The Shifting Tide

SEVEN

Monk returned home for the night, but Hester was not there. The emptiness of the house oppressed him and he found himself anxious for her, thinking how tired she must be. At least she was in no danger; Margaret Ballinger and Bessie would look after her as much as they could.

In the morning, he dressed, choosing another jacket with no tear, then went downstairs and cooked himself kippers and toast for breakfast. At eight he set out to pursue the ideas he had formed from the knowledge gained the day before. He began by enquiring for the exact location of Culpepper’s warehouse, then taking a boat down the river to Deptford Creek, just short of Greenwich.

He went ashore on the south bank and walked slowly along the street past ironmongers, ships’ chandlers, sailmakers, and general stores, making a note of the local public house, and then went and stood on the dockside as if waiting for someone. After a little while watching the laborers come and go, he began to appreciate how many men worked for Culpepper in one way or another. Culpepper was obviously an ambitious man.

In the public house at lunchtime again he listened, then, when he had heard enough, he continued to fall into conversation with a disgruntled dock laborer who said his name was Duff.

“It’s hard,” Monk sympathized with him. “Good work isn’t easy to come by.”

“Good work!” Duff exploded. “They’re a bunch o’ cutthroats, the whole poxy lot of ’em.”

“Pity they don’t cut each other’s throats and save us all our grief,” Monk agreed.

“Could ’appen.” Duff looked suddenly cheerful at the thought. “Culpepper an’ Louvain, any road. That’d be a start.”

“That’s what I heard,” Monk agreed. He leaned forward confidentially.

“I have interests. I need to be sure I put them in the right place. Can’t afford to back a loser.”

Duff’s eyes brightened and he sat forward a little. “Prepared ter pay a little for yer information, are yer?”

“If it’s accurate,” Monk answered. He made no threat as to what would happen if it were not, but he looked steadily at Duff’s narrow face and held his gaze. “And I keep my promises, good and bad.”

Duff swallowed. “What is it yer need ter know, like?”

“I’ll take a little at a time, and test it,” Monk replied. “If it’s true, I’ll pay in gold. If it’s false, you’ll pay in blood. How’s that?”

Duff swallowed again. “I got friends too. If yer gold in’t the real thing, yer’ll never dare come back ’ere. River’s eaten more’n one gent as thought ’e were an ’ell of a clever sod.”

“I’m sure it has. Let’s start with saving me a bit of time. How many properties does Culpepper have, where are they, and what does he have his eye on to buy next?”

“Easy!” Duff listed three wharves, a couple of warehouses, and a lodging house, as well as a good-sized dwelling. “An’ ’e wants the clipper, the Eliza May, soon as she comes up for sale.” He grinned. “So does Clem Louvain. We’ll see ’oo ’as the money on the day, eh? She’s a beauty! Cut their sailing time by a week or more from the Indies. Worth thousands o’ pounds, that is, with a good load. First in makes a fortune; second counts fer nothin’, a few ’undred.”

Monk knew that already. He needed to learn if Culpepper had either hired the thieves who had taken the ivory, or if he had bought it from them afterwards, knowing that it would be the beginning of defeat for Louvain.

He stayed, questioning Duff for another half hour, passed him a gold guinea, and sent him to find out more about recent cargoes. A mass of questions that he asked disguised the one that mattered.

He spent the afternoon farther down the river watching, making notes of cargoes, times of comings and goings, and began to amass enough information to tell him how far Culpepper’s empire stretched.

The following day he returned with more money to pay Duff. By now he was learning enough of Culpepper’s trade to see how important it was to his future profits that he, and not Louvain, purchase the Eliza May.

“Course ’e wants it!” Duff said bitterly. “ ’e won’t be top dog down ’ere anymore ’less ’e does! Louvain neither.”

“There’ll be other ships, won’t there?” Monk asked, leaning on the railing of the pier and watching the dark water churn beneath him. The barges going past, following the tide, were so heavily laden that in places the decks were awash.

“Course, but losin’ counts,” Duff replied, pulling a clay pipe out of the pocket of his coat, knocking the dottle out, then shredding tobacco with the fingers of his other hand before stuffing the shreds into the bowl. “Lose one fight, an’ the next time you start out two steps be’ind, like. People don’ back yer no more. Folks as used ter be scared o’ yer all of a sudden find out they’re more scared o’ someone else.” He put the pipe in his mouth and struck a match to light it, inhaling slowly. “Winnin’ an’ losin’ ’as their own rules,” he went on. “The more it goes one way, the more folks foller the tide, like. When it turns, that’s it. Yer don’ wanna lose, mister. Like rats, they are. The cowards leave yer, the bad ones turns on yer, all teeth an’ claws. If yer made enemies, losin’ is the beginnin’ o’ the end. The big bastards can’t afford ter lose. The likes o’ you an’ me it don’ matter, we done it afore, an’ we’ll be low awhile, then we’ll come back.”

