he could not accept.

“I understand.” She nodded. “I do fear a crime, but I wish you to prevent it, if that is possible. If I had the skill to do so myself, then I would. However my greatest concern is to protect Michael-Mr. Dalgarno. I may be mistaken, of course, but whether I am or not, word of my suspicions must never come out.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, desiring to spare her the explanation she obviously found painful. “If they are innocent it would be embarrassing and perhaps worse; if they are guilty they must not be warned.” He saw the relief in her face at his quickness of understanding. “Tell me what you fear, and why, Miss Harcus.”

She hesitated, reluctant to take the final step of commitment. It was not difficult to understand, and he waited in silence.

“This is gathered from things Mr. Dalgarno has told me in the course of conversation,” she began, her eyes steady on his face, watching and judging his reaction. “Little pieces of information I have overheard… and now actual papers which I have brought with me for you to read and consider. I…” She looked away for the first time. “I took them… stole them, if you like.”

He was careful not to express shock. “I see. From where?”

She raised her eyes. “From Mr. Dalgarno’s rooms. I am worried for him, Mr. Monk. I think there is fraud being practiced in the building of the new track for the railway, and I am very afraid he may be implicated, although I am certain he is innocent… at least… at least I am almost certain. Sometimes even good people yield to the temptation to turn the other way when their friends are involved in something wrong. Loyalties can be… misplaced, especially when you owe much that is good in your life to someone else’s generosity, and trust in you.” She looked at him intently, as if to judge how much he understood.

Some far memory stabbed him at the thought, but he kept his face blank. He could not tell her how acute was his feeling for just that kind of obligation, and the pain of failure.

“Is it a fraud from which Mr. Dalgarno might profit?” he asked levelly.

“Certainly. He is a junior partner in the company, so if the company made more money then he would also.” She leaned forward a fraction, just a tiny movement, but the earnestness in her face was intense. “I would give everything I have to prove his innocence and protect him from future blame, should there be any.”

“What is it exactly that you have overheard, Miss Harcus, and from whom?” There was something in the mention of railways that stirred an old memory within him-light and shadows, unease, a knowledge of pain from before the accident. He had rebuilt his life since then, created something new and good, recognizing and piecing together the facts of himself he had discovered, and the shards of memory that had returned. But the vast mass of it was lost like a dream, somewhere in the mind but inaccessible, frightening because it was unknown. What detection had shown him was not always pleasant: a man driven by ambition-ruthless, clever, brave, feared more than liked.

She was watching him with those intense, golden-brown eyes. But she was consumed by her own discomfort.

“Talk of great profit which must be kept secret,” she answered him. “The new line is due to be completed very soon. They are working on the last link now, and then it will be ready to open.”

He was struggling to make sense of it, to understand why she should imagine dishonesty. “Is it not usual to make a large profit from such an undertaking?”

“Of course. But not one that must be kept secret, and… and there is something else which I have not yet told you.”

“Yes?”

Her eyes searched his face minutely, as if every inflection, no matter how tiny, were of importance to her. It seemed she cared for Dalgarno so profoundly that her concern over his involvement was more important to her than anything else. A misjudgment of Monk could be a disaster.

She made her decision. “If there has been fraud, and it is to do with the purchase of land, then that would be morally very wrong,” she said. “But if it concerns the actual building of the track, the cutting through hills, which is sometimes necessary, or the building of bridges and viaducts, and something is done which is not right, a matter of design or materials, do you not see, Mr. Monk, that the consequences could be far more serious… even terrible?”

A memory stirred in him so briefly he was not even sure if he imagined it, like a darkness at the edge of the mind. “What sort of consequence are you thinking of, Miss Harcus?”

She let her breath out in a sigh, then gulped. “The worst I can imagine, Mr. Monk, would be if a train were to come off the rails and crash. It could kill dozens of people… even hundreds…” She stopped. The idea of it was too dreadful to allow her to continue.

Train crash.
The words moved something inside Monk like a bright, vicious dagger in his mind. He had no idea why. Certainly a train crash was a fearful thing, but was it any worse than loss at sea, or any other of a dozen disasters, natural or man-made?

“You understand?” Her voice came to him as if from far away.

