A Sunless Sea (16 page)

Both women shook their heads, but Jenkins looked at Monk with a frown. “So what about it? Sad ter see an ’andsome woman crazed like that.”

“Oh, but it’s all right if it’s some ugly ol’ bitch like us, eh?” the women said furiously. “Well, if that’s wot yer think, don’ expect me ter come back ’ere fer me tea an’ ’taters.” She slammed a shilling and two pennies down on the counter. She swung a large bag in one hand, knocking it against the door on her way out and swearing savagely.

“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized to Jenkins. “I didn’t mean to lose you your customers.”

“Don’t worry about it, sir,” Jenkins replied, wiping his hands on his apron. “She’s always losin’ ’er ’ead about something or another. She’ll be back. Can’t walk farther than this an’ carry ’er potaters anyway. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Tell me about this woman who was so upset in here, the day before Zenia Gadney was killed.”

“You don’t want ter take any notice of ’er, sir. She weren’t from round ’ere. She were beside ’erself, poor thing. Raving an’ mumbling, she were. Talking to ’erself somethin’ rotten. Reckon she were lost.”

“Can you tell me what she looked like, and as much as you can remember of what she said?”

“Didn’t make no sense,” Jenkins said dubiously.

“That doesn’t matter. First, what did she look like, please?”

Jenkins concentrated, clearly seeing her again in his mind’s eye. “Tall, fer a woman,” he began. “Dark ’air, what I could see of it. Not black, like. She ’ad this old shawl ’alf over ’er ’ead. Proper ’andsome face. Told yer, she didn’t come from ’ere, nor sound like she did neither. But the poor soul were ’alf out of ’er head. Too much o’ that opium, I’d say. Now an’ again it don’t do no ’arm. Fact, it ’elps when mebbe nothing else does. But get too much of it an’ it addles yer brain. It’s smokin’ the stuff that really does yer in. I reckon as mebbe that’s what she’d bin doing. Lot of it, down by the docks, there is. It’s mostly them Chinese. Got it something wicked out east, so they say.”

Monk clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. “What was she mumbling about? Do you remember?”

Jenkins was oblivious to his impatience.

“Sort of,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t make a lot of sense of it, but mostly about suicide an’ whores an’ things like that. But like I said, she were out of ’er ’ead. She weren’t no whore. I’d lay money on that.” He shook his head. “She was quality, even if she were ’alf daft. She went on about lyin’, an’ betrayal an’ all sorts. I dare say if she were come to ’er senses, she’d be a different person. Yer shouldn’t take ’er word for nothin’, sir. An’ I don’t reckon as she knew Mrs. Gadney anyway. Yer couldn’t think o’ two women less like each other.”

“Did she ask for Mrs. Gadney? Ask where she lived, or if you knew her?”

“Not as I recall. Just came in for penny twists, raved on about people killin’ theirselves, and then went out again.”

“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.” Monk bought a tin of treacle, in the hope that Hester might make a treacle sponge pudding for him and Scuff, and then went back out into the street again.

He asked the same questions in the other shops along Copenhagen Place. It was the tobacconist who finally told him that a tall woman with dark hair had been in looking for Zenia Gadney; apparently when she had been in his shop, she had been more or less composed, and he had told her that Mrs. Gadney lived farther along, toward the middle of the lane.

Monk spoke to others as well. Two more people had seen the woman, but they could add nothing further. Monk had all he needed to oblige him to go and face Dinah Lambourn.

H
E WAS LOATH TO
do so, so he delayed the task and went back to the station at Wapping and checked that everything was under control there. Then he put on his coat and went out onto the dockside. The quickest way to Greenwich would be along the north bank of the river, where he was, and then a boat from Horse Ferry across to Greenwich Pier. It would take some time. Hopefully, the chill late afternoon breeze in his face and the familiar sounds of the river would help him compose in his mind what he would say.

He stood on the dockside and looked across the busy water, which was getting a little choppy on the turning tide. The sky was darkening already, the light fading. In a little over a fortnight it would be the winter solstice, and, shortly after, Christmas. He could put it off; go home now, leave Dinah one more evening unchallenged, in her own home with her daughters. Poor girls, they had already lost so much. He wondered if they had anyone else—apart from Amity Herne. He could not imagine Amity giving them any warmth or comfort in the desperate time that might so easily be ahead.