Monk could see the profound truth of that. No wonder Louvain needed his ivory back. And that explained why there was no word of it anywhere along the river. It had not been sold; it was stored, hidden so the loss of it wrought the maximum damage to Louvain.

He thanked Duff and left. He needed to know more about Culpepper so he could find out where the ivory was. It would mean endless small questions. He would have to disguise them, or word would creep back to Culpepper. At best he would move the ivory and Monk would have to start all over again. If Culpepper was nervous, or angry enough, he would even sink it in the Thames mud, and it might never be found. There was the chance he had done that anyway, but surely he would not willingly destroy a cargo of that much value?

Monk tried several inventive stories, mostly about an heiress who had eloped, in order to question rivermen as to who and what they had seen on the river around Culpepper’s wharves on the morning of October twenty-first. For two days he stood in the cold asking painstaking questions and noting the answers almost illegibly, his hands were so stiff, his body shivering. The steps were slimy with salt and weed; the wooden piers creaked and sagged under the weight of years. The wind scythed in off the river, mist-swathed sometimes, knife-sharp in the early mornings, always the light shifting in blues and grays cut with silver shafts. Then finally he had enough.

It was the evening of October twenty-nine, as he sat at home, the kitchen stove open and stoked high, the kettle steaming, putting it all together, that he made sense of it. He had his feet in a bowl of hot water, and a pot of tea on the table, and three slices of toast made, when he saw the one fact that tied it all together.

The boatman Gould had told him that he could not have seen anyone rob the Maude Idris in the early hours of October twenty-one. Monk had verified that Gould had indeed been in Greenwich. But only in checking the ferries and lightermen in Greenwich had Monk realized that Gould had taken no fares that day. His boat had been at Greenwich, certainly, but idle! What boatman could afford that, unless he was being paid more than for working?

Gould’s boat had been at Culpepper’s wharf early in the day, and then disappeared without passengers. It had been seen as usual up in the Pool of London the day after. It answered every question if it was the boat in which the thieves had crept up to the Maude Idris, taken the ivory, and then carried it down to Culpepper at Greenwich. Whether they had done so to order, or simply taken advantage of a supreme opportunity, hardly mattered. If Louvain’s cargo had been betrayed to Culpepper by someone in his own company, that was Louvain’s problem to discover and to deal with. Once Monk had retrieved the ivory and taken it back, he had discharged his obligation. He anticipated the relief, the sudden weight lifted from him, almost as if he were free to breathe again, to stretch his shoulders and stand straight.

He went to bed early, but lay awake staring at the faint light on the ceiling thrown up from the street lamp a few yards away. He had plenty of blankets on the bed, but without Hester there was a coldness he could not dispel. Before his marriage he had dreaded the loss of privacy, the relentless company of another person preventing him from acting spontaneously, curtailing his freedom. Now loneliness crowded in on him as if he were physically chilled. When he held his breath there was silence in the room, a cessation of life itself.

Perhaps he would not have asked her what his next step should be, possibly not even told her much about the river, to save her worry when she had so many of her own anxieties to deal with. But he resented the fact that he was robbed of the choice.

And it hurt that Gould, whom he had liked, was part of the robbery which had beaten the night watchman to death. The theft of the ivory was a crime in an entirely different way. Louvain could do what he liked about that, but Hodge’s murder must be answered to the law. It was Monk’s business to see that it was.

He would have to be careful in capturing Gould. With the rope waiting for him, the boatman would fight to the death, having nothing to lose. Monk could not ask Durban for help before he had forced Gould to tell him where the ivory was and get it back to Louvain. After that he must take Gould to the police.

Whose help could he ask? Crow? Scuff? He turned over idea after idea, none of them making complete sense, until he fell asleep. His dreams were crowded with dark water, cramped spaces, shifting light, and flashes of a knife blade ending in pain as he turned on his wounded shoulder.

In the morning he was on the dockside at daybreak. The tide was flowing in fast, filling the hollows of the mud, creeping up the stone walls, and drowning the broken stumps on the old pier. The air was bitter. The broadening light had the clarity of ice, the hard, white fingers of dawn found every ripple on the water’s face, and the wind tasted of salt.

