Dark Assassin

by Anne Perry

  Barclay’s eyes showed not only his disgust but also his impatience. “I daresay he did, Mel!” he said sharply. “Dirt and horse dung.” He made a guttural sound in his throat. “I’m perished standing out here. There really isn’t anything more to say. Good night, officers.”

  Melisande refused to move, disregarding his growing anger. “But he didn’t!” she insisted. “He didn’t smell at all. He was very close to me. He passed only a foot away, and he didn’t smell of anything except…sweat, and something a little sickly, and…something else quite strong, but I didn’t recognize it.” Again she was looking at Runcorn.

  Monk felt a tingle of excitement, the first scent of meaning. He glanced at Runcorn and had to bite his lip to keep silent.

  Runcorn let out his breath slowly. “What kind of smell, ma’am?” He was achingly careful not to suggest anything to her. “Can you describe it?”

  “Really!” Barclay lost his temper. “What’s the matter with you, man? Asking a lady to describe the precise stink of a beggar! I don’t know what kind of person you are used to….”

  The color washed up Melisande’s cheeks. Her brother’s rudeness clearly embarrassed her far more than the nature of the question.

  Runcorn blushed also—for her, not for himself. Monk could see that in the anger and confusion in his eyes. He longed to help her, and he had no idea how to. Something in her manner, her particular kind of loneliness, had found his sympathy, and he was utterly and wholly in her defense.

  Runcorn stared at Barclay with cold dislike. “It matters, sir,” he said. His voice was shaking a little, but that could have been attributed to the cold. They were shuddering now, their feet almost numb. “This man may have seen a murder. I don’t willingly distress anybody, but it sometimes happens that those who can help the most are also those who are sensitive to the…unpleasant details.”

  “Please, John, don’t try to protect me from doing my duty. That would not be a service to me.” Melisande looked at Runcorn, gratitude in her smile. “It was rather an acrid, smoky kind of smell. Not very pleasant, but not sour or dirty.”

  “Probably picked up someone’s old cigar end.” Barclay wrinkled his nose.

  “No,” she replied. “I know tobacco smoke. It definitely wasn’t that, but it was rather smoky.” She paled suddenly. “Oh! You mean it was gunsmoke?”

  “It might have been,” Runcorn agreed.

  “You can’t base a charge of murder on that!” Barclay protested.

  “I don’t.” Runcorn could not conceal his dislike again. He looked at Barclay coldly. “There are other reasons for believing that Mr. Havilland might not have shot himself.” He turned back to Melisande and his eyes softened. “Do you recall anything of this man’s appearance, ma’am? Of what height was he? A big man or a small man? Anything about his face?”

  She took a moment to bring it back to her mind. “He was very lean,” she replied. “His face was thin, what I could see of it. He had a scarf”—she made a gesture around her throat and chin—“and a hat on. His hair was long—long onto his collar. I think he was very dark.”

  “It was the middle of a winter night!” Barclay said with an obvious effort to be reasonable in spite of everyone else’s unreason. “He was of very average height and build and he had a dirty old coat on, with his collar turned up, as anyone would on such a night. That’s all!”

  “If his coat was dark, how did you see the wet stain on it?” Runcorn asked.

  “Then it wasn’t dark!” Barclay snapped. “It was a light coat, but it was still dirty. Now we’ve told you everything we can, and you have kept my sister standing here in the cold for more than long enough. Good night!”

  Melisande drew in her breath, perhaps to point out that it was he who had chosen to remain on the step. She had tried to invite them inside. But she might have remembered it was Barclay she was dependent upon, not Runcorn or Monk.

  “Good night,” she said with a swift, apologetic glance, then turned to go inside.

  The door closed, leaving them in sudden darkness. They were so numb from the icy wind that their first few steps were almost stumbling.

  Runcorn walked in silence for almost a hundred yards, still lost in his own thoughts.

  “Better see if anyone else saw him,” Monk said at last. “Might be a groom from one of the houses.”

