Anne Perry - Death Of A Stranger

He turned his horse to head up the track and around the long slope of the hill back toward the ostlers’ where he had hired it, and the railway station back to London.

Where would he find the history of Dundas’s bank and its dealings? He did not even know in which city they had been headquartered. It could be any of a dozen or more. Presumably, Dundas would have been imprisoned at the closest place to the court in which he was tried, and that in turn would be the nearest large city to the scene of the fraud itself.

Or could it be where the principal investors banked?

He was still considering where to begin when he rode into the ostlers’ yard and dismounted reluctantly. It was a good animal and he had enjoyed riding, even though it brought the best memories, cutting sharp with loss.

He paid the ostler and walked out of the yard with its smells of leather, straw, and horses, and the sounds of hooves on stone and men’s voices soft as they talked to animals. He did not look back, he did not want to see it, although it was clear in his mind.

The stationmaster was on the platform, standing almost at attention with his tall top hat shining in the sun and his Crimean medals on his chest. Monk did not know what each one meant, but Hester would have.

He spoke to the man briefly, then paced the platform waiting for the next train. His original intention had been to return to London with whatever further information he had for Katrina Harcus. The promise he had made her was still strong in his mind. At least he was one step further forward in that. Like the other, this present railway was also rerouted around a hill that had been falsely surveyed. It would have been perfectly possible, and cheaper, to have blasted through it, first by cuttings, then if necessary tunneling.

If necessary?

Something else tugged at his memory, something about grid references for areas on the map, but he could not unravel it. Everything he caught hold of slipped meaninglessly out of his mind, taking him nowhere.

He heard the train before it came into sight around the curve in the track, shining, roaring, billowing steam, and drew to a halt with a hiss and clank of metal. The driver was grinning. The stoker, smut-stained, wiped a heavy hand across his brow, smearing coal dust on his skin.

There was a bang of opening and closing doors. Someone struggled with a wooden box. A porter ran forward.

Monk climbed into a second-class carriage again, and sat down on one of the hard wooden seats. A few minutes later the whistle blew and the train jolted forward and began to pick up speed.

The journey to London seemed endless, full of stops where he could get off, stretch his legs and get on again. They rattled over the rails, rhythmically jolted from side to side. He drifted into sleep filled with dreams, and woke stiff and aware of waiting for something terrible. He forced himself to stay awake, eyes wide open, watching the countryside slide past him.

Was Katrina right, and Nolan Baltimore had discovered the land fraud, and Dalgarno had murdered him to keep him silent? But the old receipt with Monk’s name on it was from seventeen years ago, and the fraud that had ruined Arrol Dundas had happened shortly after that, long before Dalgarno could possibly have had any position with the company at all. He would barely have been out of school.

Had that first fraud been practiced on Baltimore and Sons at all? Or was Monk’s connection with them coincidence? If Dundas’s bank had made a business of financing railways, he might have been connected with many.

But the fraud was the same! Or it seemed the same. He could remember the rabbits, the rerouting on the longer track, the protestors, the anger, the questions as to which land was to be used, and the accusations of profiteering.

Was he transplanting all that from the past, and his own broken memory, into the present where it did not belong?

No. Katrina Harcus had come to him because she had overheard Dalgarno and Jarvis Baltimore talking of large and dangerous profits that must be kept secret, and she feared fraud. That was fact, nothing to do with memory, true or false, and very much in the present. As was Nolan Baltimore’s murder, whether it had anything to do with the railway or not.

The train pulled into Euston at last, and Monk got out and hurried along the platform, jostled by tired and impatient travelers.

The huge space beyond the platform, arched over by a magnificent roof, was filled with peddlers, people hurrying to catch outgoing trains, porters with boxes and cases, friends and relatives come to meet those arriving or to wish good-bye to those leaving. Coachmen looked for their masters or mistresses.

A paperboy was calling out the latest news. Hurrying past him, Monk heard something about the Union troops in America having captured Roanoke Island on the Kentucky border. The violence and tragedy of that war seemed very far away; the searing heat and dust and blood of the battle he and Hester had been caught up in were in another world now.

When at last he got home he found Hester asleep, curled over in the bed as if she had reached to touch him and found him not there. One arm was still outstretched.

He stood still for several moments, hesitating whether to waken her or not. The fact that she did not stir, unaware of him, told him how tired she must be. There were times when his own impulse would have woken her anyway. She would not have minded. She would have smiled and turned to him.

Now he resisted. What would he say to her? That he had found nothing in Derby except ghosts of familiarity that he could not place? That there was a crash in the past which was so terrible he could neither remember it nor forget it, and he dared not look at the reasons because he was afraid that they involved some kind of guilt, but he had no idea for what? And he had nothing yet that would help his client.

He turned away and went to wash, shave, and change into clean clothes. Hester was still asleep when he left to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens to meet with Katrina Harcus.

It was a bright, windy, March afternoon and a score of people had chosen to spend it admiring the early flowers, the vivid green of the grass, and the giant trees, still bare, wind gusting noisily through the branches. In spite of the brilliant light, the ladies had abandoned parasols. As it was, now and again both hands were needed to keep hats in place and skirts from being whipped and lifted above petticoats.

He saw Katrina after a moment. There was a distinction about her bearing which marked her out. Apparently she recognized him just as quickly and came over without any pretense that it was a casual meeting.

Her face was flushed, but that might have been the wind and sun rather than any expectation so soon.

“Mr. Monk!” She stopped in front of him breathlessly. “What have you learned?”

An elderly gentleman out walking alone turned and smiled at them indulgently, no doubt mistaking it for a lovers’ meeting. Another couple walking arm in arm nodded and moved even closer to each other.

“Very little, Miss Harcus,” he replied quietly. This was not a conversation he wished overheard.

Her eyes dropped and disappointment filled her face, too acute to be concealed.

“I have made enquiries about workmanship and materials,” he went on. “From what I have heard, the railway navvies are too skilled to use inadequate materials of any kind. Not only their reputations and future livelihood would depend on it, but their lives at the time. They have built railways all over the world, and there is no known example of a bad one anywhere.”

She lifted her eyes quickly to gaze into his face. “Then where is the secret profit coming from?” she demanded. “This is not enough, Mr. Monk! If the materials are good, then perhaps there was dishonesty in acquiring them?” She was watching him intently, her face burning with emotion. He realized again how deeply she was in love with Dalgarno, and how terribly afraid that he would be driven into crime and then ruined by it, not only morally but in every other way, perhaps even to end in prison like Arrol Dundas. Monk knew the bitterness of that only too well. It was one thing of which even his shattered memory had not completely let go.