The Sins of the Wolf

chapter 12
Monk and Hester were easily agreed that they also would go to church on Sunday morning. Monk had no intention of worshiping. It was not a subject to which he had given any thought, but it was another opportunity to observe the Farralines. He did not ask Hester her reasons. Presumably they were similar.

They had walked up from the Grassmarket, allowing plenty of time, having previously ascertained the time of the service, and arrived as the congregation was assembling.

They filed in behind a stout matron, leaning on the arm of a grim-faced man carrying his hat in his hand. This couple nodded to acquaintances, and received several acknowledgments in return. Everyone looked extremely sober.

Hester glanced around. It was difficult to recognize the Farraline women because they all wore hats, naturally. To go to church without a hat and gloves would be tantamount to arriving naked. It was easier to distinguish the men; hair color and bearing differed markedly. It did not take her long to find Alastair's fair head with its faintly thinning patch towards the crown.

As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned half towards them, but apparently it was to nod to the eouple just ahead of them.

"Good morning, Fiscal," the woman said grimly. "A fine day, is it not?" It was a ritual remark. It was beginning to rain and getting rapidly colder.

"Indeed, Mrs. Bain," he replied. "Very agreeable. Good morning, Mr. Bain."

"Good morning, Fiscal." The man inclined his head respectfully and moved on.

"Poor creature," the woman said as soon as they were past. "What a business for him."

"Hold your peace, Martha," the man said crisply. "I'll not have you gossiping in here of all places. And on the Sabbath too. You should not be talking in kirk at all."

She blushed angrily, but refused to defend herself.

Hester bit her lip with vicarious frustration.

Monk took her arm and led her, with some difficulty and several apologies for injured dignity and trodden toes, into the pew two rows behind the Farralines. Hester bent her head to pray, and he followed her example, at least outwardly.

More and more people arrived, several glancing at Monk and Hester with surprise and irritation. It was some time before either of them realized that apparently they had taken a place which by custom and tacit rule belonged to someone else. They did not move.

Monk watched, noticing how many people nodded or otherwise paid deference to Alastair. Those who spoke addressed him in a whisper, and by his office rather than his name.

"Such a clever man," one woman murmured to her neighbor immediately in front of Monk. "I'm glad he didn't prosecute Mr. Galbraith. I always thought he was innocent anyway. I don't believe a gentleman like that would ever do such a thing."

"And Mrs. Forbes's son as well," her neighbor replied. "I'm sure that was more of a tragedy than a crime."

"Quite. Girl was no better than she should be, if you ask me. I know that sort."

"Don't we all, my dear. Had a maid like that once myself. Had to get rid of her, of course."

"His father was a fine man too." Her eyes returned to Alastair. "Such a pity."

The organ was playing meditatively. Over to the left someone dropped a hymnbook with a crash. No one looked.

"I didn't know you knew them." There was a lift of interest in the woman's voice in front of Hester, as she half turned her head to hear the better, should her neighbor choose to elaborate.

"Oh yes, quite well." The neighbor nodded, the feathers in her hat waving. "So handsome, you know. Not like his miserable brother, who drinks like a fish, they say. Never had the talent either. The colonel was such an artist, you know."

An old gentleman to the right glared at them and was ignored.

"An artist? I never knew that. I thought he owned a printing company."

"Oh he did! But he was a fine artist too. Drew beautifully, and a great hand with his pen. Caricatures, you know? The poor major is a wretched creature beside him. No talent for anything, except sponging from the family, since the colonel died."

Hester leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned around, startled, expecting to be told yet again not to speak in the kirk.

"Would you like a stone?" Hester offered.

"I beg your pardon!"

"A stone," Hester repeated clearly.

"Whatever for?"

'To throw," Hester replied. And then, in case she had missed the point, "At Hector Farraline."

The woman blushed scarlet. "Well really!"

"Hold your tongue, you fool!" Monk whispered, poking Hester with his elbow. "For God's sake, woman, do you want to be recognized?"

She looked puzzled.

" 'Not proven'!" he said sharply, but so quietly she barely heard him. "Not innocent!"

The color burned up her face, and she turned away.

The service began. It was extremely sober and pious, with a long sermon on the sins of undue levity and light-mindedness.

Sabbath luncheon at Ainslie Place was not the rich fare it would have been in a family of such means in London. The servants had also attended the kirk, and although the food was plentiful, it was also cold. No comment was made. The day itself was considered sufficient explanation. Alastair, as head of the family, said a brief prayer before anyone presumed to eat, and then the vegetables were served to complement cold meats. For some time everyone avoided the subject of Mary's croft, the rents, Arkwright, or any question of Baird's culpability in that or any other matter.

Baird himself seemed to have closed his mind and his emotions, like a man who has already accepted his own death.

Eilish looked desolate. She was still beautiful. No grief could take that from her, but the fire that had lit her countenance before had vanished as if it had never been.

Deirdra had dark rings of sleeplessness under her eyes, and she constantly looked from one to another of her family as if seeking anything she might do to ease their pain, and found nothing at all.

Oonagh sat white-faced. Alastair was profoundly unhappy. Hector reached for the wine as often as usual, but seemed to remain stubbornly sober. Only Quinlan appeared to find even a glimmer of satisfaction in anything.

"You cannot put it off forever," he said at last. "Some decision has to be made." He glanced at Monk. "I assume you are going to return to London? If not tomorrow, then some time soon. You don't intend to remain in Edinburgh, do you? We have no more crofts, to pay for your silence."

"Quinlan!" Alastair said furiously, banging his clenched fist on the table. "For heaven's sake, man, have a little decency!"

Quinlan's eyebrows rose. "Is this matter decent? Your ideas differ from mine, Fiscal. I think it's thoroughly indecent. What are you proposing? That we conspire together to keep silence over it and let the shadow hang forever over Miss Latterly?" He swiveled in his chair. "Will you allow that, Miss Latterly? It will make it uncommonly difficult for you to obtain another nursing post. Unless of course it is with someone who wishes the patient's decease?"

"Of course I should like it resolved," Hester answered him, while the rest of the company looked on in horrified silence. "But I do not wish anyone to stand in the dock in my place simply to accomplish that, if they are no more guilty than I am. There is a certain case against Mr. Mclvor, but I do not find it compelling." She turned to Alastair. "Is it compelling, Procurator Fiscal? Would you prosecute with the evidence you have so far?"

Alastair blushed, and then paled. He swallowed hard. 'They would not expect me to handle the case, Miss Latterly. I am too close to it."

"That was not what she meant," Quinlan said contemptuously. "But Alastair is famous for not prosecuting. Aren't you, Fiscal?"

Alastair ignored him, turning instead to Baird.

"I presume you will be going in to the printing shop as usual tomorrow?"

"It's closed tomorrow," Baird replied, blinking at him as if he had barely understood what he had said.

Hector reached for more wine. "Why?" he asked, frowning. "What's wrong with it? Tomorrow is Monday, isn't it? Why aren't you working on a Monday?" He hiccupped gently.

