AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She darted her hand out and gave him a swift, hard slap around the ear. Monk winced as he heard the crack of skin on skin.
Scuff let out a howl.
“Wot'd I tell you lot fer?” the old woman demanded furiously. “Yer wouldn't do nothin’. Yer wouldn't take no risks ter keep the little bastards safe, not like ‘e did.”
“Risks?” Monk asked, gulping down hope and trying to keep his voice steady. He must not let her know it mattered. She would play every advantage. He even tried to invest his tone with some skepticism.
She was still angry. Her contempt was bitter in the deep lines around her eyes and mouth. “‘E got Melcher, dint ‘e?” She gave a toothless sneer. “Real clever sod ‘e were, when ‘e wanted. And ‘e conned Melcher every time, if ‘e din't keep an eye on other boys, an’ Phillips knew it. Pearly Boy too. Weren't till after Durban were dead that Reilly went. But wot'd yer know? Bloody useless.” She spat on the dusty ground. “Yer don't make me laugh like ‘e did. An’ don't give me nothin’ ter eat.”
He walked away with Scuff, thinking deeply. The insults did not bother him, it was the information whirling in his head that he needed to order. Melcher he knew was a heavy horseman, one of the roughest. According to the old woman, Durban had held something over him. Pearly Boy was an opulent receiver, a fence of the more elegant and expensive goods stolen and resold along the river, a man whose reputation for ruthlessness and greed was well enough known to keep him insulated from the usual dangers and irritations of rivalry in his particular trade. It seemed Durban had somehow manipulated him too. Phillips would not have liked that.
But who was Reilly? Or if the old woman was right, who had he been, and what had happened to him?
Scuff was worried. He glanced at Monk now and again, then away quickly.
“What is it?” Monk asked eventually as they crossed the narrow bridge on the Wapping Basin and moved west.
“She dint ought ter ‘ave talked to yer like that,” Scuff replied. “Yer shouldn't ‘a let ‘er get by wi’ it. Takes ‘erself liberties, she does.”
Scuff was right. Monk had been too relieved to hear someone
speak so well of Durban that he had ignored the fact that he had allowed her to disparage him, and done nothing to assert his authority. It was an error that would have to be corrected, or he would pay the price later. He conceded the point to Scuff, who was satisfied, but took no pleasure in his victory. In his own way, he was worrying about Monk, afraid he was not fit to do the job, or to look after himself in the dangerous alleys and docksides of his new beat. There was a very strict hierarchy, and Monk was letting his place in it slip.
“I'll deal with her,” Monk repeated firmly.
“You watch Pearly Boy.” Scuff looked up at him. “I in't never met ‘im meself, careful not ter. But I ‘eard ‘e's real nice to yer face, an’ tear yer gizzard open the moment yer in't lookin’.”
Monk smiled. “You haven't heard what they used to say about me when I was in the regular shore police.”
“Yeah?” But the anxiety in his manner did not diminish at all. Was he being tactful? Afraid for him, a little pitying? It hurt. Monk was allowing his concern for Durban to erode his skill at his own job. It was past time he amended that.
“I will be very careful of Pearly Boy,” he assured Scuff. “But I need to find information about him, and at the same time let him know that I am no easier to deal with than Durban was, and no pleasanter.”
Scuffs shoulders straightened a little, and his step became a trifle cockier, but he did not answer.
SIX
onk could put it off no longer. He was at Rathbone's office ‘when the clerk opened the door before nine in the morning.
“Good morning, Mr. Monk,” he said with some surprise and a certain degree of discomfort. No doubt he knew more about many things than he ever disclosed, even to Rathbone himself. “I am afraid Sir Oliver is not in yet.”
“I'll wait,” Monk replied. “It is of some importance.”
“Yes, sir. May I get you a cup of tea?”
Monk accepted and thanked him for his thought. As soon as he was seated he wondered if the clerk were also concerned that his master, whom he had served for eight years that Monk knew of, was in some kind of moral morass, and his life had taken a darker turn. Or was that whole idea fanciful?
They were all in a morass; Monk too. He could hardly blame Rathbone if pride, a professional arrogance, had made him take a case, even as ugly as Phillips's, to prove that he could win it. He was testing the law to its boundaries, holding it of value above the decency that was the ultimate safeguard of everyone. On the other hand, if Monk had not also been so arrogantly sure of his skill, he could have let Phillips die on the river, and none of the rest of it would have happened.
Rathbone came in half an hour later, dressed immaculately in pale gray and looking as effortlessly elegant as he always did.
“Good morning, Monk.” Rathbone made it something of a question. He seemed undecided exactly what manner to assume. “A new case?”
Monk stood up and followed Rathbone into his office. It was tidy and casually elegant, like its inhabitant. There was a cut-glass decanter with an ornate silver stopper on the narrow side table. Two very beautiful paintings of oceangoing ships decorated the one wall on which there were no bookshelves. They were small, and heavily framed. Monk knew at a glance that they were very good indeed. There was at once a simplicity and a power to them that marked them as different from the usual.
Rathbone saw his glance and smiled, but he offered no comment. “What can I do for you, Monk?”
Monk had rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say, and how to begin, but now the words seemed contrived, revealing the vulnerability of his position and his recent total defeat. But he could not stand there saying nothing, and there was no point trying to trick Rathbone, of all people. Candor, at least on the surface, was the only possibility.
