Anne Perry: Blood on the Water

Twenty minutes later, skin toweled hard enough to hurt, in clean, dry clothes, but still conscious of the stench of the river on his skin and in his hair, Monk sat near the stove and sipped his tea. It was piping hot, and at least half whisky. Orme was in the chair beside him, and Jackson was fussing over the next men to come in.

“That explosion,” Orme said grimly, pulling a face as the tea burned his mouth, “couldn’t have been the boiler. The explosion came from the bow, nowhere near the engines. So what the devil was it?”

“Can’t see any other way it could’ve been an accident,” Monk said. “That only leaves sabotage.”

Orme scowled. “Why, sir? What kind of a madman would blow up a pleasure boat? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Monk thought about it for several moments. He was exhausted. Few ideas made sense. Why would anyone intentionally sink a pleasure boat? There was no cargo to steal or destroy, only people to kill. Was it an enmity against the owners of the boat? A business rivalry or vendetta? Or perhaps a grudge against some guests on the boat? Was it political? Or even an act of war by some insane foreign power or a group of anarchists?

“I don’t know yet. Perhaps someone who hates Britain,” Monk said finally. “There are a few of those.” He finished the last of his tea and stood up, stumbling a little but quickly regaining his balance.

The door swung open and Hooper came in. He was a tall, loose-limbed man and was shedding water with every step. His face was haggard with grief. He didn’t say a word, but folded himself up into one of the chairs as Jackson stood up to fetch him tea.

“We’d better go and speak to the survivors,” Monk said quietly to Orme. “Somebody must have seen something. Big question is-did whoever did it escape, or did they intend to go down with the boat?” He put his hand on Hooper’s shoulder for a moment. Words between them were unnecessary.

Orme set his mug down. “God help us, we really are talking about madness, aren’t we?”

Monk did not bother to answer. He walked out into the night, his face cold again after the warmth of the room. In the clear sky moonlight spread a silver path across the river and the dark debris floating on its surface. He shivered at the thought that the boats still out there were only picking up bodies now, although most of the dead would be trapped in the wreck, settling into mud on the riverbed.

As he moved across the open space toward the dockside he thought of what he must do, and dreaded it. But it was inescapably his job. He was Commander of the Thames River Police. Any crime on the river was his responsibility, and this was the worst incident in living memory. There must have been the best part of two hundred people on the boat. The bereaved would be numerous. At the moment the whole tragedy seemed chaotic, senseless. Where could he begin?

Coleman, one of his own men, approached him in the dark. Monk could hardly see his face, but his voice when he spoke was rough-edged, only just in control.

“Looks like we saved about fifty, sir. Got most of them here on the north bank.” He coughed, his throat tight. “Put ’em anywhere we can. You could start with that warehouse over there, Stillman’s. A lot of survivors there and they’re making room for more, if there are any. All sorts ’ave come with blankets, clothes, tea, whisky, anything that can help.” He coughed again. “Got half a dozen sent to hospital, too, but I can’t see how they’ll make it. That water’s like to poison you even if you don’t drown in it.”

“Thank you, Coleman.” Monk nodded and walked on. The warehouse was close. He needed to put his emotions aside and concentrate on the questions he had to ask and the answers he needed to know to begin to make sense of this.

He picked his way between the boxes, kegs, and bales outside in the warehouse yard. He went up the step to the cracks of light he could see around the door.

Inside, the warehouse was lit by bull’s-eye lanterns, and there were a dozen or so people lying on the floor wrapped in blankets. Several women were ministering to them with hot drinks and towels, in some cases rubbing their arms and legs, all the time talking to them gently. Only a few glanced up at Monk’s entry. He did not look like a policeman; he was exhausted, unshaven, and dressed in ill-fitting waterman’s clothes.

“My name is Monk,” he introduced himself to a woman carrying towels and bandages. “River Police. We need to find out what happened. Which of these people can I speak to?” he asked.

“Does it have to be now?” the woman said sharply. Her face was gray with fatigue, eyes red-rimmed. There were stains of dirt and blood down the front of her dress.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Before they forget.”

Another, older, woman rose to her feet from where she had been helping a man sip a hot drink. She was strongly built, her clothes so worn they were faded in patches where the pattern had been rubbed off the cloth. In the yellow light of the lantern her face suggested not only weariness but disgust.

“It’s unlikely they’ll forget!” she said between her teeth. “They will probably relive it the rest of their lives!”

“None of us will forget the horror,” Monk answered her quietly. “But it wasn’t an accident. I need to know who did this, and for that I need details only they can provide.”

“Find whoever built the damn boat!” she retorted bitterly, turning away from him and towards a man cradling a broken arm.

Monk put his hand on her arm, holding her firmly. He felt her tense and then pull against him. “It was an explosion,” he said between his teeth. “The whole bow blew out; there was a hole in it you could drive a coach and four through.”

She turned back to him, her eyes wide. “Who told you that?”

“No one. I was on the river, a hundred yards away. I saw it.”

The woman crossed herself, as if to ward off an unimaginable evil. “Don’t keep ’em long,” was the only thing she said.

Slowly Monk went with her from one to another of them, helping her to hold them up, to keep the blankets around them. He refilled cups and mugs with tea and as much whisky as he dared, all the while gaining the halting accounts of what little they knew. There were few facts to be had. Everyone agreed that there had been no warning. One moment they were laughing and talking, listening to the music, watching the lights, flirting, telling jokes. The next there was a deafening noise. Some found themselves in the water almost immediately. Others recalled scrambling across the deck and jumping as the whole boat seemed to heave them off.

Most of them had tales of how they were rescued, the despair as the water washed over them, then the feeling of relief as hands grasped theirs, all but wrenching their arms from the sockets as they were pulled upward, gasping and trying to stammer their gratitude. Others had clung onto wreckage for what seemed like ages until a barge or a ferry made its third or fourth rescue journey.

One man in a torn shirt broke down and wept. He had been on the deck with his wife. The very first shock of the explosion had separated them and he had not seen her again. Monk wanted to offer him some hope, but even before he spoke the words he cringed at how meaningless they were. After all, how would he have felt had it been his own wife, Hester?

If Hester had drowned then he would wish he had too. Melodramatic? Perhaps. But he could not even imagine the pain of never seeing her again, or touching her, never being able to speak to her, hear her footsteps in the house. Never sharing anything more with her.

He gripped the man’s hand and let him weep, holding on to him as if he, too, were drowning.

All the survivors he spoke to were men, except one. It was more than just greater physical strength that had saved the men rather than the women. It was the complete inability of the women to fight free of the heavy, wet skirts wrapped around them.