"There are building alterations being done outside. There will be no gas. We cannot work in the dark."

"Should have built more windows," Hector said irritably.

"It's that damn secret room of Hamish's. Always said it was a stupid idea."

Deirdra looked confused. "What are you talking about, Uncle Hector? You can't have windows, except at the front. The other three sides are the back with the doors and the yard, and where it joins to the other warehouses at both sides."

"I don't know what he wanted a secret room for." Hector was not listening to her. "Quite unnecessary. Told Mary that."

"Secret room?" Deirdra smiled wryly.

Oonagh offered Hector the decanter, and when he had fumbled for it ineffectually, filled his glass for him.

'There is no secret room in the printworks, Uncle Hector. You must be remembering something from the old house, when you were boys."

"Don't..." he started angrily, then looked into her steady blue eyes, clear and level as his own must have been thirty years earlier, and his words died away, Oonagh smiled at him, then turned to Monk.

"I apologize, Mr. Monk. We have placed you in an invidious position, and probably embarrassed you as well, with our family quarrels. Of course we cannot expect you to keep silent over your discoveries regarding the very objectionable Mr. Arkwright and his occupancy of Mother's croft. He claims that he has paid rent for it, and my husband claims that he has not, but that my mother allowed him to live there freely in return for his silence. Whether these arrangements were made with my mother's knowledge and consent we shall never know beyond question. Quinlan, for his own reasons, believes they were not. I choose to believe they were. You must do whatever you feel to be right."

She turned to Hester. "And you also, Miss Latterly. I can only apologize to you for involving you in our family's tragedy. I hope that word of it has not reached London in the detail it has been reported here, and it will not affect your life or your livelihood, as Quinlan supposes. If I could undo it for you, I would, but it is beyond my power. I am sorry."

"We all regret it," Hester said quietly. "You should feel no need to apologize, but I thank you for your gracious-ness. I knew Mrs. Farraline for only a very brief time, but from her conversation that evening on the train, I choose to believe as you do, and do not find it in the least difficult"

Oonagh smiled, but there was no answer in her eyes, no relief from the tension there.

As soon as the meal was over Monk seemed in some haste to depart.

"I shall leave the matter in your hands," he said to Alastair. "You are aware of your mother's property, and of the disposition of it, and of Arkwright's tenancy. You must inform the police of whatever you think appropriate. As Procurator Fiscal, you are far better placed than I to judge what is evidence and what is not."

"Thank you," Alastair accepted gravely, but also apparently without relief. "Good-bye, Mr. Monk, Miss Latterly. I hope your journey back to London is agreeable."

As soon as they were out of the door and on the pavement, Monk pulling his collar higher and Hester wrapping her blue coat tighter around her against the wind, Monk spoke.

"I'm damned if I'm finished yet! One of them killed her. If it wasn't Mclvor, it was one of the others."

"I would dearly like it to be Quinlan," Hester said with feeling as they crossed the road and stepped onto the grass. "What a perfectly odious man. Why on earth did Eilish marry him? Any fool can see she loathes him now-and little wonder. Do you think Hector was drunk?"

"Of course he was drunk. He's always drunk, poor old devil."

"I wonder why," she said thoughtfully, increasing her speed to keep up with him. "What happened to him? From what Mary said, he used to be every bit as dashing as Hamish, and a better soldier."

"Envy, I suppose," he replied without interest. "Younger brother, lesser commission, Hamish got the inheritance, and appears to have had the brains as well, and the talent."

They reached the far side of the Place and turned down Glenfinlas Street.

"I meant do you think he was so drunk he was talking nonsense?" she resumed.

"About what?"

"A secret room, of course," she replied impatiently, having to run again to keep at his side, and brushing past a woman with a basket. "Why would Hamish build a secret room in a printing works?"

"I don't know. To hide illegal books?"

"What sort of books would be illegal?" she asked breathlessly. "You mean stolen ones? But that doesn't make any sense."

"No, of course not stolen ones. Seditious-blasphemous- most probably pornographic."

"Oh-oh I see."

"No you don't. But possibly you understand."

She did not quibble. "Is that worth killing over?"

"If it was graphic enough, and there was enough of it," he replied. "It could be worth a lot of money."

Two gentlemen crossed the street ahead of them, one swinging a cane.

"You mean they could sell it for a lot." She could be equally pedantic. "It's worth nothing."

He pulled a face. "Didn't think you'd know what it was."

"I've been an army nurse," she said tartly.

"Oh." For a moment he was confused, off balance. He did not wish to think of her as being aware of such things, much less to have seen them. It offended him. Women, especially decent women, should never have to see the obscenities of the darkest human imagination. Unconsciously he increased his speed, almost knocking into a man and woman. The man glared at him and muttered something.

Hester was obliged to break into a trot to keep up.

"Are we going to look for it?" she asked, gasping. "Please slow a little. I cannot speak or listen at this rate."

He obeyed abruptly and she shot a couple of paces past him.

"I am," he answered. "You're not."

"Yes I am." It was a single, contradictory, pigheaded statement. There was no question or pleading in it.

"No you are not. It may be dangerous..."

"Why should it? They said there would be no one there tomorrow, and there certainly won't be today. They'd never break the Sabbath."

"I'm going tonight, while it's dark."

"Of course we are. It would be absurd to go in the daylight; anyone might see us."

"You're not coming!"

Now they were stopped and causing an obstruction on the footpath.

"Yes I am. You'll need help. If it really is a secret room, it won't be all that easy to find. We may have to knock for hollow places, or move-"

"All right!" he said. "But you must do as you're told."

"Naturally."

He snorted, and once again set off at a rapid pace.

It was a little before eleven, and pitch-dark except for the lantern which Hester held, when she and Monk finally stood in the huge print room and began their task. To avoid unnecessary noise they had had to break in. It had taken some time, but Monk possessed skills in that field which startled Hester, though he offered no account of how he had come by them. Possibly he did not recall himself.

For over an hour they searched, slowly and methodically, but the building was very solidly and plainly built. It was simply a barnlike structure, similar to the warehouses on either side of it, for the purpose of printing books. There was no ornament or carving, no alcoves, mantels, sets of shelves or anything else which could mask an opening.

"He was drunk," Monk said in disgust. "He just loathed Hamish so much he was trying to make trouble, anything he could think of, no matter how absurd."

"We haven't been searching very long yet," she argued.

He gave her a withering look, which was exaggerated by the yellow glare of the lantern and the black cavern above them.

"Well, do you have a better idea?" she demanded. "Do you just want to go back to London and never know who killed Mary?'

Wordlessly he turned back to reexamine the wall.

"It's straight along the line of the abutting wall onto the next warehouse," he said half an hour later. "There isn't any space for a secret compartment, let alone an entire room."

"What if it's in the roof?" she said desperately. "Or the cellar?"

"Then there'll be stairs to it-and there aren't."

"Then it must be here. We just haven't found it."

"Your logic is typical," he said tartly. "We haven't found it, so it must be here."

"That's not what I said. You have it backwards."

