The Twisted Root (45 page)

Orme did not reply. They walked forward slowly. There was movement ahead of them, the sound of scratching on the stones. Orme’s hand went to his pistol.

A brown rat shot out of a side passage and passed within a yard of them. There was a gasp somewhere ahead, then a curse. Phillips?

There was no stirring in the air. It was dark, and the smell was growing worse with the mix of stale beer from a nearby tavern. Monk moved more quickly. Phillips would not be slowed by any of this. Everything he had to fear was behind him.

The alley divided, the left going back towards the quayside, the right into a further warren of byways. There was a doss-house to the right. A man slouched in the doorway, one eye blind, his stomach bulging over his trousers, an old top hat balanced crookedly on his head.

Would Phillips have gone in there? Monk suddenly realized how many friends Phillips might have in these places: profiteers dependent on his business, suppliers, and hangers-on.

“No,” Orme said urgently, putting his hand on Monk’s arm, holding him with surprising strength. “We go in there, we’ll not come out.”

Monk was angry. He wanted to argue.

Even in the play of shadows across Orme’s face his resolve was unmistakable. “Dockside isn’t the only place that’s got patches police can’t go,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell me reg’lar police goes into Blue-gate Fields, or the Devil’s Acre, ‘cause we all know different. It’s us against them, and we don’t always win.”

Monk shook his arm free, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m not letting that bastard escape,” he said slowly and clearly. “Murdering Fig is only the tip of what he does, like the mast of a sunken wreck above the water.”

“There’ll be a back way out,” Orme added. “Likely more’n one.”

It was on the edge of Monk’s tongue to snap that he knew that, but he bit it back. Orme deserved to catch Phillips as much as Monk did, maybe more. He had worked with Durban on the original case. The only difference was that Durban’s death was nothing to do with him, and it was all to do with Monk.

They continued along the alley away from the dock, moving more swiftly now. There were doorways on either side, and sometimes passages no more than a yard wide, mostly dead ends, perhaps ten or twelve feet along.

“He’ll keep going a bit,” Orme said grimly. “Instinct. Although he’s a fly sod, an’ all.”

“He’ll have friends here,” Monk agreed.

“And enemies,” Orme said wryly. “He’s a nasty piece o’ work. He’d shop anyone for sixpence, so he won’t expect any favors. Try that one.” He pointed to the left, a twisted passageway leading back towards the open dock. As he spoke he increased his pace, like a dog scenting the prey anew.

Monk did not argue but kept up just behind him. There was no room for them to move abreast. Somewhere to the left a man cursed and a woman shouted abuse at him. A dog started to bark, and ahead of them there were footsteps. Orme began to run, Monk on his heels. There was a low arch to the right, and something moved across it. There was a scatter of stones. Orme stopped so abruptly Monk collided with him and bumped into the wall, which was seeping wet from a loose drain in the shadows above.

Orme started forward again, very carefully now. It was always they who had to be on guard. Phillips could wait behind any wall, any arch or doorway, knife in hand. He could and would disembowel a man who was a threat to him. A policeman could kill a man only to save his own life, or that of someone else in mortal danger. And he would still have to prove he had had no other course.

Phillips could be getting away in either direction along the docks, up the ropes into one of the ships, or down the steps to a lighter and back across the river. They could not stand there hiding forever.

“Together!” Monk said harshly. “He can’t get both of us. Now!”

Orme obeyed. They charged the opening and burst out into the sudden sunlight. Phillips was nowhere. Monk felt a wave of such bitter defeat pass over him that he struggled for breath, conscious of a physical pain in the pit of his stomach. There was a score of places for Phillips to disappear. It had been stupid to take anything for granted until they actually had him in a cell with the door closed and the bolt shot home. He had grasped at victory too soon. The arrogance of it was like bile in his mouth now.

He wanted to lash out at somebody, and there was no one to blame but himself. He knew he should be stronger than this, more in control. A good leader should be able to swallow his own misery and think of the next step to take, hide the disappointment or the rage, smother the personal pain. Durban would have. Monk needed to measure up to that, more than ever now that he had lost Phillips.

