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Monk drew in his breath to cry out “Stop!” but bit it back. Sound echoed down here. He had no idea how far ahead the assassin was, perhaps only a few yards. He ran, slipping and struggling after Scuff. The dim reflection on the water made Scuff’s small figure oddly elongated as it moved with a jerky, swayi
ng gait.
The light ahead was there again, bright and unguarded. Monk saw the assassin turn to face them, his arm lifted. There was a sharp crack, a spurt of flame. Scuff cried out and crumpled into the water.
Monk lunged forward, pulling his gun out of his pocket. He fired it again and again even after the figure had disappeared and there was no light in the suffocating darkness except his own.
He put his gun away and held the lantern high, staring at the stream, looking for the small figure. Scuff would be already floating, pulled along by the current, scraped by the sludge and filth. Monk saw him, lost him, and found him again. He bent over awkwardly, because there was nowhere to set the lantern, and picked up the limp body. Scuff’s face was white and wet, reminding him with a lurch of pain of Mary Havilland, but Scuff was far smaller, pinched and thin, the skin almost blue around his eyes and mouth. Thank God he was breathing, in spite of the blood that oozed through his clothes and stained them scarlet around his shoulder and chest.
The assassin must be somewhere ahead of them, but the thought of leaving Scuff and going after him never entered Monk’s head. Clumsily, because of the lantern, and trying to carry Scuff gently with only one arm, he turned and began the long way back. He walked in the center of the sewer floor, where he could move the most easily. He had very little idea where he was, and his only thought was to find the way up towards help.
He did not know how badly Scuff was hurt, but he could not stop here to find out. There were rats everywhere, and they would smell blood. Far worse than that, the assassin knew he had hit Scuff. The fact that Monk had not followed him would tell him that Scuff was not dead and that Monk was trying to get back up again, hampered by carrying a wounded child. As soon as he was certain of that, would he double back and try to finish Monk off? If the positions were reversed, Monk would!
He was lost. There was a fork again: three ways, two ahead, one behind him. Which way had he come? Think! Scuff’s life depended on it! The water was flowing around his feet quite rapidly. It must have kept raining all day. What happened if it got harder, heavier? Flash floods, of course! Deep water. Enough to pull him off his feet, maybe even drown him and Scuff. Was it still raining? He could feel the panic rising inside him. He commanded himself to stop behaving like a fool, and think.
Water flows downwards. On the way in, had he been going with the flow or against it? With it, of course. Down, all the time, down. So he had to go back against it now, upwards. It didn’t matter anymore where he emerged, as long as it was into the air and he could get help. Any opening would do.
He started forward again. Scuff was growing heavy held on one arm, but he had to hold the lantern high in order to see. Its weight was pulling on the wound from the fight on Jacob’s Island. One good thing: If he was simply going up, and not necessarily retracing the way he had come, then there was no trail for the assassin to follow.
As Monk trudged upwards, his mind was working. Why had the killer never gone back to Sixsmith for the second half of his payment, nor apparently to Argyll, either? Perhaps he had never expected to collect the second half; he might have asked for what he meant to have in the first payment. Maybe he feared that Argyll meant to kill him, tidy up the ends. Was he right?
Rathbone would have to drop the prosecution or risk hanging Sixsmith, and Argyll would escape. Neither Mary nor her father would ever be vindicated.
Monk shook his head to clear it. All that mattered now was getting Scuff up to the top before he died of shock and the cold. He wanted to look at the wound, but there was nowhere to lay Scuff down, nowhere to hang the lantern so he could see. His legs were freezing and clumsy, his heart was pounding, and the stench of sewage all but made him gag, but he was moving as fast as he could, always uphill, against the flow of the water. Once he passed a series of iron rungs in the wall; alone he would have climbed, but not with Scuff.
He rounded a corner. The light seemed clearer now. He must be nearing the surface!
Then he saw a figure ahead of him, a man, thin, with his arm raised. There was a shout, but in the tunnel it echoed. Against the roar of the water going over the weir he could not make out the words. It must be raining harder.
The shot still took him by surprise, ricocheting off the wall and sending brick chips and dust flying. He threw himself against the wall, sheltering Scuff as much as he could with his own body.
There was another shout, and another, but they sounded further away. He looked around and at first thought there was no one there. Then he saw the lantern held high, Orme’s familiar figure behind it. Relief washed over him like a warm tide, almost robbing him of the little strength he had left.
“Orme!” he shouted. “Here! Help me!”
“Mr. Monk, sir! Are you all right?” Orme ran over, slipping in the water, his lantern swaying wildly, his face crumpled with concern.
“Scuff’s shot,” Monk said simply. “We’ve got to get him up.”
Orme was aghast. “Now? Just now?”
“No! No…we caught up with the assassin and he shot at us.”
“Right, sir. I’ll lead the way,” Orme said steadily. “Come with me.”
It seemed a long way before they finally emerged into the open cutting. By now Monk had abandoned his lantern, simply following Orme’s light ahead. He wanted to hold Scuff gently, in both arms. The boy was beginning to stir, and every now and then he let out a soft groan.
When they reached the end of the cutting and were on level ground again, they stopped. For the first time Monk saw Scuff’s face in the daylight. He was ashen, and there were already hollows of shock around his eyes. Monk felt a tight pinching in his heart. He looked up at Orme.
“You better get ’im to a doctor, Mr. Monk,” Orme said anxiously.
Scuff’s eyes flickered open. “I want Crow,” he said weakly. “It ’urts summink awful! Am I gonna die?”
“No,” Monk promised. “No, you’re not. I’m going to take you to the hospital—”
Scuff’s eyes grew wide and dark with terror. “No! No ’ospitil! Don’t take me there, please, Mr. Monk, don’t take me…,” he gasped. His face turned even whiter. He tried to reach out his hand as if to ward off something, but only his fingers moved. “Please…”
“All right,” Monk said quickly. “No hospital. I’ll take you home. I’ll look after you.”
