Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [101]
“Course I don’t, or I’d a’ told yer. But yer said yer traced it down this far, an’ a blind man can see yer think it ’ad suffink valuable in it, suffink stolen.”
Monk was impatient.
“Well, ’aven’t yer asked them wot ’as the barge?” the waterman said, shaking his head.
“Asked …” Then it struck Monk almost like a physical blow. He had followed the trail of the barge as far as Bugsby’s Marshes, but his mind had been fixed on Breeland and the guns. He had not thought of the barge’s returning upstream to wherever it was now! That might provide proof of Shearer’s complicity, and if not where he was now, then at least where he had gone after the murders. Monk could have kicked himself for not having done that straightaway. It seemed Lanyon had not thought of it either. They had both been so convinced that catching Breeland was everything, it had not seemed to matter. Presumably, Breeland’s undenied possession of the guns, plus his watch at the scene, had been proof enough without finding out where he had hired the barge, and from whom. That in itself was not incriminating. Breeland would claim he had done so in the hope of being able to purchase the guns in the usual way.
But now it mattered.
“Yes,” he said grudgingly. It pricked him to be taught the obvious by a river man whose job it was to row boats and understand tides. “Yes, I’ll trace the barge back up. Thank you.”
The river man grinned and pushed his cap back farther on his head before picking up his oars again and pulling away.
But even though he spent that evening until dusk, and all the day after, Monk found no trace of the barge’s return journey, nor did the river police know anything about a barge stolen or missing.
“ ’Appens,” a gap-toothed sergeant told him, standing on the dockside in the sun, the tide lapping high at the pier stakes below them. “Mebbe it was stole from someone as stole it ’emselves, so they couldn’t say much. Or could be it were put back afore it were missed?”
“Or maybe it belonged to whoever used it,” Monk added. “They might have been well paid to keep silent.”
“Could be,” the sergeant agreed glumly. “Daresay yer’ll never know. Sorry I can’t ’elp yer. I can’t even tell yer w’ere ter begin. There’s ’undreds o’ wharfs an’ docks along the river, an’ scores of ’em ’d do yer a favor, if yer paid ’em right, an’ keep their mouths shut.”
Monk stared across the busy river, light reflecting off the gray water between strings of barges going upstream with the incoming tide. They carried goods from all over the world, everything from timber, coal and machinery, to silks, spices and exotic furs, perhaps cotton from the Confederate states to feed the mills of Manchester and the north, and tobacco for the gentlemen’s cigars in Mayfair and Whitehall.
A pleasure boat passed, decks lined with people, their straw hats on against the sun, scarves and handkerchiefs bright. Somewhere a hurdy-gurdy was playing. The air smelled of salt and fish and a whiff of tar.
“Do you know an agent named Shearer?” Monk asked.
The sergeant thought for a few moments. “Tall feller, thin, long nose an’ a lot o’ teeth?” he asked. “Crooked at the front, like?”
“Actually, I don’t know. I’ve not met him.” And he had not seen Judith Alberton to ask her for a physical description. “He worked for Daniel Alberton, in Tooley Street.”
“That’s the one. Sharp feller. Very quick ter see the advantage in anything.”
“Do you know him, professionally, I mean?”
“Criminally, like? No. Too fly for that, an’ no need, as I can see. Jus’ ’eard of him up an’ down the river.”
“Do you know anything else about him?” Monk pressed him. “Do you know where he came from? Has he any political beliefs?”
“Political beliefs?” The sergeant looked startled. “Like wot? Anarchist, or the like? Never ’eard ’e were dangerous, ’ceptin’ if yer crossed ’im over money. Could be nasty then, but so can a lot o’ folk.”
“I was thinking of sympathies with either side in the American civil war.” Monk knew it sounded ridiculous as he said it, standing side by side with this river sergeant watching the