He stood alone staring at it as the sun, below the horizon, started to burn the first color into the day. Perhaps by tonight he would have finished all he had to do here. He would be paid and go back to the streets he was used to, where he knew the thieves, the informers, the pawnbrokers, the receivers—even the police. He would be able to work openly again, even if most of the cases were small.

He breathed in the icy air, savoring it, watching the light spread across the water. He would miss this. One could never stand alone in a street and see this kind of beauty.

There was life on the river already, more than just the first strings of barges, low in the water, humped with cargo. A lone boatman was busy, oars working rhythmically, rising with the eastward blade dripping diamonds.

As he looked downriver a ship caught his sight. It was just a flash of white at first, but growing as it came closer until he could make out the five tiers of sails on its towering masts: mainsails, course, lower topsails, upper topsails, topgallants, and royals billowing to catch the surprise wind. It was a shining thing, a creature of dreams, all power and grace.

He stood spellbound, oblivious of everything else: the rest of the river, other traffic, people, anyone on the dockside near him. Not until the sun was fully risen and pouring light into every corner, showing the shabby and the new, the idle and the laboring, and the clipper was at last at anchor, did he even notice that Scuff was standing next to him, his face transfigured.

“Jeez!” The boy sighed, his eyes huge. “It’s enough ter make yer b’lieve in angels, in’it?”

“Yes,” Monk replied, for want of anything better to say. Then he decided that that was quite good enough. There was something of the divine in anything that was such a perfect blend of power, beauty, and purpose. “Yes,” he said again, “it is.”

Scuff was still rapt in the awe of the moment.

Monk did not want to, but he understood why Louvain was obsessed with the passion to own such a ship. It was far more than money or success—it was a kind of enchantment; it captured the glory of a dream. It spoke to a hunger for greater space and light, a width of freedom impossible in any other way.

He shook himself from those feelings with difficulty. He could not lose himself in them any longer. “I need to find someone to help me—for nothing,” he said aloud.

“I’ll ’elp yer.” Scuff drew his eyes away from the river reluctantly. Reality had governed him too long to allow self-indulgence. “Wot d’yer want?”

“Unfortunately, I need a grown-up.”

“I can do a lot o’ things yer wouldn’t believe. An’ I’m nearly eleven—I think.”

Monk judged his age at probably closer to nine, but he did not say so. “I need size as well as brains,” he said to soften the blow. “I was thinking a man called Crow might help. Do you know where I could find him—without anyone else knowing?”

“The doc? Yeah, I reckon. Yer won’t get ’im in no trouble, will yer?” Scuff asked anxiously. “I don’ think ’e’s no fighter.”

“I don’t want him to fight, just to offer to buy something.”

“I know where ’e lives.” Scuff appeared to be turning something over in his mind. Loyalties were conflicting with one another, new friends against old, habit against adventure, someone who healed him when he was sick as opposed to someone who shared food with him.

“Tell him I’m here, and I’d like to see him, urgently,” Monk requested. “Then we’ll have breakfast before we go. I’ll fetch us some ham sandwiches and tea. Be back in an hour. Do you know an hour?”

Scuff gave him a filthy look, then turned and ran off.

Fifty minutes later he was back, and a highly curious Crow was with him. He was dressed in a heavy jacket, his black hair hidden by a cap, and had mitts on his hands. Monk had the sandwiches, but was waiting to buy the tea fresh and hot. He gave Scuff the money and sent him off to fetch it.

Crow looked him up and down with interest, his eyes bright. “ ’Ow’s the arm?” he asked. “Yer never came back to get the bandage changed.”

“I had my wife do it,” Monk replied. “It’s fine, a bit stiff, that’s all.”

Crow pursed his lips. In the clear morning light, no softness in its glare, the tiny lines were visible on his skin. He looked closer to forty than the thirty Monk had assumed, but there was still a fire of enthusiasm in his expression that made him uniquely alive. “So what is it you want me for?” he asked.

Monk had been thinking how to broach the subject, and how much to tell him. He knew nothing about this man; he had made his decision on a mixture of instinct and desperation. Would he take caution as an insult, or as a sign of intelligence?

“I need someone to make an offer for me,” Monk replied, watching Crow’s expression. “I can’t do it myself. They wouldn’t believe me.”

Crow raised an eyebrow. “Should they?”

“No. What I’m looking for was stolen from a . . . an associate of mine.” He could not bring himself to call Louvain a friend, and he was not yet willing to let Crow know that he was a client. It raised too many other questions.

