William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

writing.
    The attendant was at his elbow to tell him they were closing when he saw the name Dundas, and then the rest of it: He had died of pneumonia in prison in Liverpool, April 1846.
    He closed the book and turned to the man. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “That’s all I need. I’m obliged to you.” Irrational how seeing it in cold writing like that made it so much more real. It took it out of imagination and memory and into the world of indelible fact that the world knew as well as he.
    He strode out of the door, down the steps and along the street back to the station, where he bought a ham sandwich and a cup of tea while he waited for the last train north.

    When the night train pulled into Liverpool Lime Street just before dawn, Monk got off shivering cold, his body stiff, and went to buy himself a hot drink and something to eat, then to look for some sort of lodgings where he could wash and shave and put on a clean shirt before he began to look for the facts of the past.
    It was still far too early to find any records office open, but he knew without asking where the prison was. By seven o’clock it was gray daylight with a stiff wind coming up off the Mersey. All around him people were hurrying to work, steps swift, heads down. He heard the flat, nasal Liverpool voices with the lift at the end of each sentence, the dry humor, the cheerful complaints about the weather, the government, the prices of everything, and found it all oddly familiar. Even the slang he understood. He took a hansom and simply directed the driver, street by street, until the dark walls towered over them and memories came surging back like the flood tide of the sea, the smell of the wet stones, the sound of rain in the gutter, the unevenness of the cobbles and the chill wind around the corners.
    He told the driver to wait, climbed out, and stood staring at the locked gates. He had been here before so many times in Dundas’s last days, even the pattern of light and shadow on the walls was familiar.
    More powerful than the blackness of the stone around him, and the smell of ingrained dirt and misery, was the old feeling of helplessness come back with shattering force, as if the air were thin in his lungs, starving him of breath.
    He stood motionless, fighting to grasp something tangible—words, facts, details of anything—but the harder he tried the more completely it all eluded him. There was only the suffocating emotion.
    Behind him, the cab horse shifted its weight, iron shoes loud on the cobbles, harness creaking.
    There was nothing to be gained here. Remembered pain did not help. He had not doubted the truth of it. He needed something he could follow.
    He walked slowly back to the hansom and climbed in.
    “I want to look at old newspapers,” he told the driver. “Sixteen years ago. Take me wherever they are.”
    “Library,” the driver replied. “Less yer want the law courts?”
    “No, thank you. The library will do.” If he had to ask for a transcript of the trial he would, but he was not ready for that yet. To see such a thing he would have to give his name and his reasons. The newspapers were an anonymous way of learning, and he despised himself even as the thought was in his mind. Still, he knew it was self-preservation to guard against all the hurt he could. Pain was disabling, and he had to keep his promise to Katrina Harcus.
    There was no one else interested in old records so early in the day, and he had the newspaper files to himself. It took no more than fifteen minutes to locate the trial of Arrol Dundas. He already knew the date of Dundas’s death, so he worked backwards. There was the headline: FINANCIER ARROL DUNDAS ON TRIAL FOR FRAUD.
    He turned to the beginning and read.
    It was exactly as he had feared. The print swam before his eyes, but he could have recited the words as if they were in inch-high capitals. There was even a pen-and-ink sketch of Dundas in the dock. It was brilliant. Monk did not have to hesitate for an instant to wonder if it portrayed the man as he had been. It was so vivid; the charm, the dignity, the inner grace were all there, caught in a few lines, and the fear and weariness in the face, fine features become gaunt, nose too prominent, hair a fraction too long, folds in the skin too deep, making him look ten years older than the sixty-two the words proclaimed.
    Monk stared at it and was back in the courtroom again, feeling the press of bodies around him, the noise, the smell