by Anne Perry
Butterworth was almost six feet from the man with the mustache. He was pretending to look for something in his coat pocket, but his eyes were on the man. He had seen, too. He and Jones were good, quicker than Monk.
The boat reached the Dog and Duck Stairs, and the man with the carving got off. Monk, Jones, and Butterworth got off behind him, as did half a dozen others.
The man walked down the quay back towards the Greenland Dock. It was dark, and there was a smell of rain in the wind. Here and there the streetlamps were lit. It was in some ways the most difficult time to keep anyone in sight. The shadows were deceptive; you thought you saw someone, and suddenly you didn’t. There were pools of light, and long stretches of gloom. The sound and movement and shifting reflections of water were everywhere.
Monk, Jones, and Butterworth moved separately, trying to give themselves three chances not to lose him. It would be better to arrest him and catch no one else than lose the carving. But then the whole exercise would have been a failure. One thief was hardly here or there. They would have betrayed their hand for nothing.
They were moving south again. Orme and his men should be keeping pace with them along the river.
There was another man in the shadows. Monk stopped abruptly, afraid of catching up and being seen. Then he realized he should not have stopped. It drew attention to him. It was years since he had done this sort of thing. He retraced his steps a couple of yards and bent down as if to pick up something he had dropped, then went forward again. The new man had caught up with the thief. His outline under the lamppost looked familiar. He was short and fat with a long overcoat and a brimless hat. He had been on that boat—another thief?
A third man had joined them by the time they turned right and reached another ancient set of steps down to the water. A boat was waiting for them, and almost immediately the darkness swallowed them.
Monk stood alone, shifting from foot to foot, desperately searching the darkness for Orme. Where the devil was he? There were barges moving upstream, their riding lights glittering. An ice-cold wind was whining among the broken pier stakes.
There was a noise behind him. He spun around. A man stood ten feet away. He had not even heard him coming; the slurp of the water masked his footsteps. Monk had no weapon, and his back was to the river.
A boat scraped against the steps. He strode over and saw several men in it—randan, police formation. There was room for two more, which would be cramped although not dangerous. Orme was in the stern. Monk could not see his face, but he recognized the way he stood, outlined solid black against the shifting, dimly reflecting surface of the water.
Monk went down the steps as fast as he could, his feet slithering on the wet, slime-coated stone. Orme put out his hand and steadied him as he all but pitched forward on the last step. He landed clumsily in the boat and scrambled to take one of the seats. The next moment his hands closed over an oar and he made ready to throw his weight against it on the order.
Butterworth came down the steps, boarded, and crouched in the stern. The word was given, and they pulled out into the stream. They heaved hard to catch up with the thieves’ boat.
No one spoke; each man was listening to the beat of the oars. In the stern, Orme was straining to see ahead and to steady them against the wash of barges going up- or downstream and to avoid any anchored boats waiting to unload on the wharves at daylight.
Where were they going? Monk guessed Jacob’s Island. He tried to distinguish through the gloom the chaotic shapes of the shore. There were cranes black against the skyline, and the masts of a few ships. There was a break in the roofs, signaling the inlet to a dock, then more warehouses again, this time jagged, some open to the sky, walls askew as they sank into the mud. He was right—Jacob’s Island.
Ten minutes later they were all on the soggy, rubble-strewn shore, creeping forward a few inches at a time, feet testing the ground for litter, traps where the planking had rotted and given way under the weight and broken timbers protruded through. Somewhere ahead of them the thieves were gathering; from the thefts they had counted ten.
Monk had a cutlass in his hand, given him by Orme. The weight of it was unfamiliar but deeply reassuring. Please God, he would know how to use it if he should have to.
They continued forward, ten river police surrounding an unknown number of thieves, and perhaps their receivers as well. They were inside the first buildings now, the remnants of abandoned warehouses, cellars already flooded. The sour stench of tidal mud and sewage, refuse, and dead rats was thick in the throat. Everything seemed to be moving, dripping, creaking, as if the whole edifice were slipping lower into the ooze, drowning inch by inch.