“Associate . . .” Crow turned the word over. “An’ yer want ter buy it back? Now, what kind o’ a thing would yer buy back if it was yers in the first place? An’ what kind o’ people do yer associate with that are happy ter buy back things that were stolen? An’ then why use yer, why not do it thesselves? Yer don’t do it for nothin’, do yer?”

Monk grinned. “No, I don’t. And no, I’m not going to buy it back. When I know where he’s put it, I’m going to take it, but he’s got it well hidden. I need you to make an offer to buy some of it so he’ll go there.”

Crow looked dubious. “Doesn’t ’e ’ave a receiver for it ’isself? If yer threat’nin’ ter cross up one o’ the receivers along ’ere, yer daft, an’ yer won’t last long.”

“I think it was stolen to deprive the owner of its use, not to sell on,” Monk explained reluctantly. “I just want you to make an offer for one tusk.”

Crow’s eyes widened. “Tusk! Ivory?”

“That’s right. Will you do it?”

Crow thought for a moment or two. He was still considering it when Scuff returned with the tea, carrying it carefully in three mugs.

Crow took one, warming his hands on it and blowing at the steam rising from the top. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Someone needs ter look after yer, or we’ll be fishin’ yer outta the water an’ tellin’ the police who you were.”

“Yeah,” Scuff added with sage concern.

Monk felt both cared for and diminished, but he could not afford the luxury of taking offense. Apart from that, they were right. “Thank you,” he said, a trifle tartly.

“In’t nuffin’,” Scuff said generously, and took a huge bite of his ham sandwich.

“So who do I have ter ask fer the tusk?” Crow enquired.

“Gould, the boatman.”

“Who works from the steps here?” Crow said with surprise. “Knew he was a thief, of course, but ivory’s a bit much for him. Yer sure?”

“No, but I think so.”

“Right.” Crow finished his sandwich and his tea, and rubbed his hands together to signify he was ready to begin.

Monk looked at Scuff, who was waiting expectantly. “Will you come with me, and when I’m sure where Gould is leading us, take a message to Mr. Louvain and tell him where we are, then go and fetch Mr. Durban of the River Police so we can arrest Gould and get the ivory back?”

Crow’s eyes widened. “Louvain?” he said with a sharpness to his voice, a sudden wariness as if it changed his perception.

“It’s his ivory,” Monk replied. “I’m going to return it to him. That’s what he hired me for.”

Crow whistled through his teeth. “Did ’e? Yer do this kind o’ thing often?”

“All the time, just not on the river before.” He tried to judge whether Crow would consider it a compliment or an insult to be offered money. Monk stroked his face, having no idea of the answer.

Then Crow grinned hugely, showing magnificent teeth. “Right!” He rubbed his mittened hands together. “Let’s go an’ find Mr. Gould. I’m ready! By the way, ’ow am I supposed ter know if ’e’s got ivory?”

“From an informant who is unusually observant, and whom it would be more than your life’s worth to name!” Monk said with an answering smile.

“Yeah! Right.” Crow put his hands in his pockets. “But if yer comin’ after me, I’d be ’appier if yer ’ad a boatman I could trust. I’ll get Jimmy Corbett. ’e won’t let yer down.” And without waiting for Monk’s agreement he strolled over towards the edge and started to walk along, scanning the water.

Scuff picked up the mugs and returned them, at a run, and he and Monk set off a comfortable distance behind Crow as he went to search for Jimmy Corbett, and then for Gould.

It took them nearly an hour before it was accomplished and Monk and Scuff saw the lanky figure of Crow finally step down into Gould’s boat and pull away just to the east of Wapping New Stairs and turn back upstream, not down, as they had expected. They climbed hastily into Jimmy Corbett’s waiting boat and pulled away into the traffic on the river, turning west as well. This was going to prove an expensive business.

“I thought you said Greenwich!” Scuff said urgently.

“I did,” Monk admitted, equally surprised.

A pleasure boat passed them moving swiftly. People were lining the decks, scarves and ribbons fluttering. The sound of music drifted across the water from the band on deck. Some people were waving their hats and shouting.

There were ferries in the water, lighters, all kinds of craft about their business. It was not always easy to keep Gould in sight, although the tall figure of Crow in the stern helped.

Monk and Scuff sat in silence as they wound through the anchored ships, Monk wondering where they could be going. Where was there upstream that Gould would have hidden a boatload of ivory? Why would he not have left it near Culpepper’s warehouses, if not actually in one of them?