He raised his eyebrows. "It must be here because we haven't found it? That is a deductive improvement?"

She took the lantern and left him standing in the dark. There was nothing to lose by searching a little longer. This was the last chance. Tomorrow they would leave, and either Baird Mclvor would face trial, and maybe be hanged, or else live with another "not proven" verdict over his head. Either way, she would never be sure who had killed Mary. She needed to know, not just for herself but because Mary's wry, intelligent face was still as sharp in her mind as when she had gone to sleep that night on the train to London, thinking how very much she liked her.

She did not find it by accident, but by methodical, furious banging and thumping. A heavy panel of the wall slid away and opened up a narrow door. The room itself must originally have been part of the nextrdoor warehouse and not the Farraline building at all. Its very existence was concealed because a floor plan would have shown no discrepancy. One would have had to have the plans of both buildings and compare them.

"I've got it!" she cried out exultantly.

"Don't shout," he whispered from just behind her, making her start and nearly drop the lamp.

"Don't do that!" she said as she led the way into the hole ahead.

With the lantern high and as far in front as she could hold it, the entire room was visible as soon as they were inside. It was windowless, about twelve feet by ten feet large, low-ceilinged, and there was a single air vent in the far corner leading to the outside. It was at least half filled with printing presses, ink, stacks of paper, and guillotine cutters. More space was taken by a table like an easel and a rack of fine etching and engraving tools and acid. Over the table was a bracket for a large, unshaded gas lamp. When lit it must have shed a brilliant light.

"What is it?" Hester said in bewilderment. "There aren't any books here."

"I think we have just found the source of the Farraline wealth," he said in awe, almost under his breath.

"But there aren't any books. Unless they shipped them all out?"

"Not books, my love-money! This is where they print money!"

Hester felt a shiver run through her, not only for the meaning of what he had said but also for the way in which he had addressed her.

"You mean f-forged money?" she stammered.

"Oh yes, forged... very forged. But they must do it damnably well, to have got away with it for so long." He moved forward and bent over the presses to examine them more closely, talcing the light from her. "Lots of it," he went on. "Here are several pound notes, five pounds, ten pounds, twenty. Look, all the different banks in Scotland- the Royal, the Clydesdale, the Linen Bank. And here's the Bank of England. And these look like German, and here's French. Very eclectic tastes, but by heaven they're good!"

She peered over his shoulder, staring at the metal plates.

"How do you know they've been doing it for a long time? It could have been just recently, couldn't it?"

"The family wealth goes back a long way," he answered. "Well into Hamish's time-I'll wager he was the original engraver. Remember what that woman said in church? And Deirdra said something about his being a good copyist." He picked up a note and examined it carefully. 'This one is current. Look at the signature on it."

"But if they've got new notes as well, who's the artist now? It's not the sort of thing you can go out and hire."

"Of course it isn't. I'll lay any odds you like that it's Quinlan. No wonder he's so damned arrogant. He knows they can't do without him, and they know it too. He has them over a barrel. Poor little Eilish. I expect she was his price."

"That's unspeakable!" she said in horror. "Nobody would..." Then she stopped. What she had been going to say was absurd, and she knew it. Women had been given in marriage to suit the ambitions or the convenience of their families since time immemorial, and for worse reasons than this. At least she was still at home, and participated in the wealth. And Quinlan was roughly her own age, and not uncomely, or drunken, diseased or otherwise repellent. And it was even possible he had cared for her originally, before she betrayed him by falling in love, however unwillingly, with Baird. Or was that Oonagh's attempt at self-protection, to marry her exquisite younger sister to a man who would possess her and brook no disloyalty?

Poor Oonagh-she had failed. Their acts might be without blemish, but no one could govern their dreams.

Monk laid the notes back gently, exactly as he had found them.

"Do you suppose Mary knew?" Hester asked in a whisper. "I... I hope not. I hate to think of her being party to this. I know it is not as evil as really hurting people... it's only greedy, but..."

He looked at her, his face bleak, the lean planes of his cheeks and brow harsh in the lamp's glow, his nose exaggerated.

"It's a filthy crime," he said between his teeth. "You sound as if there is no victim, because you aren't thinking. What would you do if half your money was worth nothing and you didn't know which half? How would you live? Who could you trust?"

"But..." There were no words, and she stopped.

"People would be afraid to sell," he went on savagely. "You might trade, but who with? Who wants what you have to offer and can give you what you need? Ever since man acquired goods and leisure, specialized his skills and learned to cooperate one with another for everyone's benefit, we have used a common means of exchange-money, hi fact, ever since we began anything one could call civilization and learned that we are more than a collection of individuals, each for himself, and formed the concept of community, money has been pivotal. Pollute that, and you strike at the root of all society."

She stared at him, comprehension of the magnitude of it dawning inside her, of the totality of the damage.

"And words," he went on, his face burning with the fierceness of his emotion. "Words are our means of communication, that which raises man above the beasts. We can think, we have concepts, we can write and pass our beliefs from one land to another, one generation to the next. Pollute our relationships with flattery and manipulation, our language with lies, propaganda, self-serving use of images, the prostitution of words and meaning, and we can no longer reach each other. We become isolated. Nothing is real. We drown in a morass of the sham, the expedient. Deceit, corruption and betrayal... they are the sins of the wolf." He stopped abruptly, staring at her as if he had only just that moment really seen her.

"The wolf?" she urged. "What do you mean? What wolf?"

"The lowest circle of hell," he answered slowly, rolling the words as though one by one. "The last pit of all. Dante. The three great circles of hell. The leopard, the lion and the wolf."

"Do you remember where you read that, who taught it you?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

He waited so long she thought he had not heard her.

"No..." He winced. "No, I don't. I'm trying... but it's just out of reach. I didn't even know I knew it at all until I started to think about forgery. I..." He shrugged very slightly and turned away. "We've learned all we need to here. This could be the reason Mary was killed. If she learned about it somehow, they'd have to keep her silent."

"Who? Which one?"

"God knows. Perhaps Quinlan. Maybe she knew about it anyway. That's for the police to discover. Come on. We can't find out anything more here." He picked up the lantern and went back towards the way they had come in. It took him a moment or two to find the door because it had swung closed again. "Damn," he said irritably. "I could have sworn I left it open."

"You did," Hester said from close behind him. "If it swung shut on its own, it must be weighted. That means we can open it from here somehow."

"Of course we can open it from here," he said. "But how? Hold the lantern up." He ran his fingers over the wall experimentally, covering every inch. It took him something less than three minutes to find the catch. It was not concealed, simply in an awkward place. "Ah..." he said with satisfaction, pulling it hard. But it did not move. He pulled again.

"Is it stuck?" she asked with a frown.

He tried it three times before he accepted the truth. "No. I think it is locked."

"It can't be! If it locks just by closing, how did Quinian get out? He can't have worked in here without being able to get out if he wished to!"

He turned around slowly, looking at her with the kind of candor they had so often shared. "I don't think it did lock itself. I think we have been locked in deliberately. Someone realized we took Hector at his word, and waited here to see if we would come. This is too precious and secret to allow us to blunder into and repeat."