  Runcorn gave him a sideways look. “Might be,” he agreed dryly. “I’m betting it was an assassin, hired by one of the Argyll brothers to get rid of Havilland. But we’ve got to rule out everything else, so tomorrow we’d best ask all around. I can put my men on that. I suppose you’ve got river things to attend to?”

  Monk smiled. The sudden appreciation of his position was an oblique way of thanking him for not showing off in front of Melisande Ewart. “Yes. Spate of robberies, actually. Thank you.”

  Runcorn stared at him for a moment, as if to make sure there was no mockery in his eyes. Then he nodded and began walking again.

  Monk was late to Wapping station again in the morning. He had not meant to be, but he had fallen asleep again after Hester had wakened him, and even her noisy riddling of the ashes from the stove had not wakened him.

  It was nearly ten o’clock when he climbed the steps from the ferry. They were slicked over with ice and dangerously slippery. He reached the top and saw Orme coming out of the station door. Had he been waiting for him? Why? Another warning that Farnham was after him? He felt cold inside.

  Orme came towards him quickly, his coat collar up, wind tugging at his hair.

  “Mornin’, sir,” he said quietly. “Like to walk that way a bit?” He inclined his head to indicate the stretch southwards.

  “Good morning, Orme. What is it?” Monk took the hint and turned to keep in step.

  “Did a good bit of lookin’ around yesterday, Mr. Monk. Asked a few questions, collected a favor or two,” Orme answered in a low voice. He led Monk away from the station and, within a few moments, out of sight of it. “It’s right enough there’s been a lot more thievin’ in the last month or two—neat like, all tidy. Passenger standin’ talkin’, then a piece goes, watch or bracelet or whatever it is. Like as not it isn’t noticed fer a little while, then o’ course it’s too late. Could be anywhere. There’s always someone beside you as couldn’t ’ave done it, an’ they always say as they saw nothin’.”

  “Several people working together,” Monk judged. “One to distract, one to take it, a passer, another to block the way with offers of help, and maybe a fifth to take it and disappear.”

  “Yer right. An’ from what I ’eard, I’m pretty certain at least one of ’em was a kid, ten or eleven, each time.”

  “Not the same child?”

  “No, just that sort of age. People take ’em for beggars, mudlarks, just strays ’anging around for a bit of food, likely, or to keep warm. Better in a boat than on the dockside in the wind.”

  Monk thought of Scuff. He would probably rather work than steal, but what was there for a child to do on the river in midwinter? The thought of hot food, a dry place out of the wind, and a blanket would be enough to tempt anyone. He was brave, imaginative, quick—the ideal target for a kidsman, one of those who took in unwanted children and made thieves of them. It was afar from ideal life, but in return the children ate and were clothed, and to some extent protected. The thought of Scuff ending like that sickened him. There was no leniency in the courts for children. A thief was a thief.

  “Any idea who?” He found the words difficult to say.

  Orme must have heard the emotion in his voice. He looked at him quickly, then away again. “Some. Only the arms and legs o’ the gang, so to speak. Need to catch the ’ead to be any use. Won’t be easy.”

  “We’ll have to plan,” Monk replied. “See if there’s any pattern in the reports of theft. Any of the goods turn up? Who’d take that kind of stuff? Opulent receivers?” They took the valuable things and knew where and how to dispose of them. Durban would not have had to ask; he would have kno
wn their names, their places of business and storage, the goods in which they specialized.

  “Yes, sir.” Orme did not add anything.

  Monk realized, as if he had suddenly come to a yawning hole in the earth in front of him, how much Orme missed Durban, and how far short Monk still was of filling that space. Perhaps he could never earn that loyalty or give the men cause to accept him as they had Durban, but he could earn their respect for his skill, and in time they would come to know that they could trust him.

  For now it was Orme they trusted, Orme they would be loyal to and obey. Monk would get no more than lip service, and less than that from Clacton. That was a problem that still had to be addressed, and they would all be waiting to see how Monk handled it. Sooner or later Clacton himself would provoke a confrontation, and Monk’s authority would hang on whether he won, and how.

