Revenge in a Cold River (32 page)

“Are you certain of this, Mr. McNab?”

McNab nodded. “Yes, sir. Mr. Aaron Clive knew about it because Mr. Monk thought it could have been a robbery planned against Mr. Clive's warehouse, very near Skelmer's Wharf. Mr. Gillander was part of it, too, at least in Mr. Monk's mind.”

“I see. And who else has any proof of this…conspiracy?”

“No one, sir. I think it was all part of Mr. Monk's revenge for Mr. Orme's death. A shifting of the blame, if you like.”

“Thank you. And may I offer you my sympathies for the distress all this must have caused you?” Wingfield added.

“Thank you, sir,” McNab said humbly.

Monk was furious. He could feel the rage build up inside him, but he was helpless to do anything about it. He had to sit and listen in silence.

Rathbone rose to his feet and walked elegantly to the center of the open space in front of the witness stand as if it had been an arena. Every eye in the room was on him. It was the first time he had moved forward to join battle.

There was a sigh of anticipation around the gallery.

A juror coughed.

“Mr. McNab, you told the court that you have known Mr. Monk, on and off, for about sixteen years, is that right?”

“Yes, sir, I have.” McNab was totally unperturbed. This elegant lawyer with his smooth hair and calm, slightly smiling face did not bother him in the slightest.

“So you did not know him in his Californian days, which would be more like twenty years ago?”

“That's right,” McNab agreed.

“You have never been to California? In fact you have never been off the shores of Britain, other than for a brief trip to France?” Rathbone continued.

McNab moved position very slightly. He did not like the question. It made him look unsophisticated, a man of narrow experience.

“When you first met Mr. Monk you said it was professionally rather than socially?” Rathbone went on.

“It was.”

“Your profession, or his?”

McNab swallowed. He looked steadily at Rathbone. “His,” he said at last. Rathbone would have checked anyway. McNab had not been in the Customs or the police at the time.

Rathbone nodded. “Just so,” he agreed. “A very tragic affair, I believe…”

Wingfield half-rose, then changed his mind and subsided again. Objecting would be futile, and he knew it. Better not to try than to be seen to try, and fail.

McNab's face tightened, but he was not going to help.

Rathbone was far too wise to deliberately lose the sympathy of the jury. “A crime in which your younger half brother, Robert Nairn, was involved, and for which he was hanged. You asked Mr. Monk to intercede for him, to plead for mercy. Mr. Monk did not do so. That is a very brief summary, but is it correct?”

McNab's voice was tight as he agreed it was the truth. If he was trying to conceal his emotion, he did not succeed. It was palpable in the air, like a charge of electricity. His blunt, rather lumpy face was white and his shoulders bulged with the knotting of his muscles.

“And you have resented Mr. Monk ever since for that?” Rathbone sighed. “Misguided. Mr. Monk did not sentence Robert Nairn, nor had he the power to prevent the full execution of the law. But it is understandable. Your half brother paid for his crime with his life, and you with that grief, and that stain upon the rest of your life.”

McNab's hand tightened on the rail till his knuckles shone white.

“It would be fair to say that you did not like Mr. Monk, would it not?” Rathbone was still calm, as if they were at a dinner table and the court were fellow guests around it.

“I hate him,” McNab agreed. He must have known that denying it would be hopeless. “Just like he hated Mr. Pettifer. Difference is, I didn't kill Mr. Monk. Not that I wouldn't be pleased if it had been the other way round, and Mr. Monk the one as drowned.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Mr. McNab,” Rathbone said politely. “It makes all this so much easier to understand. It must have been trying indeed to have a man of Mr. Monk's skill and tenacity forever on your tail, after the gun battle and the death of Mr. Orme.”

McNab gave an exaggerated shrug. “I can live with it. He's not as dangerous as he thinks he is.”

“But you did check to see if any of this big conspiracy theory of his was true?”

“Part of my job.”