A rat scuttled by, its feet scraping on the boards. Then it plopped into a puddle of water, and the empty sounds of the night closed in again. There was no living slap of the tide here, only the groan of timber settling and breaking and sagging lower.
There were voices ahead, and lights. Monk, cutlass ready, stood half behind a doorway and watched. He could see the squat shapes of the men, now no more than humps, a deepening of the shadows, but the man with the ivory carving was there.
He froze, barely breathing. He did not catch the words they said, but flight actions were plain. They were dividing the spoils of the day. His stomach knotted at the sight of how much they had. It was far more than he had known about.
He waited. Orme was somewhere to the left of him, Butterworth to the right; Jones and the others had gone around behind the chairs to encircle them.
The thieves were arguing over how to sell the ivory carving. It seemed to go on interminably. There were nine of them, not ten. Monk must have miscounted earlier. He was cold to the bone, his feet numb, his teeth chattering. The odds were against them. But the statue was what mattered; above all he must get that back, that and the Fat Man.
The stench of the mud almost choked him.
Why didn’t they agree with the obvious and take the carving to the Fat Man? He was the king of the opulent receivers. He would give them the best price for it because he would be able to find a buyer.
They weren’t going to! They knew he would take half, so they were going to try to sell it themselves. Then all Monk would get would be the carving back, and a handful of petty thieves. It would stop the robberies for perhaps a week or two, but what was that worth? Instinctively he turned towards Orme and saw his face for an instant in the faintest light from the thieves’ candles. The defeat in him twisted inside Monk as if he himself were responsible for the failure.
Another rat squeaked and ran, claws rattling on the wood. Then there was a different sound: softer, heavier. Monk’s heart pounded in his chest and his mouth was dry. Orme turned the same instant as he did, and both saw the shadow of a man blend into the sagging walls and disappear.
Monk swiveled around the other way. To his right Butterworth was rigid, listening. He too had heard something and was straining his eyes, but not to where Monk had seen the man disappear. Butterworth was staring at least fifteen feet away.
Monk was freezing. His hand clenched on the hilt of the cutlass was like ice, clumsy, all thumbs. His body was shaking.
He had been right the first time. There had been ten, but one of them had left, betraying his fellows. To whom?
The answer was already emerging into the pool of candlelight in what remained of the room. A grotesquely fat man stepped forward, his distended stomach swathed in a satin waistcoat, his bloated face wreathed in smiles, his eyes like bullet holes in white plaster.
Silence gripped the thieves as if by the throat.
“Well!” said the Fat Man in a voice little more than a whisper. “What a pretty piece of work.” Monk was not certain if he meant the betrayal or the ivory.
One man squeaked half a word, then stifled it instantly.
The Fat Man ignored him. “Discipline, discipline.” He shook his head and his massive jowls wobbled. “Without order we perish. How many times have I told you that? If you had given that to me, open
ly and honestly as we agreed, I would have sold it and given you half.” His mouth hardened. He stood motionless. “But as I have had to take the trouble of coming for it myself, and bringing my men with me, I shall have to keep all of it. Expenses, you see?”
No one moved.
“And discipline…always discipline. Can’t have things getting out of control. No!” He barked the last word as one of the thieves made to stand up, his hand going to his waist for a weapon. “Very foolish, Doyle. Very foolish indeed. Do you imagine I have come unarmed? Now, you know me better than that! Or perhaps you don’t, or you would not have tried such a stupid piece of duplicity.”
But the man was too angry to heed a warning. He drew a dagger out of his belt and lunged forward.
The Fat Man shouted, and the next moment the shadows came alive. There was a melee of heaving bodies, flying arms and legs, and the candlelight on the sudden, bright arcs of knives and cutlasses. It took less than a minute to realize that the Fat Man’s followers were getting the better of it. There were more of them and they were better armed.