“Go north,” he told Orme. “I’ll go south. Where’s Coulter?” He looked for the man they had left on the quayside. He swiveled as he spoke, searching for a familiar figure among the dockworkers. He saw the dark uniform at the same moment Orme did, and Coulter started waving his arms in the air.

They both ran forward, swerving to avoid a horse and wagon and a lumper with a heavy load on his shoulders.

“Down the steps!” Coulter shouted, gesticulating at the water beyond the ship. “Got a lighterman at knifepoint. Hurry!”

“Where’s our boat?” Monk shouted back, jumping over a loose keg and landing hard on the uneven stones. “Where are they?”

“Went after him,” Coulter answered, turning instinctively to Orme. Usually he was careful to be correct, but in the heat of the chase old habits of loyalty came back. Monk was still too new. “They’ll be closing on him. Lighters are slow, but I’ve got a ferry waiting down there. Hurry up, sir!” He led the way back to the steps and started down them without turning to see if Monk and Orme were following.

Monk went after him. He must praise Coulter and not spoil it with criticism of his lapse in etiquette. He went down the slime-coated steps as fast as he could and clambered into the ferry, crushing his disappointment that the oarsmen in the boat would be the ones who made the arrest and saw the fury in Phillips’s face. He would only get there in time to congratulate them.

But this was a team, he told himself as Orme landed behind him, shouting at the ferryman to pull out. Monk was in charge, but that was all. He did not have to be the one who made the arrest, faced Phillips and saw the fury in his face. As long as it was done, that was all that mattered. It was nothing like his days as a private agent, relying on no one, taking both the credit and the risks. He didn’t cooperate—that was what Runcorn, his old superior in the Metropolitan force, had said of him, no idea how to help others, or to rely on their help when he needed it. Selfish.

They were slicing through the water now. The ferryman was skilled. He did not look very strong—he was wiry rather than powerful—but he steered a course that cut yards off their distance. Monk admired his skill.

“There!” Coulter pointed at a lighter ahead, which was slowing a little to make way for a string of barges going downriver. There was a figure crouching low to the deck. It could be Phillips; it was impossible to tell at this distance.

Cooperation. That was why in the end Runcorn had been promoted rather than Monk. Runcorn knew how to keep silent about his own opinions, even when he was right. He knew how to please the men with power. Monk despised that, and had said so.

But Runcorn had been right: Monk was not easy to work with. He had not allowed himself to be.

The barges had passed and the lighter was picking up speed again, but they were far closer to it now. He could see Phillips clearly. This time they were in the open river and he could not hide. The space between them was narrowing: fifty feet, forty feet, thirty feet.

Suddenly Phillips was on his feet, his left arm clasped around the lighterman, his right hand with a long knife in it across the lighterman’s throat. He was smiling.

There were only twenty feet between them now, and the lighter was losing speed rapidly as both men stood frozen. More barges were heading for them, already altering course to avoid ramming them.

With pounding rage Monk realized what Phillips was going to do, and there was no way to prevent it. He felt completely helpless, cold inside.

Ten feet now and still closing. The barges were bearing down on them.

Phillips whipped the knife from the man’s throat and drove it hard into the side of his belly. Blood gushed out, and the lighterman collapsed just as Coulter leapt at him. Phillips scrambled beyond his reach, hesitated a moment, then leapt for the lead barge. He fell short and landed in the water, throwing up a huge splash. But after the first shock, he struggled to the surface, mouth open as he gulped frantically at the air, arms and legs thrashing.

Coulter did what any decent man would. He swore a string of curses at Phillips, and bent to help the wounded lighterman, gathering as much cloth as he could into his fist and holding it on the wound while Orme—who had followed Coulter—took off his jacket, then his shirt, folded the shirt into a pad, and held it, stopping the blood as much as possible.

The bargees had pulled Phillips out of the water, already opening the distance between them and the drifting lighter with the ferry alongside it. Whether they meant to or not, their weight and speed meant that they could not stop easily. Phillips would be around the curve of the river beyond the Isle of Dogs in fifteen or twenty minutes.

