Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

Monk looked at a child in the gutter as he passed, perhaps five or six years old, its fece gray in the half-light, pinched sharp; it was impossible to tell whether it was male or female. Monk thought with a dull rage that bestial as it was to beat a man to death as Grey had been beaten, it was still a better murder than this child's abject death.

He noticed Evan's face, white in the gloom, eyes like holes in his head. There was nothing he could think of to say-no words that served any purpose. Instead he put out his hand and touched him briefly, an intimacy that came quite naturally in that awful place.

They followed Jake through another alley and then another, up a flight of stairs that threatened to give way beneath them with each step, and at the top at last Jake stopped, his voice hushed as if the despair had reached even him. He spoke as one does in the presence of death.

"One more lot o' steps, Mr. Monk, from 'ere, an' Blind Tommy's be'ind ver door on yer right."

"Thank you. I'll give you your guinea when I've seen him, if he can help.''

Jake's face split in a grin.

“I already got it, Mr. Monk.'' He held up a bright coin. "Fink I fergot 'ow ter do it, did yer? I used ter be a fine wirer, I did, w'en I were younger." He laughed and slipped it into his pocket. "I were taught by the best kids-man in ve business. I'll be seein' yer, Mr. Monk; yer owes me anuvver, if yer gets vem fieves."

Monk smiled in spite of himself. The man was a pickpocket, but he had been taught by one of those who make their own living by teaching children to steal for them, and taking the profits in return for the child's keep. It was an apprenticeship in survival. Perhaps his only alternative had been starvation, like the child they had passed. Only the quick-fingered, the strong and the lucky reached adulthood. Monk could not afford to indulge in judgment, and he was too torn with pity and anger to try.

"It's yours, Jack, if I get them," he promised, then started up the last flight and Evan followed. At the top he opened the door without knocking.

Blind Tommy must have been expecting him. He was a dapper little man, about five feet tall with a sharp, ugly face, and dressed in a manner he himself would have described as "flash." He was apparently no more than shortsighted because he saw Monk immediately and knew who he was.

" 'Evenin', Mr. Monk. I 'ears as yer lookin' fer a screever, a partic'lar one, like?"

"That's right, Tommy. I want one who made some fake-ments for two rampsmen who robbed a house in Mecklenburg Square. Went in pretending to be Peelers."

Tommy's face lit up with amusement.

"I like that," he admitted. "It's a smart lay, vat is."

"Providing you don't get caught."

"Wot's it worf?" Tommy's eyes narrowed.

"It's murder, Tommy. Whoever did it'll be topped, and whoever helps them stands a good chance of getting the boat."

"Oh Gawd!" Tommy's face paled visibly. "I 'an't no fancy for Horstralia. Boats don't suit me at all, vey don't. Men wasn't meant ter go orf all over like vat! In't nat'ral. An' 'orrible stories IVe 'eard about vem parts." He shivered dramatically. "Full o' savages an' creatures wot weren't never made by no Christian Gawd. Fings wif dozens 'o legs, an' fings wi' no legs at all. Ugh!" He rolled his eyes. "Right 'eathen place, it is."

"Then don't run any risk of being sent there," Monk advised without any sympathy. "Find me this screever."

"Are yer sure it's murder?" Tommy was still not entirely convinced. Monk wondered how much it was a matter of loyalties, and how much simply a weighing of one advantage against another.

"Of course I'm sure!" he said with a low, level voice. He knew the threat was implicit in it. "Murder and robbery. Silver and jade stolen. Know anything about a jade dancing lady, pink jade, about six inches high?"

Tommy was defensive, a thin, nasal quality of fear in his tone.

"Fencin's not my life, guv. Don't do none o' vat-don't yer try an'hike vat on me."

"The screever?" Monk said flatly.

"Yeah, well I'll take yer. Anyfink in it fer me?" Hope seldom died. If the fearful reality of the rookery did not kill it, Monk certainly could not.

"If it's the right man," he grunted.

Tommy took them through another labyrinth of alleys and stairways, but Monk wondered how much distance they had actually covered. He had a strong feeling it was more to lose their sense of direction than to travel above a few hundred yards. Eventually they stopped at another large door, and after a sharp knock, Blind Tommy disappeared and the door swung open in front of them.

The room inside was bright and smelled of burning.

Monk stepped in, then looked up involuntarily and saw glass skylights. He saw down the walls where there were large windows as well. Of course-light for a forger's careful pen.

The man inside turned to look at the intruders. He was squat, with powerful shoulders and large spatulate hands. His face was pale-skinned but ingrained with the dirt of years, and his colorless hair stuck to his head in thin spikes.

"Well?" he demanded irritably. When he spoke Monk saw his teeth were short and black; Monk fancied he could smell the stale odor of them, even from where he stood.

"You wrote police identification papers for two men, purporting to come from the Lye Street station." He made a statement, not a question. "I don't want you for it; I want the men. It's a case of murder, so you'd do well to stay on the right side of it."

The man leered, his thin lips stretching wide in some private amusement. "You Monk?"

"And if I am?" He was surprised the man had heard of him. Was his reputation so wide? Apparently it was.

"Your case they walked inter, was it?" The man's mirth bubbled over in a silent chuckle, shaking his mass of flesh.

"It's my case now," Monk replied. He did not want to tell the man the robbery and the murder were separate; the threat of hanging was too useful.

"Wotcher want?" the man asked. His voice was hoarse, as if from too much shouting or laughter, yet it was hard imagining him doing either.

"Who are they?" Monk pressed.

"Now Mr. Monk, 'ow should I know?" His massive shoulders were still twitching. "Do I ask people's names?"

"Probably not, but you know who they are. Don't pretend to be stupid; it doesn't suit you."

"I know some people," he conceded in little more than a whisper. " 'Course I do; but not every muck snipe 'oo tries 'is 'and at thievin'."

"Muck snipe?" Monk looked at him with derision. "Since when did you hand out fekements for nothing? You don't do favors for down-and-outs. They paid you, or someone did. If they didn't pay you themselves, tell me who did; that'll do."

The man's narrow eyes widened a fraction. "Oh clever, Mr. Monk, very clever." He clapped his broad, powerful hands together in soundless applause.

"So who paid you?"

"My business is confidential, Mr. Monk. Lose it all if I starts putting the down on people wot comes ter me. It was a moneylender, that's all I'll tell yer."

"Not much call for a screever in Australia." Monk looked at the man's subtle, sensitive fingers. "Hard labor-bad climate."

"Put me on the boat, would yer?" The man's lip curled. "Yer'd 'ave ter catch me first, and yer know as well as I do yer'd never find me." The smile on his face did not alter even a fraction. "An' yer'd be a fool ter look; 'orrible fings 'appen ter a Peeler as gets caught in ver rookeries, if ve word goes aht."

“And horrible things happen to a screever who informs on his clients-if the word goes out," Monk added immediately. "Horrible things-like broken fingers. And what use is a screever without his fingers?"

The man stared at him, suddenly hatred undisguised in his heavy eyes.

"An' w'y should the word go out, Mr. Monk, seein' as 'ow I aven't told yer nuffink?"