William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

he said gently. “But I have to catch up with a man, and I keep just missing him.”
    “What sort of a man?” the bargee said doubtfully, although he must have heard the change in Monk’s voice, even if he could not see his expression in the waning light.
    “Caleb Stone,” Monk replied. “A violent sort of man, who almost certainly murdered his brother. I don’t suppose I can prove that, not when the body could be anywhere. But I want to know if he’s dead, for the widow’s sake. I don’t give a damn about Caleb.”
    “Don’t ye? He murdered his brother, and ye don’t care?” the bargee said with a sideways squint.
    “I’d prove it if I could,” Monk admitted. “But I’m hired to prove the brother’s dead, so she can at least have what’s hers and feed his children. I think she’d sooner have that than revenge. Wouldn’t you?”
    “Aye,” the bargee agreed. “Aye, I would that. So ye want Caleb?”
    “Yes.” Monk stared fixedly at the darkening river. Was it worth trying to get across to the other side now? He had no idea where to start looking, or even if Caleb might have doubled back and by now be safe in some comfortable public house in the Isle of Dogs.
    “I’ll take ye,” the bargee offered suddenly. “I know where ’e’s gone. Leastways, I know where ’e’s likely gone. I don’t do wi’ leavin’ bairns without a father. He’s a bad one, Caleb.”
    “Thank you,” Monk accepted before the man had time to change his mind. “What’s your name? Mine’s Monk.”
    “Oh, aye. Don’t suit ye, less it be one o’ them inquisitor monks what used to burn folks. Mine’s Archie McLeish. Ye’d better come wi’ me. I’ve a boat a few paces along. Not much, cold and wet, but it’ll get us across.” And he turned and ambled off, walking on the sides of his feet with a sway as if the dockside were moving.
    Monk caught up with him. “The inquisitors burned peoplefor their beliefs,” he said waspishly. “I don’t give a sod what people believe, only what they do to each other.”
    “Ye have the face o’ a man who cares,” Archie replied without looking at him. “I wouldn’a want ye after me. I’d as soon have the de’il himself.” He stopped at the top of a narrow flight of steps leading down to the water where a very small boat was rising gently as the tide rose. “It’s a hard thing to care,” he added.
    Monk was about to deny that he cared, but Archie was not listening to him. He had bent his broad back and was loosening the moorings, which seemed to be in an extraordinarily complicated knot.
    Monk climbed in and Archie settled to the oars. He pulled out skillfully, twisting the boat around, propelling it and steering it at the same time. The bank and the steps disappeared into the gray rain within yards. The thought crossed Monk’s mind that no one knew where he was. He had accepted the offer without taking the slightest precaution. Archie McLeish could have been paid by Caleb to do precisely this! He must know Monk was after him. Monk could go overboard in the darkness and mist of the river and be swept out with the ebb tide, his body washed up days later, or never. Caleb Stone might be blamed, but no one could prove it. It would be one more accident. Maybe Archie McLeish would even say Monk threw himself in.
    He sat gripping the gunwales, determined if it came to that, he would make a damned good fight of it. Archie McLeish would go over with him.
    They passed barges moving steadily, dark mounds in the mist, riding lights to port and starboard, hundreds of tons of cargo making them juggernauts on the tide. If they were caught in front of one of those they would be splintered like matchwood. There was no sound but the water, the dismal hoot far off of a foghorn, and now and then someone shouting.
    They passed a square-rigger coming down from the Pool of London, its bare spars looming above them in the mist,reminding Monk of a row of gibbets. It was growing perceptibly colder. The raw wind blew through his coat as if it had been cotton shoddy, and touched his bones.
    “Afraid o’ Caleb Stone, then, are ye?” Archie McLeish said cheerfully.
    “No,” Monk snapped.
    “Well, ye look it.” Archie pulled hard on the oars, leaning his weight into them. “Feel like I was rowing a man to ’is ’anging wi’ a face like that, an’ grippin’ me boat like it’d escape ye if ye let it go.”
    Monk realized grimly how he must look, and made an effort to smile.