Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

The huge woman stared, screwing up her face in concentration.

Monk stepped forward. He considered smiling at her and decided against it.

“I’m looking for certain merchandise,” he said in a low, level voice, overly polite. He allowed an element of threat to show in his unblinking stare.

She stood still. She was about to speak, then said nothing, waiting for him.

Scuff looked very white, but he did not interrupt.

Monk said nothing more.

“Come in,” the woman said at last.

Without any idea of where he was going, Monk accepted, leaving Scuff in the street behind him. He went through the doorway into a narrow passage and then up a creaking flight of stairs, across a landing hung with pictures, and into a room red-carpeted and with papered walls and a good fire burning in the grate. In one of the soft, red armchairs a tiny woman sat with a piece of richly detailed embroidery spread across her lap, as if she had been stitching it. It was more than three-quarters completed, and the needle threaded with yellow silk was stuck into it. She had a thimble on one finger, and the scissors lay beside her on top of a basket of other silks.

“Miss Lil,” the huge woman said softly. “This one’s fer you.” She stood back to allow her employer to see Monk and make her own decision.

Little Lil was in her forties at least, and she had once been very pretty. Her features were still neat and regular. She had large eyes of a hazel color, but her jawline was blurred now, and the skin on her neck had gone loose, hanging from the shrunken flesh underneath. Her little hands were clawlike with their long fingernails. She regarded Monk with careful interest.

“Come in,” she ordered him. “Tell me what yer got as I might like.”

“Gold watches,” Monk replied, obeying because he had left himself no choice.

She held out her hand, palm upward in a clutching gesture.

He hesitated. Had it been any gold watch it would still have caused him concern, but Callandra’s gift was precious in a different and irreplaceable way. He took it out of his pocket slowly and held it up just beyond the grasp of her hand.

Her big eyes fixed on him. “Don’t trust me, then?” she said with a smile showing sharp, unexpectedly white teeth.

“Don’t trust anyone,” he replied, smiling back at her.

Something in her changed; perhaps it was a flash of appreciation. “Sit down,” she invited.

Feeling uncomfortable, he did as he was told.

She looked at the watch again. “Open it,” she ordered.

He did so, turning it carefully for her to inspect, but keeping a firm hold on it.

“Nice,” she said. “ ’Ow many?”

“Dozen, or thereabouts,” he answered.

“Thereabouts?” she questioned. “Can’t yer count, then?”

“Depends on your offer,” he prevaricated.

She chortled with laughter, which was high-pitched like a little girl’s.

“Do you want them?” he asked.

“I like you,” she said frankly. “We can do business.”

“How much?”

She thought about it for several seconds, watching his face, although it seemed she was doing it now for the pleasure it gave her more than any need for time to think.

Monk wanted to come to the point and then leave. “I have a client looking for ivory,” he said a bit abruptly. “You wouldn’t have any advice on that, would you?”

“I’ll ask fer yer,” she said in a whisper, unexpectedly gentle. “Come back ’ere in two days. An’ bring me some o’ them watches an’ I’ll pay yer nicely.”

“How much?” he asked. She would expect him to haggle, and Callandra’s watch must have cost at least thirty pounds.

“Like that? Twelve pound, ten,” she replied.

“Twelve pound, ten!” he said in horror. “It’s worth more than twice that! Twenty, at the very least.”

She thought for a moment, looking at him through her eyelashes. “Fifteen,” she offered.

“Twenty?” He could not afford to lose her, or to appear to give in too easily.

This time she considered for longer.

Monk felt a sweat break out on his body in the warm room. He had made a mistake. He had let his desperation push him into going too far. Now he had no retreat.

“Seventeen,” she said at last.

“Right,” he agreed, his mouth dry. He wanted to escape this stifling house and be outside alone in the street to think of a way to extricate himself, and still be able to hear any information Little Lil might give him. “Thank you.” He inclined his head slightly, and saw her acknowledge it with a gleam of satisfaction. She liked him. He despised himself for playing on it, at the same time as he knew he had to.

In the street, he was barely beyond the ring of the lamplight when Scuff materialized from the darkness.

“Yer got anyfink?” he asked eagerly.

Monk swore under his breath.

Scuff giggled with satisfaction. “She like yer, does she?” he said.

Monk realized Scuff had expected it, and he reached out to clip him over the ear for the acute embarrassment he had suffered, but Scuff ducked sideways and Monk’s hand missed him. Not that it would have hurt more than a slight sting. He was still laughing.

They reached the main street running parallel with the docks and crossed into the better light. Monk turned to Scuff again, and realized he was not there. He saw a shadow in front of him, a row of buttons gleaming on a dark jacket, a solidity, a confidence to him.

“Has his wits about him more’n yer have, Mr. Monk,” the man observed.

Monk froze. The man was River Police; he knew it with certainty-more than the uniform, it was the quiet authority in him, the sense of pride in his calling. He did not need to threaten, not even to raise his voice. He was the law and he understood its worth. If only Monk had that same dignity, the fellowship of all the other quiet men who kept order on the river and its immediate shore. Suddenly the reality of his aloneness was almost beyond bearing.

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” he said stiffly, with more than necessary politeness.

“Durban,” the man replied. “Inspector Durban o’ the River Police. I haven’t seen you here before a couple o’ days ago. You say you’re looking for work, but it doesn’t seem to me like you want it. Why would that be, Mr. Monk?”

Monk ached to tell him the truth, but he dared not. He was committed to Clement Louvain, and to his own need.

“I’d rather work with my brain than bending my back,” he replied, putting an edge of truculence in his voice that he did not feel.

“There’s not much call for brain work down on the dock,” Durban pointed out. “Least not that’s legal. There’s a lot that’s not, as I’m sure you know. But I wonder if you really know how dangerous that is? You wouldn’t believe the number of dead bodies we pick up out of the water, an’ there’s no one to say how they got in there. I wouldn’t like yours to be one of ’em, Mr. Monk. Just be a little bit careful, eh? Don’t go messing with the likes o’ Little Lil Fosdyke, or the Fat Man, or Mr. Weskit. There’s no room for more opulent receivers than we’ve already got. Do you take my meaning?”

“I’m sure there isn’t,” Monk agreed, hating the lies. “My interest is in running errands and being of service to people who can’t do all their own jobs. I don’t buy or sell goods.”

“Really. .” Durban said with disbelief. His face was almost unreadable in the near darkness, but his voice was sad, as if he had expected better, fewer lies at least.

Monk remembered with a jarring urgency being in exactly the same position, seeing a man well-dressed, well-spoken, hoping he was in the run-down alley only by chance, and realizing within minutes that he was a thief. He remembered his disappointment. He drew in his breath to explain himself to Durban and then let it out again in a sigh. Not until after he had earned Louvain’s money.