  He tried to think of other plans he had used in the past to catch rings of thieves, but since the accident that had taken his memory he had worked largely on murder cases. Petty thieving belonged to a past before that—in the early years, when he and Runcorn had worked together, he thought wryly, not against each other. He had had flashes of going into the rookeries, those vast slums, which were part underground tunnels, part sagging tenements. There were passages, trapdoors, sudden drops, and blind ends—a hundred ways to get caught, and to get your throat cut. Your corpse would possibly go out on the tide, or if it finished in the sewer, most of it would be eaten by rats.

  That world was violent and ugly. The poverty in it was so absolute that only the strongest and the luckiest survived. Police seldom went there at all, but if they did, they took with them someone they trusted not only in loyalty but in skill, speed, and nerve as well, and above all courage. He and Runcorn had trusted each other like that once.

  In the rotting tenements of the waterlogged patch on the south bank known as Jacob’s Island, there could be a hundred men hidden in the wrecks of buildings sinking slowly into the mud. The same was true of the teeming slums of the docks, the ever-shifting tides of the Pool of London with its great ships, its cargoes here one day and gone the next. The opium dens of Limehouse or the wrecks on the long stretches towards the sea might conceal anything. He would need to trust Orme with his life, as Orme would have to trust him. It would not come quickly or without testing.

  “I’ll work on a plan,” he said aloud at last. “If you’ve got one, tell me.”

  “Yes, sir. I was thinkin’…” Orme stopped.

  “Go on,” Monk prompted.

  “I’d like to catch the Fat Man,” Orme said thoughtfully. “Owe ’im a lot, that one, over the years.”

  “I assume you mean a lot of harm, not a lot of good?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, a lot o’ harm indeed.” There was an edge of emotion in Orme’s voice that was extraordinarily sharp, as if from an accumulation of pain.

  Monk was overwhelmed by how much he did not know about these men. Orme seemed not to resent him. In fact, he had deliberately steered him away from the station just now so that Farnham would not see him come in late. He had covered for him yesterday so that he could pursue the Havilland case.

  An icy thought passed through Monk’s mind: that Orme was deliberately allowing him to do those things in order to betray him to Farnham, giving him enough rope to hang himself. Why had Orme himself not got Durban’s job? He was extremely able, and the men trusted him and admired him. He was far better qualified for it than Monk. Why had Durban suggested Monk? Was that a betrayal, too?

  He was floundering. His ignorance was like a vast black tide carrying him towards destruction.

  “I was thinkin’, sir”—Orme was still talking—“that if we get rid of the Fat Man, ’oo’s the best opulent receiver on the river, then someone else’ll take ’is place. I reckon that someone’ll be Toes. An’Toes is someone we can keep better under control. ’E’s greedy, but that’s all. At least fer now. The Fat Man is different, ’e ’as streaks of cruelty we need to get rid of. ’E isn’t above gettin’ people cut up slow if they really cross ’im up. Clever with a knife, ’e is. Knows ’ow to ’urt without killin’.”

  Monk looked at Orme’s grave, pinched face and read the pain in it again.

  “Very well, let’s get rid of him,” he agreed.

  Orme looked at him steadily. “Yes, Mr. Monk. An’ no private scores settled. No favors and no revenge, that’s what Mr. Durban used to say.” He turned away quickly, his breath catching in his throat, and Monk knew that the ghost of Durban was always going to be there.

  So he would use it. He would spend the day going through all Durban’s records until he had worked out what Durban would have done to trap the kidsmen and trace the goods to the Fat Man legitimately. No favors, no revenge. He also wanted to know why Orme had not been made commander. Perhaps he would be better off in ignorance, but he had to find out. It might matter one day; his life might even depend upon it.

