Dark Assassin - Anne Perry [1]
Orme shouted, and the oarsmen dug their blades in deep. They threw their backs against the weight of the river, heaving, hurtling them forward.
Monk, his heart in his mouth, strained to keep the bodies in sight. They had only a hundred feet to go, and yet he knew already that it was too late. The impact of hitting the water would stun them and drive the air out of their lungs. When at last they did gasp inward, it would be the icy water laden with raw sewage, choking them, drowning them. Still, senselessly he leaned forward over the bow, shouting, “Faster, faster! There! No…there!”
They drew level, turning a little sideways. The oarsmen kept the boat steady in the current and the changing balance as Orme heaved the body of the young woman over the gunwale. Awkwardly, as gently as he could, he laid her inside. Monk could see the other body, but it was too far away to reach, and if he stretched he could tip the boat.
“Port!” he instructed, although the oarsmen were already moving to do it. He reached over carefully to the half-submerged body of the young man, whose coat was drifting out in the water, his boots dragging his legs downwards. Awkwardly, straining his shoulders, Monk hauled him up over the gunwale and in, laying him on the bottom of the boat next to the young woman. He had seen many dead people before, but the sense of loss never diminished. From the victim’s pale face, smeared with dirt from the river water and plastered with hair across the brow, he appeared about thirty. He had a mustache but was otherwise clean-shaven. His clothes were well cut and of excellent quality. The hat he had been wearing on the bridge was gone.
Orme was standing, balancing easily, looking down at Monk and the young man.
“Nothing we can do for either of ’em, sir,” he said. “Drown quick going off the bridge like that. Pity,” he added softly. “Looks no more’n twenty, she does. Nice face.”
Monk sat back on the bench. “Anything to indicate who she was?” he asked.
Orme shook his head.
“If she ’ad one of ’em little bags ladies carry, it’s gone, but there’s a letter in ’er pocket addressed to Miss Mary ’Avilland o’ Charles Street. It’s postmarked already, like it’s bin sent and received, so could be it’s ’er.”
Monk leaned forward and systematically went through the pockets of the dead man, keeping his balance with less ease than Orme as the boat began the journey downstream, back towards Wapping. There was no point in putting a man ashore to look for witnesses to the quarrel, if that was what it had been. They could not identify the traffic that had been on the bridge, and on the water they themselves had seen as much as anyone. Two people quarrelling—or kissing and parting—who lost their balance and fell. There was nothing anyone could add.
Actually, as far as Monk could remember, there had been no one passing at exactly that moment. It was the hour when the dusk is not drawn in sufficiently for the lamps to be lit, but the light wanes and the grayness of the air seems to delude the eye. Things are half seen; the imagination fills in the rest, sometimes inaccurately.
Monk turned to the man’s pockets and found a leather wallet with a little money and a case carrying cards. He was apparently Toby Argyll, of Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth. That was also south of the river, not far from the girl’s address on Charles Street off the Westminster Bridge Road. Monk read the information aloud for Orme.
The boat was moving slowly, as only two men were rowing. Orme squatted on the boards near Argyll’s body. On the shore the lamps were beginning to come on, yellow moons in the deepening haze. The wind had the breath of ice in it. It was time to trim their own riding lights, or they would be struck by barges—or the ferries going crosscurrent—carrying passengers from one bank to the other.
Monk lit the lantern and carefully moved back to where Orme had laid the woman. She lay on her back. Orme had folded her hands and smoothed the hair off her face. Her eyes were closed, her skin already gray-white, as if