The Shifting Tide

FOURTEEN

Monk stood in the bedroom in the wan morning light looking at Hester still sleeping. He wanted to stay, simply to be as close to her as he could. He would like to wait until she woke, however long it was, and light the fire downstairs, regardless of expense. He would make the room warm for her, bring her whatever she wanted, tea, toast, go out in the rain and buy whatever else she would like and bring it back for her. Then when she was ready, talk about everything, tell her all that had mattered to him, and learn more than the few bare facts she had told him of her time in Portpool Lane. He wanted to hear the details, how she had felt in all the victories and the pain, so he could be closer to her.

Before that he had one more idea to pursue. He knew nothing about any of the missing crewmen except Hodge. He was apparently the only one married. It was perhaps intrusive to go to his widow now, but it was just possible that Hodge might have told her something about one of the missing men: a woman, a place, anything at all to help find them.

He went downstairs and cleaned out the grate, clumsily. It was not a job he was accustomed to doing, and at the end he found himself with rather more cleaning up to do than he had expected. Then he laid a new fire and lit it. When it was drawing nicely, he damped it down so it would last. He filled the coal buckets to the top and wrote a note for Hester, saying simply that he loved her. At any other time he would have thought it ridiculous, but today it was the most natural thing to do. He only became self-conscious after he had propped it up on the table and had gone as far as the door, coat collar turned up. He smiled for a moment, then went out into the wind and sleet.

He had no idea of Hodge’s widow’s address; Louvain’s office was the obvious place to ask. However, the surgeon or the morgue attendant might know, and he would far rather ask them. He had too much other business to address with Louvain: the death of his sisters, the whereabouts of his missing crew, and his own black rage with him for deliberately sending Ruth Clark to Hester, knowing she had plague, and to use it to manipulate Monk. He dared not even think of that; the raw emotion it woke in him robbed him of reason, of any kind of judgment. He wanted to beat Louvain with his own hands until he was a bloody pulp and too helpless even to ask for mercy. And that blind rage frightened him; it woke old memories of another rage which had ended in murder, and only by the grace of God had he not been guilty.

So instead he set out to look for the attendant at the morgue. He was walking along the Embankment when he heard a scampering of feet. The next moment Scuff’s voice was demanding to know what was the matter with him.

“In’t yer talkin’ ter me no more?”

Monk stopped, taken aback at how pleased he was to see him. “I was thinking,” he excused himself.

“Think that ’ard an’ you’ll walk straight inter the river,” Scuff said disgustedly. “Wot yer lookin’ fer now?”

Monk smiled at him. “How about a hot pie? Then I need to find where the widow of the man from the ship lives, the one who was killed.”

“Wot fell down the ’ole an broke ’is ’ead?” Scuff asked. “ ’Odge?”

“Yes.”

“ ’Ow yer gonna do that?”

“Ask the man at the morgue, where she came to see the body.”

Scuff gave an exaggerated shudder. “ ’e won’t tell yer. In’t none o’ yer business. But we could ask Crow. ’E’d find out for yer!” Now he was eager.

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah! C’mon. We’ll get a pie, eh?” Scuff looked acutely hopeful.

Monk did as was expected of him, with pleasure. Three quarters of an hour later they were walking back along the street towards the river, the wind in their faces. Crow was concocting a vivid and rather unlikely story in order to obtain the necessary information from the morgue attendant. He did not once ask Monk why he wanted it. He seemed to consider it some kind of professional courtesy.

They reached the morgue, and Monk and Scuff remained outside while Crow went in. He emerged fifteen minutes later, black hair flying in the wind, and a smile of triumph showing brilliant teeth. “Got it!” he said, waving a piece of paper in his hand.

Monk thanked him, took the paper and read it, then put it in his pocket.

“Now what?” Crow asked with interest.

“Now I treat you to the best pie I can afford and a hot cup of tea, then I go about my business and leave you to go about yours,” Monk replied with a smile.

“You’re almighty pleased with yourself,” Crow said suspiciously.

“Only half,” Monk replied with sudden honesty. “I’ve still got the rest to do. Do you want that pie or not?”

He treated them handsomely, but refused to allow either of them to go with him. Scuff objected strongly, insisting that Monk was not safe on his own and unquestionably needed someone to advise him and watch his back. While Monk reluctantly agreed with him, nevertheless he still would not allow him to come. With a show of suffering fortitude, Scuff finally resigned himself to going with Crow instead, just this once.

It took Monk little more than an hour to find the right small brick house. It was in the middle of a long row of exactly similar houses built back to back near the docks in Rotherhithe. When he knocked on the door she opened it and he recognized her immediately, as much for her resemblance to Newbolt as for his memory of her at the morgue.

“Yeah?” she said suspiciously. He knew she was trying to remember where she had seen him before.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hodge,” he said respectfully. “I am hoping that you can help me—”

“Can’t ’elp no one,” she replied without hesitation, beginning to close the door.

