Slaves of Obsession (11 page)

But that was irrelevant now.

Lanyon saw him and beckoned him over, then resumed his questioning of the coal backer.

“You finished at nine yesterday evening, and you slept on the deck of that barge there, under the awning?” He smiled as if he were repeating the words to clarify them.

“S’right,” the coal backer agreed. “Drunk, I was, an’ me ol’ woman gave me an ’ard time of it. Always goin’ on, she
is. Never gives it a rest. an’ the kids screamin’ an’ wailin’. I jus’ kipped down ’ere. But I weren’t so tired I din’ ’ear them comin’ in an’ loadin’ them boxes, an’ the like. Dozens of ’em, there were. Went on fer an hour or more. Crate arter crate, there was. An’ nobody said a bleedin’ word. Not like normal folks, wot talks ter each other. Jus’ back an’ for’ard, back an’ for’ard with them damn great crates. Must ’a bin lead in ’em, by the way they staggered around.” He shook his head gloomily.

“Any idea what time that was?” Lanyon pressed.

“Nah … ’ceptin’ it were black dark, so this time o’ the year, reckon it were between midnight an’ about four.”

Lanyon glanced at Monk to make sure he was listening.

“W’y?” the coal backer asked, running a filthy hand across his cheek and sniffing. “Was they stolen?”

“Probably,” Lanyon conceded.

“Well, they’re long gorn nah,” the man said flatly. “Be t’other side o’ the river past the Isle o’ Dogs, be now. Yer’ve no chance o’ getting ’em back. Wot was they? Damn ’eavy, wotever they was.”

“Did the barge go up the river or down?” Lanyon asked.

The man looked at him as if he were half-witted. “Down, o’ course! Ter the Pool, mos’ like, or could ’a bin farver. Ter Souf’end fer all I knows.”

Barges were passing them all the time on the water. Men called to each other. The cry of gulls mixed with the rattle of chains and creak of winches.

“How many men did you see?” Lanyon persisted.

“Dunno. Two, I reckon. Look, I were tryin’ ter get a spot o’ kip … a little peace. I din’t look at ’em. If folks wanna shift stuff around ’alf the night in’t none o’ my business—”

“Did you hear them say anything at all?” Monk interrupted.

“Like wot?” The coal backer looked at him with surprise. “I said they didn’t talk. Said nuffin’.”

“Nothing at all?” Monk insisted.

The man’s face tightened and Monk knew he would now stick to his story, true or not.

“Did you notice what height they were?” he asked instead.

The man thought for a moment or two, making Monk and Lanyon wait.

“Yeah … one of ’em were shortish, the other were taller, an’ thin. Very straight ’e stood, like ’e ’ad a crick in ’is back, but worked real ’ard … the bit I saw,” he amended. “Made enough noise, clankin’ around.”

Lanyon thanked him and turned to walk back towards the road along the river edge. Monk kept level with him.

“Are you sure it was the wagon from the warehouse?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lanyon said without hesitation. “Not many people about in the middle of the night, but a few. And I sent men in other directions as well. Searched around in other yards, just in case they moved them only a short way. Not likely, but don’t want to overlook anything.” He stepped off the curb to avoid a pile of ropes. They passed Horsleydown New Stairs, and ahead of them, close together, were four more wharfs before they had to bear almost a quarter of a mile inland to go around St. Saviour’s Dock, then back to the river’s edge and Bermondsey Wall, and more wharfs.

The Tower of London was sharp gray-white on the far bank, a little behind them. The sun was bright in patches on the water, thin films of mist and smoke clouding here and there. Ahead of them lay the Pool of London, thick with forests of masts. Strings of barges moved slowly with the tide, so heavy laden the water seemed to lap at their gunwales.

Behind them were the dark, disease-infested, crumbling buildings of Jacob’s Island, a misnamed slum which had suffered two major outbreaks of cholera in the last decade, in which thousands had died. The smell of sewage and rotting wood filled the air.

“What do you know about Breeland?” Lanyon asked, increasing his stride a little as if he could escape the oppression of the place, even though they were following the curve of the river into Rotherhithe and what lay ahead was no better.

“Very little,” Monk answered. “I saw him twice, both times at Alberton’s house. He seemed to be obsessed with
the Union cause, but I hadn’t thought of him as a man to resort to this kind of violence.”

“Did he mention anyone else, any friends or allies?”

