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time!" she said fervently. "What sort of an accident?"
    "I don't
know." He explained the family relationships briefly. "Argyll says
his father-in-law had a terror of landslips, cave-ins and so on. He became
obsessed, lost his senses a bit."
    "And is
that true?" she pressed, clearly still forcing herself to think only of
the present case.
    "I don't
know." He went on to tell her about Mary's proposed engagement to Toby
Argyll, and that she had broken it off, but no reason had been given, except
her distress over her father's death and that she refused to believe that he
had caused it himself. She could not let the matter go.
    "What was
it, then?" Hester asked. "Accident? Or murder?" She was being
severely practical, but he saw the stiffness in her, the deliberate control,
and the effort.
    "I don't
know. But the police investigated it. It was Runcorn's patch." He looked
at her steadily with a bleak smile.
    She understood
why that added irony and pain to the case. More than he wished, she had seen
his ambition for authority, the way he had fought with, crushed, and infuriated
Runcorn in the past. She did not know the flashes of memory and shame that Monk
had had since then, the realization of how he had used Runcorn in his own climb
to success, before the accident that had taken his memory. There were things
that it was kind for forgetfulness to cleanse from the mind.
    "But you're
going to find out," she said, watching him.
    "Yes, I
have to. She'll be buried in unhallowed ground if she meant to do it."
    "I
know." Tears filled Hester's eyes.
    Instantly he
wished he had not uttered this bit of truth. He should have lied if necessary.
    Hester saw that
too. "There's no such thing as unhallowed ground, really." She
swallowed. "All the earth is hallowed, isn't it? It's just what people
think. But some people care very much about being buried with their own,
belonging even in death. See what you can find. Her sister may need to know the
truth, poor woman."

 
     
    TWO
    The tide was
high the next morning and the river, with its smells of mud and salt, dead fish
and rotting wood, seemed to be lapping right at the door as Monk walked across
the dockside. The wind had fallen and it was calm, the surface of the water
barely rippled as it seeped higher around the pier stakes and up the stone
steps that led to the quaysides and embankments. The rime of ice overnight had
melted in places, but there were still patches as slippery as oiled glass.
    "Morning,
sir," Orme said briskly as Monk came into the station. The stove had been
burning all night and the room was warm.
    "Good
morning, Orme," Monk replied, closing the door behind him. There were
three other men there: Jones and Kelly, busily sorting through papers of one
kind or another, and Clacton, standing by the stove, his clothes steaming
gently.
    Monk greeted
them and received dutiful acknowledgment, but no more. He was still a stranger,
a usurper of Durban's place. They all knew that it was in helping Monk that
Durban had contracted the terrible disease that had brought about his death,
and they blamed Monk for it. That Durban had gone on the mission both because
he wished to, understanding the enormity of the danger, and because he
considered it his duty, was irrelevant to their anger and the sense of
unfairness that lay behind it.
    Monk had gone on
the same mission, and he was alive. They could not excuse that. They would have
chosen Monk to die, every man of them.
    Kelly, a
soft-spoken Irishman, small-boned and neat, handed him the reports of crime
overnight. "Nothin out o' the usual, sorr," he said, meeting Monk's
eyes, then looking away. "Barge ran aground at low tide, but they got it
off."
    "Run
aground intentionally?" Monk asked.
    "Yes, sorr,
I'd say so. No doubt the owners'll be reportin' some o' their cargo
missin'." Kelly gave a bleak smile.
    "Dragging
it up through the mud, at low tide?" Monk questioned. "If they worked