That was an uncharitable thought! Amity might be quite a decent woman. People sometimes stretched to meet a challenge and were braver and kinder than even they themselves thought possible.

There was a ferry coming in toward the Wapping Steps. It would drop off its passengers, and he could take it home. He would be there in half an hour, in his own kitchen, and—far more than that—amid the emotional safety that his home offered to him. He and Hester could talk about what to get Scuff for Christmas: what he would want, and what might overwhelm or embarrass him. Monk had thought of getting him a pocket watch. Scuff had just learned to tell the time instead of guessing it. Hester wanted to get him books. Would both be too much? Would Scuff feel as if he had to get them each something?

He walked over to the top step, ready to go down to the boat.

Then he changed his mind and walked briskly across the dock and back toward the road. He would do it now, face it and get it over.

It seemed too short an hour before he was sitting in the withdrawing room and Dinah, grave and tense, was upright in the chair opposite him. Her face was almost bloodless, and her hands were knotted in her lap, clutching each other uneasily, knuckles white.

Monk began straightaway, because he knew there was no good way to ask her the questions he needed to ask anyway.

“Mrs. Lambourn, when I was here before, you told me that you knew your husband had an affair with another woman, but that you knew nothing about her, including where she lived. Did I understand you correctly?”

“Of course, I know now,” she replied.

“But did you know before she was killed?” he persisted.

“No. Joel and I didn’t discuss it.”

“How did you know of her?”

Her eyes flashed up at him, and then down again at her hands. “One does know such things, Mr. Monk,” she said quietly. “Small matters of behavior, distractions, explanations that you had not asked for, evasion of certain subjects. Finally I asked him outright. He admitted it but gave me no details. I didn’t want details. Surely you can understand that?”

He nodded gravely. “But you didn’t have any idea where she lived?”

She shook her head very slightly. “That was one of the things I didn’t wish to know.”

“Or her name?”

Her chin jerked up a little.

“Of course not. I preferred her to be … gray, without form.” Her voice was tight. She was trembling very slightly.

Monk was certain she was lying. “On the day before she was killed, where were you, Mrs. Lambourn?”

Her eyes wandered. “Where was I?”

“Yes, please.”

She was silent for several seconds, breathing in and out slowly as if composing herself for some major decision whose consequences terrified her. There was a nerve twitching in her temple, close to the line of her dark hair.

He waited.

“I … I went to a soirée with a friend. We spent most of the day together,” she said at last.

“Your friend’s name?”

“Helena Moulton. Mrs. Wallace Moulton, I suppose. She …” Again the deep breath. “She lives on the Glebe, in Blackheath. Number four. Why does this matter, Mr. Monk?” Her hands were clenched so tight her knuckles shone when the skin was stretched. If she was not careful, her nails would leave bruises in the flesh.

“Thank you.”

“Why?” she said again. Her voice was so dry it rasped in her throat. “Joel couldn’t have had anything to do with her death.”

“Could she have had anything to do with his?” he asked.

“You mean …?” Suddenly her eyes were wide, filled with anger, glaring at him. “You mean did she threaten to tell someone of their affair? Was she that kind of woman? Was she greedy, conniving, and destructive? Joel wasn’t a very good judge of character. He often thought better of people than they deserved.”

Monk recalled their earlier conversation vividly. “But you said that you believed he was murdered, because his report on the opium use was
correct,” he pointed out. “That would have had nothing to do with Zenia Gadney, right?”

She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. She remained frozen for several moments. The seconds ticked by on the clock above the fireplace. Her shoulders did not shake, nor did she make any sound.

He waited, acutely unhappy. He would have to go to Blackheath and find Helena Moulton. He hoped intensely that she would agree that Dinah had spent the day with her—and that there would be others who would substantiate it. But he did not expect there to be.

At last Dinah straightened up. “I don’t know, Mr. Monk. All that matters to me is that Joel is dead, and now this woman is dead also. You will have to find out how these things happened, and who is answerable.” She looked exhausted, too tired to even be frightened anymore.

He rose to his feet. “Thank you. I’m sorry to have had to trouble you again.”