“Yes!” he said sharply. “Of course I do.” He forced his attention back to the woman in front of him, and her problem. “You are afraid that some fraud in the construction of the railway, whether in the land used or the materials, may cause an accident in which many people could lose their lives. You think it possible Mr. Dalgarno may share the blame for this, even though you believe it extremely unlikely that he would be morally guilty. You would like me to find out the truth of the matter before any of this happens, and thereby prevent it.”

“I am sorry,” she said softly, but she did not lower her gaze. “I should not have questioned your understanding. That is exactly what I would like. Please… before you say anything else, look at the papers I have with me. I dare not leave them in case they are missed, but I believe they matter.” She reached for the bag at her feet and picked it up. She opened it and took out fifteen or twenty sheets of paper and leaned across, offering them to him.

He accepted them almost automatically. The first one was folded over, and he opened it. It was a survey map of a large area of countryside, most of it with many hills and valleys, and a line of railway track marked clearly through it. It took him a moment or two to recognize the names. It was in Derbyshire, on a line running roughly between London and Liverpool.

“This is the new line Mr. Dalgarno’s company is building?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes. It goes through some very beautiful land between mining districts and the big cities. It will be used a great deal for both goods and passengers.”

He did not repeat his comment about quite normal profit. He had said it once. He looked at the next paper, which was a map of a much smaller section of the same area, and therefore in greater detail. This time the grid references were on the corners, the scale below, and every rise and fall of the land was written in, and in most places the actual composition of the soil and rock beneath the surface. As he stared at it he had an odd sense of familiarity, as if he had seen it before. And yet as far as he knew he had never been to any part of Derbyshire. The names of the towns and villages were unknown to him. One or two of the higher peaks were identified, and they were equally unknown.

Katrina Harcus waited without comment.

He looked at the next sheet, and the next. They were deeds to purchase stretches of land. He had seen such things often before. There would be many of them necessary in the construction of a railway. Land always belonged to someone. Railways had to stop at towns if they were to be any use, and the way in and out lay through areas that were bound to be built upon. It was sometimes a long and difficult matter to acquire a passage through.

Some enthusiasts believed the rights of progress overruled everything else. All structures across the path of the railway should be demolished, even ancient churches and abbeys, monuments to history, great works of architecture, private homes. Others took the opposite view and hated the noise and destruction with a violence that did not stop short of action.

He flicked back to the first map again. Then he realized what it was that had jolted his memory, not the land at all, but the fact that it was a surveyor’s map. He had seen such maps before, with a proposed railway line penciled through them. It had to do with Arrol Dundas, the man who had been his friend and mentor when he had left Northumberland as a young man and come south, the man to whom he had owed just that kind of loyalty of which Katrina Harcus had spoken, the debt of honor. Monk had been a banker then, determined to make his fortune in finance. Dundas had taught him how to look and behave like a gentleman, how to use charm and skill and his facility with figures to advise in investment and always earn himself a profit at the same time.

He had deduced much of this from fragmentary facts that came to him in other cases-a snatch of recollection, a momentary picture in the mind-rather than remembered it in any sequence. And with it always came the memory of helplessness and pain. He had failed terribly, overwhelmingly. As he looked at the map now, the grief engulfed him again. Arrol Dundas was dead. Monk knew that. Dundas had died in prison, disgraced for something he did not do. Monk had been there, and unable to save him, knowing the truth, trying repeatedly to make anyone else believe him, and always failing.

But he did not know where, nor exactly when. Somewhere in England, before Monk had joined the police. It was his inability then to effect any kind of justice which had driven him to become part of the law. He had not learned more than that. Perhaps he had not wanted to. It was part of the man he used to be, and so much of that was not what he admired or wanted anymore. His youth belonged to that same hard, ambitious man who hungered for success, who despised the weak, and who all too often disregarded the vulnerable. And nothing he could do now would help Dundas or retrieve his innocence. He had failed then, when he knew everything. What was to be gained now?

Nothing! It was just that the survey map, with its proposed railway, and the purchase order for land had brought back a past of which he had no knowledge, almost as if he had broken from a dream to step into it, and it was the reality, and everything since only imagination.

Then it was gone again, and he was sitting in the present, in his own home in Fitzroy Street, holding a sheaf of papers and looking at a troubled young woman who wanted him to prove to the world, and perhaps most of all to her, that the man she was going to marry was not guilty of fraud.