Page 47 of The Shifting Tide (William Monk 14)

“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.”

---