“I should not be ungrateful for it.” He forced himself to smile at her. She was graceless and abrupt, but she must also be frightened, and whatever her relationship with her husband had been, she must still be raw from his loss and the implied disgrace that he had died of his own drunken carelessness. “I regret your loss, Mrs. Hodge,” he added quite genuinely. “It is a terrible thing when a husband or wife dies. I don’t think anyone else can comprehend it.”

“You lost someone?” she said with surprise.

“No, but I am fortunate. I very nearly did, and only late yesterday evening did I learn that she was all right.”

“Wot d’yer want?” she asked reluctantly. “I s’pose you’d better come in, but don’t get in my way! I in’t got all mornin’. Some of us ’as gotter work.” She pulled the door wider and turned to allow him to follow her into the small kitchen at the back. Seemingly it was the only warm room in the house. The black stove was burning and it gave off considerable heat—and a smell of soot and smoke that caught in his throat and made his eyes water. She seemed oblivious to it.

He looked around without having intended to. There was a stone sink, but no drain. That would be in the yard at the back, with the privy. Water would be collected from the nearest well or standing pump. There were wooden bins for flour or oats, several strings of onions hanging from the ceiling, and a sack of potatoes leaning against the wall, with two turnips and a large white cabbage beside it.

Two scuttles were nearly full of coal, and on the wall were hanging three very handsome copper pans.

She saw his glance. “I in’t sellin’ ’em,” she said tartly. “Wot is it yer want?”

“I was simply admiring your pans,” he told her. “It’s information I’m looking for.”

“I don’t grass!” It was a flat statement. “An’ before yer ask, they wasn’t stole. Me bruvver give ’em to me back in August. ’e bought ’em fair, at a shop up west. Could prove it!”

“I don’t doubt you, Mrs. Hodge,” he answered her. “Do you have several brothers?”

“Just the one. Why?”

“I suppose one like that is more than most people have,” he said, evading the answer. “The information I wanted has to do with the other men your husband served with on the Maude Idris. I wondered if you knew where any of them lived?”

“Lived?” she said in amazement. “ ’Ow the ’ell should I know? You think wi’ three kids I got time ter go around visitin’?”

“Only if they were close, a street or two away.”

“Maybe they are, but I dunno,” she replied. “Is that all?”

“Yes. Thank you. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

She frowned. “Why d’yer wanna know?”

He created the best lie he could think of. “Actually, it was the captain I wanted to find, but I’ll just have to keep looking. Thank you for your courtesy.”

She shrugged, not knowing how to reply.

He excused himself and went out into the street, his mind racing. He had the beginning of an idea, a wild, terrible possibility that explained everything.

He was bitterly cold by the time he crossed the river to the north bank again at Wapping Stairs and the River Police station. He found Durban looking tired and pale, sitting at his desk with a mug of hot tea in his hands.

He regarded Monk curiously, seeing the relief in him and not knowing what it was.

Monk walked across to the chair opposite him and sat down. “It’s all right at the clinic,” he said, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. “No new cases in days, and it’s three weeks now since Hodge’s death. Hester came home last night.”

Durban smiled, a sweet, gentle expression. “I’m glad.” He stood up and walked over to the window, away from Monk.

“I know we haven’t finished with Louvain,” Monk conceded. “What he did to the people in the clinic was inhuman. So many died, and it could have been all of them. And if they hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice their own lives to stay there, the devastation could have been to all London, all England, and God only knows what beyond.”

Durban pursed his lips. “I think he knew who he was dealing with,” he answered. “Mrs. Monk’s reputation is not unknown. It was the best gamble he had, other than to kill Ruth Clark and bury her somewhere. I’m not surprised he couldn’t bring himself to do that, if she was actually his own mistress.” His voice dropped. “He wouldn’t be sure she had plague then; it was only a danger. She might simply have had pneumonia.”

“She wasn’t his mistress,” Monk replied. “She was his sister; her real name was Charity Bradshaw. She and her husband were coming back from Africa. He died at sea.”

Durban’s eyes widened. “I’m not surprised Louvain wanted her cared for, but he should have told Mrs. Monk what the illness could be. Although I daresay he believed she’d refuse her if she knew.”

“You think Clement Louvain, the hard man of the river, couldn’t kill his own sister if she carried the plague?” Monk asked, his voice grating with the dreadful irony of the idea now in his mind.

Durban blinked; his eyes were pink-rimmed with exhaustion. “Could you?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you have to try every last thing you could to save her?”

Monk brushed his hands over his face. For all his joy at Hester’s return, he too was physically drained. “If she was going to spread the disease, I don’t know. But Mercy Louvain went there to help in the clinic as a volunteer.”

“To nurse her sister?” Durban’s face was gentle, his eyes shining. “What sublime devotion.”

“She went there to nurse her,” Monk replied. “But she killed her rather than let her leave carrying the plague with her.”

Durban stared at him in growing horror. He started to speak, then stopped, still incredulous. “Oh God!” he said at last. “I wish you hadn’t told me!”

“You can’t do anything,” Monk said, looking up at him. “If you could, I wouldn’t have said it. She’s dead, too.”

