The Shifting Tide - Anne Perry [8]
Once down in the boat he sat, and he and Louvain were rowed wordlessly back to the wharf.
At the top of the steps, a shorter distance with the turned tide racing in, the wind was keener and edged with rain turning to sleet.
Louvain put up his collar and hunched his shoulders. “I’ll pay you a pound a day, plus any reasonable expenses,” he stated. “You have ten days to find my ivory. I’ll give you twenty pound extra if you do.” His tone made it plain he would not accept negotiation. But then a police constable started at just under a pound a week. Louvain was offering seven times as much, plus a reward at the end if Monk was successful. It was a lot of money, far too much to refuse. Even failure was paid at a better rate than most jobs, although the penalty afterwards to his reputation might be dear. But he also could not afford to think of the future if there were no present.
He nodded. “I’ll report to you when I have progress, or need more information.”
“You’ll report to me in three days regardless,” Louvain replied. “Now come see Hodge.” He swiveled on his foot and marched along the wharf all the way to the street without looking back. As Monk caught up with him they crossed together, picking their way between the rumbling wagons. It was almost dark, and street lamps made ragged islands as the mist blew in and the cobbles glistened underfoot.
Monk was glad to be inside again, even though it was the morgue, with its smell of carbolic and death. The attendant was still there; perhaps this close to the river there was always someone present. He was an elderly man with a scrubbed, pink face and a cheerful expression. He recognized Louvain immediately.
“Evenin’ sir. You’ll be after Mr. ’Odge. ’is widder’s ’ere, poor soul. In’t no use in yer waitin’. She could be ’ere some time. I reckon as she’s makin’ ’er peace, like.”
“Thank you,” Louvain acknowledged. “Mr. Monk is with me.” And without waiting for the attendant to show him, he led the way to the room where a large, rawboned woman with gray hair and fine, pale skin was standing silently, her hands folded in front of her, staring at the body of a man lying on a bench.
He was covered up to the neck with a sheet, which was stained and a little thin at the edges. His face had the lividity of death, and the strangely shrunken absent look of a shell no longer inhabited by its spirit. He must have been large in life—the frame was there, the bones—but he seemed small now. It took a force of imagination to think of him as having been able to move and speak, to have will, even passion.
The woman looked briefly at Louvain, then at Monk.
Monk spoke to her first. “I am sorry for your grief, Mrs. Hodge. My name is William Monk. Mr. Louvain has hired me to find out who killed your husband, and to see that he answers for it.”
She looked at him with leaden eyes. “Mebbe,” she answered. “Don’t make much difference ter me, nor me kids. Don’t pay the rent nor put food in our mouths. Still, I s’pose ’e should swing.” She turned back to the motionless form on the table. “Stupid sod!” she said with sudden fury. “But ’e weren’t all bad. Brought me a piece o’ wood back from Africa last time, all carved like an animal. Pretty. I never ’ocked it afore. S’pose I’ll ’ave ter now.” She glanced at the corpse. “Yer stupid sod!” she repeated helplessly.
Monk’s anger at the thief stopped being a matter of law, or some inanimate sense of justice, and suddenly became hate, and deeply personal. Hodge was past injury, but this woman was not, nor her children. But there was nothing useful for him to say, nothing that would help now, and he could give her no assistance in her poverty.
He looked instead at the dead man. He had thick hair, and the back of his head rested on the table. Monk reached across and lifted the head very slightly, feeling underneath for the extent of the injury. He had seen no blood on the top of the steps to the hold, and none on the deck. Scalp