  Most of the cases that he studied were routine crimes exactly like those he had dealt with since he came. The only unusual thing in Durban’s notes was that they were briefer than Monk would have expected, and more personal. His handwriting was strong but occasionally untidy, as if written hastily or when he was tired. There were flashes of humor, and discreet asides that suggested to Monk that Durban had not been especially fond of Clacton either. The difference was that Durban had known how to keep him under control, largely because the other men would not tolerate Clacton’s disloyalty.

  Monk smiled. At least he had found that solution, if he could work out how to use it.

  He read carefully the reports of thefts from passenger boats. They seemed to vary, but in no particular pattern that he could detect. There were various other crimes, some very serious. One Durban had written on for many pages, and it had apparently disturbed him greatly. The writing was sprawling and many of the letters only half formed. There was a kind of jaggedness to it.

  Monk read it because the urgency in it held him. It had nothing to do with theft or with passenger boats at all. It concerned the murder of a prosperous man in his early forties. His body had been found in the river, apparently shot to death some time the night before and dumped into the water. He was identified as Roger Thorwood, of Chelsea, a barber of considerable wealth and influence. He was mourned by his wife, Beatrice, and three surviving children.

  Durban had put a great deal of time and energy into the investigation and followed every lead. His hope and frustration were clearly marked in his notes. But after nearly three months he had learned nothing of value and been obliged to abandon his concentration on it and turn his entire attention to other duties. The death of Roger Thorwood remained a mystery. Durban’s last entry on the subject was scribbled and in places almost illegible.

  I have spoken to Mrs. Thorwood for the last time. There is nothing more I can do. All trails are closed. They lead either nowhere or into a hopeless morass. I never thought I would say of any murder that it is better left, but I do of this. And it is wrong to expect Orme to carry the responsibility here any longer. It is not even as if one day he might be justly rewarded for his work or his loyalty. He owes it not to me, but because that is his nature, nonetheless I am profoundly grateful to him. There is no more to say.

  Monk stared at the page. It was oddly difficult to turn over and continue with the murders, robberies, fights, and accidents that occurred later. There was something painfully unfinished about it, not only the mystery of Roger Thorwood’s death but Durban’s obvious involvement. His anger and disappointment were there, and something else less obvious, which he was too guarded to name. Guarding someone else, or himself?

  There was also his oblique reference to Orme never receiving appropriate recompense for his work. It seemed he had covered for Durban as well as for Monk. It raised the question again as to why he had not received the promotion his skill had earned him. It seemed that Durban knew the reason. Monk realized that perhaps he ought to, in order to make a better judgment of Orme. But he was g
lad there was no time to search now.

  What he needed was a plan to catch the thieves on the passenger boats. More important, he wanted to trace them back to the opulent receiver who was organizing them, and probably the kidsmen as well.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon when Orme returned. Together, without mentioning Durban at all, they carefully constructed their strategy.

  Orme looked nervous, but he did not argue with Monk’s intention to be present.

  “And Clacton,” Monk added.

  Orme looked at him quickly.

  Monk smiled, but he did not explain himself.

  Orme’s mouth tightened, and he nodded.

  Monk met Runcorn by the hot-chestnut stand just off Westminster Bridge Road. It was four in the afternoon and already dark. A heavy cloud hung like a pall over the city. There was the smell of chimney smoke in the air, and the wind held the sting of snow to come. Downriver on the incoming tide was a drift of fog, and Monk, standing within sight of the dark, flat water, could hear the boom of foghorns drifting up. Although there were several of them, it was an eerie sound of utter desolation. Now it echoed vaguely. When the fog came in it would be swallowed, cut off half finished, like a cry strangled in the throat.

  “Found the cabbie,” Runcorn said, blowing on a hot chestnut before putting it into his mouth. “Took the man as far as Piccadilly. Remembers him quite well because he did an odd thing. He got out of his cab and crossed the Circus, which was pretty quiet at that time in the morning, all the theaters on Haymarket and Shaftesbury Avenue being out long since. Then he got straight into another cab and disappeared east along Coventry Street, towards Leicester Square.” He looked up from his chestnut, watching for Monk’s reaction. “Why would a man change cabs when there’s nothing wrong with the one he’s in?”