“Plague?” The word was a whisper, said with fierce, hurting pity; it seemed to be torn from somewhere deep inside him as if all his passion were in it.

Monk nodded. “They buried her properly.”

Durban turned his back to Monk, staring out of the small window, the cold light picking out the gray in his hair.

Now was the time Monk had to speak, no matter how preposterous, even if Durban thought him insane.

“I went to see Mrs. Hodge today.”

Durban was puzzled. “What for? Did you think she would know anything about the crew?” He smiled very slightly, hardly a movement of the lips. “Did you think I hadn’t thought of that?”

Monk was momentarily embarrassed, but the idea in him overrode everything else. “I’m sorry. Did you see the copper saucepans in the kitchen?”

“I didn’t go, Orme did.” Durban was frowning. “What about them? What does it matter? I can’t afford to care about petty theft now.” Again the fraction of a smile touched his mouth and disappeared.

“They weren’t stolen, so far as I know,” Monk answered. “She saw me looking at them and said her brother gave them to her.”

“I’m too tired to play games, Monk,” Durban said wearily. He looked gray-faced, close to collapse.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said quickly, and he meant it. He liked Durban as much as anyone he had known in years, more instinctively than he did Oliver Rathbone. “She told me she has only one brother and he gave them to her in August. She said she could prove that.”

Durban blinked, frowning harder. “She can’t! He was off the coast of Africa in August. Are you saying the Maude Idris was here then? Or that Newbolt wasn’t on her?”

“Not exactly either,” Monk said very quietly. “We checked the names of the crew.”

“Of course.”

“But not their appearances.”

Durban steadied himself, leaning back against the sill. “For God’s sake, what are you saying?” But the hideousness of it was already in his eyes. He shook his head. “But they’re still there—on the ship!”

“You told your men to keep them there because it was typhoid,” Monk reminded him. “Maybe Louvain told them the same, or close enough?”

Durban rubbed his hand over his face like a man trying to dispel a nightmare. “Then we’d better find out. Can you use a pistol?”

“Of course,” Monk replied, with no idea whether he could or not.

Durban straightened up. “I’ll get Orme and half a dozen men, but I’m the only one going below.” He stared very levelly at Monk, his eyes seeming to look into his brain. “That is an order.” He did not elaborate but walked past him and through the outside office, calling for Orme as he went.

He gave his orders concisely and with a clarity no man could misunderstand, like a commander going into a last battle.

The rain had cleared away and the water was bright and choppy with a knife-edge wind blowing from the west when they rowed out.

Monk sat in the stern of the boat, cradling his loaded gun as they plied between the ships and the Maude Idris came clearly into view.

Durban sat in the bow, a little apart. He glanced at each of his men, then gave a barely discernible nod as they drew alongside and he stood up, balancing easily even in the pitching boat. He hailed the ship, and Newbolt’s head appeared over the railing.

“River Police!” Durban called out. “Coming aboard.”

Newbolt hesitated, then disappeared. The next moment the rope ladder came pitching over, uncurling to fall almost in Durban’s hands. He caught it and climbed up—it seemed to Monk, watching from below—less agilely than before.

Two of the River Police went up after him, Orme and another man, guns tucked in their belts, and lastly Monk, leaving only the oarsman in the boat. Monk climbed over the rail onto the deck where three River Police faced Newbolt and Atkinson. There was no sound except the whine of the wind in the rigging and the slap of water against the hull below them.

“What d’yer want this time?” Newbolt asked, staring sullenly at Durban. “None of us killed ’Odge, and none of us ’elped anyone take the bleedin’ ivory.”

“I know,” Durban replied steadily. “We don’t think anyone killed Hodge; he died by accident. And we know that Gould stole the ivory because we have it back.”

“So wot d’yer want ’ere then?” Newbolt said irritably. “If yer wanter do summink useful, get bleedin’ Louvain ter unload this ship an’ pay us off!”

“I want to see below deck, then we might do that,” Durban replied, watching him curiously, his face intent. “Where’s McKeever?”

“Dead,” Newbolt said tersely. “We got the typhoid. Still wanna go below?”

“I know you have,” Durban replied. “That’s why you’ve not berthed. Now open the hatch.”

Newbolt’s eyes flickered and his head came up as if at last he was paying real attention. “Right! Wot d’yer wanter see?”

“I’ll find it for myself,” Durban said grimly. “You stay up here.”

“I’m coming wi’ yer,” Newbolt insisted.

Durban took the gun out of his belt and glanced at Orme, who did the same. “No you aren’t.”

Newbolt looked startled, then suspicious. “Yer no better than the bleedin’ Revenue men!” he snarled. “Bloody thieves, the lot o’ yer!”

Durban ignored him. “Keep them here!” he ordered his men. “Shoot them if you have to.” There was no possibility whatever of doubting his intent. He took a bull’s-eye lantern from Orme and walked over to the hatch. Monk followed after him. As Durban reached the hatch he yanked it open, and the stench of the enclosed air caught in Monk’s throat, turning his stomach. He had not remembered it being so strong.