“No, no one at all.” Monk had been trying to remember that himself. “I thought he was here alone, simply to arrange purchase—as was the man from the Confederacy, Philo Trace.”

“But Alberton had already promised the guns to Trace?”

“Yes. And Trace had paid a half deposit. That was why Alberton said he couldn’t go back on the deal.”

“But Breeland kept trying?”

“Yes. He didn’t seem to be able to accept the idea that for Alberton it was also a matter of honor. He was something of a fanatic.” Should he have been able to foresee that Breeland was so closely poised to violence that a final refusal would break his frail links with decency, even perhaps sanity? Had preventing this been his moral task, even though it was not the one for which he had been hired?

Lanyon seemed to be deep in thought, his narrow face tight with concentration. They walked quickly. It was half a mile around the dock, and they had to avoid bales and crates, piles of rope, chains, rusty tin, men heaving loads from the towering wharf buildings across to where barges lay, riding the slurping water, bumping and scraping sides as the wash of a passing boat caught them.

The dockers were men of all ages and types. It was labor anyone could do if his strength permitted it. It surprised Monk that he knew that. Somewhere in the past he had been to places like this. He knew the different sorts of men as he saw them: the bankrupt master butchers or bakers, grocers or publicans; lawyers or government clerks who had been suspended or discharged; servants without references, pensioners, almsmen, old soldiers or sailors, gentlemen on hard times, refugees from Poland and other mid-European countries; and the usual fair share of thieves.

“It must have been very well planned,” Lanyon interrupted his thoughts. “Everything worked to time. The question is, did he stage the quarrel just to keep himself informed about
Alberton’s movements and whether or not the guns had already gone? Did he know perfectly well that Alberton wouldn’t change his mind?”

That had not even occurred to Monk. He had assumed the quarrels were as spontaneous as they had seemed. Breeland’s indignation had sounded entirely genuine. Could any man act so superbly? Breeland had not struck him as a man with sufficient imagination to simulate anything.

Lanyon was waiting for an answer, looking sideways at Monk curiously.

“It was certainly planned,” Monk admitted reluctantly. “He must have had men ready to help, with a wagon. They must have known the river and where to hire a barge. Perhaps that was the message he received which made him leave his lodgings and go that night. I had wondered where Merrit Alberton fitted in, if it was her leaving home that precipitated it.”

Lanyon grunted. “I’d like to know her part in it too. How much idea had she as to the kind of man Breeland really is? What is she now—lover or hostage?”

“She’s sixteen,” Monk replied, not knowing really what he meant.

Lanyon did not answer. They were back at the water’s edge. On both sides of the river tall chimneys spewed out black smoke which drifted upwards, staining the air. Massive sheds had wheels vaulting up through their roofs like the paddles of unimaginably huge steamers. Monk remembered from somewhere in the past that the London docks could take about five hundred ships. The tobacco warehouses alone covered five acres. He could smell the tobacco now, along with tar, sulfur, the saltiness of the tide, the stench of hides, the fragrance of coffee.

All around were the noises of labor and trade, shouts, clanging of metal on metal, scrape of wood on stone, the slap of water and whine of wind.

A man passed them, his face dyed blue with the indigo he unloaded. Behind him was a black man with a fancy waistcoat, such as a ship’s mate might wear. A fat man with long
gray hair curling on his collar carried a brass-tipped rule, dripping spirit. There was a stack of casks a dozen yards away. He had been probing them to test their content. He was a gauger—that was his work.

A whiff of spice was sharp and sweet for a moment, then Monk and Lanyon were negotiating their way around a stack of cork, then yellow bins of sulfur, and lead-colored copper ore.

Somewhere twenty yards away, sailors were singing as they worked, keeping time.

Lanyon stopped a brass-buttoned customs officer and explained who he was, without reference to Monk.

“Yes, sir,” the customs man said helpfully. “Wot was it about, then?”

“A triple murder and robbery from a warehouse in Tooley Street last night,” Lanyon said succinctly. “We think the goods were loaded onto a barge and sent downriver. Probably got this far about one or two in the morning.”

The customs man bit his lip dubiously. “Dunno, meself, but yer best chance’d be to ask the watermen, or mebbe even river finders. They often work by night as well, lookin’ fer bodies an’ the like. Never tell what the river’ll fetch up. Not lookin’ fer bodies too, are yer?”