Now she met his eyes fully, without flinching. “You have to do your job, Mr. Monk, whatever it entails. We must know the truth.”

Monk walked some distance before he found a hansom and rode the rest of the way to the Glebe, on the edge between the town and the open country toward the Health itself. It was not a long road, and he soon found the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Moulton.

He had to wait a half an hour before Mrs. Moulton returned from visiting a friend and he was able to speak with her.

“Mrs. Lambourn?” she said with some surprise. She was a pleasant-looking woman, carefully dressed. Her expression now showed complete puzzlement.

“Yes. Did you see her on the twenty-third of November?”

“For goodness’ sake, why? I shall have to look at my diary. Did something important happen?”

“I’m not certain.” He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Your help would possibly answer that question for me.”

She was very grave. “I’m not certain that I am willing to discuss my movements with you, Mr. Monk, or more particularly, Mrs. Lambourn’s movements. She is a friend of mine, and she has been through a great
deal of tragedy lately. If something unpleasant has happened, something even further than the terrible loss of her husband, I am not prepared to add to it.”

“I will find out either way, Mrs. Moulton,” he told her gravely. “It will take me a great deal longer than if you simply tell me, and of course it will involve questioning a number of other people. However, if that is what I am obliged to do, then I will. I find it distasteful as well. I have some regard, and a great deal of sympathy for Mrs. Lambourn, but circumstances leave me no choice. Will you tell me, or must I ask as many other people as it requires in order to find out?”

She was clearly distressed, and angry. Her eyes were sharp and bright, and the color a high pink in her cheeks. “Wherever Mrs. Lambourn said she was, then I have no doubt that it is the truth,” she answered icily.

Monk’s mind raced for a moment.

“She said you were at an art exhibition in Lewisham all afternoon, then had tea and discussed the work until early evening,” he lied. He felt terrible doing it, but he didn’t see another way to discern the truth.

“Then you know where she was,” Helena Moulton said with a tight smile. “Why are you bothering to question me about it?”

“So she was telling the truth?” he said very quietly, feeling a coldness creep up inside himself.

“Of course.” Helena was pale.

“Would you be prepared to testify to that in court, before a judge, if it should be necessary?” He felt brutal.

She gulped, and remained silent.

He rose to his feet. “Of course you won’t, because you were not with Mrs. Lambourn.”

“Yes, I was,” she whispered, but she was trembling.

“She said you were at a soirée, not an art exhibition, and not in Lewisham.” He shook his head. “You are a good friend, Mrs. Moulton, but this is beyond your ability to help.”

“I … I …” She clearly did not know what to say, and she was now also afraid for herself, and embarrassed.

“May I assume that you have no idea where Mrs. Lambourn was on that day?” he said more gently.

“Yes …” The word was almost inaudible, but she gave a tiny nod of her head.

“Thank you. There is no need to rise. The maid will show me out.”

She remained where she was, shivering and huddled into herself.

H
E RETURNED TO
L
OWER
Park Street. He now had no alternative but to arrest Dinah Lambourn. He could not imagine her attacking Zenia Gadney with such ferocity, to have hit her hard enough to kill her, and then disemboweled her there on the pier; but Dinah was quite a tall woman, and statuesquely built. She could have had a strength born of rage and despair. Zenia Gadney was several inches shorter and perhaps fifteen pounds lighter. It was possible.

The thought of it made him feel sick, and yet he could not deny the evidence. She had been seen in the area looking for Zenia, in a state of mounting anger. She had lied about where she had been. She, like anyone else, would have carving knives in her kitchen. Perhaps in irony she had even used one of Joel’s old open razors.

Above and beyond all else, she had a passionate and compulsive nature. Zenia Gadney had robbed her of what she held dearest, the center of her life financially and socially, but—far beyond that—emotionally. Lambourn’s love for her, and her belief in him, was the foundation of her own identity. Zenia Gadney had taken that from her. It appeared her need for revenge had obliterated everything else.

As he stood at the front door of the house in Lower Park Street, Monk tried to imagine what his own life would be if Hester had turned to someone else, made love with another man, lain in his arms and talked with him, laughed with him, shared her thoughts and her dreams and the intimateness of physical love. Would he want to kill that man? Even to eviscerate him?