“I’m going down,” Durban said, his face pinched with revulsion. “You stay here. I’ll tell you if I find anything.”

“I’m coming—” Monk started.

“You’re doing as you’re told!” Durban snapped at him. “That’s an order! Or I’ll have Orme hold you at gunpoint!”

Monk saw in Durban’s eyes that there was no point in arguing, and no time. He stood back and watched as Durban swung over the edge, found the ladder, then took the lantern in his other hand and started down. He saw him reach the ledge and look up, his eyes dark in the small circle of yellow light. He knew as well as Monk did that had any of the jury seen the hold of the Maude Idris, they would have known that a man who slipped off the ladder would not land on the ledge, injure his head fatally, and then lie there. His body would have pitched off and gone on down, probably breaking his neck or his back when he hit the bottom.

Then Monk turned and held the lantern out so he could see as much as possible of the stacked wood and the boxes of spice. As far as Monk could remember, peering down from the top, it all seemed exactly the same as when he had been there approximately three weeks before with Louvain.

Durban went on down. At the bottom he stood still. He was directly above the ship’s bilges.

Monk could not wait. He threw his leg over the edge of the opening and started down. Durban shouted at him, and he ignored it. He could not leave Durban alone with what he now dreaded they would find.

Below him Durban knelt, holding the light only inches from the boards. The marks of a crowbar were clear.

“Go back up,” Durban ordered as Monk reached the ledge above him. “It doesn’t need two of us.”

Monk found himself shaking, and he had trouble swallowing the nausea from the sickening smell in the air. He ignored the command.

“Do as you’re told,” Durban said between his teeth.

Monk stayed exactly where he was. “What’s under there?”

“The bilges, of course!” Durban snapped.

“Somebody’s taken them up,” Monk observed.

Durban’s eyes flashed. “I can see that! Get out!”

Monk was frozen, unable to move even if he had wanted to. His skin crawled with the horror he imagined.

“Get out,” Durban said, looking up at him, emotion naked on his face. “There’s no point in both of us being here. Pass me the crowbar from over there, then go back to the deck. I’ll not tell you again.”

Somewhere in the darkness a rat dropped onto the floor and scuttled away. At last Monk obeyed, climbing up hand over hand until he reached the air and gasped it, freezing and clean, into his lungs.

“What is it?” Orme said hoarsely. “What’s down there?” He put out his hand and half hauled Monk over the hatchway and onto the deck.

“I don’t know,” Monk replied, straightening up. “Nothing yet.”

“Then what are you doing back here? Why ’ave you left ’im down there? Smell o’ bilges got to yer, ’as it?” There was infinite contempt in Orme’s voice and in the curl of his lip, not for a queasy stomach but for a man who deserted another in the face of trouble.

“I came back up because he ordered me to!” Monk said wretchedly. “He wouldn’t move until I did.”

Orme stared at him coldly.

“What’s ’e doin’?” the other officer asked.

“You’ll find out when he wants to tell you,” Monk retorted.

They looked at each other but remained silent. Newbolt and Atkinson were standing near the rail, sullen and anxious. Neither moved because the policemen’s pistols were at the ready, and there was enough firepower to stop both of them.

The wind was whining more shrilly in the rigging. A large schooner passed going upriver, tacking back and forth. Its wake rocked the ship slightly.

Finally, Durban’s head appeared above the hatch opening. Monk was the first to move, striding over towards him, clasping his hand and hauling him out. He looked paper-white, his eyes red-rimmed and shocked, as if he had seen hell.

“Was it . . .” Monk said.

“Yes.” Durban was shuddering uncontrollably. “With their throats cut, all eight of them, even the cabin boy.”

“Not . . .”

“No. I told you—throats cut.”

Monk wanted to say something, but what words could possibly carry the horror that was in him?

Durban stood on the deck breathing slowly, trying to gain control of his limbs, his racing heart, the trembling of his body. Finally he looked at Orme. “Arrest these men for murder,” he commanded, pointing at Newbolt and Atkinson. “Mass murder. If they try to escape, shoot them—not to kill, just to cripple. Shoot them in the stomach.

“The third one is down below, possibly dead. Leave him. Just batten down the hatch. That’s an order. No one is to go below. Do you understand me?”

Orme stared at him in disbelief, then slowly understanding came, at least partially. “They’re river pirates!”

“Yes.”

Orme was white. “They killed the whole crew?”

“Except Hodge. I suppose they left him because he was married to Newbolt’s sister.”

Orme rubbed his hands over his face, staring at Durban. Then suddenly he came to attention and did as he was commanded.

Durban walked over to the rail and leaned against it. Monk followed him.

“Are you going to arrest Louvain?” he asked.

Durban stared ahead of him at the churning water and the shoreline where the tide was rising against the pier stakes and washing ever higher over the steps. “For what?” he asked.

“Murder!”

“The men will no doubt say he ordered them, even paid them,” Durban replied. “But he’ll say he didn’t, and there’s no proof.”