“No,” Lanyon said grimly. “We have all the bodies we need. I was going to try the watermen and river finders. I thought you would know of any ships bound for America from the Pool, especially any that might have gone this morning.” There was a wry expression on his lugubrious face, as if he were aware of the irony of it.

The customs man shrugged. “Well, if there was, I reckon your murderer and thief is long gone with it!”

“I know,” Lanyon agreed. “It’ll do me no good. I just have to be sure. He may have accomplices here. It took more than one man to do what was done last night. If any Englishman helped him, I want to catch the swine and see him hang for it. The American might be able to find some justification, although not in my book, but not our men. They’ll have done it for money.”

“Well, come with me into my office, an’ I’ll see,” the customs man offered. “I think the
Princess Maude
might have gone on the early tide, and she was bound that way, but I’d ’ave ter check.”

Lanyon and Monk followed obediently, and found that two ships had left, bound for New York, that morning. It took them until early afternoon to question the dockers, sackmakers, and ballast heavers before being satisfied that Alberton’s guns had not gone on either vessel.

With a feeling of heavy disappointment they went to the Ship Aground for a late lunch.

“What in hell’s name did he do with them, then?” Lanyon said angrily. “He must intend to ship them home. There’s no other use he would have for them!”

“He must have taken them further down,” Monk said, biting into a thick slice of beef and onion pie. “Not a freighter, something fast and light, especially for this.”

“Where? There’s no decent mooring along Limehouse or the Isle of Dogs, not for something to sail the Atlantic with a load of guns! Greenwich maybe? Blackwall, Gravesend, anywhere down the estuary, for that matter?”

Monk frowned. “Would he take a barge that far? I know it’s late June, but we can still get rough weather. I think he’d get it into a decent ship and up anchor as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Lanyon agreed, taking a long draft from his ale. The room around them was packed with dockers and river men of one sort or another, all eating, drinking and talking. The heat was oppressive and the smells thick in the throat. “I suppose that leaves us nothing to do but try the watermen and the finders. Watermen first. Anyone working last night might have seen something. There’ll have been someone around; there always is. It’s just a matter of finding him. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Customs man had a good point. Why bother?”

“Because Breeland didn’t do it alone,” Monk replied, finishing the last of his pie. “And he certainly didn’t bring a barge over from Washington!”

Lanyon shot him a wry glance, humor in his thin face. He finished his meal as well, and they stood up to leave.

It took them the rest of that afternoon and into the evening to work their way as far as Deptford, to the south of the river, and the Isle of Dogs, to the north, going back and forth in the small ferryboats used by the watermen, questioning all the time.

The following morning they started again, and finally crossed from the West India Port Basin in Blackhurst, just beyond the Isle of Dogs, over the Blackwall Reach to Bugsby’s Marshes, on the bend of the river beyond Greenwich.

“Ain’t nuffin’ ’ere, gents,” the waterman said dolefully, shaking his head as he pulled on the oars. “Yer must ’a bin mistook. Jus’ marsh, bog, an’ the like.” He fixed Monk with a critical, sorrowful eye, having already examined his well-cut jacket, clean hands and boots that fit him perfectly. “Yer in’t from ’round ’ere. ’Oo tol’ yer there was anyfink worth yer goin’ ter the Bugsby fer?”

“I’m from right around here,” Lanyon said sharply. “Born and raised in Lewisham.”

“Then yer oughter ’ave more sense!” the waterman said unequivocally. “I’ll wait for yer an’ take yer back. Less yer wanter change yer mind right now? ’Alf fare?”

Lanyon smiled. “Were you out on the river the night before last?”

“Wot of it? Do some nights, some days. Why?” He leaned on the oars for a minute, waiting till a barge went past, leaving them rocking gently in its wake.

Lanyon kept his smile half friendly, half rueful, as if he were an amateur experimenting at his job and hoping for a little help. “Three men were murdered up on Tooley Street, beyond Rotherhithe. A shipload of guns was stolen and brought in a barge downriver. Don’t know how far down. Beyond this, anyway. We think they may have been loaded on board a fast, light ship somewhere about here, bound for America. If they were, you would have seen them.”

The waterman’s eyes widened as he started to pull again. “A ship for America! I never saw no ship anchored ’ere.
Mind, it could ’a bin around the point, opposite the Victoria Docks. Still, I’d ’a thought I’d see the masts, like.”