Twisted Root - Anne Perry [26]
It was now four days since her disappearance, and getting more difficult to follow her path with each hour that passed. He took a hansom to Bayswater and began by seeking the local tradesmen who would have been around at the hour of the afternoon when Miriam fled.
He was lucky to find almost immediately a gardener who had seen the carriage and knew both the livery and the horses, a distinctive bay and a brown, ill-matched for color but perfect for height and pace.
"Aye," he said, nodding vigorously, a trowel in his hand. "Aye, it passed me going at a fair lick. Din’t see who were in it, mind. Wondered at the time. Knew as they ’ad a party on. See’d all the carriages comin’. Thought as someone were took ill, mebbe. That wot ’appened?"
"We don’t know," Monk replied. He would not tell anyone the Stourbridge tragedy, but it would be public knowledge soon enough, unless he managed not only to find Miriam but to persuade her to return as well, and he held no real hope of that. "Did you see which way they went?"
The gardener looked puzzled.
"The coachman seems to have stolen the coach and horses," Monk explained.
The gardener’s eyes widened. "Arrr." He sighed, shaking his head. "Never heard that. What a thing. What’s the world coming to?" He lifted his hand, trowel extended. "Went ’round that corner there. I never saw’d ’im after that. Road goes north. If ’e’d wanted to go to town, ’e’d ’a gone t’other way. Less traffic. Weren’t nobody after ’im. Got clean away, I s’pose."
Monk agreed, thanked him, and followed the way he had indicated, walking smartly to see if he could find the next sighting.
He had to cast around several times, and walked miles in the dusty heat, but eventually, footsore and exhausted, he got as far as Hampstead Heath, and then the trail petered out. By this time it was dusk and he was more than ready to find a hansom and go home. The idea held more charm than it had a month or two ago, when it would have been merely a matter of taking his boots off his aching feet and waiting for his landlady to bring his supper. Now the hansom could not move rapidly enough for him, and he sat upright watching the streets and traffic pass.
The next morning, Monk went early to the Hampstead police station. When he had been a policeman himself he could have demanded assistance as a matter of course. Now he had to ask for favors. It was a hard difference to stomach. Perhaps he had not always used authority well. That was a conclusion he had been forced to reach when his loss of memory had shown him snatches of his life through the eyes of others. It was unpleasant, and unexpectedly wounding, to discover how many people had been afraid of him, partly because of his superior skills, but far too often due to his cutting tongue. Anything he was given today would be a courtesy. He was a member of the public, no more.
Except, of course, if he had had occasion to come here in the past and they remembered him with unkindness. That thought made him hesitate in his step as he turned the corner of the street for the last hundred yards to the station doors. He had no idea whether they would know him or not. He felt the same stab of anxiety, guilt and anticipation that he had had ever since the accident and his realization of the kind of man he had been, and still was very often. Something in him had softened, but the hard tongue was still there, the sharp wit, the anger at stupidity, laziness, cowardice—above all, at hypocrisy.
He took a deep breath and went up the steps and in through the door.
The duty sergeant looked up, pleased to see someone to break his morning. He hated writing ledgers, though it was better than idleness—just.
" ’Mornin’, sir. Lovely day, in’t it? Wot can I do for you?"
"Good morning, Sergeant," Monk replied, searching the man’s pleasant face for recognition