“For God’s sake!” Monk exploded. “He knows these aren’t his crew! He has to know they murdered everyone, except Hodge! It doesn’t matter whether he knows it was because they had plague, or because they simply wanted to take the ship!” He gulped.

Durban said nothing.

“If Louvain paid these men,” Monk went on, turning to face Durban, the knife-edge wind stinging his face, “he must have been aboard the ship to do it. Someone would have taken him, seen him. There’ll be a chain of proof! We can’t let him get away with it. I won’t!”

“There are a dozen arguments he can come up with,” Durban said wearily. “These are the men who killed the crew. We won’t be able to prove that Louvain even knew about it, much less ordered it. We can’t tell anyone his reason, and he knows that.”

“I’m going to find him,” Monk said, rage almost choking the air out of his lungs.

“Monk!”

But Monk would not listen. If Durban would not, or could not, make Louvain answer for what he had done, then Monk would, no matter what it cost. He strode along to the ladder, swung over the rail, and scrambled down towards the boat, not caring if he skinned his knuckles or bruised his elbows. Louvain had cost Mercy her life—and seven other women theirs. It was only by the grace of God that Hester and Margaret had not died as well. It could have been half of London—it could have been half of Europe. Louvain had gambled that Hester would be prepared to give her own life to prevent it.

He landed in the boat. “Take me ashore!” he ordered. “Now!”

The oarsman took one look at his face and obeyed, digging the blades into the water with all his strength.

As soon as they reached the shore, Monk thanked him and stepped out, his foot sliding on the wet stone. He grasped at the wall and went up as fast as he could. At the top he turned straight for Louvain’s office without even glancing behind him to see the boat begin its journey back.

“You can’t go in there, sir, Mr. Louvain’s busy!” the clerk shouted at him as he went past, bumping into another clerk with a pile of ledgers and only just avoiding knocking the man over. He apologized without turning around.

He reached Louvain’s office door, lifted his hand to knock, then changed his mind and simply opened it.

Louvain was at his desk, a pile of papers in front of him, a pen in his hand. He looked up at the interruption, but without alarm. Then he saw Monk and his face darkened.

“What do you want?” he said sharply. “I’m busy. Your thief got off. Isn’t that enough for you?”

Monk had to make an intense effort to control himself, even to keep his voice from shaking. He realized with amazement that part of him had respected Louvain, even liked him. It was that which made his rage so nearly uncontrollable now. This was the same man who had been dazed by the beauty of the great landscapes of the world, who had longed to sail beyond the horizon in the great clippers with their staggering beauty, a man he had almost confided in.

“Did anyone tell you that your sister died?” he asked instead. He was not even certain what made him say it.

Louvain’s face tightened. It hurt him, and he could not conceal it. “She was very ill,” he said softly.

“Not Charity . . .” Monk saw Louvain’s eyes widen. In using her name he had at once told Louvain how much more he knew. He drove home the far deeper pain. “I meant Mercy. You knew Charity would die when you took her to Portpool Lane, and you didn’t care. Seven other women died as well, and we’d all have died if Hester and the others hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice their own lives to keep it in.”

Louvain was staring at him, his eyes wide, his hands on the desktop white-knuckled. “You’re speaking as if it’s over?” he said hoarsely.

“In Portpool Lane it is.”

Louvain leaned back and let his breath out slowly. “Then it is over everywhere.” His body went limp. He almost smiled. “It’s finished!”

Monk forced his next words through clenched jaws. “And what about the crew of the Maude Idris? McKeever died of it, and so did Hodge. How about the rest of them?” He watched Louvain intently.

“If they haven’t got it now, they won’t,” he answered, and Monk saw barely a flicker of regret in his face.

“Let’s go and see,” Monk suggested, straightening his body, his hands sweating, his breath uneven.

“I’m busy,” Louvain answered. His eyes met Monk’s, and they stared at each other across the silent room. Monk thought of Mercy, of Margaret Ballinger, of Bessie and the other women whose names he did not know, but mostly of Hester and the hell it would have been for him without her.

Louvain became aware of a change in the air between them. He sat back. The moment of understanding was gone. They were enemies again. “I’m busy,” he repeated, challenging Monk to act.

Monk wanted to smile, but his face was stiff. “Come with me to see them now,” he said softly. “Or shall I tell Newbolt and Atkinson what kind of a ship they’re on? Do you think they will wait there then? Don’t you think they’ll hunt you down anywhere, everywhere, for the rest of your life?”

Louvain’s skin blanched of every trace of color, leaving him gray-white. He drew in his breath to defy Monk, but knew that his face had betrayed him.

This time Monk could laugh; it was a grating sound choked inside him. “You know what they are!” he said. “You know what they’ll do to you. Now are you coming, or do I tell them?”

Louvain stood up very slowly. “What for? You’ll get nothing, Monk. You can’t prove I knew. I’ll say I paid off the others at Gravesend and these men brought the ship up to the Pool.”

