Monk pushed himself up onto his feet. “Then I’ll reopen my investigation,” he said quietly. “And I’ll get Runcorn to reopen his.”
Rathbone smiled, the ease relaxing his body, hope in his eyes. “Thank you.”
Monk went directly to Runcorn’s office. It was still a long journey eastward and back across the river in a rising wind with sleet on the edge of it. Maybe it would snow for Christmas.
He met Runcorn at the door, just as he was leaving.
Runcorn saw his face and, without speaking, he turned back and went up the stairs to his office, motioning Monk to follow him. As soon as he closed the door, Monk repeated the essence of what Rathbone had told him. Runcorn did not interrupt until he was finished.
Runcorn nodded. He did not ask if Monk believed it.
“We’d better see if anyone knows where Zenia came from,” he said practically. “Trouble is, asking too many people. Better it doesn’t get back to Lambourn’s enemies that we’re still looking.”
Monk assumed for a moment that Runcorn was thinking of his own safety. Then a glance at his face, a memory of him in the firelight looking at Melisande, made him ashamed of the thought.
“Has anyone said anything to you?” he asked. He should have expected it, after the attack in the street, especially given what Rathbone had said about Sinden Bawtry being in court, and his conviction that Pendock was deliberately blocking him at every turn.
Runcorn gave a slight shrug. “Obliquely,” he said, treating it lightly, although Monk heard the slight rasp in his voice. “Not only a warning, more a thank-you in advance, for acting with discretion.”
Monk wondered if he should tell Runcorn that he would understand if he did not wish to pursue the matter. His career might be jeopardized. He remembered how much that had mattered to him in the past, how all the times the next step upward had been the goal.
“We’ll have to be careful.” Runcorn’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Check Zenia, not Lambourn. It would have been easier to check Lambourn’s career and see who he might have been close to and who died about fifteen years ago, but they’d spot that. Zenia’s not a common name. Be a lot harder if she were Mary or Betty.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Wonder if Gadney’s her maiden name, or married. D’you know?”
“We’ll check Gadney for deaths around fifteen years ago,” Monk replied with a sudden lift of enthusiasm. It would be good to work with Runcorn again, as he knew they had at the beginning of their careers. Runcorn would remember it. He wished he could. Perhaps he would have flashes of recall, as he’d had at the beginning of his amnesia, sudden jolts when something was desperately familiar, and for an instant he could see it clearly.
“Then we’d better start now.” Runcorn picked up his jacket again. “It could take awhile. How many more days does Rathbone think we have?”
“A week, maybe,” Monk replied. “He’ll drag it out as long as he can.” Neither of them needed to say that once the verdict was in it would be all but impossible to get the case reopened. Evidence would no longer sway a jury. It would have to be an error in law, or some new fact so irrefutable that no one could deny it, before they would overturn the court’s decision. Time was their enemy, along with the vested interests of money and reputation.
Obligatory civil records of births, deaths, and marriages had begun in 1838, twenty-six years ago. But to begin with there had been omissions, and there was always the possibility that an event had not taken place in the county. People made mistakes, misread a name or a number, mistook a 5 for an 8, or even a 3, and that altered everything. And, of course, people lied, especially about their age.
They left Runcorn’s office in Blackheath and went back across the river. As they sat hunched up in the ferry, their faces were stung with fine pellets of ice as the sleet drove westward off the water.
At Wapping they went ashore and took a cab west again. They rode in an oddly comfortable silence. There was no need to make conversation. Each was quietly consumed in thoughts of the case, and how much might rest on it.
They were conducted into the vast, silent storerooms of the registry office, and Monk began looking for a death in the name of Gadney, although neither of them had any idea what the man’s Christian name might be, or even the year of the death. He started fifteen years earlier and moved forward.
Runcorn began at that time and worked back.
They searched until both were bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed, then stopped for something to take away the taste of dust and paper in the air.
“Nothing,” Runcorn said, failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“We need to think again,” Monk admitted, returning the last heavy book to its place on the shelf. “Let’s do it in a pub with a decent lunch. I feel as if I can taste that ink.”
“Maybe Gadney’s her maiden name, not her husband’s,” Monk said a quarter of an hour later as they ate thick slices of fresh bread with crumbling Caerphilly cheese and pickles. They were both thirsty enough to get through a pint of cider and ask for a second. “They called her Mrs. Gadney, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the title was accurate.”
“Then his name could be anything.” Runcorn wiped crumbs off his mouth. “Did anyone mention an accent? Please don’t tell me she was Irish! We haven’t time to start looking for anything that far away.”
“No one mentioned it.” Monk reached for a piece of sharp-flavored apple pie, cooked till the slices of fruit were tender but still whole. “And I think they would have. Anyway, her birth would be before they kept general records. We’d have to go to the parish for the church register. What good would it do anyway? It doesn’t help to know where she was born.”
“It might,” Runcorn argued. “Women often get married wherever they grew up rather than where the husband lives.”
He was right. Once Monk would have argued, and then pointed out that it didn’t help anyway. Now he took it in its value simply as a word of encouragement to continue. He finished his cider. “You go on looking for anything with Gadney, a marriage with either bride or groom of that name. I’ll start tracing Lambourn’s career. See if anyone can remember who his friends were fifteen years ago. Someone might remember the name Gadney.”
Runcorn frowned heavily. “They’ll hear about it,” he warned. “How long do you think you have before it’s reported to Bawtry, or someone below him?” There was anxiety in his face. “I’ll come with you. Two of us’ll get there faster than one.”
Monk shook his head. “Look for the marriage. If Bawtry, or anyone else, questions what I’m doing, I’ve got a reason. Or I can think of one.”
“Like what?” Runcorn asked. His face reflected he knew the risk they were taking, and Monk was trying to protect him from it.
Monk thought for a moment. “Like I want to make sure the case against Dinah Lambourn is perfect.” He smiled with a little twist of irony. “I don’t mind lying to them.”
“Don’t get caught!” There was no answering humor in Runcorn’s eyes, only concern.
“I’ll meet you back here at six o’clock.” Monk stood up.
“What if I find something?” Runcorn asked quickly.
“Nothing I can do about it because I don’t know where I’ll be,” Monk answered. “Wait for me.”
Runcorn did not argue but rose as well and they went out together into the blustery afternoon.
Monk spent several exhausting and completely fruitless hours. As discreetly as he could he asked questions of people Lambourn had studied with, and stifled his impatience with difficulty. They were hard to track down, claiming to be too busy to spare him time. Perhaps they were embarrassed to discuss someone whose life had ended in such tragedy, but Monk could not help being crowded by the suspicion that they had been warned they would find great disfavor with their superiors if they were to be indiscreet. Doors that had been open before might inexplicably become closed to them in the future.