Jimmy was taking them steadily closer to the middle of the river, and then towards the south bank. They must be almost in line with Bermondsey by now.

“I know where we’re goin’!” Scuff said suddenly, his face earnest, his voice strained. “Jacob’s Island! It’s an awful bad place, mister! I in’t never bin there, but I ’eard of it.”

Monk turned to look at him and saw the fear in his face. Ahead of them, Gould’s boat was swinging around, bow to the shore where rotting buildings leaned out into the water, the tide sucking at their foundations. Their cellars must be flooded, wood dark with the incessant dripping and oozing of decades of creeping damp. Looking at it across the gray water, Monk could imagine the smell of decay, the cold that ate into the bones. Even in the city he had heard this place’s reputation.

He looked again at Scuff’s face. “When the boat drops me off, go back and tell Mr. Louvain to come immediately,” he said. “Tell him I’ve got his ivory, and if he doesn’t want the police to take it as evidence, to come and collect it before they do. Do you understand?”

“ ’e won’t know where!” Scuff protested. “I gotter foller yer till I sees where yer goin’.” He clenched his jaw tight in frightened refusal.

Monk looked at his stubborn face and the shadows in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.

They were pulling in close to the shore now. Ahead of them, Gould was only a foot from landing on a low, almost waterlogged pier. He reached it and scrambled out, tying his boat to a rotted stake and waiting while Crow climbed out after him. Monk could tell by the way Crow moved that he was nervous. His legs were awkward, his back stiff as though he half expected to have to defend himself any moment. Was it insane to have come here alone?

Too late to change the plan now. Monk told Jimmy to put him ashore at the next landing steps onward, around the jutting buttress of the warehouse and out of sight of Gould. “Go and get Louvain!” he hissed at Scuff, who was making ready to follow him. “Now! Then get Durban!”

Scuff hesitated, glancing at the dark waste of timber ahead, the alleys, sagging windows and doorways, the rubbish and the water seeping everywhere.

Monk refused to follow his eyes, or to let his imagination picture any of it. “Go!” he ordered Jimmy, and pushed Scuff’s thin shoulders until he overbalanced back into the boat and it pulled away.

He turned back to Jacob’s Island in time to see Crow follow Gould between two of the buildings and disappear. He hurried after them, trying to move soundlessly over the spongy wood, afraid with every step that it would give way beneath him.

As soon as he was in shadow he stopped again to accustom his eyes to the gloom. He heard movement ahead of him before he saw Crow’s back just as he turned another corner and was gone. The smell of rot was heavy in the air, like sickness, and as he went under a broken arch into one of the houses, everything around him creaked and dripped. It seemed as if it were alive, beams settling, the scuffle and scratch of clawed feet. He imagined red eyes.

He went after the sounds of footsteps ahead of him, and now and then as he climbed up or down steps, or went around a corner, he saw Crow’s back, or his black head with its long hair under his hat, and knew he had not lost them yet.

Was Crow a fool to trust Monk to rescue him if Gould suspected he was being tricked? Louvain would never find them here! Or was Monk the fool, and Crow had already told Gould exactly what he was really here for? Should Monk leave now, while he could, and at least get out of it alive?

Then he would never be able to work on the river again. His name would be a mockery. And if he ran away from this, what would he stand and face in the future? Would he run away next time too? The thoughts raced in his mind while his legs were still carrying him forward. The light was dim through broken windows and here and there gaping walls. He could barely discern the figures of Gould and Crow going through the door at the end of a passage.

He hesitated, the sweat running down his back in spite of the clinging chill, then he went after them. He pushed the door open. It was a small room, dim in the gray light from one window. Gould was pulling a sack away from a pile of something that lay on the floor. One long white tusk protruded. The outlines of others beyond were plain enough to see. Monk thought for an instant of the creations that had been slaughtered and their carcasses robbed, then he remembered his own peril, and stopped abruptly.

But it was too late. Gould had seen his shadow against the door lintel and jerked his head up. His face froze.

Monk walked forward slowly. “You had better leave,” he told Crow. “I’ll talk with Mr. Gould about the ivory and what should happen to it.”

Crow shrugged. His relief was almost palpable, and yet the darkness was still in his eyes. He looked at Monk as if he was trying to convey something he could not say in words. It might be a warning of some sort—but what? That they were watched? That Gould was armed? Time was short—there was no way back. Might there also be no way forward?

Help would only come from the river, when Scuff fetched Louvain.