Monk looked at the lighterman. His face was ashen, but if he reached medical help he might still be saved. That was what Phillips was counting on. He had never intended to kill him.

The ferryman was stunned, not knowing what to do.

“Take him to the nearest doctor,” Monk ordered. “You, get rowing as fast as you can. Coulter, look after him. Orme, put your jacket on and come with me.”

“Yes, sir!” Orme snatched up his jacket, and stood ready.

The ferryman took up the oars.

Orme and Coulter very gently and awkwardly picked up the injured man and laid him in the bottom of the ferry, Coulter holding the pad over his wound all the time.

Monk went to the fallen oar of the low, flat-bottomed lighter, and gripped it with both hands, balancing his weight. The moment Orme was on board Monk began to pull away. It came to him more naturally than he had expected. He knew, from flashes of memory and things he had been told, that he had grown up in Northumberland around boats, mostly fishing and in bad weather lifeboats. The way of the sea was ingrained in his experience, some inner sense of discipline. One can rebel against man and laws, but only a fool rebels against the sea, and he does it only once.

“We’ll not catch up with him!” Orme said desperately. “I’d tie the noose around his neck with my own hands, and pull the trapdoor.”

Monk did not answer. He was getting the weight and movement of the long oar right, and learning how to turn it to gain the greatest purchase against the water. At last they were going with the tide now, but then so were the barges, fifty yards ahead of them at least.

There was nothing Orme could do to help; it was a one-man job. He sat a little way over to the other side to balance Monk’s weight, staring ahead, his uniform jacket fastened to hide as much as possible the fact that he now had no shirt. Certainly he would never wear that one again.

“They’re longer than we are,” Monk said with determined optimism. “They can’t weave through the anchored shipping, but we can. They’ll have to go around.”

“If we go in between those ships we’ll lose sight of them,” Orme warned grimly. “God knows where he could get to!”

“If we don’t, we’ll lose them anyway,” Monk replied. “They’re fifty yards ahead now, and gaining.” He threw his weight onto the oar, and pulled it the wrong way. He knew the moment he felt the resistance that he had made a mistake. It took him more than a minute to get into the rhythm again.

Orme deliberately looked the other way, as if he had not noticed.

The barges swung wide around an East Indiaman anchored ahead of them, stevedores working on deck with chests of spices, silks, and probably tea.

Monk took the chance, veering to the port to pass between the East Indiaman and a Spanish schooner off-loading pottery and oranges. He concentrated on the regularity of his strokes and keeping his balance exactly right, and trying not to think that the barges were going over to the far shore now that they were out of sight. If they did, he might lose them, but if he did not take the chance to catch up, he certainly would.

He passed as close as he dared to the East Indiaman, almost under the shadow of her hull. He could hear the water slapping against her and the faint hum and rattle of the wind in the shrouds.

The moment he was back in the sun again he looked to starboard. The line of barges was nearer, no more than forty yards ahead. He controlled himself with an effort. Orme was straining forward also, hands clenched, shoulders tight. His lips were moving as he counted the barges, just to make certain they had not cast one adrift when they were out of sight.

The gap was still closing. They could not see Phillips, and Monk searched back and forth along the line of canvas coverings. He could be behind a bale or keg, under the canvas, or even have taken a bargee’s coat and cap and at this distance look like one of them. It meant nothing. Still he wanted to see him and be certain that Phillips was there.

He would have to go on to the barges alone. One of them had to stay with the lighter, or they would have no way to take Phillips back. It was a long time since he had fought alone against a man with a knife. In fact, he was not sure if he ever had. He remembered nothing from the years since the accident. Would he find some instinct to fall back on?

Ten yards now. He must get ready to jump. They were passing into the lee of a clipper. The masts seemed to scrape the sky, barely moving, since the hull was too large and heavy to roll in the short, choppy water. The lighter skimmed the surface easily, then bucked the moment it hit the tide again, but now they were closing on the last barge very quickly. Four yards, three, two—Monk leapt. Orme swung over and took the oar.

Monk landed on the barge, swayed for a moment, then regained his balance. The bargee took no notice. It was all a drama playing out in front of him in which he had no part.