William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

he looked at the intense concentration in Louvain’s face, he knew the man was speaking to himself.
    “It’s a cruel beauty,” Louvain went on, his voice touched with awe. “There’s no mercy in it, but it’s also freedom, because it’s honest.” Then, as if suddenly remembering that Monk was a hired hand, not an equal or a friend, he stiffened and the emotion fled from his face. “Get my ivory back,” he ordered. “Time’s short. Don’t waste it coming here to tell me you’ve got nothing.”
    Monk swallowed the retort that came to his lips. “Good night,” he answered, and before Louvain responded he turned and went out.
    He hesitated in the street. The wind was knife-edged, and a sickle moon was rising across the water. Ice rimed over the cobbles, making them slippery, and his breath was a plume of vapor in the air. The thought of going home was sweet, like a burst of warmth inside him, but it was too soon to give up on the day. It was only a little after six, and he could put in at least another two or three hours. The thieves would already have gotten rid of the ivory by now, and the receiver would be looking to place it. He needed to find it before then.
    He walked back along the street towards the public house on the corner, pushed the door open, and went in. The room was warm and noisy, full of shouts, laughter, and the clink of glasses. The floor was covered with dirty straw. People jolted each other to move closer to the bar and into the lantern’s yellow light; the barman’s face gleamed with sweat above the tankards topped with foam. It all smelled of ale; the steam from hot, weary bodies; wet clothes; mud and horse manure on boots.
    Monk waited his turn, moving slowly closer to the front of the queue, all the time listening and watching. There were street women among the men, garish in red and pink dresses low on the shoulder, faces painted with false gaiety. Their voices forced the laughter, and their eyes were tired.
    He listened to snatches of conversation, straining to link them together and make sense of them. He had worked many years in the city; he knew receivers of stolen goods by instinct. It was not in their appearance so much as in their manner. Some were hearty, some furtive; some talked a great deal, others were terse. Some offered magnificent prices and sang praise of their own generosity and how it would ruin them; others haggled over every halfpenny. But they all had a watchfulness about them; they did not miss a word or a gesture from anyone, and they could assess the monetary worth of anything in seconds.
    There was also a defiance, a cautious caginess with which other people approached them, not as friends but always with a mind to business.
    He saw several transactions—some with a discreet hand in and out of the pocket, a piece of jewelry or a trinket shown; some were merely words. If one of them had concerned Louvain’s ivory he would not have known, but only a fool buys something he has not seen, and fools do not survive long in such a trade.
    He reached the front of the queue and bought his ale. Then he found a place to sit and drink it, next to a man with a scar down his cheek and an empty left sleeve of his jacket.
    Monk took the opportunity to strike up conversation. Within half an hour he had refilled his own glass and the man’s, getting them each a pork pie at the same time. It was an expense that could go on Louvain’s bill.
    “ ’Course we still get some like it,” the sailor said, taking up his tale where he had left it when Monk stood up. “But not like the old days. Real pirates, they were.” His watery eyes were bright with memory. “Me granpa were one o’ the first in the River P’lice; 1798 that were. In them days there was crime on the river you wouldn’t believe!” He nodded. “Not now, seein’ as ’ow it’s all tame an’ respectable, like. Near ’alf the men in the docks was thievin’ back then.” He held up his fingers. “Two men, they were, Arriott an’ Colquhoun, set up the P’lice. Got rid of ninety-eight out of every ’undred o’ thieves, they did, in jus’ one year!” He stared at Monk challengingly. “Think on it! Don’ it eat yer ’eart out, eh? They was real men.” He said it with a fierce, happy sense of pride.
    “Were you in the River Police?” Monk enquired with interest.
    The man laughed so hard he all but spilled his ale. “No! No, I in’t an oggler, bless yer. I bin ter sea most o’ me life,