Anne Perry: Blood on the Water

“The River Police will be working all night, trying to save anyone they can,” she went on. “I expect by daylight they’ll still be finding out what happened. We’ll just have to wait. Do you want a hot drink before you go to bed? I do. I know it’s May, but it’s still awfully cold out there.”

He nodded. “ ’E’s all right, then?”

“Yes. He’ll be tired and cold, by the time he gets home, but safe-yes.”

Scuff’s face filled with relief. “Yeah. Can we ’ave some cocoa?”

“Good idea,” Hester agreed. “Of course we can.”

“I’m not going to school till ’e comes back …” Scuff said. He made it sound like a statement, but in his eyes there was a question, and he looked at her anxiously to try to judge her reaction.

She wanted to give in to him this time, and the little prickle of uncertainty within her made it easy. “This once,” she agreed.

He smiled, but did not push his good fortune. “I’ll make the cocoa?” he offered. “Stove’s ’ot.”

“Thank you.” She accepted his offer, following him down the passage into the kitchen. She was momentarily overwhelmed by a wave of emotion. She loved this boy far more than she had imagined possible. He was an urchin from the dockside, and yet she understood his mind. She saw in his gestures and expressions a strange reflection of herself and now, as he matured, a greater measure of Monk also. Could the connection of love be as powerful as that of blood?

Monk came in midmorning. Hester had been watching for him through the window. He was still dressed in the borrowed clothes from the police station. He moved stiffly and his face was gray with exhaustion, and every few steps he hitched at his ill-fitting trousers as they slipped on his waist.

Hester met him in the passage, and after a glance into his eyes she silently put her arms around him. He stiffened for an instant as though he were too tender to bear her touch. Then he relaxed and his arms tightened around her until she had to bite her lip not to make a sound at the strength of his hold.

It was several moments before she looked up into his face, leaning back only inches. She could have asked him how he was, but words were insufficient for what she knew he must have seen. Instead she reached out and put her fingers gently to his cheek and gave a tiny smile.

“At the least a hundred and fifty dead.” He gave the numbers that made the enormity of it unalterable. “Someone did it on purpose, put explosives in the bow and blew it out. I went down-”

She froze. “Down …?”

“Diving suit,” he explained. “I’ve done it before. They’re most of them still there, trapped. They hadn’t a chance, not ever.”

Questions teemed in her mind, though none of them right to ask now. He could not know all the answers yet. The immediate things he needed were comfort, warmth, food, then as much sleep as possible.

“How long do you have before you need to go back?”

There was something in his face she could not read, a fury, a grief that surged into him until his body was rigid.

“William?” she said quickly. “What is it? Can’t you stay?” She drew breath to argue that he must, but the look in his eyes stopped her.

“I can stay as long as I want to,” he said gruffly, his voice catching in his throat. “They’ve taken the River Police off the case. Too many important people killed. They’ve given it to the commissioner-Lydiate.”

All sorts of protests boiled up inside her. It was a ridiculous decision, and completely unfair. Whoever had made it was incompetent. But none of these objections would change anything. Years ago, when she had been a nurse to the army in the Crimea, she had fought hotly against injustice, vanity, and blind, towering stupidity. Occasionally, on the battlefield where death was a reality, she had won. But once back in England, making such arguments was like trying to write in the sand; the weight and complexities of the hierarchy of power erased her efforts like an incoming tide.

For seconds she did not answer, even though she knew Monk was waiting. Then at last she stepped back a little.

“How unfortunate for Lydiate,” she said quietly, judging her words as she would the pressure of a bandage on a raw wound. “He’ll be completely out of his depth because he doesn’t know the river well enough to deal with this. But then I wonder if anyone can. It’s going to be a terrible mess. Just at the moment we are all numb with shock, still trying to realize what has happened. But it won’t be long before the anger comes. People will want to blame someone. Rage is so much easier than facing loss. They’ll demand answers. The newspapers will be on it all the time. Why did it happen? Why didn’t somebody prevent it? Why haven’t the police caught whoever it is? No matter what Lydiate does, it won’t be enough.”

She smiled bleakly, and her voice became even softer. “That is, if he can do anything at all. Nothing will bring those people back. They’ll want to blame somebody, hang somebody, even if it isn’t the right person. Catching someone will make everyone feel as if they’re not completely powerless. There’ll be all kinds of crazy theories and rumors. It’s stupid that they have taken the case from you. You’re the one person who might have been able to solve it-but realistically, maybe no one can …”

He let out his breath in a sigh. His voice shook a little. “They should have let me try! The victims deserve that! I promised …” He blinked hard. “Hester, I spoke with the survivors, all huddled up, battered, freezing, and stunned with loss. One man was on the boat with his daughter. She had just recovered from a long illness. They were celebrating. One moment she was laughing, the next she was gone.” His voice cracked. “I promised I’d find whoever did this …”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve made promises I couldn’t keep. I know how it hurts …”

“Do you?” he demanded, his voice tight with pain.

Memories of the battlefields surged back into her mind, drenched with the smell of blood. “I’ve promised soldiers I’d save them, and I couldn’t always …”

He drew in a breath. “Oh, Hester! I’m sorry …” His arms tightened around her again and it was moments before he let her go. Only then did he notice Scuff standing in the doorway, pale-faced but with a thin, shy smile.

“You all right?” Scuff asked nervously. “You want a cup o’ tea, or something?”

“Yes,” Monk replied immediately. “Yes, please. And what are you doing here at this time of day? You should be at school. You ducking it again?”

“Couldn’t go till I knew you was all right,” Scuff replied.

“You-” Monk began.

“Couldn’t leave Hester, could I?” Scuff glared at him. Then he swallowed hard and turned on his heel to go and make the tea.

Hester started to laugh a little jerkily, trying to stop it turning into tears.

As soon as he had drunk his tea, Scuff left Paradise Place, but he did not go to school. Actually he had not said that he would, not in so many words, although he knew both Hester and Monk had assumed he was headed there.

But this was not the time to go and learn things in books, however important they may be one day. Right now he must return to the river. Some stupid man in a clean shirt and a woolen suit had taken away Monk’s right to work this momentous case, when the damage was not just on the river but actually in it. Well, under it, now! Policing the river was Monk’s job. That was who he was. They had no right to do this, no matter what Hester had said to comfort him about it being a bad case that maybe no one could solve. Monk could do all kinds of things other people couldn’t. She just didn’t want him hurt, which was all right, except life wasn’t like that. All those people were dead and under the water. That was wicked, and had to be sorted out, and somebody needed to be punished, really punished, for it.