"But the workers don't come back until Tuesday. Quinian said it was closed because of the gas lines," she said with mounting realization of what it meant. The room was small, windowless, effectively sealed but for the air vent. Tuesday was at least thirty hours away. She went over to the vent and stretched up her hand to it. There was no breath of air, no chill. It had been blocked-of course. There was no need to add the rest.

"I know," he said quietly. "It looks as if the Farralines win in the end. I'm sorry."

She looked around with sudden fury. "Well, can't we at least destroy this machine that prints the money? Can't we smash the plates or something?"

He smiled, then he started to laugh, quietly and with genuine amusement.

"Bravo! Yes, by all means, let's ruin them. That'll be something accomplished."

"It'll make them very angry," she said thoughtfully. "They might be enraged and kill us."

"My dear girl, if we are not already suffocated to death, they'll kill us anyway. We know enough to hang them... we just don't know which ones."

She took a deep breath to steady herself. Although she had already realized it, it was different to hear him say so.

"Yes-yes, of course they will. Well, let us at least ruin their plates. They could still be evidence, in the event the police find them. Anyway, as you say, forgery is very evil; it is a pollution, a corruption of our means of exchange with one another. We ought to end this much of it." And without waiting for him to follow, she went over and lifted up one of the plates, then froze.

"What is it?" he said immediately.

"Don't let's break them," she said with a tingle of quite genuine pleasure. "Let's just mar them, so little they don't realize it, but enough that when they have printed all the money, unless they look at it very carefully, they will still pass it. But the first person who does look at it will know it is wrong. That would be more effective, wouldn't it? And a better revenge..."

"Excellent! Let's find the engraving tools and the acid. Be careful you don't get any of it on your skin. And not on your dress, in case they notice it."

They set about it with determination, working side by side, erasing here and there, making little blotching marks, but always discreetly, until they had in some way marred every single plate. It took them until after two in the morning, and the lamp was burning low. And now that there was nothing more to do, they were also growing increasingly aware of the cold. Without thinking, they automatically sat close together on some boxes of paper, huddled in the corner, and above the colder floor level. There were no drafts; the room was effectively sealed. And after their concentration on the plates had gone, they were also aware that the air was getting stale. A great deal of the space was already taken up with boxes and machinery.

"I can't believe Mary knew about this," Hester said again, her mind still hurt by the thought, teased by memories of the woman she had known, or thought she had known, on the London train. "I really don't think she would have lived off forgery all those years."

"Perhaps she viewed it as you did," Monk replied, staring into the little pool of light the lantern made. "A victim-less crime, just a little greed."

She did not reply for several minutes. He had not met Mary, and she did not know how to convey the sense of honesty she had felt in her.

"Do you suppose they all did?" she said at length.

"No," he said immediately, then apparently realized the logical position in which he had placed himself. "All right, perhaps she didn't. If she did, then all this"-he inclined his head towards the presses-"was no reason to kill her. If she didn't, how do you suppose she found out? She wouldn't have come down here looking for this room. If she knew, why did she not call the police? Why go off to London? It was urgent, but hardly an emergency. There was certainly time to attend to this first." He shook his head. "But would Mary have exposed her own family to scandal, ruin and imprisonment? Wouldn't she just have demanded they stop? That would be reason to kill her?"

"If I were a forger," she replied, "I'd have said, 'Yes, Mother,' and moved it somewhere else. It would be infinitely safer than killing her."

He did not reply, but lapsed into thought.

It was getting even colder. They moved closer yet, the warmth of each other comforting, even the steady rhythm of breathing a kind of safety in the threat of enclosing darkness and the knowledge that time was short and every second that passed meant one fewer left.

"What did she say-on the train?" Monk asked presently.

"She talked about the past, for the most part." She thought back yet again to that evening. "She traveled then. She danced at the ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, you know?" She stared into the darkness, speaking softly. It seemed appropriate to the mood and it saved energy. They were sitting so close together whispering would serve. "She described it to me, the colors and the music, the soldiers in their uniforms, all the scarlets and the blues and golds, the cavalrymen, the artillery, the hussars and dragoons, the Scots Greys." She smiled as she pictured Mary's face and the light in it as she relived that night. "She spoke of Hamish, how elegant he was, how dashing, how all the ladies loved him."

"Was Hector sober then?" he asked.

"Oh yes. She spoke of Hector too, he was always quieter, tenderer-that isn't the word she used, but that is what she meant. And she said he was actually a better soldier." She smiled. "She described the band and the gaiety, the laughter at any joke at all, the hectic dancing, whirling 'round and 'round, the lights and color, the brilliance of jewels and the candle flames and the flash of reds." She drew in a deep breath. "And the knowledge in everyone that tomorrow perhaps one in ten of them would die, and two or three be injured, maybe marred for life, limbs lost, blinded, God knows what. Whatever they thought or felt, no one spoke of it, and the musicians never missed a beat. Wellington himself was there. It was the high tide of history. All Europe hung in the balance."

She swallowed and tried to keep her voice from shaking. She must have Mary's courage. She had faced death before, and worse death. She would be with Monk, and in spite of all the enmity they had shared, the quarrels and the anger and the contempt, she would not have had anyone else there, except for his sake. "She said how terrified she was for Hector, but she never allowed him to know," she finished.

"You mean Hamish," he corrected.

"Do I? Yes, of course I do. The air is getting thin, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"She spoke about her children as well, mostly Oonagh and Alastair, how close they had always been, even when they were young." She recounted what she could remember of Mary's story of the night of the storm, and finding the two together, comforting each other.

"A very remarkable woman, Oonagh," he said softly. "A little frightening, so much strength."

"Alastair must have strength too, or he would not be Procurator Fiscal. It must have taken courage to refuse to prosecute Galbraith. Apparently it was a very big case, very political, and everyone expected him to face trial and be found guilty. I think Mary did too."

"From what the woman in front of us in the church said, he has refused to prosecute quite a few. Are you cold?"

"Yes, but it doesn't matter."

"Do you want my coat?"

"No-then you'll be cold."

He took it off. "Don't argue," he said grimly, and began to put it around her.

"Put it 'round both of us." She moved so that was possible.

"It isn't big enough," he complained.

"It'll do."

"Mary expected Galbraith to be prosecuted? How do you know that?"

"She said something about seeing an Archie Frazer in the house, very late one night, rather furtively. I think it worried her."

"Why? Who is he?"

"A witness in the Galbraith case."

He stiffened. "A witness?" He turned around a little to look at her in the lamplight. "What would a witness be doing coming to Alastair's house at night? And Mary was worried?"

"Yes, it seemed to disturb her."

"Because she knew he had no business there. Alastair had no business seeing a witness privately. And then the case was thrown out, never prosecuted?"

She stared at him. Even in the failing light, the yellow glare and shadow, she could see from his eyes that the same thought had come to him as now filled her mind.

"Bribery?" she whispered. "The Fiscal took money, or something else, not to prosecute Mr. Galbraith-and Mary feared it!"

