William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

pirates.”
    “You think Alberton sold them after all?” she asked very quietly. It was the thought she had been trying to avoid for several days. The tension of the trial had allowed her to; now it could no longer be held away. “Why would he do that? Judith would loathe it.”
    “Presumably he never intended her to know … or Casbolt either.”
    “But why?” she insisted. “Five hundred guns … what would they be worth?”
    “About one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds,” he answered. He had no need to add that that was a small fortune.
    “You looked at his company books,” she reminded him. “Could he possibly have needed that much?”
    “No. He was doing well. Up and down, of course, but overall it was very profitable.”
    “Down? You mean times when no one wanted to buy guns?” she said skeptically.
    “They dealt in other things as well, timbers and machinery particularly. But I wasn’t thinking of that. Guns were the main profit makers, but also the only bad loss.” They reached the curb. He hesitated, looked, then crossed. They were close to Fitzroy Street now. “Do you remember the Third China War you said Judith told you about the first night at the Albertons’ home?”
    “Over the ship and the French missionary?”
    “Not that one, the one after … only last year.”
    “What about it?” she asked.
    “It seems they sold some guns to the Chinese just before that, and because of the hostilities they were never paid. It wasn’t a large amount, and they made it up within a few months. But that was the only bad deal. He didn’t need to sell to pirates. Trace had paid him thirteen thousand pounds on account for the guns Breeland took, which, of course, will need to be paid back. Breeland says he paid the full price, around twenty-two thousand five hundred pounds. And there’s the ammunition as well, which would be over one thousand four hundred pounds. The profit on all that would be a fortune.” He shook his head a little. “I can’t see why he should feel compelled to sell another one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds’ worth of guns to pirates.”
    “Nor can I,” she agreed. “So where are they? And who killed Alberton, and who went down the river? And for that matter, where is Walter Shearer?”
    “I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “But I intend to find out.”
    “Good,” she said softly, turning the corner into Fitzroy Street. “We have to know.”
    In the morning Monk woke early and left without disturbing Hester. The sooner he started the sooner he might find some thread that would lead to the truth. As he walked towards Tottenham Court Road past the fruit and vegetable wagons heading for the market, he wondered if perhaps healready had that thread but had failed to recognize it. He rehearsed all he knew, going over it again in his mind, detail by detail, as he rode in a hansom across the river, ready to begin again the journey down to Bugsby’s Marshes.
    This time he did the trip hastily, concentrating more on the description of the barge, any distinguishing marks or characteristics it might have had. If it had returned even part of the way, surely someone must have seen it?
    It took him all morning to get as far as Greenwich, but he learned a little about the barge. It was large and yet still so heavily laden it rode almost dangerously low in the water. One or two men who were used to working on the river had noticed it for precisely that reason. They described the dimensions very roughly, but in the dark, even had there been any other distinguishing marks, no one saw them.
    From Morden Wharf, beyond Greenwich, he went by boat back across the river and up a little to Cubitt Tower Pier and then by road again past the Blackwall entrance to West India South Dock, still asking about the barge. He stopped for a tankard of cider at the Artichoke Tavern, but no one remembered the night of the Tooley Street murders anymore. It was too long ago now.
    He went increasingly despondently to the Blackwall Stairs, where he had a long conversation with a waterman who was busy splicing a rope, working with gnarled fingers and a skill at weaving and pulling with the iron spike which in its way was as beautiful as a woman making lace. It pleased Monk to watch, bringing back some faint memory of a long-distant past, an age of childhood by northern beaches, the smell of salt and the music of Northumbrian voices, a time he could not fully recall