Long Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel
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Durban could have had no idea how Monk had previously failed in commanding men. The former policeman was brilliant, but he had never worked easily with others, either in giving or taking orders. Runcorn would have told Durban that, would have told him that—clever or not, brave or not—Monk was not worth the trouble he would cost. Monk had been mellowed by time and circumstance, and above all, perhaps, by marriage to Hester Latterly, who had nursed in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale and was a good deal more forthright than most young women. She loved him with a fierce loyalty and a startling passion, but she also very candidly expressed her own opinions. Even so, Runcorn would have advised Superintendent Farnham to find someone else to take the place of a man like Durban, who had been wise, experienced, and profoundly admired.
But Durban had wanted Monk, and Monk needed the work. During his independent years, Hester’s friend Lady Callandra Daviot had had the money and the interest to involve herself in his cases, and support them in the leaner months. Now Callandra had gone to live in Vienna, and the grim choice was either for Monk to obtain regular and reliable employment or for Hester to return to private nursing, which would mean most often living in the houses of such patients as she could acquire. One could not nurse except by being there all the time. For Monk to see her as little as that was a choice of final desperation. So here he was sitting in the thwart of a boat throwing his weight against the oar as they passed under London Bridge heading south toward the Tower and Wapping Stairs. He was still bone-achingly cold and wet to the shoulders, and two dead bodies lay at his feet.
Finally they reached the steps that led up to the police station. Carefully, a little stiffly, he shipped his oar, stood up, and helped carry the limp, water-soaked bodies up the stairs, across the quay, and into the shelter of the station house.
There at least it was warm. The black iron stove was burning, giving the whole room a pleasant, smoky smell, and there was hot tea, stewed almost black, waiting for them. None of the men really knew Monk yet, and they were still grieving for Durban. They treated Monk with civility; if he wanted anything more, he would have to earn it. The river was a dangerous place with its shifting tides and currents, occasional sunken obstacles, fast-moving traffic, and sudden changes of weather. It demanded courage, skill, and even more loyalty between men than did the same profession on land. However, human decency dictated they offer Monk tea laced with rum, as they would to any man, probably even to a stray dog at this time of the year. Indeed, Humphrey, the station cat, a large white animal with a ginger tail, was provided with a basket by the stove and as much milk as he could drink. Mice were his own affair to catch for himself, which he did whenever he could be bothered, or when nobody had fed him with other titbits.
“Thank you.” Monk drank the tea and felt some resemblance of life return to his body, warmth working slowly from the inside outward.
“Accident?” Sergeant Palmer asked, looking at the bodies now lying on the floor, faces decently covered with spare coats.
“Don’t know yet,” Monk replied. “Came off Waterloo Bridge right in front of us, but we can’t be sure how it happened.”
Palmer frowned, puzzled. He had his doubts about Monk’s competence anyway, and this indecision went toward confirming them.
Orme finished his tea. “Went off together,” he said, looking at Palmer expressionlessly. “ ’Ard to tell if ’e were trying to save ’er, or could’ve pushed ’er. Know what killed ’em all right, poor souls. ’It the water ’ard, like they always do. But I daresay as we’ll never know for certain why.”
Palmer waited for Monk to say something. The room was suddenly silent. The other two men from the boat, Jones and Butterworth, stood watching, turning from one to the other, to see what Monk would do. It was a test again. Would he match up to Durban?
“Get the surgeon to look at them, just in case there’s something else,” Monk answered. “Probably isn’t, but we don’t want to risk looking stupid.”
“Drownded,” Palmer said sourly, turning away. “Come orff one o’ the bridges, yer always are. Anybody knows that. Water shocks yer an’ so yer breathes it in. Kills yer. Quick’s almost the only good thing to it.”
“And how stupid will we look if we say she’s a suicide, and it turns out she was knifed or strangled, but we didn’t notice it?” Monk asked quietly. “Or with child, and we didn’t see that, either? I just want to make sure. Look at the quality of her clothes. She’s not a street woman. She has a decent address and she may have family. We owe them the truth.”
Palmer colored unhappily. “It won’t make them feel no better if she’s with child,” he observed without looking back at Monk.
“We don’t look for the answers that make people feel better,” Monk told him. “We have to deal with the ones we find closest to the truth. We know who they are and where they lived. Orme and I are going to tell their families. You get the police surgeon to look at them.”
“Yes, sir,” Palmer said stiffly. “You’ll be goin’ ’ome to put dry clothes on, no doubt?” He raised his eyebrows.
Monk had already learned that lesson. “I’ve got a dry shirt and coat in the cupboard. They’ll do fine.”
Orme turned away, but not before Monk had seen his smile.
Long Spoon Lane is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2006 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Anne Perry
Excerpt from Dark Assassin by Anne Perry copyright © 2005 by Anne Perry
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming hardcover edition of Dark Assassin by Anne Perry. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.
eISBN-13: 978-0-345-49086-5
eISBN-10: 0-345-49086-X
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