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Monk returned to Wapping station and spent the afternoon in the general duties that were part of his new job. He disliked the routine, especially writing reports and even more reading other people’s, but he could not afford to do less than his best. Any error or omission could be the one that spelled failure. He must succeed. He had no other skills than for his work and most certainly no other friends like Callandra Daviot who could or should help financially.
At five o’clock it was completely dark. Worse than that, there was a heavy fog rolling in from the east, shrouding the river so closely he knew he would not find a boatman to attempt rowing him across. Already the streetlamps were dimming, blurred yellow ghosts fading altogether after twenty yards, so the night was impenetrable. The mournful baying of the foghorns on the water broke the silence, and there was little else to be heard but the steady drip of water and the slurp of the tide on the steps and against the embankment.
Monk left at half past five to begin the long walk up towards London Bridge, where if he was very fortunate he might find a hansom to take him over, and as far as Southwark Park and home.
He buttoned his coat, pulled his collar up, and set out.
He had gone about a quarter of a mile when he was aware of someone behind him. He stopped just beyond one of the mist-shrouded lamps and waited.
An urchin came into the pale circle of light. He looked about nine years old, as much as one could see of his face through the grime. He was wearing a long jacket and odd boots, but at least he was not barefoot on the icy stone.
“Hello, Scuff,” Monk said with pleasure. The mudlark had been of help to him in the Maude Idris case, and Monk had seen him a dozen times since then, albeit briefly. Twice they had shared a meat pie. This was the first time he had seen the boots. “New find?” he asked, admiring them.
“Found one, bought the other,” Scuff replied, catching up with him.
Monk started to walk again. It was too cold to stand still. “How are you?” he asked.
Scuff shrugged. “I got boots. You all right?” The second was said with a shadow of anxiety. Scuff thought Monk was an innocent, a liability to himself, and he made no secret of it.
“Not bad, thank you,” Monk replied. “Do you want a pie, if we can find anyone open?”
“Yer won’t,” Scuff said candidly. “It’s gonna be an ’ard winter. You wanna watch yerself. It’s gonna get bad.”
“It’s pretty bad every winter,” Monk replied. He could not afford to dwell too long on the misery of those who worked and slept outside, because he was helpless to do anything about it. What was a hot pie now and then to one small boy?
“This in’t the same,” Scuff replied, keeping step with Monk by skipping an extra one now and then. “Them big tunnels wot they’re diggin’ is upsettin’ folk down there. Toshers in’t ’appy.”
Toshers were the men who made their living by hunting for and picking up small objects of value that found their way into the sewers, including a remarkable amount of jewelry. They usually hunted together, for fear of the armies of rats that could rapidly strip a man down to the bone if he was unlucky enough to lose his footing and injure himself. And there was always the possibility of a buildup of methane gas given off by the sewer contents, and of course a wave of water if the rain was torrential enough.
“Why are the toshers unhappy?” Monk asked. “There’ll always be sewers, just better ones.”
“Change,” Scuff said simply, and with exaggerated patience. “Everybody’s got their stretch, their beat, if yer like, seen’ as yer a policeman o’ sorts.”
“I’m a perfectly regular policeman!” Monk defended himself.
Scuff treated that assertion with the silence it deserved. In his opinion Monk was a dangerous novice who had taken Durban’s position out of a misguided idea of loyalty. He was miserably unsuited for it and was much in need of the guidance or protection of someone who knew what they were doing, such as Scuff himself. He had been born on the river, and at nine years old—or possibly ten, he wasn’t sure—he knew an enormous amount, and was not too proud to learn more every day. But it was a heavy responsibility to look after a grown man who thought he knew so much more than he did.
“Is there going to be a fight over the new stretches?” Monk asked.
“Course there is,” Scuff replied, sniffling. “An’ lots o’ folk gotta move their places. ’Ow’d yer like it if some bleedin’ great machine came an’ crashed your ’ole street down wi’out a word, eh?”
Scuff was referring to the entire communities on the edge between honest poverty, close to destitution, and the semi-criminal underworld who lived nearly all their lives in the sewers, tunnels, and excavations beneath London. To drive a new tunnel through the old was like putting a hot poker into a wasps’ nest. That had been Orme’s analogy.
“I know,” Monk replied. “Mr. Orme has already warned me. I’m not doing this alone, you know.” He looked from left to right through the thickening fog to see if he could see the lights of any kind of food or hot-drink peddlers. The cold was like a tightening vise around them, crushing the heat out of their bodies. How did an urchin like Scuff—so thin he was merely skin and bone—survive? The baleful cry of the foghorns was growing more frequent on the water, and it was impossible to place the sound in the distortion of the mist.
“ ’Ot-chestnut seller that way,” Scuff said hopefully, sniffing again.
“Tonight?” Monk doubted it. It would be a bad night for barrows; no one would be able to see them in this.
“Charlie,” Scuff said, as if that were explanation enough.
“Do you think so?”
“Course.”
“I can’t see anything. Which way?”
“Don’ need ter. I know where ’e’ll be. Yer like chestnuts?” There was a definite lift in Scuff’s voice now.
