The Shifting Tide (20 page)

“I’ve got to finish this job.”

Durban sighed. “I suppose you’ll do whatever you want. I can’t stop you,” he said wearily. “You’d better come with us back along the river. Can’t leave you around here or somebody could attack you in the other arm.” He turned and led the way out towards the river edge of the wharf to where the police boat was waiting on the high tide, close enough to the bank to jump down into.

Monk followed, and Sergeant Orme offered him a hand so he could balance himself in the dark. He landed moderately well in the boat, at least not falling over any of the oarsmen or pitching beyond into the water.

He sat quietly and watched as Orme, who was apparently in charge, gave the order and they put out again and turned upriver towards the Pool. They moved swiftly on the still-incoming tide, the men pulling with an easy rhythm, with that special kind of unity that comes with practice and a common purpose.

They maneuvered with skill, making little of the art and the knowledge required to weave their way between the anchored ships without hitting a boat. Now and then someone made a joke and there was a burst of laughter, a comfortable sound in the wind and the blustery darkness lit only by the glimmer of riding lights.

They called each other by nicknames, which were often derogatory, but the affection was too plain to need display. The mockery was their way of robbing the fear from the reality of violence and hardship. Monk knew that as he listened to them, and remembered all the better parts of his own police days, things he had forgotten until now, and lied to himself that he did not miss.

They put him off at London Bridge and he thanked them, climbing out stiffly, then walking towards the nearest omnibus stop.

He was glad to feel the solid earth under his feet, but his mind was in turmoil, his emotions raw. He hated having appeared such a fool to Durban. Even when the time came that he could tell him the truth, it might not sound a great deal better, even though ideas were at last becoming clearer in his mind. There were threads to follow, something definite to do.

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.”