William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

shudder. “ ’e won’t tell yer. In’t none o’ yer business. But we could ask Crow. ’E’d find out for yer!” Now he was eager.
    “Do you think so?”
    “Yeah! C’mon. We’ll get a pie, eh?” Scuff looked acutely hopeful.
    Monk did as was expected of him, with pleasure. Three quarters of an hour later they were walking back along the street towards the river, the wind in their faces. Crow was concocting a vivid and rather unlikely story in order to obtain the necessary information from the morgue attendant. He did not once ask Monk why he wanted it. He seemed to consider it some kind of professional courtesy.
    They reached the morgue, and Monk and Scuff remained outside while Crow went in. He emerged fifteen minutes later, black hair flying in the wind, and a smile of triumph showing brilliant teeth. “Got it!” he said, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
    Monk thanked him, took the paper and read it, then put it in his pocket.
    “Now what?” Crow asked with interest.
    “Now I treat you to the best pie I can afford and a hot cup of tea, then I go about my business and leave you to go about yours,” Monk replied with a smile.
    “You’re almighty pleased with yourself,” Crow said suspiciously.
    “Only half,” Monk replied with sudden honesty. “I’ve still got the rest to do. Do you want that pie or not?”
    He treated them handsomely, but refused to allow either of them to go with him. Scuff objected strongly, insisting that Monk was not safe on his own and unquestionably needed someone to advise him and watch his back. While Monk reluctantly agreed with him, nevertheless he still would not allow him to come. With a show of suffering fortitude, Scuff finally resigned himself to going with Crow instead, just this once.
    It took Monk little more than an hour to find the right small brick house. It was in the middle of a long row of exactly similar houses built back to back near the docks in Rotherhithe. When he knocked on the door she opened it and he recognized her immediately, as much for her resemblance to Newbolt as for his memory of her at the morgue.
    “Yeah?” she said suspiciously. He knew she was trying to remember where she had seen him before.
    “Good morning, Mrs. Hodge,” he said respectfully. “I am hoping that you can help me—”
    “Can’t ’elp no one,” she replied without hesitation, beginning to close the door.
    “I should not be ungrateful for it.” He forced himself to smile at her. She was graceless and abrupt, but she must also be frightened, and whatever her relationship with her husband had been, she must still be raw from his loss and the implied disgrace that he had died of his own drunken carelessness. “I regret your loss, Mrs. Hodge,” he added quite genuinely. “It is a terrible thing when a husband or wife dies. I don’t think anyone else can comprehend it.”
    “You lost someone?” she said with surprise.
    “No, but I am fortunate. I very nearly did, and only late yesterday evening did I learn that she was all right.”
    “Wot d’yer want?” she asked reluctantly. “I s’pose you’d better come in, but don’t get in my way! I in’t got all mornin’. Some of us ’as gotter work.” She pulled the door wider and turned to allow him to follow her into the small kitchen at the back. Seemingly it was the only warm room in the house. The black stove was burning and it gave off considerable heat—and a smell of soot and smoke that caught in his throat and made his eyes water. She seemed oblivious to it.
    He looked around without having intended to. There was a stone sink, but no drain. That would be in the yard at the back, with the privy. Water would be collected from the nearest well or standing pump. There were wooden bins for flour or oats, several strings of onions hanging from the ceiling, and a sack of potatoes leaning against the wall, with two turnips and a large white cabbage beside it.
    Two scuttles were nearly full of coal, and on the wall were hanging three very handsome copper pans.
    She saw his glance. “I in’t sellin’ ’em,” she said tartly. “Wot is it yer want?”
    “I was simply admiring your pans,” he told her. “It’s information I’m looking for.”
    “I don’t grass!” It was a flat statement. “An’ before yer ask, they wasn’t stole. Me bruvver give ’em to me back in August. ’e bought ’em fair, at a shop up west. Could prove it!”
    “I don’t doubt you, Mrs. Hodge,” he answered