Wingfield stood up. “My lord, we have already established all of this. My learned friend is wasting the court's time.”

Rathbone looked at him with a flash of hope. “Then are you willing to agree that Mr. McNab himself, and with the assistance of Mr. Pettifer, very thoroughly investigated the entire possibility of a clever robbery planned against Mr. Aaron Clive and his warehouses and other premises along the riverbank?”

“Of course he investigated it,” Wingfield said. “And found nothing! Again, it is his job, and a courtesy to Mr. Clive that he was happy to afford.”

“Thank you.” Rathbone inclined his head in a tiny bow. “That would explain his frequent and private visits to Mr. Clive, and to Mrs. Clive, both at the warehouse and at their home.”

There was a hiss of indrawn breath around the room. Every man in the jury stiffened.

“Your point, Mr. Rathbone?” Mr. Justice Lyndon inquired with interest clear in his face.

Wingfield smiled. The jury was staring at Rathbone, and Wingfield and McNab relaxed visibly.

Monk felt a wave of fear run through him. Rathbone had no idea of a defense. He was fishing, and desperately.

Rathbone was still facing the judge. “My point, my lord, is that there is very much more to this case than has been apparent so far. It is something like an iceberg, with by far the largest part of it out of our view. I shall call witnesses who will tell us if Mr. McNab's…shall we say extremely discreet…visits to Mrs. Clive at her home and their discussing events throw a very different light on the affair. I can, if necessary, call Mrs. Clive herself. The whole matter has roots far into the past, not only concerning the hanging of Mr. McNab's unfortunate half brother.”

Now the court was electrified. In the witness stand McNab looked first one way, then the other, as if seeking escape. At least half the men and women in the gallery were staring at him.

Wingfield opened his mouth to protest, and then was uncertain as to what he meant to say.

Monk turned to the warden next to him. “I wish to speak to my lawyer. It is urgent.” What the hell was Rathbone playing at?

“I'll see he's told,” the warden replied. He was a fair man, and his attitude made it clear he had no particular affection for customs officers. He had said more than once that he liked his tobacco and resented the duty he paid on it.

“My lord!” Wingfield had decided on his action.

Lyndon looked at him.

“I would like to ask for an adjournment to speak to my witnesses, Mr. and Mrs. Clive, regarding this extraordinary claim from Sir Oliver. I believe he is wasting the court's time, but I need to prepare to meet his…tactics, all the same.”

Rathbone made no objection, and the judge granted the request.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
M
ONK
was alone in the room where accused people were permitted to speak privately with their lawyers.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, fear almost choking his words. “If you question Clive, or Miriam, they'll accuse me of having killed Piers Astley! And God help me, I don't even know if I did. I can't deny it.” He could hear the hysteria in his own voice, and it was slipping out of control. This was worse than when he had thought himself guilty of killing Joscelyn Gray. Gray had at least deserved it. He had perpetrated one of the most vile and destructive pieces of deception on the grieving families of the dead from the Crimean War. He had been beaten to death, but he had deserved to hang. Piers Astley had been, by all accounts, a particularly honorable man, not only respected but deeply liked by almost everyone who knew him.

And, unlike the time of Gray's death, when Monk had little in his own life he cared for enough to mourn its loss, now he had everything on earth to live for. Above all he had Hester, a woman he loved with every part of himself. He had a home, a family, friends, a job that was worth doing, and people who trusted him. He wanted to live, with a fierce and consuming hunger, a passion! He wanted to be all that they believed of him.

Rathbone was pale, but he seemed more composed than he had any right to be. This was his professional face. Monk wanted to hit him.

“I am beginning to see a shape to this,” Rathbone said quietly. “Even the motive makes no sense—”

“I know that!” Monk snapped at him. “McNab couldn't have known Pettifer would drown….”

“Be quiet and listen!” Rathbone ordered. “We haven't time to waste. Of course he couldn't. It was an opportunity he seized…brilliantly. Which means he must have had some other plan before that.”

