he continued, “you told him to go back to bed, but in fact ’Orrie actually continued to search for Mr. Parfitt along the riverbank?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Tosh confirmed.
“Remarkable that in so short a time he actually found him, don’t you think?” Monk asked. “It’s a big river, lots of weeds and obstructions, tides in and out, and traffic.”
Tosh blinked. “ ’Adn’t thought of it like that, but o’ course you’re right. Remarkable it is, sir.”
“I think this would be a good time to meet this Mr. ’Orrible Jones,” Monk observed.
“Oh, yes, sir.” Tosh blinked and smiled, showing very white and curiously pointed teeth.
They found ’Orrie Jones sweeping the sawdust on the floor of a pub just off one of the alleys leading down to the riverfront. Coburn pointed him out, although there was no need. He was stout and of less than average height. He was an unusually ugly man. His brown hair grew at all angles from his head, rather like the spines of a hedgehog. His nose was broad, but it was his eyes that were his most unnerving feature.
“Mornin’ ’Orrie,” Coburn said cheerfully, stopping in front of him.
’Orrie grasped the broom handle, his knuckles white. One large, dark eye was fixed balefully on the constable; the other wandered toward the far corner. Monk had no idea whether ’Orrie could see him or not.
“Yer found ’oo done that ter Mickey?” ’Orrie demanded.
“Done what?” Monk inquired, wanting to know if ’Orrie was aware of the strangulation, before Coburn mentioned it.
“Pushed ’im in the water.” ’Orrie shifted his gaze, or at least half of it.
“Could he swim?” Monk asked.
“Not with ’is ’ead stove in,” ’Orrie replied. His face was so vacant, Monk was not sure if he felt anger, pity, or even disinterest. It set Monk at an unexpected disadvantage.
“It doesn’t surprise you that he is dead?” Monk asked.
’Orrie’s gaze wandered round the room. “Don’t surprise me when nobody’s dead,” he replied.
Monk found himself irritated. It was a perfectly reasonable answer, and yet it sidestepped the real question. Was that intentional?
“How long did you look for him last night when you went back to the boat and discovered he had gone?” he persisted.
“Till I couldn’t find ’im,” ’Orrie said patiently. “Dunno ’ow long it were. In’t no use looking after that.”
Monk thought he saw ’Orrie smile, but decided to pretend he hadn’t. “Were you late going back for him?” he said sharply.
This time it was ’Orrie who looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Yeah. I got ’eld up. Some fool wouldn’t pay, an’ we ’ad ter ask ’im a bit ’arder. Crumble’ll tell yer.”
Monk looked at Coburn.
“Crumble is one of Parfitt’s pimps,” Coburn replied.
’Orrie looked at him with disapproval. “Yer shouldn’t say things like that, Mr. Coburn. Crumble just looks after things.”
Coburn shrugged.
Monk did not pursue it. ’Orrie was probably telling the truth, and it was quite possible that none of them had a very clear idea of time. Monk would have to look further into the various sources of money to see whether ’Orrible Jones had any apparent motive either to kill Parfitt himself or to shield anyone else who had.
They questioned ’Orrie further, but he had nothing to add to the simple fact that he had rowed Mickey Parfitt out to his boat, which was moored upstream from the local island, Chiswick Eyot, shortly after eleven o’clock. He had waited until midnight to go back for him, and then had been delayed by trouble in one of the taverns, where a customer had refused to pay for several drinks. Monk had no doubt it was actually a brothel, but for the purpose of accounting for ’Orrie’s time, it came to the same thing. When ’Orrie had rowed back just before one, Mickey Parfitt was nowhere to be seen. He said he had looked for him until he believed it was pointless, and then he had gone back home and gone to bed.
In the morning, when ’Orrie had called on Mickey and found he was still not around, he had been sufficiently concerned to go and waken Tosh. Tosh had told him to go back to bed, but instead ’Orrie had begun to search for Mickey. In little more than an hour, he had found the body.
Monk excused ’Orrie, for the time being, and went to find Crumble, who appeared to have no other name. He was in the cellar of the pub, moving kegs around with more ease than Monk would have expected from a man so small. He was less than five feet, with round eyes, and features so indistinct that they seemed about to blur into one another. His eyebrows were ragged, his nose shapeless-perhaps the bone had been broken too many times. He spoke with a soft, curiously high-pitched voice.
“Needed a little ’elp,” he explained when they asked him about ’Orrie’s delay in returning for Parfitt the previous night. “Weren’t thinkin’ o’ the time. Can’t let people get away without payin’, or word’ll get about, an’ everyone’ll be tryin’ it. Mr. Parfitt’s money.”
Monk made a mental note to find out whose money it would be now, and perhaps also roughly how much of it there was. Constable Coburn would be well qualified to do that.
He went through the pattern of the evening once again, then thanked Crumble and left.
It was after six by the time Monk and Orme finally found themselves upstream toward Mortlake. They had borrowed a police boat and now rowed across from the north bank to the south. Finally they were approaching the large vessel moored close to the trees in a quiet, easily overlooked place, sheltered from the wake of passing barges and unseen from the road.
The north bank opposite was marshy and completely deserted-a place no one would be likely to wander. There were no paths in it, no place to tie a boat and no reason to.
They rowed across the bright water. The early evening sun was low on the western horizon, already filling the sky with color. It was not yet a year since Monk had taken this job, but even in that time the strength of his arms and chest had increased enormously. He hardly felt the pull of the oars, and he was so accustomed to working with Orme that they fell into rhythm without a word.
He knew that Parfitt had been murdered, most probably on this boat that lay motionless on the silent river ahead of them. Still, the movement, the creak of the oarlocks, the whisper of water passing, the faint drip from the oars, had a kind of timeless calm that eased the knots inside him. He found he was smiling.
They pulled up alongside the boat and shipped their oars. Orme stood and caught the rope ladder that lay over the surprisingly high side. They tied their own ropes to it, and then climbed up.
The boat was larger than it had looked from the shore. It was a good fifty feet long, and about twenty wide at its broadest point. Given the height of it, there would be two decks above the waterline, and perhaps another below, then the bilges. What did Mickey Parfitt use something this size for, moored away up here beyond the docks? Certainly not cargo. There were no masts for sails, and no towpaths on the shore.
Monk glanced at Orme.
Orme’s face was turned away, but Monk saw the hard lines of his jaw, the muscles knotted, his shoulders tight.
“We’d better go below,” Monk said quietly. They had brought crowbars in case it proved necessary to break open the hatches.
He wondered what had happened on this boat. Had someone crept aboard in the dark, rowing out just as they had, climbing on board silently, creeping soundlessly across the wooden planking and taking Mickey Parfitt by surprise? Or was it someone he had expected, someone he had assumed to be a friend, and then he had suddenly, horribly, found that he was wrong?
Orme was bending over the hatch.
“We’ll have to break it,” he said, frowning. “He must’ve been killed on deck.”
“Or he never got this far,” Monk replied.
Orme looked up at him. “You mean it could have nothing to do with this? Why would ’Orrie tell that story about bringing him here if he didn’t? If he’s got the guts to lie at all, surely he’d say he knew nothing about it?”
Monk took one of the crowbars and levered it into the lock in the hatch. “Maybe other people know he took Parfitt out. He might have been seen on the dockside.”
