Page 45 of The Shifting Tide (William Monk 14)

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.”

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