Dark Assassin - Anne Perry [93]
“Thin man, mustache, sad face like a rat,” Constable Jones said almost at his elbow. “Over there, by the way up to the deck.”
Monk found himself gasping with relief, barely able to draw enough air into his lungs. Should he say he knew who had taken the statue? The lie died on his lips. Jones would see in his reaction that he had not. “Thank you,” he said instead. “He’s the one we have to watch, never mind the others.”
Butterworth was almost six feet from the man with the mustache. He was pretending to look for something in his coat pocket, but his eyes were on the man. He had seen, too. He and Jones were good, quicker than Monk.
The boat reached the Dog and Duck Stairs, and the man with the carving got off. Monk, Jones, and Butterworth got off behind him, as did half a dozen others.
The man walked down the quay back towards the Greenland Dock. It was dark, and there was a smell of rain in the wind. Here and there the streetlamps were lit. It was in some ways the most difficult time to keep anyone in sight. The shadows were deceptive; you thought you saw someone, and suddenly you didn’t. There were pools of light, and long stretches of gloom. The sound and movement and shifting reflections of water were everywhere.
Monk, Jones, and Butterworth moved separately, trying to give themselves three chances not to lose him. It would be better to arrest him and catch no one else than lose the carving. But then the whole exercise would have been a failure. One thief was hardly here or there. They would have betrayed their hand for nothing.
They were moving south again. Orme and his men should be keeping pace with them along the river.
There was another man in the shadows. Monk stopped abruptly, afraid of catching up and being seen. Then he realized he should not have stopped. It drew attention to him. It was years since he had done this sort of thing. He retraced his steps a couple of yards and bent down as if to pick up something he had dropped, then went forward again. The new man had caught up with the thief. His outline under the lamppost looked familiar. He was short and fat with a long overcoat and a brimless hat. He had been on that boat—another thief?
A third man had joined them by the time they turned right and reached another ancient set of steps down to the water. A boat was waiting for them, and almost immediately the darkness swallowed them.
Monk stood alone, shifting from foot to foot, desperately searching the darkness for Orme. Where the devil was he? There were barges moving upstream, their riding lights glittering. An ice-cold wind was whining among the broken pier stakes.
There was a noise behind him. He spun around. A man stood ten feet away. He had not even heard him coming; the slurp of the water masked his footsteps. Monk had no weapon, and his back was to the river.
A boat scraped against the steps. He strode over and saw several men in it—randan, police formation. There was room for two more, which would be cramped although not dangerous. Orme was in the stern. Monk could not see his face, but he recognized the way he stood, outlined solid black against the shifting, dimly reflecting surface of the water.
Monk went down the steps as fast as he could, his feet slithering on the wet, slime-coated stone. Orme put out his hand and steadied him as he all but pitched forward on the last step. He landed clumsily in the boat and scrambled to take one of the seats. The next moment his hands closed over an oar and he made ready to throw his weight against it on the order.
Butterworth came down the steps, boarded, and crouched in the stern. The word was given, and they pulled out into the stream. They heaved hard to catch up with the thieves’ boat.
No one spoke; each man was listening to the beat of the oars. In the stern, Orme was straining to see ahead and to steady them against the wash of barges going up- or downstream and to avoid any anchored boats waiting to unload on the wharves at daylight.
Where