“ ’Oo are yer?” Gould demanded, glaring at Monk. “I’ll sell yer one tusk each, but if yer think yer gonna rob me, yer stupider than yer got any right ter be an’ stay alive.” His eyes flickered from one to the other of them nervously.

“Who am I?” Monk was taking as long as he could. “I’m someone interested in ivory, especially that shipment from the Maude Idris.”

Gould’s face showed no added fear, no sudden change at the mention of what he must know was murder. Monk felt a stab of regret that it meant nothing to him; all he thought of was the money. Monk kept his back to the door, his ear straining to hear anything human among the rat feet, the dripping wood, and the slow subsidence of the fabric of the building into the mud of Jacob’s Island.

“ ’Ow d’yer know it’s from the Maude Idris?” Gould asked, his face puckered with suspicion.

“Get out!” Monk said again to Crow, hoping that now he would go and bring the nearest police, river or land.

“ ’Oo are yer tellin’ ter get out?” Gould said angrily. “Yer got money ter buy all this then, eh? An’ don’ think yer can rob me, ’cos yer can’t. I in’t alone ’ere. I in’t that daft!”

“Nor am I,” Monk said with a slight laugh he hoped was believable. “And I don’t want more than one tusk, and only that if the price is right.”

“Oh, yeah? An’ what price would that be, then?” Gould still had confidence.

“Twenty pounds,” Monk said rashly.

“Fifty!” Gould retorted with undisguised derision.

Monk pushed his hands into his pockets and stared at the pile of tusks thoughtfully, as if considering.

“Forty-five is the lowest I’ll go,” Gould offered.

Monk was disgusted, but he dared not show it. He thought of Hodge lying on the step above the hold, his head broken, his brain crushed.

“Twenty-five,” he said.

They argued back and forth, up a pound, down a pound. Monk realized that Crow had gone—please God to fetch help, though he owed Monk nothing, no friendship, no loyalty. But he prayed that Scuff had managed to get Louvain. Durban would not need to be asked more than once.

“It’s worth more than that!” Gould said angrily when Monk refused to go any higher, afraid of agreement and the end of the conversation. “I worked bleedin’ ’ard fer it!” Gould went on. “You any idea ’ow ’eavy them things are?”

“Too heavy for one man,” Monk responded. “Someone helped you. Where is he? Behind me? Or are you planning to cut him out of the deal?”

There was a faint movement in the passage ten or fifteen feet beyond the doorway. Now he wished Crow had not gone—although there was no guarantee of which side he would have been on. Perhaps a thieves’ quarrel was his best chance. “Were you the one that went into the hold of the Maude Idris?” he asked, his voice louder than he meant, and unsteady. He wanted to know who had killed Hodge then he would have no guilt in killing him in return, if he had to in order to escape with his own life. Where the hell was Louvain? He had had time to get there by now.

“Why d’you care?” Gould’s eyes narrowed.

“Were you?” Monk demanded, taking a step forward.

“Yeah! So wot of it?” Gould challenged.

“Then it was you who murdered Hodge!” Monk accused. “Perhaps your partner won’t be so happy to share the rope that’s waiting for you, along with the price of your tusks?”

Gould froze. “ ’Odge? I never murdered no one! ’Oo’s ’Odge?” He sounded honestly confused.

“The night watchman whose head you beat in,” Monk said bitterly. “Did that slip your mind?”

“Geez! I din’t bash ’is ’ead in!” Gould’s voice rose to a screech. “There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ ’is ’ead!” He looked gray-white, even in the gloom, his eyes wide with horror. Had he not seen Hodge’s body himself, Monk would have sworn it was genuine.

“Rubbish!” he barked, rage welling up inside him for the lie as much as the violence. It was twisting his own emotions because he wanted to believe him, and it was impossible.

“So ’elp me Gawd, it’s the truth!” Gould ignored the ivory and stepped forward towards Monk, but there was no threat in him, only urgency, even pleading. “ ’e were lyin’ there on the step. I thought ’e were dead drunk. He must a fell from the top.”

Monk hesitated. “Did you look at the back of his head?” he asked.

“There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ it!” Gould insisted. “ ’e might a banged it bad, I dunno, but it weren’t bashed so’s I could see. ’Ow’d you know, anyway?”

“I’m looking for the ivory because I’m paid to,” Monk said bitterly. “But I’m looking for whoever killed Hodge because I want him to answer for it.”

“Well, it in’t me!” Gould said desperately.

