The Shifting Tide (21 page)

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.”

“I had my wife do it,” Monk replied. “It’s fine, a bit stiff, that’s all.”

Crow pursed his lips. In the clear morning light, no softness in its glare, the tiny lines were visible on his skin. He looked closer to forty than the thirty Monk had assumed, but there was still a fire of enthusiasm in his expression that made him uniquely alive. “So what is it you want me for?” he asked.

Monk had been thinking how to broach the subject, and how much to tell him. He knew nothing about this man; he had made his decision on a mixture of instinct and desperation. Would he take caution as an insult, or as a sign of intelligence?

“I need someone to make an offer for me,” Monk replied, watching Crow’s expression. “I can’t do it myself. They wouldn’t believe me.”

Crow raised an eyebrow. “Should they?”

“No. What I’m looking for was stolen from a . . . an associate of mine.” He could not bring himself to call Louvain a friend, and he was not yet willing to let Crow know that he was a client. It raised too many other questions.

“Associate . . .” Crow turned the word over. “An’ yer want ter buy it back? Now, what kind o’ a thing would yer buy back if it was yers in the first place? An’ what kind o’ people do yer associate with that are happy ter buy back things that were stolen? An’ then why use yer, why not do it thesselves? Yer don’t do it for nothin’, do yer?”

Monk grinned. “No, I don’t. And no, I’m not going to buy it back. When I know where he’s put it, I’m going to take it, but he’s got it well hidden. I need you to make an offer to buy some of it so he’ll go there.”

Crow looked dubious. “Doesn’t ’e ’ave a receiver for it ’isself? If yer threat’nin’ ter cross up one o’ the receivers along ’ere, yer daft, an’ yer won’t last long.”

“I think it was stolen to deprive the owner of its use, not to sell on,” Monk explained reluctantly. “I just want you to make an offer for one tusk.”

Crow’s eyes widened. “Tusk! Ivory?”

“That’s right. Will you do it?”

Crow thought for a moment or two. He was still considering it when Scuff returned with the tea, carrying it carefully in three mugs.

Crow took one, warming his hands on it and blowing at the steam rising from the top. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Someone needs ter look after yer, or we’ll be fishin’ yer outta the water an’ tellin’ the police who you were.”

“Yeah,” Scuff added with sage concern.

Monk felt both cared for and diminished, but he could not afford the luxury of taking offense. Apart from that, they were right. “Thank you,” he said, a trifle tartly.

“In’t nuffin’,” Scuff said generously, and took a huge bite of his ham sandwich.

“So who do I have ter ask fer the tusk?” Crow enquired.

“Gould, the boatman.”

“Who works from the steps here?” Crow said with surprise. “Knew he was a thief, of course, but ivory’s a bit much for him. Yer sure?”

“No, but I think so.”

“Right.” Crow finished his sandwich and his tea, and rubbed his hands together to signify he was ready to begin.

Monk looked at Scuff, who was waiting expectantly. “Will you come with me, and when I’m sure where Gould is leading us, take a message to Mr. Louvain and tell him where we are, then go and fetch Mr. Durban of the River Police so we can arrest Gould and get the ivory back?”

Crow’s eyes widened. “Louvain?” he said with a sharpness to his voice, a sudden wariness as if it changed his perception.

“It’s his ivory,” Monk replied. “I’m going to return it to him. That’s what he hired me for.”

Crow whistled through his teeth. “Did ’e? Yer do this kind o’ thing often?”

“All the time, just not on the river before.” He tried to judge whether Crow would consider it a compliment or an insult to be offered money. Monk stroked his face, having no idea of the answer.

Then Crow grinned hugely, showing magnificent teeth. “Right!” He rubbed his mittened hands together. “Let’s go an’ find Mr. Gould. I’m ready! By the way, ’ow am I supposed ter know if ’e’s got ivory?”

“From an informant who is unusually observant, and whom it would be more than your life’s worth to name!” Monk said with an answering smile.

“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
.”

Gould’s face showed no added fear, no sudden change at the mention of what he must know was murder. Monk felt a stab of regret that it meant nothing to him; all he thought of was the money. Monk kept his back to the door, his ear straining to hear anything human among the rat feet, the dripping wood, and the slow subsidence of the fabric of the building into the mud of Jacob’s Island.

“ ’Ow d’yer know it’s from the
Maude Idris
?” Gould asked, his face puckered with suspicion.

“Get out!” Monk said again to Crow, hoping that now he would go and bring the nearest police, river or land.

“ ’Oo are yer tellin’ ter get out?” Gould said angrily. “Yer got money ter buy all this then, eh? An’ don’ think yer can rob me, ’cos yer can’t. I in’t alone ’ere. I in’t that daft!”