He tried to picture it, the gangs of men laboring to cut a track through the mountains in the middle of the bitter snow, thousands of miles from home, to relieve the armies who had no other way out. He dared not think of the soldiers, or of the incompetence which had brought about such a thing.
“You didn’t mention that before,” he said to her.
“Nothing brought it to mind,” she replied, stifling another yawn. “They were all volunteers, but I don’t think you’ll find it any different here. But look into it. See if there has ever been an accident caused by bad excavation or bad building of track. See if you can find a tunnel that caved in or a viaduct that collapsed or rails that were built on bad ground, or at the wrong incline, or anything else that was the navvies’ doing.”
“I will,” he agreed. “Now go to bed. You’ve done all you can.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. “Don’t think about the usurer and the women. There’s always going to be violence. You can’t stop it; all you can do is try to help the victims.”
“That seems pretty pathetic!” she said angrily.
“It’s like the police,” he said with a half-smile. “We never prevented crime from happening, we only caught people afterwards.”
“You took them to the courts!” she argued.
“Sometimes, not always. Do the best you can; don’t cripple yourself by agonizing over what you can’t reach.”
She conceded, giving him a quick, gentle kiss, and then all but stumbled her way to the bedroom.
Monk left the house and went into the city to begin searching for the information which would help him answer Katrina Harcus’s questions. He tried to concentrate, but nagging like a constant, dull toothache was the sight of his own name on the receipt of Baltimore and Sons from seventeen years before. He did not even think of denying it was his. He had recognized it beyond doubt, the familiar, bold writing, more assertive than now, written by the man he used to be, before he looked more closely at himself and knew how others perceived him.
He went to see a merchant banker for whom he had solved a small domestic mystery to his great satisfaction.
“Baltimore and Sons?” John Wedgewood said, hiding his curiosity with difficulty. They were sitting in his oak-paneled office. A crystal tantalus was on the side table, but Monk had declined whiskey. “Well-respected company. Financially sound enough,” Wedgewood went on. “A great tragedy, especially for the family. I take it that it is the family who has asked you to investigate? Don’t trust the police.” He pursed his lips. “Very wise. But you’ll need to move very swiftly if you are to forestall scandal.”
Monk had no idea what the man was talking about. It must have been clear from his face, because Wedgewood understood before Monk had time to frame a reply.
“Nolan Baltimore was found dead in a brothel in London,” Wedgewood said, puckering his brow with distaste, and something which might or might not have been sympathy. “I apologize. I rather leaped to the conclusion that you had been asked to find the truth of the matter before the police, and if possible to persuade them into some sort of discretion.”
“No,” Monk answered, wondering for an instant why he had not read about the case in newspaper headlines, then realizing the answer before the question was on his tongue. It must be the murder Hester had referred to, and which had set the police buzzing around the Farringdon Street area in what was very probably a hopeless quest. No doubt the press would learn the reason for all the activity soon enough. They had only to ask one of the local inhabitants sufficiently inconvenienced, and sooner or later the story would emerge, suitably dramatized.
“No,” he repeated. “I am interested in the reputation of the company, not Mr. Baltimore personally. How good is their work? What skill and honesty have their men?”
Wedgewood frowned. “In what regard?”
“All regards.”
“Are you asking on behalf of someone interested in investment?”
“In a manner of speaking.” It was true enough. Katrina Harcus was investing her life, her future, in Michael Dalgarno.
“Financially sound,” Wedgewood said without hesitation. “Weren’t always. Had a shaky spell fifteen or sixteen years ago, but weathered it. Don’t know what theirs was about specifically, but a lot of people did then. Great age of expansion. People took risks.”
“Their workmanship?” Monk asked.
Wedgewood looked a little surprised. “They use the traveling navvies, the same as everyone else. Platelayers, miners, masons, bricklayers, carpenters, and blacksmiths-all that sort of thing. And there are engine men and fitters, foremen, timekeepers, clerks, draftsmen and engineers.” He shrugged slightly, looking at Monk with puzzlement.
“But they’re all competent or they wouldn’t last. The men themselves see to that. Their lives depend on every man doing what he should, and doing it right. Best workmen in the world, and the world knows it! British navvies have built railways all over Europe and America, Africa, Russia, and no doubt will go to India and China as well, and South America too. Why not? They all need railways. Everybody does.”
Monk steeled himself to ask the question he dreaded. “What about accidents, crashes?”
“God knows how many men get killed in the construction.” Wedgewood pursed his lips, a flicker of anger and sadness in his eyes. “But I never heard of one that was down to poor building.”
“Substandard materials?” Monk asked.
Wedgewood shook his head. “They know their materials, Monk. No navvy is going to put in the wrong stone or wood, or anything else. They know what they’re doing. They have to. Don’t shore up a wall properly, or put in insufficient timber, and the whole lot will come down on top of you. It’s my business to know, and I’ve never heard an instance of navvies getting it wrong.”
“But there have been accidents!” Monk insisted. “Crashes, people killed!”
Wedgewood’s eyes widened. “Of course there have, God help us. Terrible ones. But they were nothing to do with the track.”
“What then?” Monk found himself holding his breath, not for Katrina Harcus but for himself. It was Arrol Dundas who filled his mind, and his own guilt in whatever had happened seventeen years ago.
“All sorts of things.” Wedgewood was looking at him curiously. “Driver error, overloaded wagons, bad brakes, signals wrong.” He leaned forward a little. “What are you after, Monk? If someone wants to invest in Baltimore and Sons all they have to do is ask in the financial community anywhere. They don’t need a private agent of enquiry for that. Any merchant banker would do.”
“I have a nervous client,” Monk admitted. “What about unsuitable land?”
“No such thing,” Wedgewood replied instantly. “Good navvies can build on anything, and they do. Sand. Swamps, even-it just costs more. They need to lay pontoons, or sink stilts until they come to bedrock. Are you sure you aren’t after his personal life?”
Monk smiled. “Yes, I am sure. The Baltimore family is not my client, nor is anyone related to them. I have no concern in his death unless it has to do with his railway’s honesty or safety.”
“I doubt it has,” Wedgewood said ruefully. “Just a very regrettable lapse of personal judgment.”
Monk thanked him and left to pursue the other idea nagging more and more insistently in his mind. Perhaps no one would risk a fraud in which one sharp-eyed navvy might betray him. And the amounts of profit he made might be small. Far easier and less dangerous, and certainly with more money to be made from it, would be something to do with the purchase of the land for the track.
He did not mention this to Hester. It was far more real, closer to him and not to be laid so easily at some anonymous door, although he had no memory he could pin down. There was nothing but a nameless anxiety, something dark at the back of his mind.