Monk leapt to the conclusion that was most familiar to him. “Murdered?” He leaned forward to stand up. He should go there immediately. Helping Gould would have to wait. He could afford a few days.
“Sit down, Mr. Monk,” Sutton said in a low, very clear voice. “The trouble in’t nothin’ ter do wi’ murder. It’s far more ’orrible than that. An’ yer gotta act right, or yer could bring down a disaster like the world in’t seen in five ’undred years.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Monk demanded. Was the man mad? He looked perfectly sane; the gravity in him was saner than in a score of men who governed the fates of businesses and societies. “What is it?”
“Plague,” Sutton answered, his eyes fixed on Monk. “Not yer cholera or yer pox, or any o’ them diseases. It’s the real thing—the Black Death.”
Monk could not grasp what Sutton had said. It had no reality; it was just huge words, too big to mean anything.
“That’s why nobody’s goin’ in there, an’ nobody’s comin’ out,” Sutton went on quietly. “They gotta keep it closed, no matter wot.”
“You did!” Monk said instantly.
“I kept away from Miss ’Ester an’ the woman wot nursed the dead one, an’ I in’t comin’ out again arter this.”
“I’m still going in,” Monk insisted. Hester was there without him. She was facing something worse than any human nightmare. How could he possibly stay out here, safe, doing nothing? “She’ll need help. Anyway, how could you stop people from leaving? I mean, the sheer practicality? You have to tell the authorities! Get doctors—”
“There in’t nothin’ a doctor can do fer the Black Death.” Sutton sat almost motionless. His face was impassive, beyond emotion. It was as if the horror of it had drained everything out of him. “If it takes yer, it takes yer, an’ if it leaves yer, it leaves yer. In’t no use tellin’ the authorities. In’t nothin’ they can do. An’ wot d’yer think’d ’appen then, eh?”
The hideousness of it was very slowly becoming real. In his mind, Monk could see exactly what this strange, composed man was saying. “How will you stop people from leaving?” he asked.
“Dogs,” Sutton said with a slight movement of his shoulders. “I got friends with pit bulls. They’re guardin’ all the outsides. I ’ope nobody runs fer it, but so ’elp me, they’ll set the dogs on ’em if they do. Better one torn ter bits than lettin’ ’er spread it over all the land, all over the world, mebbe.”
“What if they tell people?”
“We told ’em it’s cholera an’ they don’ know different.”
Monk tried not to think of what his own words meant. “I must still go and help. I can’t leave her alone there. I won’t.”
“Yer gotter . . .” Sutton began.
“I won’t come out again!”
Sutton’s face softened. “I know yer won’t. Not as I’d let yer, any road. But yer can be more ’elp out ’ere. There’s things as need doin’.”
“Getting food, coal, medicine. I know that. Anyone can do those things—”
“Course they can,” Sutton agreed. “An’ I’ll see as they do. But in’t yer thought where the plague come from? Where’d that poor woman get it, then?”
Monk felt the sweat break out on his skin.
“We gotter find out,” Sutton said wearily. “An’ there in’t nobody else as can do that without settin’ the ’ole o’ London on fire wi’ terror. She come from somewhere, poor creature. Where’d she get it, eh? ’Oo else ’as it? Ye’re a man as knows ’ow ter ask questions, an’ get answers as other people can’t. Miss ’Ester says as yer the cleverest man, an’ the cussedest, as she ever met. She right?”
Monk buried his head in his hands, his mind whirling, ideas beating against him, bruising in their violence. Hester was alone in the clinic with the most terrible disease ever known to man. He would never see her again. He could do nothing to help her. He could not even remember now what were the last words they had said to each other! Did she know how much he loved her, as his wife, his friend, the one person without whom he had no purpose and no joy, the one whose belief in him made everything matter, whose approval was a reward in itself, whose happiness created his?
And the whole of Europe could be decimated with disease. Corpses everywhere, the land itself rotting. History books told how the whole world had changed. The old way of life had perished and a new order had been made—it had had to be.
“Is she right?” Sutton asked again.
Monk lifted his head. Did Sutton know that in those words he had made it impossible for Monk to refuse? Yes, almost certainly he did.
“Yes,” he answered. “What do you know about the woman who died?”
“ ’Er name were Ruth Clark, an’ she were brung in by a shipowner called Louvain. ’e said she were the mistress of a friend of ’is, which is mebbe true an’ mebbe not.”
“Louvain?” Monk’s body froze, his mind whirling.
“Yeah.” Sutton stood up. “I ’ave ter go. I can’t see yer again. Yer just gotta do yer best.” He seemed about to add something, but could not think of words to convey it.
“I know,” Monk said quickly. “Tell Hester . . .”
“Don’t matter now,” Sutton replied simply. “If she don’t know it, words in’t gonna ’elp. Find where it come from. An’ do it soft, like—very, very soft.”