Orme was staring at Monk, waiting for the word.
For a sick, blinding instant Monk wanted to escape. How many men could he lose in a swordfight in the candlelight, with the thieves and the Fat Man’s men against them?
Then his mind cleared. What were the odds to do with anything? They were policemen. They wore the queen’s uniform. The Fat Man would take the carving and the police would have stood by like cowards and watched. Monk knew exactly how many men he would lose then—all of them.
“Forward!” he said, and charged, heading for the Fat Man.
The next moments were violent, painful, and terrifying. Monk was in the thick of it, and at first the cutlass felt strange in his hand. He was not sure whether to stab with it or hack. A thin man, scrawny but surprisingly powerful, swung at him with a cudgel and caught him a glancing blow on the arm. The pain of it jerked him into reality and hot anger. He swung back with the cutlass and missed. A knife tore the flesh of his right shoulder, and he felt the hot blood. This time his cutlass did not miss and the jar of its blade on bone rocked him.
But beyond the first taste of bile in his mouth, there was no time to think what he might have done. Orme was to his right, in trouble, and Clacton beyond was struggling. Jones came to his rescue. Where was the Fat Man?
Monk turned and slashed at Orme’s attacker, catching only his sleeve. Then again and again the metallic clash of steel, the smells of sweat and blood fresh over the stink of slime.
He was hit from behind and fell forward, managing at the last moment to hold his blade clear. He rolled over and scrambled up again. He lashed back and this time struck flesh. There was a yell, and curses all around him. At least his own men were easier to recognize by the outline of their uniform tunics, although most of their hats had been lost in the battle.
Some memory within his own muscles brought back the skill to balance and lunge, to duck, keep upright, push forward and strike. His blood was hot and in some wild way he was almost enjoying it. He barely felt his own pain.
Then suddenly he was backed into a corner. There were two men in front of him, not one, and then a third. Fear was sick and real. He could not fight three men. How had he been so careless?
A blade arced up. He saw it gleam in the candlelight, and beyond it, for an instant, Clacton’s face a couple of yards away, smiling. He could see him, and Clacton was not going to help.
There was nowhere for Monk to run, no room to step left or right. He’d take on one of them at least, two if possible. He dared not raise his arm to slash. There was no space to swing. He checked and lunged forward, skewering the man to his left, expecting any second to feel the blade through his own chest and then darkness, oblivion.
He tried to yank his blade out but there was someone on top of it, heavy, lifeless, pinning his arm down. Then he saw Orme pulling his own blade free, and understood what had happened.
“Better be quick, sir,” Orme said urgently. “We’ve done a good job. One of the Fat Man’s men killed the thief with the carving and now the Fat Man’s got it himself. We’ve got to get back to the boats.”
Monk responded without hesitation. The thieves could fight it out among themselves. He must get the Fat Man and the carving. They could still win, perhaps more swiftly and completely than in the original plan. He snatched up the thief’s cutlass that moments ago would have meant his own death. Shuddering and stumbling, he went back through the wreckage of the building after Orme. He blundered into wreckage and tripped, falling headlong more than once, but when he emerged into the winter night, which was clear-mooned and stinging with frost, Orme was a couple of yards in front of him. Twenty feet beyond, the Fat Man floundered, coat waving like broken wings, his right fist held high with something clenched in it. It had to be the carving.
Orme was gaining on him. Monk forced himself to run faster. He almost caught up with them just as they reached the edge of the rotted pier jutting twenty feet out into the river. The boat was already waiting for the Fat Man, and Orme’s men were beyond sight.
The Fat Man turned with a wave of triumph. “Good night, gentlemen!” he said with glee, his voice rich and soft with laughter. “Thank you for the ivory!” He pushed it into his pocket and swiveled. There was a crack as the last whole piece of timber snapped under his vast weight. For a hideous instant he did not understand what had happened. Then, as it caved in, he screamed and flailed his arms wildly. But there was nothing to grasp, only rotting, crumbling edges. The black water sucked and squelched below, swallowing him with one immense gulp. The moment after there was only the rhythmic slurp again, as if he had never existed. His heavy boots and his immense body weight had dragged him down, and the mud beneath had held him, as if in cement.
