Dark Assassin - Anne Perry [78]
“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