Anne Perry - Dark Assassin

He wanted to know about Scuff.

She answered him before he asked. "He's getting stronger all the time," she said, coming silently down the stairs. "A little feverish about midnight, but it passed. It's going to take a week before he can get up much, and far more than that before he can go back to his own life. But he will." Her eyes searched his face. She did not ask if the experiences of the night had been terrible; she read the answer in his demeanor and the fact that he did not even try to find words for what he had seen.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, he took her in his arms and held her close, hard, wordlessly. In his mind he blessed over and over again whatever benevolence had led him to choose a woman whose beauty was of the soul: brave and vulnerable, funny, angry, and wise-someone to whom he need explain nothing.

Monk had no time to sleep, only to wash and change clothes and eat some hot breakfast. Of course, he also went up to look for a few moments at Scuff, who was scrubbed clean and sound asleep. The boy was still wearing Hester's nightgown with the lace edge next to his thin little neck, his left shoulder sitting crookedly over his bandages.

A few hours later, at half past eight, Monk was at Rathbone's office, explaining the night's events. A messenger was dispatched urgently to Runcorn, telling him to contact Melisande Ewart with a request that she be at the Old Bailey along with Runcorn that morning. If she was unwilling, a summons would be issued.

By ten o'clock the court was in session and Rathbone had asked permission to call Monk to the witness stand. Monk was startled by how stiff he was and how his legs ached as he climbed up. He had to grip the rail to steady himself. Even after a meal and a change of clothes he was exhausted. His shoulder ached, and the violence of the night invaded his mind.

Rathbone looked up at him anxiously. The barrister was as elegant as always-immaculately dressed, his fair hair smooth-but his eyes were shadowed and his lips pale and pulled a little tight. Because Monk knew him so well, he could see the tension in him. He knew how close he was to being beaten.

In the front row of the gallery Margaret Ballinger sat, white and unhappy. Her eyes seldom left Rathbone, even though most of the time it was only his back and profile that she could see.

"Mr. Monk," Rathbone began, "will you please tell the court where you were last night?"

Dobie, who apparently had not heard the news, immediately objected.

"Very well, may I rephrase the question?" Rathbone said tightly, his voice scraping in his throat. "As some of the court may know, my lord, there was a catastrophic cave-in at the Argyll Company's sewer construction tunnel last night." He stopped while the public gallery gasped and one or two people cried out. The jurors looked at one another in horror. The clamor subsided only at the judge's demand for order.

"Were you called to the scene, Mr. Monk?" Rathbone concluded.

"Yes." Monk kept his answers as bare and as direct as possible. He glanced only once at Sixsmith up in the dock. The man's powerful face was cast forward, his body rigid with tension and totally unmoving.

"Who called you?" Rathbone asked Monk.

"Sergeant Orme of the Thames River Police."

"Did he say why?"

"No. I believe he assumed that I would want to be involved since I had been investigating the risk of just such a disaster, because of James Havilland's fears and his subsequent death. Also, of course, we were doing all we could to help, as were the Metropolitan Police, the fire services, and various doctors, navvies, and any able-bodied men in the area."

"Your point is taken, Sir Oliver," the judge assured him. He turned to Monk. "I would like to know, Inspector, what you found. Was it of the nature that you had been led to fear?"

"Yes, my lord," Monk replied. "That, and greater."

"Please be more specific."

It was the line that Rathbone had intended to take, so Monk was happy to respond. "James Havilland had intimated that he feared a disaster if there was not a great deal more time and care taken in the excavations. He did not record precisely what he feared-or if he did, I did not find it. There are risks of land movement-slippage, subsidence-in any major work. He seemed to fear something further. What seems to have occurred last night was that the diggings went too close to an underground river and the river burst the walls, carrying an enormous weight of earth and rubble with it, and flooding the tunnels."

There was too much noise of horror and distress from the gallery and jurors for Monk to continue, and even the judge looked stricken. Obviously the news had not yet reached the daily papers, and few had heard it even by word of mouth.

"Silence!" the judge ordered, but there was no anger in his voice. He was calling his court to order, but without criticism. "I assume, Mr. Monk, that you are here, in spite of your appalling night, because there is some evidence Sir Oliver feels pertinent to the case, even at this late stage of events?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Very well. Sir Oliver, please ask your questions."

"Thank you, my lord," Rathbone acknowledged. "Mr. Monk, during the course of the night, did you bring to the surface any bodies of the dead or the still living?"

"Yes."

"Were any of them people that you knew?"

"Yes."

"Who were they?"

"Two navvies that I had spoken with, a tosher-a man who retrieves objects of value from the sewers-and one other man whom I had met once before." He stopped abruptly, memories of the pistol shot and Scuff falling momentarily choking his breath. He was so tired that the past and present collided with each other and the courtroom seemed to sway.

"Where did you meet him before, Mr. Monk?"

Monk realized that Rathbone had asked him twice. He stiffened his back and shoulders. "In the sewers," he replied. "When I was looking for the man Mrs. Ewart saw coming out of the mews after James Havilland was shot."

"You did not arrest him?" Rathbone sounded surprised.

"He shot the boy who was guiding me," Monk replied. "I had to get the lad to the surface."

The judge leaned forward. "Is the boy in satisfactory condition, Mr. Monk?"

"Yes, my lord. We got him medical treatment, took the bullet out. He seems to be recovering. Thank you."

"Good. Good."

Dobie rose to his feet. "My lord, all this is very moving, but it actually proves nothing at all. This unfortunate man, who appears to be without a name, is dead-conveniently for the prosecution-so he cannot testify to anything at all. He may be no more than some unfortunate indigent who thought to sleep quietly in the Havillands' stable. Apparently he met his own tragic death when the excavations collapsed and buried him alive. We have no right, and no evidence, to make a villain of him now that he cannot answer for himself." He smiled, pleased with his point, and looked around the courtroom before he resumed his seat.

"Sir Oliver?" The judge raised his eyebrows.

Rathbone smiled. It was a thin, calm gesture that Monk had seen on his lips before, both when he was winning and moving in for the final thrust and when he was losing and playing a last, desperate card.

"Mr. Monk," he said smoothly in the utter silence. "Are you certain that this is the same man who shot the boy guiding you in the sewers? Surely the sewers are extremely dark. Isn't one face, when you are startled and possibly afraid, pretty much like another?"

Monk gave him a small, bleak smile. "He held a lantern high up, I imagine in order to see us better and maybe take aim." The moment was etched on his brain as if by a blade. He gripped the rail in front of him. "He had straight black hair and brows, a narrow nose, and highly unusual teeth. His eyeteeth were prominent and longer than the others, especially the left one. When a man is drawing a gun at you, it is a sight you do not forget." He decided not to say any more. The tension was too stark for decoration with words to be appropriate. No one in the room moved, except one woman who gave a violent shudder.