The Shifting Tide - Anne Perry [5]
“Three of you here, and the dead man?” Monk asked him.
“Yeah.” Newbolt did not move at all, not even to nod his head. His eyes were fixed on Monk, steady, clever, unreflecting.
“And where was it you found Hodge’s body?” Monk asked.
Newbolt’s head moved fractionally to one side, a minute acknowledgment. “Bottom o’ the steps from the aft ’atchway down to the ’old.”
“What do you suppose he was doing there?” Monk asked.
“I dunno. Mebbe ’e ’eard summink,” Newbolt answered with ill-concealed insolence.
“Then why didn’t he raise the alarm?” Monk enquired. “How would he do that?”
Newbolt opened his mouth and took a deep breath, his huge chest swelling. Something in his face changed. Suddenly he was watching Monk quite differently, and with far more care.
“Shout,” he answered. “Can’t fire a gun around ’ere. Might ’it someone else.”
“You could fire it in the air,” Monk suggested.
“Well if ’e did, no one ’eard it,” Newbolt replied. “I’d guess as they crept up on ’im. Mebbe one of ’em made a noise, like, and when ’e turned ter look, another one whacked ’im over the ’ead. As ter ’is bein’ found at the bottom o’ the hatchway steps, that’d be where they threw ’im. If they’d a left ’im lyin’ on deck someone else could’ve seen ’im, an’ know’d there were summink wrong. Thieves ain’t fools. Least not all of ’em.”
It made excellent sense. It was what Monk himself would have done, and how he would have answered such an enquiry. “Thank you.” He turned to Louvain. “May I see where he was found?”
Louvain took a lantern from Newbolt and moved to the aft hatch, climbing over onto the steps, twisting his body in a single movement. He went downwards, disappearing into the dense shadows of the interior, only the space immediately around him illuminated by the flame.
Monk followed, with less grace, feeling his way rung by rung. Ahead of him floorboards and bulkheads were visible, and beyond the dark, the open maw of the hold, denser outlines of the cargo emerging as his eyes became used to the gloom. He could just make out stacks of timber lashed tight. He could imagine the destruction if it broke loose in heavy seas. In weather wild enough it could pierce the hull and the ship would sink in minutes. Even through the wrapping of oilcloth and canvas, he could smell the strange spices, but they were not strong enough to mask the mustiness of closed air and the sourness of the bilges below. His own boating experiences had been above deck, open to the wind and the seas. He had known the coast, not the ocean, and certainly not Africa, where this cargo had begun.
“There.” Louvain lowered the lantern until the light shone on the ledge nearer the steps down onto the floor of the hold. It was clear enough to see the marks of blood.
Monk took the lantern from Louvain and bent to look more closely. The stains were smears, not the still-damp pools he would have expected if a man dead of a lethal head wound had either been killed here or placed here within moments of being struck. He looked up. “What was he wearing on his head?” he asked.
Louvain’s face was upward lit, giving it an eerie, masklike quality that accentuated his surprise at the question. “A . . . a hat, I think,” he answered.
“What kind?”
“Why? What has that to do with who killed him or where my ivory is?” There was tension in his voice.
“If a man is hit over the head hard enough to kill him, there’s usually a lot of blood,” Monk replied, standing up to face Louvain levelly. “Even when you nick your skin shaving.”
Comprehension flared in Louvain’s eyes. “A woollen hat,” he answered. “It gets very cold on deck at night. Air off the river eats into your bones.” He drew in his breath. “But I think you’re right. He was probably killed up there.” He glanced upwards towards the ladder and the darkening square of sky through the hatchway. “As Newbolt said, they’d have thrown him down here