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Monk should not have been surprised, and yet the fact that he had struggled to save the man and felt the violent, surging life in him, made his death shocking, even though he was a fugitive from the law.
Monk cleared his throat. “He is an escaped prisoner. The policeman or customs officer chasing him caught up with him here on the dockside. The policeman tried to take him down. Hooper and I attempted to separate them but there was a struggle between us and each of them and they both went into the water. Hooper went in with the policeman, and I went in after this man. Hooper kept the policeman up long enough, but it looked as if he could swim pretty well. Slack tide, so the current didn’t carry him down. This one panicked. Thrashing around all over the place. I tried to get him out.” Monk realized only now how hard the man had hit back. His head was still ringing from the blows.
“Did you have to strike him?” Crow asked, as if it were the most ordinary question. Perhaps it was.
“Yes…a couple of times. Or he’d have drowned us both.”
“Happens quite often,” Crow said bleakly. “Our own worst enemy. There isn’t anything I can do to help him. He drowned, but it was his panic that killed him.” He climbed to his feet and looked at Monk with some pity. They had known each other for many years, and more than once faced desperate situations together. “Sorry,” he added. Then he turned to Scuff and put one arm around his shoulder. He did not say anything. Scuff wanted to be a doctor. He would have to get used to death, and Crow would not embarrass him by treating him as a child.
Scuff stood a little straighter, his chin up, and stared for a long moment at Monk, then gave a half smile.
“Sorry, sir,” he said with barely a tremor in his voice. “There in’t nothing more as we can do for ’im.” His grammar slipped back to his old mudlark days in moments of tension and all Hester’s schooling of him vanished.
Monk wished he could protect Scuff from this, but he knew better. “Had to try,” he said gravely. “Thank you for coming.”
Crow seemed to be on the edge of a smile, but kept it from showing. “And the other man, the policeman?” he asked.
“He made it to the schooner over there,” Monk answered. “He got out up the rope, so I daresay the skipper, if that’s who it was on deck, will give him a stiff tot of rum and some dry clothes, then set him off somewhere.”
“What schooner?” Crow looked puzzled.
Monk turned round to point it out, and saw only an empty stretch of water where the tide had turned and was beginning to ebb. The ship’s leaving had been fast, and silent. Or perhaps on the wharf they had been so absorbed in trying to save the big man that they had heard nothing anyway.
“Maybe he took him downriver to the nearest doctor,” Clive suggested. “Or if he was all right, to anywhere that he could go ashore and make it back to his station. He’ll be spitting fire at having lost his man. You’ll have to tell the police that he’s dead. That’ll be some comfort.” He smiled and offered Monk his hand. There was a warmth to the gesture, even in this miserable circumstance.
Monk took it and held it hard for a moment before thanking him and letting go.
He and Hooper walked back toward the road. They would have to inform whoever was pursuing the prisoner that he was dead. Presumably they would want the corpse just the same. Somebody had to bury him. It was certainly not Crow’s responsibility, or Clive’s.
As they reached the street they saw a hansom coming toward them at a brisk pace. As it pulled up, two uniformed police got out and started across the pavement toward them. On seeing that Monk and Hooper were sodden wet, apart from Monk’s coat, they stopped abruptly. The elder of the two looked Monk up and down.
“You seen two men come this way? One big, bearded fellow following an older, smaller one?”
“You’re after the escaped prisoner,” Monk concluded. “River Police. We were here when they appeared. The prisoner’s dead. I’m sorry. The two of them were fighting and eventually went into the water. We tried to get them out, but the prisoner panicked. We couldn’t save him. Your man got away. He’s one hell of a survivor. It was slack tide so there was no current to battle. He made it to the far side and was helped up onto a schooner moored there.” Monk gestured toward the now-empty mooring. “It pulled up anchor and went. Tide was just past the turn, so I expect they went downstream. No doubt he’ll have got off at the first wharf where he could get dry clothes, and medical help if he needed it.”
The older man stared at him, his face white.
“God damn it! Pettifer couldn’t swim to save his soul! Terrified of the water, for all he was Customs.”
Monk felt his stomach churn. “Pettifer? A small, thin man, but strong?”
“Hell, no! A big bloke, built like an ox, and a beard…” The man closed his eyes. “Don’t say he’s dead, and that bastard Owen got away. Please don’t say that!”
The other man behind him blasphemed. “McNab’ll kill us! Pettifer was one of his!”
“Never mind that!” the elder retorted, glaring at him. “Owen got clean away. He’ll no more stop now than fly in the air! He’ll get another ship and be in France by tomorrow. That’s the second one they’ve lost in a week. First Blount, and now Owen. He’s not going to take the blame for both of them!”
“If I know ’im,” his companion retorted, “he won’t take the blame for either!” He looked at Monk. “The first one evaded us with an elaborate escape plan, though someone got ’im in the end—this one’ll be down to you!”
MONK FELT TOTALLY WRETCHED about the whole affair. He had set out with the hope of catching Owen before McNab got to him, although perhaps not for the best of reasons. He had thought he might learn something about the escape, or a whole series of events that might be connected. First there was the escape of Blount, and what seemed to be his murder, and then the escape of Owen, within a few days of each other. Perhaps they were part of some organized plan. At a glance the events looked fortuitous, but were they? They were both connected to Customs. Monk was still certain that the gunrunners who had brought about the battle on the decks of their ship, which had cost Orme his life, had been tipped off about Monk’s raid by McNab. Whether it was for money, prestige, or simply enmity he did not know. Nor did he know what that enmity was about. But he wanted to find out, and then prove it, all of it. He had already waited too long.
Monk wondered if
he had fallen neatly into a trap McNab had set up for him. That was a scalding thought. McNab, of all people! Had Monk allowed a certain arrogance to flaw his judgment, and land him in this disaster?
He remembered with a sudden lurch of his stomach the moment he had seen that McNab knew he was vulnerable. It was a couple of weeks ago. They had been sitting in McNab’s office talking about some trivial matter of business they had in common—something to do with a few missing kegs of brandy, probably a miscount.
McNab had stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked very directly at Monk, meeting his eyes.
