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They looked up as the sergeant opened the door. For a moment there was silence, prickling cold. The fat man belched.
The sergeant took a step forward, and in that instant Caleb Stone saw Monk behind him. Perhaps it was some look of victory in Monk’s face, maybe he recognized the sergeant. He climbed to his feet and lunged towards the window, throwing himself out of it with a shattering of glass.
The fat man rolled over onto all fours and charged at Monk. Monk raised his knee and caught him in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards, spitting blood. The other man was locked in a struggle with the sergeant, swinging backwards and forwards together like a parody of a dance.
Monk ran over to the window and smashed the rest of the glass out of the frame, then leaned out, half expecting to see the figure of Caleb broken on the pavement four stories below.
But he had forgotten the twists and turns of the stairs. They were facing the back of the building, and beneath him was the roof of a high wooden shed, not more than twelve feet away. Caleb was running across it, agile as an animal, making for the opposite side and a half-open window.
Monk scrambled over the sill and leaped, landing with a jar that shocked his bones. Within a moment he was on his feet and racing after Caleb, the shed roof rattling under his weight.
Caleb swung around once, his wide mouth grinning, then he jumped for the window and disappeared inside.
Monk went in after him, finding himself in another cold, suffocating room just like those he had left. Three old men sat with bottles in their hands around a potbellied stove smelling of soot.
Caleb flung the door open and charged across the landing and Monk heard his footsteps hard on the stairs. He dived after him, tripped on the f
ourth or fifth step, which was broken, and fell the remaining half dozen, landing bruisingly and only just missing cracking his head on the newel post. He heard Caleb’s laughter as he clattered on down, a floor below him.
Monk clambered to his feet, furious with pain and frustration, and went down the rest of the stairs as fast as he could. He was just in time to see Caleb’s back as he went out the door into Prestage Street and turned towards Brunswick Street, which ran all the way down to the river, Ashton’s Wharf and the Blackwall Stairs.
Where the devil were the other constables? Monk yelled as loudly as his lungs would bear.
“Benyon! Brunswick Street!”
His elbow and shoulder were sore where he had hit them on the wall as he fell, and one ankle throbbed, but he charged along the footpath, barging into an old woman with a bag of clothes who was determined not to step aside for him. He knocked her against the wall, unintentionally, having been sure she would move. Her body felt heavy and soft, like a sack of porridge. She swore at him with a string of oaths he would have expected from a bargee.
Caleb had vanished.
Monk got into his stride again. Someone else was running along Harrap Street, coattails billowing. It must be one of the constables.
He swung around the corner and saw Caleb running easily, almost dancing as he turned around and waved, his face laughing, then scampered on towards the river.
Monk extended his pace, his lungs gasping, his blood pounding. It had been too long since he had been obliged to chase a man on foot. This was a hard way to discover it.
The constable caught up with him and forged ahead. Caleb was still twenty yards beyond them, and running easily, every now and then leaping, as if in mockery. They had passed the turning to Leicester Street and were approaching Norfolk Street. Where was Caleb making for?
Caleb passed the corner of Russell Street and there was nothing ahead of him but the dock and the stairs! A wild thought crossed Monk’s mind that he was going to jump into the river. Suicide? Many a man would think it better than the hangman’s rope. Monk would himself.
Then he would make for the wharf, not the stairs.
It was already mid-afternoon and the light was failing. A grayness crept up from the river and robbed everything of what little color there was. The mist deadened Caleb’s flying footsteps as he raced across the stones to the edge of the water and the flight of steps downward. The constable was only a couple of yards behind him.
Monk’s breath labored in his lungs but his ankle was easing.
Caleb disappeared down the stairs and the constable after him. Then there was a yell and a heavy splash, then a scream of fear, choked off almost instantly.
Monk reached the edge of the wall just as a second constable came behind him.
Caleb was on the steps, feet wide apart, balanced, laughing, his head thrown back. The constable was thrashing around in the water, sinking, dragged down by his boots and his heavy clothing.
“He’ll drown!” Caleb shouted, looking at Monk. “You’d better pull him out! You can’t leave him, Mr. Righteous!”
There was a barge about ten yards out, the first of a string moving slowly upriver with the incoming tide, low in the water, heavy with bales covered over with dark canvas. The bargee in the stern looked at the man in the water and threw his hands wide. He could not stop the impetus of his vessel. There were another dozen behind him, like railway carriages.
Monk hesitated only a moment. The constable was drowning. His face was white with terror. He had not the faintest idea how to swim and his own panic was killing him. There was a piece of timber lying on the edge. Monk threw it in and waited long enough to see it float.
The instant was enough. Caleb charged up the steps again, thrusting past him and onto the river wall, racing upstream towards the Artichoke Tavern fifty yards away.
