William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

that, she had liked Judith Alberton and was distressed to think of the amount of embarrassment and pain that might be caused to the family were scandal to be created over the circumstances of Alberton’s help to Alexander Gilmer.
    Monk set out early to go to Little Sutton Street in Clerkenwell, where Alberton had told him Gilmer had died. It was only eight o’clock as he walked rapidly towards Tottenham Court Road to find a hansom, but the streets were full of all kinds of traffic: cabs, carts, wagons, drays, coster-mongers’ barrows, peddlers selling everything from matches and bootlaces to ham sandwiches and lemonade. A running patterer stood on the corner with a small crowd around him while he chanted a rough doggerel verse about the latest political scandal and caused roars of laughter. Someone threw him a coin and it flashed for a moment in the sun before he caught it.
    The musical call of a rag and bone man sounded above the noise of hooves and the rumble of wheels over the rough road. Harness clinked as a brewer’s dray went by laden with giant barrels. The air was heavy with the smells of dust, horse sweat and manure.
    Monk glanced at a newsboy’s headlines, but there wasnothing about America. The last he had heard was the rumor that the real invasion of the Confederate states was not to take place until the autumn of this year. Back in mid-April President Lincoln had proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederate coast right from South Carolina to Texas, then later extended it to include Virginia and North Carolina. Fortifications had been begun to protect Washington.
    Today was Tuesday the twenty-fifth of June. If anything had happened since then more than the occasional skirmish, news of it had not yet reached England. That took roughly from twelve days to three weeks, depending upon the weather and how far it had to travel overland first.
    He saw an empty hansom and waved his arm, shouting above the general noise. When the driver pulled the horse up Monk gave him the address of the Clerkenwell police station. He had already considered how he intended to begin. He did not suppose either Alberton or Casbolt was lying to him, although clients certainly had in the past and no doubt would again. But even the best-intentioned people frequently make mistakes, omit important facts, or simply see an incomplete picture and interpret it through their own hopes and fears.
    The cab arrived at the police station; Monk alighted, paid the fare and went in. Even five years after the accident, and with so much of a new life built, he still felt a surge of anxiety, the unknown returning to remind him of those things he had discovered about himself. Right from the beginning he had had flashes of familiarity, moments of recollection which vanished before he could place them. Most of what he knew was from evidence and deduction. He had left his native Northumberland for London, and begun his career as a merchant banker, working for a man who had been his friend and mentor, until his ruin for a crime of which he was innocent, although Monk had been unable to help him prove it. That had been the force which had driven Monk into the police and away from the world of finance.
    Too many discoveries had made it evident that he hadbeen a brilliant policeman, but with a ruthless streak, even cruel at times. Juniors had been afraid of his tongue, which had been too quick to criticize, to mock the weaker and the less confident. It was something he disliked, and of which he could at last admit, even if only to himself, he was ashamed. A quick temper was one thing, to demand high standards of courage and honesty was good, but to ask of a man more than his ability to give was not only pointless, it was cruel, and in the end destructive.
    Every time he went into an unfamiliar police station, he was aware of the possibility that he would meet another reflection of himself he would not like. He dreaded recognition. But he refused to let it shackle him. He went in through the door and up to the desk.
    The sergeant was a tall man, middle-aged, with thin hair. There was no expression in his face but polite interest.
    Monk breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Mornin’, sir,” the sergeant said pleasantly. “What can I do to help you?”
    “Good morning,” Monk replied. “I need some information about an incident that happened in your area some months ago. A friend of mine is threatened with involvement in a scandal. Before I undertake to