"Once?" Monk said slowly. "Or often? The woman in the church said there had been a few cases dropped unexpectedly. Is our Fiscal a just man brave enough to defy expectations and throw out a poor case, regardless of public opinion; or is he a corrupt man taking some reward, monetary or otherwise, in order not to prosecute those who can and will pay his price?"

"And even if we can answer that," she went on, almost under her breath, "there arises the other question-did Mary know it or fear it? And was he aware of that?"

He sat silently for several minutes, half turned in their cramped corner, his body sideways, legs out in front of him, covered by her skirts, which were keeping them both warm. The lamp was growing lower, the corners of the room completely lost in darkness. The air was getting very thin and stale.

"Maybe not Kenneth or Baird at all," she whispered at last. "Or even Quinlan for the forgery. I'd rather think she didn't know."

"Damn," he said between his teeth. "Damn Alastair Farraline!"

The same anger and frustration stirred within her, but far. overriding it was a desire to share the intensity of feeling with all its subtleties and shades of disappointment, fear, memories, understanding and half-glimpsed thoughts, hunger for truth, and sense of self-blame.

He reached his hand over to take hold of hers where it lay on her skirt. For a moment she did not move, then without thinking, she leaned forward, her brow against his cheek, sliding her head down until it rested in the hollow of his neck, her face half turned on his shoulder. The whole gesture seemed oddly familiar and right. A sense of peace filled her and the anger drained away. It was all still true, still unjust and unresolved, but it no longer had the same importance.

The air was painfully thin. She had not the remotest idea what time it was. Daylight would make no difference here.

Gently he pushed her away until there was a space between them. She looked at him in the last of the lamplight, at the strong planes of his face, the wide gray eyes. In that moment there was no pretense between them, no lingering vestige of reserve or attempt to escape, no denial. It was final and complete.

Very slowly he leaned forward, infinitely slowly, and kissed her mouth with exquisite tenderness, almost a reverence, as if this one gesture with the last of his strength were almost a holy thing, a surrender of the final bastion.

She never thought not to answer him, not to give her inner self with as much generosity as he, in an embrace she had so long ached for, and to admit it in the passionate tenderness of her lips and her arms.

It was not long after when the lamp had finally guttered and gone out and they lay together, cold and almost senseless in the last of the air, when without warning there was a sound, a thump and a scraping. A shaft of light fell across the room, yellow and dim. And most blessedly of all, there was a draft, clean and sweet, smelling of paper.

"Are you there? Mr. Monk?" It was a tentative voice, a little blurred, and with the lift and music of the north.

Monk sat up slowly, his head hurting, eyes difficult to focus. Hester was still beside him; he could barely feel her breathing.

"Mr. Monk?" came the voice again.

"Hector!" Monk said with dry lips. "Hector... is that... are you..." He ended in a spasm of coughing.

Hester sat up awkwardly, holding on to him. "Major Farraline?" she whispered.

Stumbling over a ream of paper left in his path, knocking himself on the corner of the press and letting out a gasp of pain, Hector made his way over to them, setting his lamp on the floor. He looked dreadful in its yellow light, his thinning hair standing out in spikes, his eyes bloodshot and dark-rimmed. His concentration was intense, and obviously costing him effort, but the relief in his face redeemed it all.

"Mr. Monk! Are you all right?" Then he saw Hester. "Good God! Miss Latterly! I-I'm sorry-I didn't even think of you being here, ma'am!" He extended his arm to assist her up. "Are you able to stand, ma'am? Would you like... I mean..." He hesitated, uncertain if he was physically capable of lifting her, any more than in his present state Monk would be.

"Yes, I am sure I am all right, thank you." She attempted to smile. "Or at least I will be, when I have a little air."

"Of course, of course!" He stood up again, then realized he still had not given her any aid. However, Monk was there before him, climbing to his feet awkwardly and bending down to pull Hester up.

"Please hasten," Hector urged, retrieving the lamp. "I don't know who locked you in, but it is not inconceivable they may have missed me and will come looking. I really think it would be much better not to be found here."

Monk gave a sharp laugh, more like a bark, and without further comment they left the secret room, closing the door behind them. They followed Hector carefully through the printing works, now barely lit by daylight pouring through the windows at the front and even in the farthest reaches giving a strained light.

"What made you come after us?" Hester asked when they were outside and she had begun to get some strength back from breathing the fresh air.

Hector looked embarrassed. "I-I think I was a little tipsy last night. I don't remember a great deal of what passed at the dinner table. I should have stopped about three glasses before I did. But I woke in the night, I've no idea what time. My head was as thick as a Chinaman's coat, but I knew something was wrong. I could remember that-very wrong." He blinked apologetically and looked profoundly ashamed. "But I could not for the life of me think what it was."

"Never mind," Monk said generously. "You came in time." He pulled a face. "Not a lot to spare, mind you!" He took the older man by the elbow and they started to walk, three abreast, along the unevenly cobbled street.

"But that doesn't explain why you are here," Hester protested.

"Oh..." Hector looked unhappy. "Well, when I woke up this morning I remembered. I knew I said something about the secret room..."

"You said you knew there was one," Monk put in. "In the printing works. But you didn't seem very certain. I gathered it was by deduction rather than observation-at least as to what was in there."

"Deduction?" Hector still sounded confused. "I don't know. What is in there?"

"Well, why did you come?" Monk said, repeating Hester's question. "What made you think we would be in there, or that anyone would lock us in?"

Hector's face cleared. "Ah-that's obvious. You fastened onto the idea, that was plain in your expression. I knew you'd go and look for it. After all, you can't let Miss Latterly live the rest of her life under the shadow, can you?" He shook his head. "Though I never thought she'd be there too." He frowned at Hester, walking a little sideways and having to be steered back into a straight course by Monk's pushing his arm. "You are a very original young woman." A flood of sadness filled him, altering his features starkly. "I know why Mary liked you. She liked anyone with the courage to be themselves, to drink life to the lees and drain the cup without fear. She used to say that" He searched her eyes earnestly. And again Monk had to keep him from veering off into the gutter, even though they were walking comparatively slowly.

"And once I realized you'd go looking for it," Hector went on, "I knew, of course, that if it was in use for anything, whoever was using it would go after you and most likely shut you in." He blinked. 'To tell you the truth, I was very afraid they would already have killed you. I'm so glad they haven't."

"We are obliged to you," Monk said sincerely.

"Very much," Hester added, holding Hector's arm a little more tightly.

"You're welcome, my dear," he replied. Then a look of puzzlement crossed his face again. "What is in there, anyway?"

"You don't know?" Monk said it almost casually, but there was an edge to his voice.

"No I don't. Is it something of Hamish's?"

"I think so. Hamish's in the past. Quinlan's now."

"That's odd. Hamish never knew Quinlan all that well. He was ill by the time Eilish met him. In fact, he was going blind, and definitely had times of mental confusion and paralysis of his limbs. Why would he leave anything to Quinlan, rather than Alastair, or even Kenneth?"