Suddenly Monk saw a thread of light, as thin as spider silk. “And changed when he saw a better chance!” he said.

“Exactly,” Rathbone agreed. “I need to find that other plan, and trace it back, then show its foundations, how McNab built on it, and when and how he changed. I think Miriam Clive knows about it.”

“To do with Piers Astley? She won't tell—”

“I don't intend to give her a choice,” Rathbone said, cutting him off. “I believe that first plan was to make a fool of you, send you after this great robbery plot, which never existed. Done well enough, it would have made you look like a laughingstock. But then when Pettifer died, obligingly at your hand, McNab abandoned that and took up the idea of your revenging yourself on Pettifer for Orme's death. It's very neat. I may have to unravel the whole issue of Astley's death and Miriam Clive's plans to have you solve it in order to expose him.”

“And get me hanged for Astley's death?” Monk said bitterly.

“You didn't kill Astley,” Rathbone assured him. “Miriam knows who did. She hoped you would help her prove it. Now she knows you can't remember, so it has to be done another way.”

“If I take the stand I'll have to admit I can't remember!” Monk took a deep breath. “Still…I suppose losing my job is better than losing my life…”

“Monk, just be quiet and do as you're told!” Rathbone stood up. “Just…just believe in me. And in the rest of us…”

“Hester…?”

“We're all working: Hester, Scuff, Crow, Squeaky Robinson…even Worm.”

Rathbone reached the door just as the guard unlocked it from the other side. He turned and looked at Monk for a moment, then went out.

“C'mon,” the guard ordered, glaring at Monk where he stood. “They don't want you no more for now.”

B
EATA HAD INQUIRED AT
the clinic in Portpool Lane when they expected Hester, and she had gone there deliberately at that time, first to help with the work she was able to do, such as checking on supplies and funds, and generally assisting Claudine Burroughs, but more urgently to her, to see Hester herself.

Beata could barely imagine the despair she must be feeling, but perhaps there was practical help she could offer. Providing a carriage that Hester could use whenever she wished would be swifter and pleasanter, especially in this weather, than her having to take an omnibus.

More important than that, she could tell Hester of the memories she had of San Francisco, of Monk, and the truth Miriam had finally told her about Aaron Clive. Surely that could not be unconnected with Piers Astley's death? Hester's imagination and understandings might show her something Beata had not thought of.

They spoke quietly in the huge kitchen in the clinic. Breakfast was over and it was not yet time for lunch. They sat at the main worktable and had a cup of tea.

Hester listened intently, repeating what Beata told her to be sure she had grasped it properly.

“Yes,” Beata agreed, looking at Hester and seeing fear in her eyes. “Miriam knows what happened, and that Monk had nothing to do with it.”

“And her revenge on Clive?” Hester almost whispered the words, as if the emotion of it overwhelmed her. She was imagining Miriam's pain as if it had been her own. The pain of losing Monk to the hangman was as deep within her so she could barely fail to understand.

“It will have to wait,” Beata said without hesitation. She could not tell Hester how she had hated Ingram, how easily she could share the feeling of helpless loathing. The shame of that still burned her for what she had permitted York to do to her. “I hope she gets it,” she went on. “But not at the cost of Monk's life, no matter how dearly she deserves it.”

Hester had faced dangers and grief Beata could not imagine, physical privation and overwhelming loss in the Crimea, countless men she could not save, and she had survived it. But now she looked so terribly vulnerable, Beata ached for her. She had no faith in the justice of the law now. Perhaps she was right.

Beata finished her tea and Hester poured more, then realized they needed milk. She stood to fetch it, then clearly forgot where she had put the jug. She was confused because she was angry, angry because she was frightened.

She found the jug and picked it up. Her hand slipped and it fell to the floor and smashed. She used language she must have learned in the army, and blushed scarlet when she realized Beata must have been startled.

