Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

Rathbone had no idea what he was talking about. “Buboes?” he said.

“Black swellings,” Monk answered, his voice cracking. “They’re called buboes-that’s where we get the word bubonic .” He stopped abruptly.

The silence was as dense as fog while very slowly the meaning of what he had said sank into Rathbone and filled him with indescribable horror.

Monk was staring at him.

“Bubonic?” Rathbone whispered. “You don’t. . mean. .” He could not say it.

Monk nodded almost imperceptibly.

“But. . but that’s. . medieval. . it’s. .” Rathbone stopped again, refusing to believe it. He could not get his breath; his heart was hammering and the room was swaying around him, the edges of his vision blurred. He reached out his hands to grasp the desk as he overbalanced sideways and sat down hard and awkwardly, oblivious of bruising himself. “You can’t have that. . now! This is 1863! What do we do? How do they treat it? Who do we tell?”

“No one!” Monk said violently. He was between Rathbone and the door, and he looked as if he would physically prevent him from leaving, with force if necessary. “For God’s sake, Rathbone; Hester’s in there! If anyone got even an idea of it they’d mob the place and set fire to it! They’d be burned alive!”

“But we have to tell someone!” Rathbone protested. “The authorities. Doctors. We can’t treat it if no one knows!”

Monk leaned forward; his voice was shaking. “There is no treatment. Either they survive it or they don’t. All we can do is raise money to buy food, coal, and medicines for them. We have to contain it, at any cost at all. If we don’t, if even one person gets out carrying it, it will spread throughout London, throughout England, then the world. In the Middle Ages, before the Indian Empire or the opening up of America, it killed twenty-five million people in Europe alone. Imagine what it would do now! Do you see why we must tell no one?”

It was impossible, too hideous for the mind to grasp.

“No one!” Monk repeated. “They have men with pit bulls patrolling day and night, and anyone attempting to leave will be torn to pieces. Now do you see why I have to find out if the disease came in on the Maude Idris , and if Hodge died of the plague, and his head was beaten in so no one would think to look for any other cause of death? He was buried straightaway. I don’t know whether Louvain knew about him or the Clark woman or not. I have to find the source. I can’t let Gould be hanged for something he didn’t do, but not ever, even to save his life, can I tell what I know. Do you see?”

Rathbone found it almost impossible to move or speak. The room seemed to be far away from him, as if he were dreaming rather than seeing it. Monk’s face was the only steady thing in his sight, at once familiar and dreadful. Seconds ticked by in which he expected at any instant to wake up in a sweat and a tangle of bedclothes.

It did not happen. He heard hooves in the street outside, and the hiss of carriage wheels in the rain. Someone shouted. It was all real. There was no rescue, no escape.

“Do you see?” Monk repeated.

“Yes,” Rathbone replied at last. He was beginning to. There was no one to help; no one could. He frowned. “Nothing they can do? Doctors? Even now?”

“No.”

“What do you want from me?” He refused to visualize it; the reality was more than he could endure. He needed to be busy. It would excuse him from knowing anything else; he would be doing what he could. “Did you say the man’s name was Gould-the thief, I mean?”

“Yes. He’s held at Wapping. The man in charge is called Durban. He knows the truth.”

Rathbone was jolted. “The truth? You mean he knows whether Gould killed Hodge or not?”

“No! He knows how Ruth Clark died!” Monk said sharply. “He knows we have to find the rest of the crew from the Maude Idris . He and I have been looking, and we haven’t found any trace of them yet.”

“God Almighty! Aren’t they on the ship?” Rathbone exclaimed.

“No. The crew now is only skeleton, just four men, including Hodge. They were supposedly enough to guard it until it can come in for unloading,” Monk replied.

Rathbone gulped, his heart pounding in his chest. “Then they could be anywhere! Carrying. .” He could not even say it.

“That’s why I haven’t time to search for the truth to clear Gould,” Monk answered, still looking at Rathbone steadily.

Rathbone started to ask what one man mattered when the whole continent was threatened with extinction, and in a manner more hideous than the worst nightmare imaginable. Then he knew that in its own way, it was the shred of sanity they had to cling to. It was one thing that perhaps was within their power, and in that they could hold on to reason, and hope. When he spoke his voice was rough-edged, as if his throat pained him. “I’ll do what I can. I’ll go and see him. If I can’t find out who did kill Hodge, at least I may be able to raise reasonable doubt. But isn’t there something else I can do? Anything. .”

Monk blinked. There was not even the ghost of his usual humor in his face. “If you believe in any kind of God, I mean really believe, not as a Sunday conformity, you could try praying. Other than that, probably nothing. If you ask your friends for money for Portpool Lane, and you haven’t before, they’ll become suspicious, and we can’t afford that.”

Rathbone froze. Margaret might go to the clinic. He felt the blood draining from his body. “Margaret. .” he whispered.

“She knows,” Monk said very quietly. “She won’t go in.”

Rathbone began to see the full horror of it. Hester was in Portpool Lane, imprisoned beyond all human help. Monk knew it, even as he tried to reassure Rathbone about Margaret, while he himself could do nothing but try to find the rest of the crew. Rathbone could only try to save one thief from hanging for a murder he probably had not committed. And Margaret could do no more than struggle to raise, from a blind society which could never be told the truth, enough money to provide food and heat as long as there were survivors, and do it without telling anyone the truth-not even him.

“I understand,” he said quietly, overwhelmed with gratitude-and shame. “I’ll give her money myself, but I’ll ask no one else. Speak to me when you can, and if there is anything else I can do, tell me.” He stopped abruptly, not knowing how to offer Monk money without offending him. And yet it was absurd to let a fear of asking stand between them now.

“What is it?” Monk asked.

Rathbone put his hand in his pocket and pulled out six gold sovereigns and small change in silver. He passed over the sovereigns. “In case you need it for transport, or anything else. I don’t imagine Louvain is still paying you.”

Monk did not argue. “Thank you,” he said, picking up the coins and putting them in the inside pocket of his coat. “I’ll tell you what I find, if I do. If you want me for anything, leave a message at the River Police station at Wapping. I’ll call in there, or Durban will.” He stood up slowly, as if he were stiff and it hurt to move. He smiled very slightly, to rob his words of offense. “Nobody’s going to pay you for defending Hodge.”

Rathbone shrugged and did not bother to reply.

As soon as Monk left, Rathbone poured himself a full glass of brandy, then looked at it for a moment, seeing the light burn through its golden depths like a topaz in a crystal balloon. Then he thought of Monk going out alone to the dark river and the backstreets where he must look for a ship’s crew carrying death, leaving Hester in a place which must surely be as close to hell on earth as was possible, and he poured the brandy back into the decanter, his shaking hand spilling a little of it.