"Because Quinlan is an artist," Monk answered, guiding Hester across the uneven road and onto the farther pavement.

"Is he?" Hector looked surprised. "I didn't know that. Never seen anything he's done. Knew Hamish was, of course. Didn't like his work much, too much draftsmanship and not enough imagination. Still, matter of taste, I suppose."

"Don't want imagination in bank notes," Monk said dryly.

"Bank notes?" Hector stopped in the middle of the path.

"Forgery," Monk explained. "That's what is in there. Plates and presses for printing money."

Hector let out a long, slow sigh, as if the thought and the fear had been inside him, pent up for years.

"Is it indeed," was all he said.

"Did Mary know?" Hester asked, searching his face.

He looked at her slowly, frowning, his fair brows drawn down, the early sunlight catching the freckles across his cheeks.

"Mary? Of course not. She'd never have stood for it Mary was a good woman... she had her... her..." He colored painfully. "Her weaknesses-she told lies, she had to..." There was a moment of fierce defensive anger in him. Then as quickly as it had flared up, it died again. "But she was not dishonest. Not in that way. She would never have allowed that! It's-it's not stealing from one person, it's stealing from everyone. It's... corrupt."

"I didn't think she would," Hester said with satisfaction, although she was puzzled by what else he had said, profoundly puzzled. She turned to Monk. "Where are we going? If you are looking for a carriage of some sort, we have just passed the main road."

"You're going to the offices, aren't you." Hector made it a statement rather than a question. "You're going to face them with it. Are you sure you are..." He frowned again, looking doubtfully across at Hester, then to Monk. "We three are not the best soldiers you could have... You have been locked up all night without air, I am an old man too worn with drink and unhappiness to stand upright, and Miss Latterly, begging your pardon, ma'am, is merely a woman,"

"I am quite refreshed," Monk said bleakly. "You are a soldier, sir, and will not fail in the hour of need, and Miss Latterly is no ordinary woman. We shall be sufficient"

They continued in silence, each in solitary thoughts. It was actually only another two or three hundred yards; the offices were naturally enough no farther from the printing works than was necessary. Once it was on the edge of Hester's mind to ask how Hector had known of the room at all and why he had never bothered to look for it before. Presumably in his muddled mind the whole thing was a confusion of memory, childhood envies and secrets, and since Hamish was long dead none of it had mattered much at all until he had dimly, through a haze of alcohol, perceived that something was urgently wrong.

They reached the offices and book warehouse still without having spoken any further. Now they stopped, hesitated only a moment, then Monk knocked sharply on the door and, as soon as a clerk opened it, strode in, closely followed by the two others.

The clerk backed away, sputtering expostulations, and was ignored. Monk led the way through the outer area into the large open space, off which led the iron stairway up to Baird's office and the other one which Alastair used on the rate occasions when he came. As always the cavern below was filled with presses, bales of paper, bolts of cloth, reels of twine and, stretching to the distance, rack after rack of books ready to be shipped. There seemed to be no one else about. Even the clerk had disappeared again. If there was anyone else, they were at the far end of the building, packing or loading books.

Hector looked puzzled, his emotions veering between disappointment and relief. He wanted the last battle, but he was too tired to relish it and too unsure of its outcome.

Monk had no such misgivings. His face was set like a steel mask, through which his eyes glittered hard and bright, and he strode up the iron steps.

"Come on," he ordered, without waiting to see if they obeyed. At the top he took the passage in three strides and flung open the door to Baird's office.

Three people were present-Alastair, Oonagh, and Quinlan Fyffe. Alastair looked surprised and angry at the intrusion, Quinlan merely startled, and Oonagh's usual calm was intensified into an icy chill. She stared at Monk, not even seeing Hester behind him, or Hector not yet in the doorway.

"What in God's name do you want now?" Alastair demanded. He looked harassed and weary, but not noticeably alarmed, and certainly not guilty to see Monk still alive.

Monk looked at Quinlan, who looked back with a half smile of ironical humor, and Oonagh, as so often, was unreadable.

"I've come to make my last report," Monk replied with something approaching irony himself.

"You already did, Mr. Monk," Oonagh said coldly. "And we have thanked you for your efforts. We shall tell the police what we choose in the affair of Mother's croft. It is no longer your concern. If the matter troubles your conscience, you will have to act as you think best. There is nothing we can do about it."

"Not, for example, lock me in the secret room in your warehouse and leave me to suffocate to death?" he said with raised eyebrows, glancing quickly at Quinlan and seeing the blood drain from his cheeks, his eyes turned to Oonagh.

So she at least knew!

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Oonagh said levelly. She still had not even noticed Hester and Hector. "But if you were locked in the warehouse, you have only yourself to blame, Mr. Monk. You were trespassing to be there, and I cannot think of any honest purpose you could have had in the middle of a Sunday night. Still, you obviously managed to effect an exit, and you seem none the worse for it."

"I did not effect an exit. I was released by Major Farraline."

"Bloody Hector!" Quinlan said between his teeth. "Trust the drunken old sot to interfere!"

"Hold your tongue," Oonagh said without looking at him. She spoke to Monk. "What were you doing in our warehouse, Mr. Monk? How do you explain yourself?"

"I went to look for the secret room that Major Farraline mentioned at dinner," he replied, watching her as closely as she watched him. For each of them, there might have been no one else present. "I found it."

Her fair brows rose. "Did you? I was not aware of such a place."

He knew she was lying; he had seen it in Quinlan's face.

"It was full of equipment with which to forge bank notes," he replied. "All denominations, and for several banks."

There was still nothing in her face to betray her.

"Good heavens'. Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"I wonder how long it has been there. Since my father's time, I imagine, if Uncle Hector says it was his secret room."

Alastair shifted his weight with an almost imperceptible sound.

Monk glanced at him for an instant, and then back at Oonagh.

"Almost certainly," he agreed. "But it is also in present use. Some of the plates are as recent as last year."

"How can you tell?" A flash of amusement lit Oonagh's eyes. "Was the ink still wet?"

"Bank notes change, Mrs. Mclvor. There are new designs brought in."

"I see. You are saying someone is still using the room to forge money?"

"Yes. You should be pleased." There was a black laughter underlying his voice now. "It will remove some of the burden from your husband. It makes another excellent motive for murder."

"Does it, Mr. Monk? I fail to see how."

"If your mother discovered it-"

This time it was she who laughed.

"Don't be absurd, Mr. Monk! Do you imagine Mother didn't know?"

Hector made a strangled noise, but he did not move.

"You affected not to," Monk pointed out.

"Certainly, but only before I realized that you are aware it is still in use." Her face was cold and implacable now. She no longer concealed her enmity.

Alastair stood rooted to the spot. Quinlan's hand had closed around a bright paper knife on the desk and he was balanced so as to move with violence.

"Not, of course, that this is the only motive for murder," Monk went on, his voice cutting harsh with anger and stinging, bottomless contempt. "There is also the Galbraith case, and God knows how many others."

"The Galbraith case? What in hell are you talking about?" Quinlan demanded.