Orme and Monk both stopped abruptly.
The Fat Man’s boatman saw them and scrabbled for the oars, sending the craft back into the night. In the moon’s glow, the water was silver-flecked, and they were easily visible. One of the police boats appeared from around the stakes of the next pier and went after them. A second came for Monk and Orme, and then a third.
“He’s got the ivory,” Monk said. It made the victory hollow. Farnham would consider it too high a price to pay for the evening’s triumph, and he would not let Monk forget it.
“We’ll get ’im up,” Orme assured him quietly.
“Up? How? We can’t go down there. A diver would be lost in minutes. It’s mud!”
“Grapples,” Orme answered. “Get ’em this tide, we’ll find ’im. ’E’s got it in ’is pocket. It’ll be safe enough.” He looked Monk up and down with concern. “You got a nasty cut, sir. Best get it attended to. You know a doctor?”
Now that he thought about it, Monk was aware that his arm hurt with a steady, pounding ache and that his sleeve was soaked with blood. Damn! It was an extremely good coat. Or it had been.
“Yes,” he said absently. It would be the sensible thing to do. “But what about the Fat Man? That ooze could pull him down pretty far.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll get a crew with grapples straightaway. I know what that carving’s worth.” He gave a grin so wide his teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “An’ it’d be nice to pull the old bastard up an’ show ’im off. Better’n just tellin’ folk.”
“Be careful,” Monk warned. “Sodden wet and covered in mud, he’ll weigh half a ton!”
“Oh, at least!” Orme started to laugh. It was a rich, happy sound, a little high, as if he was now realizing how close they had all come to defeat, and he still did not know how badly any of the rest of his own men had been injured, or even whether any had been killed.
Then Monk remembered Clacton. Did Orme know that he had deliberately held back? If he did, would he do anything about it? Would he expect Monk to? Even as the thought came to him, Monk half made up his mind to face Clacton, not as a betrayer but as a coward. It might be the better way.
He held out his left hand. “A good ni
ght,” he said warmly.
“Yes, sir,” Orme agreed, taking it with his own left. “Very good. Better’n I thought.”
“Thank you.” It was not a formality; he meant it.
Orme caught the inflection. “Yer welcome, sir. We done good. But yer’d best get that arm seen to. It’s a nasty one.”
Monk obeyed and got into the waiting boat, a little awkwardly. His arm was stiffening already.
It was nearly an hour later, on the north bank again and close to midnight, when he finally sat on a wooden chair in the small back room of a young doctor known as Crow. Monk had met him through Scuff when Durban was alive and they were working on the Louvain case.
Crow shook his head. He had a high forehead and black hair that he wore long and cut straight around. His smile was wide and bright, showing remarkably good teeth.
“So you got ’em,” he said, examining the gash in Monk’s arm while Monk studiously looked away from it, concentrating his anger on the wreck of his jacket.
“Yes,” Monk agreed, gritting his teeth. “And the Fat Man.”
“You’ll be clever if you get to jail him,” Crow said, pulling a face.
“Very,” Monk agreed, wincing. “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” Without meaning to, Crow pulled on the thread with which he was stitching Monk’s arm. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Really? Are you sure? The Fat Man?”
“Absolutely.” Monk clenched his teeth tighter. “He fell through a rotted pier on Jacob’s Island. Went straight down into the slime and never came back up.”
Crow sighed with profound satisfaction. “How very fitting. I’ll tell Scuff. He’ll be glad at least you got that sorted. Hold still, this is going to hurt.”
Monk gasped and felt a wave of nausea engulf him for several moments as the pain blotted out everything else. Then there was a sharp, acrid sting in his nose that brought tears to his eyes. “What the hell is that?” he demanded.