“If you like,” Monk replied. In that instant he knew exactly what he was going to do; the resolve inside him set like steel.

Louvain sensed the change, and he also knew that he could not fight it. He straightened up and came around the desk. He was moving slowly, with the tense, animal grace of a man who knows his own physical power. “What if I say you attacked me?” he asked almost curiously, as if the answer did not really matter.

“You won’t,” Monk replied. “Because by the time you show there is any truth in that you’ll be dead. I will have shot you—not to kill! In the stomach. And Newbolt and Atkinson will still be there. McKeever’s dead, by the way. Plague, I imagine.”

Louvain stood still. “What do you want, Monk?”

“I want you on the Maude Idris. Go ahead of me—now!”

Slowly, both of them moving as if wading against the tide, they went out through the office. Clerks looked up but no one spoke. Louvain opened the outer door and winced as the icy air struck him, but Monk allowed him no time to collect a coat. There might have been a weapon in the pocket.

They walked across the street and onto the quayside, Louvain shuddering with cold. It was a brilliant afternoon, the sun low in the west in the shortening day, light dancing gold on the water.

They had only a few minutes to wait for a boat, and Monk ordered the oarsman to take them out. Neither of them spoke as they sat, the waves slapping against the wood of the hull. The occasional spray was like ice.

When they reached the Maude Idris, Monk told Louvain to go up the ladder, then followed after him. Durban was alone.

Louvain looked startled. He swung around to Monk.

Monk took the gun out of his belt. “I’m taking Mr. Louvain down to see the crew,” he told Durban. “May I borrow the lantern again?”

“I’ll take him,” Durban answered. “You stay up here.”

Monk stared at him. He looked exhausted, his face flushed, his eyes sunken. “No. I’m doing this. Besides, the state you’re in, he might jump you.”

Durban started to argue, and Monk pushed past him, thrusting the lantern into Louvain’s hands. “You go first!” he ordered. “All the way down. If you stop I’ll shoot you, and believe me, I will!”

Durban leaned against the rail. “Don’t be long,” he said. “The tide turns in a quarter of an hour. I need you to go ashore then.” There was a finality in his eyes and his voice.

Louvain started down the ladder and Monk followed, one hand on the rungs, the other awkwardly holding his gun. He had to do this. He had to see Louvain’s face when he stood in the hold and looked down into the bilges. Monk needed him to smell the plague, to breathe it in, to know the stench of it so that for the rest of his life it would stalk his dreams. As an old man he would wake screaming, soaked in sweat, enclosed again in the creaking, rolling ship with the corpses of the men he had had killed.

The smell was far worse. It was like a thickness in the air as they went down, hand over hand towards the ledge.

Louvain stopped. Monk could hear his breathing—gasping, labored. He looked down at his face and saw the sweat standing out on it, his eyes like holes in his head, sockets dark.

“Keep moving!” Monk ordered. “What’s the matter? Can you smell them?” Then as he looked past Louvain at the open bilges where Durban had torn up the wood, his stomach heaved so violently he nearly lost his grip on the ladder. The boat swayed in the wash of something passing, and the water in the bilges slopped forward, carrying the bloated head and shoulders of a dead man. His eyes were eaten out, and his face rotted, but the fearful gash in his throat was still plain, and the stench so overpowering it made his senses swim.

“That’s your crew, Louvain!” Monk said, gasping to control his nausea. “Can you smell the plague? It’s the Black Death!”

There was a scrabbling of clawed feet and a flurry of squeaks, then a rat dropped into the bilges with a plop.

Louvain screamed and flung himself upwards, the lantern falling from his hands to land with a crash, and the light went out. Louvain was still screaming.

Monk started up again, desperate for the air. He reached the ledge, panic welling up inside him, horror inconceivable at what lay below him in the dark, and the madman at his heels.

He saw the square of sky at the hatch darken for a moment as Durban began down.

“We’re coming up!” he shouted. “It’s all right!”

Durban hesitated.

Louvain reached the ledge and Monk realized it half a second too late. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and then Louvain’s arms were around him, clinging as if to squeeze the air out of him, break his ribs, and crush his lungs and his heart.

He could not escape. His only choice was to lunge forward with his head. Louvain did not let go. Monk twisted sideways and bit Louvain’s wrist as hard as he could, feeling his teeth break skin and his mouth fill with blood.

Louvain yelled and his grip loosened, but he was blind with terror. He swung at Monk, but Monk moved and caught only a glancing blow on the shoulder.

“You had their throats cut!” Monk gasped out. “Even the poor bloody cabin boy!”

“They’d have died anyway, you fool!” Louvain said between his teeth, his hands reaching for Monk’s throat. “But I couldn’t tell anyone that. If you’d had the stomach for it, you’d have done the same!”

“I’d have taken the ship out again!” Monk lunged at him, fists clenched, and Louvain sidestepped, bringing them closer so they were locked together, muscles straining.

“And lose my cargo?” Louvain replied, grunting with effort. His face was running with sweat. “I need that clipper. This was quick—better than dying of the plague. I thought you’d see that.” He punched Monk hard, but the blow caught him on the hip instead of the stomach.