But Monk was watching Alastair, and had he ever doubted the charge, he could no longer. The blood fled from Alastair's face, leaving him ashen, his eyes terrified, his mouth slack. Instinctively, almost blindly, he looked at Oonagh.

"She knew," Monk said with a depth of emotion that startled him. "Your mother knew, and you murdered her to keep it silent. You were trusted by your fellow men, honored, held above the ordinary citizens, and you sold justice. Your mother could not forgive that, so you killed her and tried to get her nurse hanged for it in your place."

"No!"

It was not Alastair who spoke, he was beyond speech. The voice came from behind him. Monk half turned to see Hector push his way forward, staring at Alastair. "No," he said again. "It wasn't Alastair who made the list of Mary's clothes for Griselda. It was you! You put that brooch in Hester's bag. Alastair wouldn't have known even where to find it. Alastair, God help him, killed her, but it was you who would have hanged Hester in his place."

"Rubbish," Oonagh said sharply. "Hold your tongue, you old fool!"

A spasm of pain crossed Hector's features so sharp it was beyond all proportion to the insult, which he must have heard a hundred times before, even if only in his mind.

Surprisingly it was Hester who spoke, from just behind Monk's elbow.

"It couldn't have been Alastair who put the pin in my case," she said slowly. "Because Mary wore it with only one dress, and he knew she hadn't packed that dress to take with her. He was the one who damaged it so it had to be cleaned."

"Couldn't it have been mended before she took it?" Monk asked.

"Don't be absurd. It takes days to unpick and clean a silk gown and then stitch it back together again."

As one they turned to Oonagh.

She lowered her eyes. "I didn't know she'd marked the dress. I wanted to protect him," she said very quietly.

Alastair looked at her with a ghastly smile filled with despair.

"But she didn't know," Monk said very softly, almost under his breath. The words fell in the room like stones. "She was afraid, because she saw Archie Frazer in the house, but you could have explained that. You killed her for nothing."

Very slowly, as if in a nightmare, Alastair turned to Oonagh, his face like a dead man's, aged and yet with the helplessness of a lost child. "You said she knew. You told me she knew. I didn't have to kill her! Oonagh-what have you done to me?"

"Nothing, Alastair! Nothing!" she said quickly, putting out both her hands and gripping his arms. "She would have ruined us, believe me." Her voice was desperate, urgent that he should understand.

"But she didn't know!" His voice was rising, shrill with betrayal and despair.

"All right! She didn't know that, or the forgery." The gentleness vanished and her features were suddenly ugly. "But she knew about Uncle Hector and Fatfier, and she'd have told Griselda. That is what she was on the way south to do. Griselda and her stupid obsession with health and her child. She'd have told Connal, and then it would have been all over the place."

"Told him what? What are you talking about?" He was utterly lost. He seemed to have forgotten everyone in the room except Oonagh. "Father's been dead for years. What did it have to do with her child? It doesn't make any sense..."

Oonagh's face was as white as his, but with fury and contempt. There was still no fear in it, and no weakness.

"Father died of syphilis, you fool! He was riddled with it! What did you think his blindness was, and his paralysis? We kept him in the house and said it was a stroke... what else were we to do?"

"B-but... syphilis takes years to get to..." He stopped. There was a funny little choking sound in his throat, as if he could not breathe. He was horrified beyond movement, except for his dry lips. It almost seemed as if she were holding him up. "That means... that means we are all... Griselda... her child, all our children... Oh sweet Jesus!"

"No it doesn't," she said between clenched jaws. "Mother knew it from the beginning. That is what she was going to tell Griselda. What she had just told me... Hamish was not our father... not any of us."

He looked at her as if she had spoken to him in an incomprehensible language.

She swallowed. Now the words seemed to choke her as much as him. Her face was white with pain.

"Hector is our father... every one of us... right from you to Griselda. You are a bastard, Alastair. We are all bastards... our mother was an adulteress, and that drunken sot is our father! Do you want the world to know that? Can you live with it... Procurator Fiscal!"

But Alastair was beyond speech. He was stricken as if dead.

The only sound in the whole place was Quintan's laugh, a wild, hysterical, bitter sound.

"I loved her," Hector said, staring at Oonagh. "I loved her all my life. She loved Hamish to begin with, but after we met, it was me... it was always me. She knew what Hamish was... and she never let him touch her."

Oonagh looked back at him with utter, indescribable loathing.

Tears were running down Hector's face. "I always loved her," he said again. "And you killed her, more surely than if you'd done it yourself." His voice was rising, getting stronger. "You sold my beautiful Eilish to that creature... to get his services for forgery." He did not even look at Quinlan. "You sold her like a horse or a dog. You used flattery and deceit on all of us... using our weaknesses against us... even me. I wanted to stay here, to be part of you. You are all the family I have, and you knew that, and I let you use it." He gulped. "Dear God, but what you've done to Alastair..."

It was Quinlan who reacted at last. He picked up the heavy paper knife and lunged-not at Hector, but at Monk.

Monk reacted only just in time. The blade grazed his arm and he went backwards, knocking Hester off balance and lurching against the iron railing of the spiral stairs. He only just avoided going over them as they caught him in the small of his back and his foot slipped and went from under him, leaving him sprawled at Hester's feet.

Alastair still stood mesmerized.

Oonagh waited only an instant, then realized he was going to be useless. For a terrible moment she stared at Hector, then she ran at him, bending to catch him in the solar plexus and knock him over the railing to fall the twenty feet to the floor below.

He understood from her eyes, but he moved too slowly. She caught him in the chest, to the left, not quite under the heart. He fell sideways against the railing and backed into Hester, sending her flying. She caught Quinlan just as he reached Monk to strike again. There was a shriek, a flailing of limbs, a moment's blind panic, and then a sickening thud from the floor below.

Then total silence closed in, except for Alastair's weeping.

Hester peered over the edge.

Quinlan lay on the floor below them, his blond hair like a silver halo. There was no blood, but his right arm, in which he had held the knife, was bent underneath him, and no one needed to be told he would not move again.

At last Alastair seemed to regain some semblance of control. He looked around for another weapon, his eyes glistening with almost manic hatred.

Oonagh could see there was no more room for words, no excuses anymore. She plunged past the choking Hector and still-sprawling Monk, ignoring Hester, and clattered down the iron stairs, making towards the back of the vast building until she disappeared between the bales of paper.

Alastair stared wildly around him, then after only a split second's hesitation, followed after her.

Monk scrambled to his feet and bent over Hector.

"Are you all right? Did she injure you?"

"No..." Hector coughed and gasped to regain his breath. "No..." He looked at Monk with wild eyes. "She didn't. How did I beget that? And Mary... Mary was..."

But Monk had no time for such speculation. He checked to see that Hester was unhurt, that it was no more than a few bruises and a possible abrasion. Then he set off down the stairs after Oonagh and Alastair.

Hester followed after him, tucking her skirts up in an undignified but very effective manner, and Hector lumbered close behind at a surprisingly good speed.

