Page 61 of Revenge in a Cold River (William Monk 21)

So that was it, beyond question now. He had been there.

“And then?” He left it hanging in the air. It was as if he had been struck by a wave, lifted right up out of the water, and then slammed back again, bruised and shocked, the breath knocked out of his lungs, but still alive.

“Then?” Gillander smiled. “Then I can see that you are still dangerous, but in quite a different way. You aren’t hunting anymore, not the way you used to.”

It was time to come to the point. “I’m hunting whoever is planning to rob Aaron Clive. I don’t want it to happen on my piece of river.”

Gillander laughed outright, a sound of pure pleasure. “Perhaps you haven’t changed all that much! Don’t give a damn if it happens somewhere else, eh?”

Monk evaded that question. “Do you know anything about it? Do you work for Clive, or against him?”

Gillander hesitated. Several expressions flickered across his face: deep emotion, unreadable, and then self-mockery. “Both,” he said finally. “I work mostly for Mrs. Clive.”

Monk grasped at an idea, part of a memory: Gillander staring at Miriam, a youth seeing the most beautiful woman in his life. “Does he know that?”

Gillander winced and color burned up his face in spite of himself. “You were always quick.”

Monk was seeing flashes, or inventing them, grasping for signs and clues as he went. “Was I?” he said thoughtfully. “I rather thought I had improved.”

“Oh, yes.” Gillander smiled again, it was an expression of peculiar charm. “I wouldn’t have trusted you half as far as I could have thrown you. But then I wouldn’t have trusted myself, either.”

Monk looked at Gillander carefully, at his handsome face, his easy manner. Had Monk really been like that, twenty years ago, from when he could remember nothing? He doubted he had ever had Gillander’s charm. It seemed far more than skin deep. There was wit in it, self-mockery, and perhaps a genuine emotion.

Did Monk have to know the man he used to be? He did not want to. And yet it would always be there in the shadows behind him.

“Did Clive dislike me?” he asked impulsively. He offered no explanation as to why he did not know for himself.

Gillander looked puzzled. “I’m not sure he liked or disliked anyone, after Zachary died. He changed then. It wasn’t obvious at first, but some light inside him went out.” He seemed to be searching for words. “He trusted Astley, but he was never close to him in the same way. Honestly, I didn’t see any reason to think he cared about you, one way or the other. What does it matter now?”

“Maybe it doesn’t.” Monk wished to change the subject. He was not yet desperate enough to ask any more. He

liked Gillander, but he would be a fool to trust him with any more than he had to. “Tell me again exactly what Owen said to you when you pulled him out of the water. Anything he let slip could help us piece together who is behind all this.”

“First off, he said his name was Pettifer, and that he was a customs officer,” Gillander said with a rueful smile.

Monk nodded, but allowed the skepticism to show in his face. “And what reason did he give for swimming across the river to you, rather than helping us capture the fugitive and take him in? I assume you did ask him?”

“Of course I asked him!” Gillander said a trifle tartly. “He never looked back even to see what was happening to you.”

“And what did he say? It must have been good, if you believed it.”

“It was good.” Gillander’s voice had an edge of irritation. “He said Owen was a lot bigger than he was, and stronger, and during questioning he, Pettifer, had realized that Owen had killed Blount, murdered him in cold blood, drowning him in the river, because he had betrayed the master plan they had, but he didn’t say what the plan was. Owen turned on him, and at the point you intercepted them, Owen was about to kill Pettifer as well. Considering the relative size of them, that was very believable.”

Monk pictured it, and realized that it made sense, if you believed that Owen was actually Pettifer. He was clearly a strong swimmer, but in any physical struggle between them, he would have lost to the bigger man, who was not only half his weight again, but also could have had at least six inches’ advantage of reach.

“Did he say where ‘Owen’ was supposed to have killed Blount?” he asked. “Or anything about this master plan he had?”

“He said he killed Blount down Deptford way, opposite the Isle of Dogs.”

“Drowned him?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Did he say who shot him?”

Gillander looked surprised. “Shot him? He was drowned…wasn’t he?”

“Yes. And then after he was dead, someone shot him in the back.”

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