Monk gagged with pain, doubling forward. “But you took your sister to Portpool Lane to spread the plague there!”

“So London’s got a few less whores,” Louvain retorted. “I knew your wife wouldn’t let it go beyond that. I couldn’t kill Charity. She was my sister!”

Monk swung his leg back and kicked Louvain on the shin as hard as he could. When Louvain’s hold weakened for a moment, Monk struck him with all the force of rage he possessed, all the horror and loss that had drenched him night and day for the last week.

Louvain staggered, twisting his own arm to strike back. He teetered on the rim for wild, hideous seconds, then plunged over the edge, limbs flailing, and landed with a crash on the broken boards of the hold floor, his head a foot away from the swirling bilges awash with blood and their cargo of dead men, flesh bloated and eaten, throats gaping in eternal silence.

Monk fell to his knees and was sick. Then he crept to the edge and stared down. Vertigo made him grasp the wood as if it were salvation, although the drop to the hold floor was no more than twelve or fourteen feet. There was no sound but the slurp of water and the scraping of rats. Louvain lay on his back. His eyes were open, and Monk knew instantly that he could see but he could not move. His back was broken.

The ship swayed. Monk clung on even harder, horror at what lay below him crawling over his skin and running off him in a cold sweat.

Louvain slid closer to the yawning bilges, the weight of his body carrying him along the slimy, angled floor.

Monk stared at him, knowing what was going to happen with the next lurch of the ship, and seeing in Louvain’s eyes that he knew it also. The moment froze like an everlasting hell.

The ship swayed again. Louvain slithered to the edge of the boards, hesitated a ghastly moment, then helpless to save himself, slipped into the nightmare of the bilges, bumping against the swollen bodies of the cabin boy and two dead rats. His own weight took him down. Monk saw his white face for a moment, then the putrid water closed over him, and he was no more distinguishable from the rest of the corpses slewing back and forth.

Monk closed his eyes and saw in his mind the same scene burned into his brain. Time seemed to have stopped. He saw it frozen, forever.

“Help me get the sails up.” It was Durban’s voice at his shoulder.

Monk avoided the policeman’s eyes and grasped the hand held out to help him. He staggered to his feet.

“Help me get the sails up,” Durban repeated. “The tide’s turning and there’s a stiff breeze from the west. Two should do it, three at most.”

“Sails?” Monk said stupidly. “What for?”

“It’s a plague ship,” Durban replied. “We can’t let it put ashore, not here, not anywhere.”

Monk was reeling with fearful, inescapable thoughts. “You mean . . .”

“Can you think of anything else?” Durban said quickly. His face looked gray in the light from the hatch.

“Your men . . .” Monk began.

“Ashore. Help me get the sails up, then you can go, too. There’s the lifeboat—you can take it.”

Monk was balancing with difficulty. His trouble was not the faint rolling of the ship but the sick horror in his mind. “You can’t sail it alone! Where to? There’s nowhere you can take it!”

“Out beyond Gravesend, and open the seacocks,” Durban answered, his voice little above a whisper. “The sea’ll clean her. Way down at the bottom, it’ll be a good burial. Now let’s get out of here and up into the air. The smell is making me sick.” As he spoke he turned and started climbing again. Monk followed, hand after hand until he stood on the deck, gasping the ice-cold evening air, sweet as the light that poured across from the west, etching the waves with fire.

He could not remember much about raising a sail, but, as Durban told him what to do, some familiarity from childhood on the northeastern seaboard gave skill to his fingers. One great canvas slowly unfurled, and with their combined weight and strength began to crawl up the mainmast. They lashed it close, straight into the wind, then moved to the second.

Together they went to the winch and lifted the anchor. Monk completed the last few turns as Durban went back to the wheel and slowly turned her to catch the wind in one sail, then the next. It was hard work—and, with only two of them, dangerous. As the canvas billowed out and they picked up speed Monk turned to look at Durban. It was a kind of insane and terrible triumph. They were sailing a drowned ship on a sea of gold, heading towards the shadows of the east and the dying day.

“It’s time you went,” Durban said, raising his voice above the wind and the water. “Before we put on speed. I’ll help you launch the longboat.”

Monk was stunned. “What do you mean? If I take the longboat now, how will you get ashore?”

Durban’s face was quite calm, the wind burning his cheeks to scarlet. “I won’t. I’ll go down with her. It’s a better way than waiting for the other death.”

Monk was too shattered to speak. He opened his mouth to deny it, to refuse to grant the possibility, but it was foolish even as the thought entered his mind. He should have seen it before, and he had not: the sweating, the burning cheeks, the exhaustion, the carefully bitten-back pain, and above all the way Durban had kept a distance between himself and Monk, even his own men, recently.

“Go,” Durban said again.

“No! I can’t . . .” They were near the rail; the ship was gathering speed, the water churning alongside them. The words were the last Monk said before he felt a weight jolting hard against him; the rail had caught him in the back. Then the water closed over his head, cripplingly cold, smothering, drowning out everything else.