Out in the street Oonagh and Alastair were at least fifty yards ahead and increasing the distance between them. Monk was sprinting with an excellent turn of speed.

They reached the thoroughfare, and Alastair, waving his arms and shouting, leaped directly in the path of an oncoming carriage. The horse shied and the driver, foolishly standing to ward off what he imagined was an attack, overbalanced and crashed to the ground, still grasping the reins. Alastair leaped into the box, turning only for a second to haul Oonagh up with him, and then shouted wildly to urge the horses into flight again.

Monk swore with breathless venom and skidded to a halt at the crossroads, looking to the left and right for any kind of a vehicle.

Hester caught up with him, and then Hector.

"God damn them!" Monk choked with rage. "God damn her above all!"

"Where can they go?" Hector coughed, gasping to regain his breath. "The police will catch them..."

"We've got to get back and find the police." Monk's voice was rising in an anguish of rage. "And by the time we've explained Quinlan's death, and persuaded them we didn't do it... and shown them the room with the forgery equipment, Oonagh and Alastair will have got to the docks, and could even have set sail across towards Holland."

"Can't we get them back?" Hester demanded, even as she said it realizing how hard that would be; with the whole of Europe beyond, and perhaps friends to help them, they might succeed in disappearing.

"Brewery!" Hector said suddenly, jerking his arm to point across the road.

Monk fixed him with a glare that should have withered him to dry bones.

"Horses!" Hector began to shamble across the street.

"We can't chase that in a dray!" Monk bellowed after him, but he began to follow him all the same.

But Hector emerged only a few moments later with not a brewer's dray but a very handsome single-horse gig, and pulled up only long enough for Monk to heave Hester up and then follow after her at a clumsy swing, almost landing on top of her.

"Whose gig have you stolen?" he yelled, not that he cared in the slightest.

"Brewmaster, I expect," Hector yelled back, and then bent his attention to controlling the startled horse and urging it at an unnerving speed along the road after the vanished carriage.

Monk crouched forward, clinging to the side, white-faced. Hester sat back, trying to wedge herself into the seat, while the gig lurched and bucketed all over the road, going faster and faster. Hector was oblivious of everything except his son and daughter ahead.

Hester knew why Monk was so ashen. She imagined the chaos of memories which must be knotting his body and bringing the sweat to his skin, even if his mind only half recalled a haze of sensation, that other carriage careering through the night to end in a heap of splintered wood and spinning wheels, the driver killed and himself lying injured and senseless beneath it, all his life to that moment blotted out and lost forever.

But there was nothing she could do except cling on for dear life. She could not let him know she understood.

Another crossroads loomed ahead and the carriage was already out of sight. It could have gone any of three ways. Presumably straight ahead?

But the gig horse was at a gallop now, and Hector reined it in, almost throwing the beast to the ground, and then urged it to the right, the gig riding on two wheels. Monk was hurled against Hester and the two of them all but fell out. Only Monk's weight, bringing Hester to the floor, saved them.

Monk swore luridly and furiously as the gig righted itself and plunged along Great Junction Street, and then almost immediately turned again towards the sea, sending them pell-mell to the other side.

"What the hell are you doing, you damned lunatic?" Monk made a lunge to grab at Hector, and missed.

Hector was oblivious of him. The carriage was ahead of them again. They could see Alastair's fair hair flying and Oonagh close to him, almost as if he were holding her with his other arm.

The street vee'red again, and they were beside the narrow, deep river leading to the sea. There were barges moored in it, and fishing smacks. A man leaped out of the way, shouting abuse. A child let out a wail and fled.

A fishwife screamed a string of curses and threw her empty basket at the carriage. One horse reared up and overbalanced onto the other, and in almost dreamlike motion they skewed crazily over to the harbor wall and the sheer drop to the water. The carriage swung around and the shafts snapped. The carriage balanced for a split second, then toppled over into the river, taking Oonagh and Alastair with it. The horses were left shivering on the edge, eyes rolling, squealing with terror, held by the chains and harness.

Hector reined in, throwing his considerable weight backwards to check his own horse, and slamming on the brake with his other hand.

Monk leaped onto the ground and ran to the edge.

Hester scrambled behind him, ripping her skirt where it caught, and almost spraining her ankle on the rough cobbles.

The carriage was already sinking, exquisitely slowly, sucked and held fast in centuries-deep mud beneath the surge of incoming tide. Oonagh and Alastair were both in the water, clear of all tackle and harness, struggling to stay afloat.

The next few moments were imprinted on Hester's heart forever. Alastair gamed his breath and swam strongly over to Oonagh, a mere stroke or two away, and for an instant they were face-to-face in filthy water, then slowly and with great care he reached out and grasped her heavy hair and pushed her head under. He held it while she flailed and thrashed. The tide caught him and he ignored it, allowing it to take him rather than let go of his dreadful burden.

Monk looked on in paralyzed horror.

Hester let out a scream. It was the only time she could remember screaming in her life.

"God help you!" Hector said thickly.

There was no more commotion in the water. Oonagh's hair floated pale on the surface and her skirts billowed around her. She did not move at all.

"Sweet Mary, mother of God!" the fishwife said from behind Monk, crossing herself again and again.

At last Alastair looked up, his face smeared with mud and his own hair. He was exhausted; the tide had him and he knew it.

As if woken from a dream, Monk turned to the fishwife. "Have you got a rope?" he demanded.

"Holy Virgin!" she said in horrified awe. "You're never going to hang 'im!"

"Of course not, you fool! I'm going to get him out!"

And with that he lashed the rope to the stanchion, the other end around his waist, and leaped into Ihe water and was immediately carried by the current away from the wall and the still-visible floating roof of the carriage.

Others had gathered around. A man in a heavy knitted sweater and sea boots took the weight of the rope, and another went to the edge with a rope ladder.

It was ten minutes before Monk was hauled back and helped in. The fishermen took the bodies from him, and lastly eased him, shivering, streaming water, onto the quayside. He clambered to his feet slowly, his clothes weighing him down.

A little bunch of people stood around, pale-faced, fascinated and flustered as they laid Oonagh on the stones, her skin marble gray, her eyes wide open, and then Alastair beside her, calmer, ice-cold and beyond her reach.

Monk looked down at her, then at Hester, instinctively as he always did, and in that moment he realized the enormity of what lay between them now. He would never seek to put from his mind the night in the secret room, even if he could, nor would he have undone it, but it created new emotions in him he did not want. It opened up vulnerabilities, left him wide open to wounds he could not cope with.

He saw in her face that she understood, that she too was uncertain and afraid; but she was also in that instant certain beyond anything and everything else that there was a trust between them older and stronger than could be broken, something that was not love, although it encompassed it and anger, and differences: true friendship.

He was afraid that she had already seen that it was the most precious thing in the world to him. He looked away quickly, down at the dead face of Oonagh. He reached out a hand and closed her eyes, not out of pity, just a sense of decency.

"The sins of the wolf have come home," he said quietly. "Corruption, deceit, and last of all, betrayal."