Monk stood still, his back to the doorjamb. It was bitterly cold in there, so cold his fingers were dead and his feet were growing numb. The damp was everywhere, heavy with the reek of mud and effluent and the sweet stench of rot. Everything was sagging, dripping, full of slight sounds like the soft tread of feet, rat feet, human feet, creaking like the shifting of weight, and always water oozing and trickling, the slow sinking of the land and the rising of the river.

He tried to clear his head. He was beginning to believe Gould, and yet it made no sense. Who would beat in the head of a man already dead?

There was a distinct sound about a dozen yards away, a movement too big to be a rat. Monk swiveled around to look. The shadows changed. Was there someone there, a man coming this way, creeping step by step? The sweat broke out on his skin, and his body was shaking. He backed farther into the room, looking at Gould. “Someone’ll hang for it,” he said softly. “The police are coming, and they’ll make sure of that. It’ll be prison, then trial, then three weeks of waiting, and one morning they’ll take you for the short walk and the long drop—into eternity, darkness . . .”

“I din’t kill ’im!” Gould’s cry was stifled in his throat, as if he could already feel the rope.

At that moment the other man reached the doorway just behind Monk. Monk saw it in Gould’s face, and twisted away as the man lunged forward and Monk caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head, bruising his own hand.

Gould stood frozen, indecision wild in his face. Were the police really coming? Crow was gone, and he knew where to lead them back.

Monk waited, his heart pounding.

The man started to get up. Gould swung his arm and hit the man hard, sending him backwards, his head thudding against the floor, and he lay still. “I din’t kill nobody!” Gould said again. “But they’ll kill you if yer don’t get out of ’ere! C’mon!” He started to move past Monk.

“Wait!” Monk commanded. “I need one tusk to prove to the police that they were here.” He stepped back and picked up the largest one from the pile. It was startlingly heavy, cold and smooth to the touch. He hoisted it onto his shoulder with difficulty, the effort tearing at his injured arm, then he staggered after Gould, leaving the other man senseless on the floor. They did not go the way they had come in, but awkwardly veering a little from right to left under the burden of the tusk, up a short flight of steps.

At the top he leaned against the wall and the rotted paneling gave way behind him. He swung around and let the tusk slip into the cavity, easing the crick out of his shoulder, then turned to see if it was still visible. It wasn’t, but he could feel it. He would be able to show Durban where it was.

He hurried after Gould along the corridor. Broken windows let in the gray light. He caught up with him going down another stair with iron rails, then through a door into an open patch of ground overgrown with weeds just as Louvain and four of his men emerged from the ruins of a warehouse at the other side. They were wind-burned, brawny men dressed in seamen’s jackets.

Monk and Gould stopped abruptly, five or six yards from them.

“Well?” Louvain said grimly. “What have you got? I don’t see anything!”

“Thirteen tusks of ivory,” Monk replied. He jerked his hand. “Back there. You might have to fight for them.”

“Thirteen?” Louvain questioned, his face darkening. “Do you think you’re keeping one for yourself? That wasn’t the bargain.”

“One for the police, for evidence,” Monk replied. “Or would you rather the thieves got away with it?” He let a slight sneer into his voice. “That’s not good for business. You’ll get the last one back when the case is over. Keep it for a memento. You’ve got away cheaply. A damned sight cheaper than Hodge.”

Louvain looked puzzled for an instant, then realization flooded his face. “Who’s he?” he demanded, indicating Gould with a jerk of his head.

Instinct made Monk lie. “He’s with me. Did you think I’d come here alone?”

Louvain’s face relaxed. He did not ask who had killed Hodge, and the omission angered Monk. “Right. We’ll take the ivory. I want to be gone before the police get here. No questions. Come to my office tonight and I’ll pay you.” It was curt, dismissive. He strode past Monk and into the shadows of the building, leaving his men to follow.

Durban should be here any time now, Monk realized. He glanced at Gould, white-faced, shifting from foot to foot.

“Don’t think of it,” Monk warned. “You’ll be hunted down like a rat.”

“I din’t kill ’im!” Gould’s voice was hoarse with fear, and his eyes begged for belief. “I swear on my life!”

“Very appropriate,” Monk said dryly. “Since it’s with your life you’ll be paying for it.” But he felt a tug of pity he had not expected. Was it even imaginable that one of the crew had killed Hodge? A quarrel of some sort? Perhaps there had even been a traitor in the crew, and Hodge had seen him, and would have told Louvain? Had they stunned him first, and killed him after Gould had gone, perhaps because he would have told Louvain?

There was no point in asking Gould; it would be offering him an obvious avenue of escape, and naturally he would take it. And why should Monk involve himself in looking for the last shreds of truth and untangling them to save a thief?

