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.

The following day he started specific enquiries. Who decided where a railway line should run? What provisions were there for obtaining the land? Where did the money come from? Who surveyed it? Who bought it?