Beata stood up, forcing herself to smile quite calmly. It was the depth of Hester's distress that shook her, not the words.

“I've heard that, and worse, in the goldfields,” she assured her. She bent to pick up the shards of the jug then fetched a cloth from the sink to mop up the milk. Hester stood helpless, for a moment like a lost child, the tears filling her eyes.

Beata threw away the shards, washed out the cloth, and put it down. She went back to Hester and abandoned all propriety and the issues that might have stood between them, real or imaginary. She put her arms around Hester, very gently, and held her.

“We will win,” she promised, to herself as much as to Hester. “We will not let this happen…whatever we have to do!”

I
T WAS A WILD
thing to have said, and she was acutely conscious of it when Rathbone called that evening. Of course it was a complete impropriety, but she had asked him to come, sending a note to his chambers. She must tell him all she knew and make certain he understood that she was prepared to testify, if it would help. And he must force Miriam to speak, if she did not do so willingly. She suggested that if the indiscretion worried him, for his own sake or for hers, that he come through the back entrance, like a messenger or a servant.

He did so, and was in the withdrawing room a little after nine o'clock. Outside, the rain lashed the windows and wind rattled branches against the glass.

Rathbone was so tired his skin was shadowed around his eyes and even his hair was untidy, falling forward where he had run his fingers through it over and over.

“Miriam must be persuaded to testify that Aaron killed Piers,” Beata said quietly.

“She can't help, my dear. There is a man who swore an affidavit at the time to say that Aaron Clive was with him at the assay office in San Francisco, forty miles from where Astley was shot,” he pointed out.

“Roger Belknap,” she agreed. “I know. Actually Belknap was charged with another crime, a robbery, and he was found not guilty because Aaron swore they were together at the assay office.”

“Does it matter now? Belknap's testimony stood.”

“Because Aaron, whom everybody trusted, swore for him,” she said. “Of course he did! Because effectively, Belknap was swearing for Aaron.”

He stared at her, blinking as if his eyes were too tired to see clearly. “Are you saying Aaron actually killed Piers himself? Why? He had any number of men who would have done it for a few dollars!”

“And have been in their power forever after…unless he killed them, too,” she pointed out. “And Piers was very well liked. He ran a great deal of Aaron Clive's business. He was a sort of ‘first lieutenant.' ”

“So Clive lost his closest friend when his cousin died, and his next closest when Astley was killed?” Rathbone asked.

“And gained the most beautiful woman on the Barbary Coast as his wife,” Beata added.

He drew in breath to reply, then changed his mind.

She laughed for the first time since the trial began. “You were going to say that that was hardly a good bargain!” Her amusement was quite open. “Very wise you didn't.”

“I suppose she is beautiful,” he replied, a little too reluctantly. “It wouldn't matter that much to me. I prefer the beauty from inside that shines through any kind of bone structure or coloring.” He looked at her more intently. “But you are certain of what you say? Please be absolutely honest. If I base my strategy on that, it will be disastrous if you are mistaken.”

“She knows it, Oliver. She told me so herself. What actually happened is a complete change in direction from McNab's original plan. His first idea for revenge on Monk for Nairn's death was quite different. It was based on a hoax robbery of Clive's business, but in the meantime he drew Miriam in to find out what he could about Monk in San Francisco, hoping to discredit him. Then Pettifer drowned and McNab saw a chance to link that with Piers Astley's murder, showing Monk to be an undoubted killer. He and Miriam exchanged information about Astley's death and about Monk, who she thought might help her. She isn't proud of it, but Astley's death had consumed her, and her growing need to find the truth had driven out everything else. Gillander brought her the evidence only relatively recently,” Beata explained. “She had hoped Monk could help her discover the truth, but of course if he ever knew anything he's forgotten it now, along with everything else.”

“And McNab waited because he didn't dare attack Monk until he knew he was vulnerable,” Rathbone said grimly. “It's…” He could not find a word that suited his thought.

