Dark Assassin - Anne Perry [44]
He searched but could find no adequate map that charted all of London’s old wells, springs, and submerged rivers or the old gutters, drains, and waterways that had altered over the course of the centuries. Clay slipped. Some earth absorbed water; some rejected it. Some old drains, dating back to the Roman occupation, had survived. Some had been broken or had caved in, and the land had subsided, diverting them deeper or sideways. The earth was a living thing, changing with time and usage. No wonder Sutton, whose father had been a tosher and knew all the waterways large and small, was now frightened by the vast steam engines that shook the ground, and by the knowledge that men were digging, shoveling, and moving earth, disturbing what was settled.
Monk was circumspect about mentioning the Havillands’ name, but he would not learn anything further of use if he did not. It gave him a wry, half-sour pleasure that it was far easier now than in his independent days because he could use the power of the River Police to ask for what he wanted. He was cramped by rules, hemmed in and robbed of freedom by the necessity of answering both upwards to Farnham and in a sense downwards to Orme and the other men. He could not lead if he could not inspire men to follow him. The mere holding of office could force obedience for a while, but it could not earn the respect or the loyalty that were what mattered. He would not replace Durban anywhere except in the records on paper.
He made detailed enquiries of clerks at the construction offices regarding old maps, earlier excavations, waterways, the nature of soil, graveyards, and plague pits—anything that might affect new tunneling. He was told of James Havilland’s investigations.
“And Miss Mary Havilland?” he insisted. “Did she explain her involvement? Weren’t you curious that a young woman should know anything about such matters, or care?”
“Yes, I was,” the clerk agreed. “That’s ’ow come I remember. As ’e were ’er father, she told me, an’ ’e were dead, she were doin’ what she could ter finish ’is work. ’E worked fer one o’ the big companies, Argyll Company.”
“She told you that?”
“No. I know that meself. Not that I knew ’im, like, but I seed ’im on the works once or twice. Din’t look well. Sort o’ pale an’ sweatin’. Mind, I seen men like that when they ’as ter go down deep. Scared o’ bein’ closed in. An’ o’ the rats an’ the water.” He shuddered. “Don’t like ’em much meself.”
Monk pressed it a little further, noting down the details, then thanked the clerk and left.
The rest of the day yielded nothing new. Mary Havilland had followed in the footsteps of her father in half a dozen places. Obviously Havilland had believed that the steam engines were dangerous, but had he learned anything that proved it?
Monk turned it over in his mind as he walked back along the dockside towards the station. It was dark and there was a fine rain. The smell of the tide was harsh, but he was becoming used to it. Even the constant slurping of the water against the embankment and on the steps down to the ferryboats and barges assumed a kind of familiar rhythm. The foghorns were booming again because the rain blinded vision; lights loomed out of the darkness before there was time to change course.
He wondered about Scuff. Where was he on a night like this? Had he eaten? He had shelter, Monk knew that, but had he any warmth? Then he remembered that the chief booty of mudlarks was coal. Very often the lightermen would deliberately knock pieces off their barges into the shallow water for the small boys to get. Perhaps he had a fire. The riverside was full of children scraping by the best they could—like the rest of the city. It was irrational to worry about one.
He forced his mind back to the case.
Had Havilland found anything to make it necessary for someone to kill him? It seemed unlikely. What could it be? Argyll’s had had no serious accidents. But Havilland had been an engineer himself, and he knew exactly what their huge machines were capable of, what safeguards were taken, and that Alan Argyll, of