The North Water(34)

“And do you believe him?”

“What else should I believe?”

Sumner shrugs.

“That sin is remembering,” he offers. “That good is the absence of evil.”

“Some men believe that, of course, but if it were true, then the world would be chaos, and the world is not chaos. Look around, Sumner. The confusion and stupidity are ours. We misunderstand ourselves; we are very vain and very stupid. We build a great bonfire to warm ourselves and then complain that the flames are too hot and fierce, that we are blinded by the smoke.”

“Why kill a child though?” Sumner asks. “What sense can be made of that?”

“The most important questions are the ones we can’t hope to answer with words. Words are like toys: they amuse and educate us for a time, but when we come to manhood we should give them up.”

Sumner shakes his head.

“The words are all we have,” he says. “If we give them up, we are no better than the beasts.”

Otto smiles at Sumner’s wrongheadedness.

“Then you must find out the explanations on your own,” he says, “if that’s what you truly think.”

Sumner bends down and looks at the orphaned bear. He is crouched at the back of the cask panting and licking at a puddle of his own urine.

“I would rather not think,” he says. “It would be pleasanter and easier, I’m sure. But it seems I cannot help myself.”

*

Shortly after the burial, Cavendish requests to speak to Brownlee in his cabin.

“I’ve been asking questions,” he says. “I’ve been squeezing and grinding the bastards, and they’ve given up a name.”

“What name?”

“McKendrick.”

“Samuel McKendrick, the carpenter?”

“The same. They say he has been seen ashore in public houses canoodling with the Molly men. And this last whaling season when he shipped aboard the John o’ Gaunt, it is well known he was sharing his berth with a boat steerer, man name of Nesbet.”

“And this was in plain sight?”

“It’s dark in the forecastle, as you know, Mr. Brownlee, but let’s say noises were heard at night. Noises of a certain unmistakable kind, I mean.”

“Bring Samuel McKendrick to me,” Brownlee says. “And find Sumner also. I want the surgeon to hear whatever it is he has to say.”

McKendrick is a slight fellow, pale of skin and unrobust. His beard is wispy and yellowish; he has a slender nose, a narrow almost lipless mouth, and large ears tinged red by the cold.

“How well did you know Joseph Hannah?” Brownlee asks him.

“I doesn’t know him hardly at all.”

“You must have seen him in the forecastle though.”

“I seen him, yes, but I doesn’t know him. He’s just a cabin boy.”

“And are you not fond of the cabin boys?”

“Not especially.”

“Are you married, McKendrick? Do you have a wife waiting for you at home?”

“No sir, I int and I don’t.”

“But you have a sweetheart there, I suppose?”

McKendrick shakes his head.

“Perhaps you don’t like women much, is that it?”

“No, it’s not that sir,” McKendrick says. “It’s more that I have not found a woman that’s quite suitable for me as yet.”

Cavendish snorts at this. Brownlee turns, glares at him briefly, then continues his questioning.

“I have heard you prefer the company of men. That is what I’ve been told. Is that true?”

McKendrick’s expression doesn’t change. He seems neither scared nor agitated nor especially surprised by this accusation of unnaturalness.

“It int true, sir, no,” he says. “I am as red-blooded as the next man over.”

“Joseph Hannah was sodomized before he was killed. I suppose you know that already.”

“That is what all the fellows in the forecastle are saying, sir, yes.”

“Did you kill him, McKendrick?”

McKendrick frowns as though this question makes no sense.

“Did you?”

“No, that int me, sir,” he says placidly. “I int the one you seek.”

“He is a plausible fucking liar,” Cavendish says. “But I have half a dozen men who will testify to his well-known reputation as a buggerer of young boys.”

Brownlee looks at the carpenter, who seems, for the first time since the questioning began, less than comfortable.

“It will not go well for you if you are found to be lying, McKendrick,” he says. “I warn you now. I will be severe.”

McKendrick nods once, then scans the cabin ceiling before replying. His eyes are gray and fidgety, and there is something like a smile playing about his narrow lips.

“It hant ever been boys,” he says. “The boys int to my taste.”

Cavendish snorts derisively.

“You really expect us to believe you are so very particular about whose arse you lay siege to. From what I hear, after a pint or two of whiskey you would fuck your own granddad.”

“It int a matter of laying siege to anything,” McKendrick says.

“You are a fucking disgrace,” Brownlee says, jabbing his forefinger in McKendrick’s face. “And whether you are a murderer or not, I should have you whipped.”