He fought to hold his breath, to beat his way up to the surface, for seconds the will to live driving out everything else. He broke into the air, gasping, and saw the huge bulk of the Maude Idris already fifty feet away and moving faster. He shouted after it, no idea what he was saying, just bellowing in fury and grief. For an instant he saw Durban’s figure in the stern, his arm lifted in salute, then he moved away and Monk was left to thrash around and think how he was going to make his way to shore without being drowned, run down by another ship, or simply frozen to death.

He had swum only a few strokes, hampered by his sodden clothes, and was already overwhelmed, when he heard a shout, and then another. With a mighty effort he twisted around in the water and saw a boat with at least four men at the oars bearing down on him rapidly. He recognized Orme leaning over the side of the bow, arms out.

The boat reached him, and even though they shipped the oars, the speed of it made it a desperate, arm-wrenching struggle to grasp Monk. It took three men to haul him on board. Then, the moment he landed, they threw their weight behind the oars again, hurling them forwards after the Maude Idris, which was going ever faster as the wind filled her sails.

But she was a heavy ship, and the lighter boat was closing the gap. Monk sat in the stern, shuddering with cold. The wind was making his wet clothes feel like ice on his skin, but he was only peripherally aware of it; all his thoughts were on Durban. Would it help to rescue him? It was the action of instinct, of the heart, the driving compulsion of a friend, but was it really the best thing to do? Did honor and dignity not require that he be allowed to die his own way? Is that not what Monk, or any of these men around him, would choose for themselves?

Did they know? Had Durban told them? No—he couldn’t have, or they might have prevented him, guessing what he might do. They would not believe the enormity of plague, the certain death, the hideousness of it. Dare he tell them now?

They were still closing on the Maude Idris. The lowering sun made her spread sails gleam like the wings of a great bird as she cut through the water. They were clear of the Pool of London and the other ships were behind them. She was heading down Limehouse Reach past the Isle of Dogs, but it was a long way to the sea, with many places where she would have to come about and go on the other tack. Could Durban manage alone, guts apart from his weakened condition; could any man? Perhaps Orme guessed! Was that what these men around him, breaking their backs at the oars, really wanted—to make sure that the Maude Idris did not crash into a pier or another ship, or run aground?

He hoped not; he prayed it was out of concern for Durban.

Durban was struggling with another sail. Slowly, agonizing with the strain, it went up the mast, a foot at a time. Monk did not even realize that he was leaning forward on his seat, his muscles aching with the effort as if he were hauling the great sail himself, putting his own strength against the heavy canvas, the sun in his eyes, the light blinding him off the river. Slowly the ship pulled ahead of them again, widening the distance.

Not a man in the longboat spoke. The oarsmen moved with steady rhythm, faces intent, breath forced from their lungs. Beside Monk, Orme never took his eyes off the ship ahead. Her sails were bellying full now, the white wake creaming behind her as she sped down Limehouse Reach with the Isle of Dogs to the left. Monk looked at Orme and saw the horror and grief in his face, seawater mixed with tears.

Durban was forced to come about clumsily on the bend. For a moment he lost control, and they closed in on him again. Monk ached as he watched. They were within twenty yards of her. They could see him working frantically to control the great booms and stop her from luffing and going over.

Orme was standing up, half crouching forward, his face a mask of passion and despair. Monk did not even realize that he too was shouting.

But Durban took no notice. He succeeded in coming about and righting the ship. All the sails filled again, and the Maude Idris pulled away from them past Greenwich. The sun was low, a pool of fire on the horizon behind them. Only the gathering purple of the evening lay ahead, and the darkness over the Bugsby Marshes, to the south.

Durban was on the deck again, black against the shining gold of the sails. He raised both arms in a signal, a gesture of victory and farewell, then he disappeared down the forward hatch.

Monk clung to the gunwale of the boat, his hands frozen, his body shaking and numb with cold. He could hardly breathe for it. Seconds went by, a minute—it seemed like eternity—then another minute. The Maude Idris was still gaining speed.

Then it happened. At first it was only a dull sound. Monk did not even realize what it was until he saw the sparks and the gout of flame. The second crash was far louder as the ship’s magazine exploded and the flames roared upward, engulfing the decks and leaping up the sails. Soon she was a pillar of fire in the encroaching night, an inferno, a holocaust of burning wood and canvas sweeping towards the deserted mud of the shore, carrying with it Durban, Louvain, the river pirates, and the corpses of the crew.

It was at once a Viking’s pyre and a plague ship’s burial. She lurched into the shallows and stuck, the white heat gone, the light dying red, the water rushing in.

Monk stood in the boat beside Orme, his body freezing and exhausted, his mind burned through to the core with grief and pride. The tears were wet on his face and his hands too numb to feel Orme reach out and grip hold of him in a moment of understanding, a loss too deep to endure alone. He was barely aware of one of the other men taking off his own coat and putting it around his shoulders.

The warmth would come later, in the time still ahead.