Because the man might not be a murderer, and no one else would bother to help him.

“Someone beat his head in,” he said aloud. “If it wasn’t you, then it was somebody else on the Maude Idris.”

“I dunno!” Gould was desperate. “Yer can’t . . . oh, geez!” He said nothing more.

They stood on the damp, sour earth and waited. Neither Louvain nor any of his men passed them. They had found another route to take the ivory away, swiftly and unseen, no doubt expecting Durban to come from this side.

Five minutes later Monk heard Gould gasp as if he were choking, and his breath caught in a sob. He looked around and saw Durban’s distinctive walk as he came out of the shadow of the building ahead, Sergeant Orme and a constable behind him.

“Go with him,” Monk said quietly to Gould. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Good day, Mr. Monk,” Durban said curiously, stopping a couple of yards away. “What are you doing here?”

“Stolen goods,” Monk replied. “One very handsome ivory tusk, but the point is that the night watchman on the Maude Idris was killed in the theft.”

Durban’s face was comical with understanding and skepticism. “That why they took only one tusk, is it?”

Monk knew without question that Durban did not believe it. He knew exactly what Monk had done. “I imagine so,” Monk said smoothly. “Maybe there was a bit of double-crossing going on. Gould says he didn’t kill Hodge, but somebody did. I’ll show you where the tusk is.”

Durban signaled for his man to take Gould, who let out a cry and swiveled to look at Monk, and was jerked sharply to face forward as manacles were put on his wrists.

Monk turned and led Durban back into the far building, going slowly, partly because he was uncertain of the way, but mostly because he wanted to be sure that Louvain had had sufficient time to move all the tusks and leave no trace for Durban to find. It also crossed his mind to wonder if now that he had his ivory back he would cheat on the payment, but Monk refused to dwell on that. If Louvain did, then Monk would open up the Hodge murder case in such a way that Durban would plague Louvain until he’d wish he had not paid Monk to retrieve the ivory in the beginning. But even as he thought that, he knew what a dangerous thing it would be to do. It would be a last resort, only to be adopted in order to save his own reputation; not for the money, but for all future work.

They were inside the long corridor again, and the gloom closed in on them. Monk walked slowly, picking his way by touch as well as sight, stepping carefully to avoid the rotted boards, the refuse, and the weeds which had grown up through the floor and died, their stems slimy.

He found the place where he had left the one tusk, recognizing it by the newly broken wood. He pointed to it, and allowed Durban to dislodge the ivory and pull it out.

“I see,” Durban said expressionlessly. “So who does it belong to then, when we’ve finished with it? I assume he’s going to press charges, apart from the murder of the watchman?”

“Clement Louvain,” Monk replied. He wished he could be more open with Durban. Every lie scraped at him like an abrasion to the skin, but he had left himself no room to maneuver.

At Durban’s instruction, Sergeant Orme hoisted the tusk onto his shoulder, and Durban turned to walk back again. Monk followed him, wanting to say something, anything to let Durban understand, and knowing he could not.

He found Louvain in his office after dark that evening. The room was warm. A fire was burning briskly in the grate under the ornate mantel, the light of the flames dancing on the polished wood of the desk. Louvain was standing by the window with his back to the somber view of the river. It was too dark to see anything but the yellow eyes of other windows and the riding lights of ships at anchor.

He was smiling. He had a decanter of brandy on the small table—and two glasses out, polished to burn like crystals in the reflected fire. A small leather purse sat beside them, its soft fabric distorted out of shape by the weight of coins inside.

“Sit down,” he invited as soon as Monk had closed the door. “Have some brandy. You’ve done well, Monk. I admit, I had doubts at times; I thought you weren’t up to it. But this is excellent. I have my ivory back, bar one tusk for evidence.” He nodded, smiling, and there was no curb or evasion in it. “You couldn’t have done better. If I get another problem I’ll send for you. As it is, I’ll recommend you to everyone I like.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “And I’ll hope my enemies never find you.” He poured a generous brandy for Monk and passed it to him, then one for himself. He raised the glass. “To your continued prosperity—and mine!” He drank with relish. “There’s an extra ten guineas in the purse for you. I like you, Monk. You’re a man like myself.”

It was a generous compliment, and honest.

“Thank you.” Monk picked up the purse and put it in his pocket. Quite apart from the money in it, it was a beautiful piece of leather. It was a generous gesture. He picked up his brandy and took a mouthful. It was exquisite, old, mellow, and full of warmth.