William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

le’ go o’ me!”
    Evan obliged, and in a minute Willie disappeared down Mincing Lane towards the river and the ferry steps.
    Evan went straight home to his rooms, washed off the worst surface dirt in a bowl of tepid water, and slipped into bed.
    At five in the morning he rose again, put on the same clothes and crept out of the house and took a series of public omnibuses to Billingsgate, and by quarter past six in the dawn light he was in the crush of costers’ barrows, fishmongers’ high carts and dray wagons at the entrance to Dark House Lane itself. It was so narrow that the houses reared up like cliff walls on either side, the advertisement boards for fresh ice actually stretching across from one side to the other. Along both sides were stacked mountains of fresh, wet, slithering fish of every description, piled on benches, and behind them stood the salesmen crying their wares, white aprons gleaming like the fish bellies, and white hats pale against the dark stones behind them.
    A fish porter with a basket full of haddock on his head could barely squeeze past the double row of shoppers crowding the thin passageway down the middle. At the far end Evan could just see the tangled rigging of oyster boats on the water and the occasional red worsted cap of a sailor.
    The smell was overpowering; red herrings, every kind of white fish from sprats to turbot, lobsters, whelks, and over all a salty, seaweedy odor as if one were actually on a beach. It brought back a sudden jolt of childhood excursions to the sea,the coldness of the water and the sight of a crab running sideways across the sand.
    But this was utterly different. All around him was not the soft slurp of the waves but the cacophony of a hundred voices: “Ye-o-o! Ye-o-o! ’ere’s yer fine Yarmouth bloaters! Whiting! Turbot—all alive! Beautiful lobsters! Fine cock crabs—alive O! Splendid skate—alive—all cheap! Best in the market! Fresh ’addock! Nice glass o’ peppermint this cold morning! Ha’penny a glass! ’Ere yer are, sir! Currant and meat puddings, a ha’penny each! ’Ere ma’am! Smelt! Finny ’addock! Plaice—all alive O. Whelks—mussels—now or never! Shrimps! Eels! Flounder! Winkles! Waterproof capes—a shilling apiece! Keep out the wet!”
    And a news vendor cried out: “I sell food for the mind! Come an’ read all abaht it! Terrible murder in Queen Anne Street! Lord’s daughter stabbed ter death in ’er bed!”
    Evan pushed his way slowly through the crowd of costers, fishmongers and housewives till he saw a brawny fish seller with a distinctly Oriental appearance.
    “Are you Chinese Paddy?” he asked as discreetly as he could above the babble and still be heard.
    “Sure I am. Will you be wantin’ some nice fresh cod, now? Best in the market!”
    “I want some information. It’ll cost you nothing, and I’m prepared to pay for it—if it’s right,” Evan replied, standing very upright and looking at the fish as if he were considering buying it.
    “And why would I be selling information at a fish market, mister? What is it you want to know—times o’ the tides, is it?” Chinese Paddy raised his straight black eyebrows sarcastically. “I don’t know you—”
    “Metropolitan police,” Evan said quietly. “Your name was given me by a very reliable fellow I know—down in Pudding Lane. Now do I have to do this in an unpleasant fashion, or can we trade like gentlemen, and you can stay here selling your fish when I leave and go about my business?” He said it courteously, but just once he looked up and met Chinese Paddy’s eyes in a hard, straight stare.
    Paddy hesitated.
    “The alternative is I arrest you and take you to Mr. Monkand he can ask you again.” Evan knew Monk’s reputation, even though Monk himself was still learning it.
    Paddy made his decision.
    “What is it you’re wanting to know?”
    “The murder in Queen Anne Street. You were up there last night—”
    “ ’ere-fresh fish—fine cod!” Paddy called out. “So I was,” he went on in a quiet, hard tone. “But I never stole nuffin’, an’ I sure as death and the bailiffs never killed that woman!” Ignoring Evan for a moment, he sold three large cod to a woman and took a shilling and sixpence.
    “I know that,” Evan agreed. “But I want to know what you saw!”
    “A bleedin’ rozzer goin’ up ’Arley Street an’ down Wimpole Street every twenty minutes reg’lar,” Paddy replied, looking one moment at his fish, and the