“Going to be difficult,” she finished for him.

“Please God, that's all it is!” he said gravely.

She had already made her decision. Now she must tell him, with whatever decisions followed from it.

“I will testify, if you wish. But I am not sure what weight will be attached to it.”

“I understand that you prefer not to—” he began.

“No, Oliver, you don't,” she interrupted him. “I am perfectly willing to testify, for Monk, and for Hester's sake. But you know very little of my time in San Francisco. There are things I haven't told you, because I am ashamed of them.” She breathed slowly and steadied herself. “Part of the reason I came home again to England was that my father died. I didn't tell you how. For a while he did very well financially. Then he started to gamble. By the time he died he was in great difficulty. He…he cheated at cards, and was caught. He was shot in a bar brawl that was started because he was caught palming cards. It was a scandal at the time. I was a widow, so I didn't have the same name, but everyone knew I was his daughter.”

She thought she could get through it all in a flat, clear voice, and without crying, but the tears were thick in her throat now.

“I'm sorry,” she added. “It's not very pleasant. Perhaps I should have told you before, but I didn't think I would ever have to.”

“You don't have to apologize,” he said quietly.

“Yes, I do. Aaron Clive knows, and if my evidence is unpleasant to him, you can be certain he will raise it.”

“Does that mean you would prefer not to testify?”

She looked up at him. “No, it does not! I shall testify if I can say anything of use. I'm…I'm part of this!” It was a statement of belonging, made with anger because she desperately wanted it to be true.

He slid his hand over hers, very gently. “I know you are. And I want you always to be. As soon as you tell me it is decent to do so, I shall ask you to marry me. And I shall continue to argue the case until you accept me.”

She wanted to make some charming, graceful reply, even one that was mildly amusing. Instead of which, she could only be totally serious.

“I think when Monk is safe, and free, we must wait a few months before we speak of it to anyone else, but we may be agreed between ourselves,” she said gravely, but with a smile so gentle and so filled with hope he could not have mistaken her emotions.

“Then I had better renew my efforts,” he said softly. “We must win.”

T
HE TRIAL RESUMED LATER
in the morning. The judge warned Rathbone that he would be required to make good in his extraordinary remarks of the day before. The court would take a very serious view of statements given purely for dramatic effect.

“Yes, my lord,” Rathbone said with apparent humility. “Perhaps your lordship would allow me to re-call Mr. Aaron Clive directly?”

Wingfield made no objection, although Beata, looking at him, saw him hesitate for a moment. She was certain he was searching for a reason to disturb Rathbone's plan, his sense of timing, but he could not think of anything that would not be transparent. He knew well enough not to show any vulnerability, any doubt whatever in front of the jury. She had sat through many trials, particularly in the early days of her marriage to Ingram. She had watched him when he was a large presence in front of some of the lesser men who had since succeeded him. That may have been part of the reason he had so disliked Oliver—and he had! She recognized that now.

Aaron Clive crossed the open space around the witness stand. He looked grave and sad as he was reminded of his oath. As always, his manners were perfect, his voice filled with charm.

Rathbone walked out into the open space before the witness box as if totally confident. Perhaps Beata was the only one in the room who knew how very far that was from the truth.

“Good morning, Mr. Clive,” he began. “You stated previously in your testimony for Mr. Wingfield that you had occasion to be acquainted with Mr. McNab, of the Customs service. Was this a personal acquaintance, or purely professional?”

Clive smiled. “It was professional, but I did not draw a rigid line between the two.”

“Do you mean, sir, that you permitted Mr. McNab to visit you at your home, not only at your place of business? Possibly to discuss certain larger or now more valuable shipments, for example?”

“On occasions, yes.” Clive looked puzzled.

“So if I tell you that a witness overheard Mr. McNab in a private conversation with your wife, in your home, you would not find that impossible to believe?”