Anne Perry: Dark Assassin

"And how stupid will we look if we say she's a suicide, and it turns out she was knifed or strangled, but we didn't notice it?" Monk asked quietly. "I just want to make sure. Or with child, and we didn't see that, either? Look at the quality of her clothes. She's not a street woman. She has a decent address and she may have family. We owe them the truth."

Palmer colored unhappily. "It won't make them feel no better if she's with child," he observed without looking back at Monk.

"We don't look for the answers that make people feel better," Monk told him. "We have to deal with the ones we find closest to the truth. We know who they are and where they lived. Orme and I are going to tell their families. You get the police surgeon to look at them."

"Yes, sir," Palmer said stiffly. "You'll be goin' 'ome to put dry clothes on, no doubt?" He raised his eyebrows.

Monk had already learned that lesson. "I've got a dry shirt and coat in the cupboard. They'll do fine."

Orme turned away, but not before Monk had seen his smile.

Monk and Orme took a hansom from Wapping, westward along High Street. The lights intermittently flickered from the river and the hard wind whipped the smell of salt and weed up the alleys between the waterfront houses. They went around the looming mass of the Tower of London, then back down to the water again along Lower Thames Street. They finally crossed the river at the Southwark Bridge and passed through the more elegant residential areas until they came to the six-way crossing at St. George s Circus. From there it was not far to the Westminster Bridge Road and Walnut Tree Walk.

Informing the families of the dead was the part of any investigation that every policeman hated, and it was the duty of the senior man. It would be both cowardly and the worst discourtesy to the bereaved to delegate it.

Monk paid the driver and let him go. He had no idea how long it would take them to break the news, or what they might find.

The house where Toby Argyll had lived was gracious but obviously was let in a series of rooms, as suited single men rather than families. A landlady in a dark dress and wearing an apron opened the door, immediately nervous on seeing two men unknown to her standing on the step. Orme was of average height with pleasant, ordinary features, but he wore a river policeman's uniform. Monk was taller and had the grace of a man conscious of his own magnetism. There was power in his face, lean-boned with a high-bridged, broad nose and unflinching eyes. It was a face of intelligence, even sensitivity, but few people found it comfortable.

"Good evening, ma'am," he said gently. His voice was excellent, his diction beautiful. He had worked hard to lose the Northumbrian accent that marked his origins. He had wanted passionately to be a gentleman. That desire was long past, but the music in his voice remained.

"Evenin', sir," she replied warily.

"My name is Monk, and this is Sergeant Orme, of the Thames River Police. Is this the home of Mr. Toby Argyll?"

She swallowed. "Yes, sir. Never say there's bin an accident in one o' them tunnels.'" Her hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a cry. "I can't 'elp yer, sir. Mr. Argyll's not at ome."

"No, ma'am, there hasn't been, so far as I know," Monk replied. "But I'm afraid there has been a tragedy. I'm extremely sorry. Does Mr. Argyll live alone here?"

She stared at him, her round face paler now as she began to understand that they had come with the worst possible news.

"Would you like to go in and sit down?" Monk asked.

She nodded and backed away from him, allowing them to follow her along the passage to the kitchen. It was full of the aroma of dinner cooking, and he realized absently how long it was since he had eaten. She sank down on one of the hard-backed wooden chairs, putting her elbows on the table and her hands up to her face. There were pans steaming on the top of the huge black range, and the savory aroma of meat pie came from the oven beneath it. Copper warming pans glimmered on the wall in the gaslight, and strings of onions hung from the ceiling.

There was no point in delaying what she must already know was coming.

"I'm sorry to tell you that Mr. Argyll fell off the Waterloo Bridge," Monk told her. "Mrs?"

She looked at him, face blanched, eyes wide. "Porter," she supplied. "I looked after Mr. Argyll since 'e first come 'ere. 'Ow could 'e 'ave fallen orff the bridge? It don't make no sense! There's railings! Yer don't fall orff! Are yer sayin' 'e was the worse for wear an' went climbin', or summink daft?" She was shivering now, angry. "I don't believe yer.' 'E weren't like that.' Very sober, 'ard-workin' young gentleman, 'e were! Yer in't got the right person. Yer made a mistake, that's wot yer done!" She lifted her chin and stared at him. "Yer oughter be more careful, scarin' folks all wrong."

"There's no reason to suppose he was drunk, Mrs. Porter." Monk did not prevaricate. "The young man we found had cards saying he was Toby Argyll, of this address. He was about my height, or perhaps a little less, fair-haired, clean-shaven except for a mustache." He stopped. He could see by her wide, fixed eyes and the pinched look of her mouth that he had described Argyll. "I'm sorry," he said again.

Her lips trembled. "Wot 'appened? If 'e weren't drunk, 'ow'd 'e come ter fall in the river? Yer ain't makin' no sense!" It was still a challenge; she was clinging to the last shred of hope as if disbelieving could keep it from being true.

"He was with a young lady," he told her. "They seemed to be having a rather heated discussion. They grasped hold of each other and swayed a little, then she fell back against the rail. They struggled a little more-"

"Wot d'yer mean?" she demanded. "Yer sayin' as they was fightin', or summink?"

This was worse than he had expected. What had they been doing? What had he seen, exactly? He tried to clear his mind of all the ideas since then, the attempts to understand and interpret, and recall exactly what had happened. The two figures had been on the bridge, the woman closer to the railing. Or had she? Yes, she had. The wind had been behind them and Monk had seen the billowing skirts poking between the uprights of the balustrade. The woman had waved her arms and then put her hands on the man's shoulders. A caress? Or pushing him away? He had moved his arm, back and up. Pulling away from her? Or making a motion to strike her? He had grasped hold of her. To save her, or to push her?

Mrs. Porter was waiting, hugging herself, still shivering in the warm kitchen with its dinnertime smells.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "They were above us, outlined against the light, and almost two hundred feet away."

She turned to Orme. "Was you there too, sir?"

"Yes, ma'am," Orme replied, standing upright in the middle of the scrubbed floor. "An Mr. Monk's right. The more I think on it, the less certain I am as to what I saw, exact. It was in that sort of darkening time just before the lamps are lit. You think you can see, but you make mistakes."

" 'Oo were she?" she asked. "The woman wot went over with 'im."

"Was there someone you might expect it to be?" Monk parried. "If they were quarrelling?"

She was clearly unhappy. "Well… I don't like ter say…" Her voice trailed off.

"We know who it was, Mrs. Porter," Monk told her. "We need to know what happened, so we don't allow anyone to be blamed for something they didn't do."

"Yer can't 'urt 'em now," she responded, the tears trickling unheeded down her cheeks. "They're dead, poor souls."

"But they'll have family who care," he pointed out. "And burial in hallowed ground, or not."

She gasped and gave a convulsive shudder.

"Mrs. Porter?"

"Were it Miss 'Avilland?" she asked hoarsely.

"What can you tell me about her?"