Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

Monk was disgusted, but he dared not show it. He thought of Hodge lying on the step above the hold, his head broken, his brain crushed.

“Twenty-five,” he said.

They argued back and forth, up a pound, down a pound. Monk realized that Crow had gone-please God to fetch help, though he owed Monk nothing, no friendship, no loyalty. But he prayed that Scuff had managed to get Louvain. Durban would not need to be asked more than once.

“It’s worth more than that!” Gould said angrily when Monk refused to go any higher, afraid of agreement and the end of the conversation. “I worked bleedin’ ’ard fer it!” Gould went on. “You any idea ’ow ’eavy them things are?”

“Too heavy for one man,” Monk responded. “Someone helped you. Where is he? Behind me? Or are you planning to cut him out of the deal?”

There was a faint movement in the passage ten or fifteen feet beyond the doorway. Now he wished Crow had not gone-although there was no guarantee of which side he would have been on. Perhaps a thieves’ quarrel was his best chance. “Were you the one that went into the hold of the Maude Idris ?” he asked, his voice louder than he meant, and unsteady. He wanted to know who had killed Hodge then he would have no guilt in killing him in return, if he had to in order to escape with his own life. Where the hell was Louvain? He had had time to get there by now.

“Why d’you care?” Gould’s eyes narrowed.

“Were you?” Monk demanded, taking a step forward.

“Yeah! So wot of it?” Gould challenged.

“Then it was you who murdered Hodge!” Monk accused. “Perhaps your partner won’t be so happy to share the rope that’s waiting for you, along with the price of your tusks?”

Gould froze. “ ’Odge? I never murdered no one! ’Oo’s ’Odge?” He sounded honestly confused.

“The night watchman whose head you beat in,” Monk said bitterly. “Did that slip your mind?”

“Geez! I din’t bash ’is ’ead in!” Gould’s voice rose to a screech. “There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ ’is ’ead!” He looked gray-white, even in the gloom, his eyes wide with horror. Had he not seen Hodge’s body himself, Monk would have sworn it was genuine.

“Rubbish!” he barked, rage welling up inside him for the lie as much as the violence. It was twisting his own emotions because he wanted to believe him, and it was impossible.

“So ’elp me Gawd, it’s the truth!” Gould ignored the ivory and stepped forward towards Monk, but there was no threat in him, only urgency, even pleading. “ ’e were lyin’ there on the step. I thought ’e were dead drunk. He must a fell from the top.”

Monk hesitated. “Did you look at the back of his head?” he asked.

“There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ it!” Gould insisted. “ ’e might a banged it bad, I dunno, but it weren’t bashed so’s I could see. ’Ow’d you know, anyway?”

“I’m looking for the ivory because I’m paid to,” Monk said bitterly. “But I’m looking for whoever killed Hodge because I want him to answer for it.”

“Well, it in’t me!” Gould said desperately.

Monk stood still, his back to the doorjamb. It was bitterly cold in there, so cold his fingers were dead and his feet were growing numb. The damp was everywhere, heavy with the reek of mud and effluent and the sweet stench of rot. Everything was sagging, dripping, full of slight sounds like the soft tread of feet, rat feet, human feet, creaking like the shifting of weight, and always water oozing and trickling, the slow sinking of the land and the rising of the river.

He tried to clear his head. He was beginning to believe Gould, and yet it made no sense. Who would beat in the head of a man already dead?

There was a distinct sound about a dozen yards away, a movement too big to be a rat. Monk swiveled around to look. The shadows changed. Was there someone there, a man coming this way, creeping step by step? The sweat broke out on his skin, and his body was shaking. He backed farther into the room, looking at Gould. “Someone’ll hang for it,” he said softly. “The police are coming, and they’ll make sure of that. It’ll be prison, then trial, then three weeks of waiting, and one morning they’ll take you for the short walk and the long drop-into eternity, darkness. .”

“I din’t kill ’im!” Gould’s cry was stifled in his throat, as if he could already feel the rope.

At that moment the other man reached the doorway just behind Monk. Monk saw it in Gould’s face, and twisted away as the man lunged forward and Monk caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head, bruising his own hand.

Gould stood frozen, indecision wild in his face. Were the police really coming? Crow was gone, and he knew where to lead them back.

Monk waited, his heart pounding.

The man started to get up. Gould swung his arm and hit the man hard, sending him backwards, his head thudding against the floor, and he lay still. “I din’t kill nobody!” Gould said again. “But they’ll kill you if yer don’t get out of ’ere! C’mon!” He started to move past Monk.

“Wait!” Monk commanded. “I need one tusk to prove to the police that they were here.” He stepped back and picked up the largest one from the pile. It was startlingly heavy, cold and smooth to the touch. He hoisted it onto his shoulder with difficulty, the effort tearing at his injured arm, then he staggered after Gould, leaving the other man senseless on the floor. They did not go the way they had come in, but awkwardly veering a little from right to left under the burden of the tusk, up a short flight of steps.

At the top he leaned against the wall and the rotted paneling gave way behind him. He swung around and let the tusk slip into the cavity, easing the crick out of his shoulder, then turned to see if it was still visible. It wasn’t, but he could feel it. He would be able to show Durban where it was.

He hurried after Gould along the corridor. Broken windows let in the gray light. He caught up with him going down another stair with iron rails, then through a door into an open patch of ground overgrown with weeds just as Louvain and four of his men emerged from the ruins of a warehouse at the other side. They were wind-burned, brawny men dressed in seamen’s jackets.

Monk and Gould stopped abruptly, five or six yards from them.

“Well?” Louvain said grimly. “What have you got? I don’t see anything!”

“Thirteen tusks of ivory,” Monk replied. He jerked his hand. “Back there. You might have to fight for them.”

“Thirteen?” Louvain questioned, his face darkening. “Do you think you’re keeping one for yourself? That wasn’t the bargain.”

“One for the police, for evidence,” Monk replied. “Or would you rather the thieves got away with it?” He let a slight sneer into his voice. “That’s not good for business. You’ll get the last one back when the case is over. Keep it for a memento. You’ve got away cheaply. A damned sight cheaper than Hodge.”

Louvain looked puzzled for an instant, then realization flooded his face. “Who’s he?” he demanded, indicating Gould with a jerk of his head.

Instinct made Monk lie. “He’s with me. Did you think I’d come here alone?”

Louvain’s face relaxed. He did not ask who had killed Hodge, and the omission angered Monk. “Right. We’ll take the ivory. I want to be gone before the police get here. No questions. Come to my office tonight and I’ll pay you.” It was curt, dismissive. He strode past Monk and into the shadows of the building, leaving his men to follow.

Durban should be here any time now, Monk realized. He glanced at Gould, white-faced, shifting from foot to foot.

“Don’t think of it,” Monk warned. “You’ll be hunted down like a rat.”