'It was the middle of a winter night!' Barclay said with an obvious effort to be reasonable in spite of everyone else's unreason. 'He was of very average height and build and he had a dirty old coat on, with his collar turned up, as anyone would on such a night. That's all!'
'If his coat was dark, how did you see the wet stain on it?' Runcorn asked.
'Then it wasn't dark!' Barclay snapped. 'It was a light coat, but it was still dirty. Now we've told you everything we can, and you have kept my sister standing here in the cold for more than long enough. Good night!'
Melisande drew in her breath, perhaps to point out that it was he who had chosen to remain on the step. She had tried to invite them inside. But she might have remembered it was Barclay she was dependent upon, not Runcorn or Monk.
'Good night,' she said with a swift, apologetic glance, then turned to go inside.
The door closed, leaving them in sudden darkness. They were so numb from the icy wind that their first few steps were almost stumbling.
Runcorn walked in silence for almost a hundred yards, still lost in his own thoughts.
'Better see if anyone else saw him,' Monk said at last. 'Might be a groom from one of the houses.'
Runcorn gave him a sideways look. 'Might be,' he agreed dryly. 'I'm betting it was an assassin, hired by one of the Argyll brothers to get rid of Havilland. But we've got to rule out everything else, so tomorrow we'd best ask all around. I can put my men on that. I suppose you've got river things to attend to?'
Monk smiled. The sudden appreciation of his position was an oblique way of thanking him for not showing off in front of Melisande Ewart. 'Yes. Spate of robberies, actually. Thank you.'
Runcorn stared at him for a moment, as if to make sure there was no mockery in his eyes. Then he nodded and began walking again.
Monk was late to Wapping station again in the morning. He had not meant to be, but he had fallen asleep again after Hester had wakened him, and even her noisy riddling of the ashes from the stove had not wakened him. It was nearly ten o'clock when he climbed the steps from the ferry. They were slicked over with ice and dangerously slippery. He reached the top and saw Orme coming out of the station door. Had he been waiting for him? Why? Another warning that Farnham was after him? He felt cold inside.
Orme came towards him quickly, his coat collar up, wind tugging at his hair.
'Mornin', sir,' he said quietly. 'Like to walk that way a bit?' He inclined his head to indicate the stretch southwards.
'Good morning, Orme. What is it?' Monk took the hint and turned to keep in step.
'Did a good bit of lookin' around yesterday, Mr. Monk. Asked a few questions, collected a favor or two,' Orme answered in a low voice. He led Monk away from the station and, within a few moments, out of sight of it. 'It's right enough there's been a lot more thievin' in the last month or two-neat like, all tidy. Passenger standin' talkin', then a piece goes, watch or bracelet or whatever it is. Like as not it isn't noticed fer a little while, then o' course it's too late. Could be anywhere. There's always someone beside you as couldn't 'ave done it, an' they always say as they saw nothin'.'
'Several people working together,' Monk judged. 'One to distract, one to take it, a passer, another to block the way with offers of help, and maybe a fifth to take it and disappear.'
'Yer right. An' from what I 'eard, I'm pretty certain at least one of 'em was a kid, ten or eleven, each time.'
'Not the same child?'
'No, just that sort of age. People take 'em for beggars, mudlarks, just strays 'anging around for a bit of food, likely, or to keep warm. Better in a boat than on the dockside in the wind.'
Monk thought of Scuff. He would probably rather work than steal, but what was there for a child to do on the river in midwinter? The thought of hot food, a dry place out of the wind, and a blanket would be enough to tempt anyone. He was brave, imaginative, quick-the ideal target for a kidsman, one of those who took in unwanted children and made thieves of them. It was afar from ideal life, but in return the children ate and were clothed, and to some extent protected. The thought of Scuff ending like that sickened him. There was no leniency in the courts for children. A thief was a thief.
'Any idea who?' He found the words difficult to say.
Orme must have heard the emotion in his voice. He looked at him quickly, then away again. 'Some. Only the arms and legs o' the gang, so to speak. Need to catch the 'ead to be any use. Won't be easy.'
'We'll have to plan,' Monk replied. 'See if there's any pattern in the reports of theft. Any of the goods turn up? Who'd take that kind of stuff? Opulent receivers?' They took the valuable things and knew where and how to dispose of them. Durban would not have had to ask; he would have known their names, their places of business and storage, the goods in which they specialized.
'Yes, sir.' Orme did not add anything.
Monk realized, as if he had suddenly come to a yawning hole in the earth in front of him, how much Orme missed Durban, and how far short Monk still was of filling that space. Perhaps he could never earn that loyalty or give the men cause to accept him as they had Durban, but he could earn their respect for his skill, and in time they would come to know that they could trust him.
For now it was Orme they trusted, Orme they would be loyal to and obey. Monk would get no more than lip service, and less than that from Clacton. That was a problem that still had to be addressed, and they would all be waiting to see how Monk handled it. Sooner or later Clacton himself would provoke a confrontation, and Monks authority would hang on whether he won, and how.
He tried to think of other plans he had used in the past to catch rings of thieves, but since the accident that had taken his memory he had worked largely on murder cases. Petty thieving belonged to a past before that-in the early years, when he and Runcorn had worked together, he thought wryly, not against each other. He had had flashes of going into the rookeries, those vast slums, which were part underground tunnels, part sagging tenements. There were passages, trapdoors, sudden drops, and blind ends-a hundred ways to get caught, and to get your throat cut. Your corpse would possibly go out on the tide, or if it finished in the sewer, most of it would be eaten by rats.
That world was violent and ugly. The poverty in it was so absolute that only the strongest and the luckiest survived. Police seldom went there at all, but if they did, they took with them someone they trusted not only in loyalty but in skill, speed, and nerve as well, and above all courage. He and Runcorn had trusted each other like that once.
In the rotting tenements of the waterlogged patch on the south bank known as Jacob's Island, there could be a hundred men hidden in the wrecks of buildings sinking slowly into the mud. The same was true of the teeming slums of the docks, the ever-shifting tides of the Pool of London with its great ships, its cargoes here one day and gone the next. The opium dens of Limehouse or the wrecks on the long stretches towards the sea might conceal anything. He would need to trust Orme with his life, as Orme would have to trust him. It would not come quickly or without testing.
'I'll work on a plan,' he said aloud at last. 'If you've got one, tell me.'
'Yes, sir. I was thinkin'…' Orme stopped.
'Go on,' Monk prompted.
'I'd like to catch the Fat Man,' Orme said thoughtfully. 'Owe 'im a lot, that one, over the years.'
'I assume you mean a lot of harm, not a lot of good?'
'Oh, yes, sir, a lot o' harm indeed.' There was an edge of emotion in Orme's voice that was extraordinarily sharp, as if from an accumulation of pain.
Monk was overwhelmed by how much he did not know about these men. Orme seemed not to resent him. In fact, he had deliberately steered him away from the station just now so that Farnham would not see him come in late. He had covered for him yesterday so that he could pursue the Havilland case.
An icy thought passed through Monk's mind: that Orme was deliberately allowing him to do those things in order to betray him to Farnham, giving him enough rope to hang himself. Why had Orme himself not got Durban 's job? He was extremely able, and the men trusted him and admired him. He was far better qualified for it than Monk. Why had Durban suggested Monk? Was that a betrayal, too?
He was floundering. His ignorance was like a vast black tide carrying him towards destruction.
'I was thinkin', sir'-Orme was still talking-'that if we get rid of the Fat Man, 'oo's the best opulent receiver on the river, then someone else'll take 'is place. I reckon that someone'll be Toes. An' Toes is someone we can keep
