The Shifting Tide - Anne Perry [54]
“What isn’t?” Monk demanded, moving a step towards him.
“Get off me!” The man lifted his arm as if to shield himself, and took a quick, scrambling step sideways and backwards. “I dunno nuffink!”
Monk went after him. “About what?”
“Clem Louvain! I don’t touch nuffink ter do wif ’im. Get off me!”
Monk snatched the man’s arm and held it. “Why not? Why not Louvain?”
The man was frightened. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a snarl, but his body was trembling. There was hate in his eyes. He glared at Monk for a moment, then his free hand went into his pocket. An instant later Monk felt a stinging pain in his upper arm even before he saw the knife. Partly to defend himself, but at least as much in sheer fury, he lifted up his knee and sent the man staggering backwards, clutching himself and squealing, tears running down his face.
Monk looked at his arm. His jacket was sliced open and there was a stain of blood spreading on to his shirt and the fabric of his coat. “Damn you!” he swore, looking at the man, now half crouched over. “You stupid sod! I only asked you.” He turned and walked away as quickly as he could, aware that he must get his arm seen to before he lost too much blood or it became infected.
He was a hundred yards along the street before he realized that he had no specific idea where he was going.
He stopped for a moment. His arm was painful, and he was becoming worried in case it hampered his ability to go on as he had intended. One-armed, he was at a disadvantage he could ill afford. Where was there a doctor who could bind up his wound, stitch it if need be?
Would the Portpool Lane clinic have helped him? Or was it open only to women of the street? Pity it was too far away. He had not been aware of doing it, but he was holding his arm, and the blood was oozing stickily through his fingers. He must find a doctor.
He turned and walked back to the nearest shop and went in. It was stacked with ironmongery of every sort: pots, pans, kitchen machines, gardening tools, but mostly ships’ chandlery. The air was thick with the smell of hemp rope, tallow, dust, and canvas.
A little man with spectacles on his nose looked up from behind a pile of lanterns. “Oh, dear now, wot’s ’appened ter you, then?” he asked, looking at Monk’s arm.
“Thief,” Monk replied. “I shouldn’t have struggled with him. He had a knife.”
The man straightened up.
“Oh, dear. Did ’e get your money?”
“No. I can pay a doctor, if I can find one.”
“ ’ere, sit down afore yer fall. Look a bit queasy, you do.” He came out from behind the lanterns and led Monk to a small hard-backed chair. “Mouthful o’ rum wouldn’t do yer no ’arm neither.” He turned around to face the door at the back of the shop. “Madge! Go an’ fetch the crow! Quick on your way. I in’t got no time ter mess abaht!”
There was a call of agreement from somewhere out of sight, and then the patter of feet and a door slamming.
Monk was glad to sit down, although he did not feel as bad as the proprietor seemed to think.
“You jus’ stay there,” the man told him with concern, then bustled away to sell a coil of rope and two boxes of nails to a thin man in a pea jacket, then a packet of needles for stitching sails, a couple of wooden cleats, and a coal scuttle to a sailor with a blond beard.
Monk sat thinking about the response the man on the dockside had made to the mention of Louvain’s name. He had been angry, but more than that he had been genuinely afraid. Why? Why would a scuffle-hunter be afraid of a man of power? Louvain’s influence could help or hurt many he would barely even know. Monk had seen that kind of fear when he had been in the police, in small men without defense who had hated and feared him because he could injure them and he let them know it. He had thought it was the only way to do the job, but the price was high. Was that true of Louvain also, a shadow of the same knowledge and responsibility, and use of power? Louvain’s stature? How would their paths even have crossed?
“ ’ere ’e is,” said a small, high-pitched voice that jerked him out