Cain His Brother - Anne Perry [72]
“Down by the Cattle Wharf at Cold’arbour, often as not,” she replied. “Any’ow, that’s wot ’e said that time, why?” She looked back at him. “ ’Oo cares? ’E in’t there now! Why yer askin’ me all these things? Ask ’im! ’E knows w’ere ’e went!”
“Maybe he is still there,” Monk said, raising his eyebrows.
She drew breath to mock him, then saw the seriousness beneath his tone, and suddenly doubt entered her.
“Wot jer mean? Yer talkin’ daft!” She put her hands on her hips. “Look, wot jer come ’ere fer anyway? Wot jer want? If yer want Caleb, the more fool you! Go look fer ’im! If Angus sent yer, then tell me wot fer, an’ I’ll tell Caleb. ’E’ll come if ’e wants ter, and not if ’e don’t.”
There was no point in trying to trick her.
“No one has seen Angus since you did.” He looked her straight in the eyes—large, dark eyes with long lashes. “He never returned home.”
“ ’E never went …” Her face paled under its dirt and paint. “Wotcher sayin’? ’E never ran orff! ’E’s got everyfink ’ere. ’As ’e done summink? Is ’e on the run from the rozzers, then?” A flicker of both amusement and pity touched her mouth.
“I think it very unlikely,” he replied with an answering gleam of black laughter. Although even as he did so, he realized it was not a total impossibility, though it had never occurred to him before. “Far more probable that he is dead.”
“Dead!” Her face blanched. “Why would ’e be dead?”
“Ask Caleb!”
“Caleb?” Her eyes widened and she gulped hard. “That’s wot yer ’ere fer!” Her voice rose shrilly. “You fink as Caleb murdered ’im! ’E never! Why? Why’d ’e kill ’im arter all these years? It don’t make no sense.” But her mouth was dry and there was terror in her eyes. She stared at him, searching for some argument to convince him, but even as she did so, the hope faded and disappeared. She knew from his face that he had seen the knowledge in her. Caleb could very easily have killed his brother, and they both knew it—she from knowing Caleb, he from her eyes.
The kettle started to jiggle from the heat of the stove.
“Yer’ll never get ’im!” she said desperately, fear and protection equal in her now. “Yer’ll never take Caleb Stone.”
“Perhaps not. I’m more interested in proving Angus is dead.”
“Why?” she demanded. “That won’t prove it were Caleb, an’ it sure as ’ellfire won’t catch ’im … or ’ang ’im.” Her face was stricken and her voice had a thickness of emotion in it.
“So his wife can be treated like a widow,” he replied. “And his children be fed.”
She let out her breath. “Well in’t nuffin’ I can do, even if I were minded to.” She was struggling to convince him, and herself. She put too much certainty into it, torn by loyalties.
“You already have,” he replied. “I knew Angus was last seen here, going towards Blackwall Reach. No one ever saw him after that.”
“I’ll deny it!”
“Of course you will. Caleb’s your man. Even if he weren’t, you wouldn’t dare say it if he didn’t want you to.”
“I ’int afraid o’ Caleb,” she said defiantly. “ ’E wouldn’t ’urt me.”
He did not bother to argue. It was another thing they both knew was a lie.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Good-bye … for the moment.”
She did not answer. On the stove the kettle started to steam.
Monk left Manilla Street and went east through the West India Docks, the way Angus Stonefield must have gone, and spent all afternoon combing the docks and slums along the Isle of Dogs and the Blackwall Reach. Caleb Stone was known well enough, but no one was willing to say where he was. Most of them would not even commit themselves to when they had last seen him.
A knife grinder admitted to having spoken with him two days before, a chandler to having sold him rope a week ago, the keeper of the Folly House Tavern to seeing him regularly, but none of them knew where he was to be found at any specific time, and all spoke his name carefully, not necessarily with fear, but not lightly. Monk had no doubt whose side they would be on if there were ever a necessity to choose.
He left Blackwall at dusk, and was pleased to get back