William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

o’ thing often?”
    “All the time, just not on the river before.” He tried to judge whether Crow would consider it a compliment or an insult to be offered money. Monk stroked his face, having no idea of the answer.
    Then Crow grinned hugely, showing magnificent teeth. “Right!” He rubbed his mittened hands together. “Let’s go an’ find Mr. Gould. I’m ready! By the way, ’ow am I supposed ter know if ’e’s got ivory?”
    “From an informant who is unusually observant, and whom it would be more than your life’s worth to name!” Monk said with an answering smile.
    “Yeah! Right.” Crow put his hands in his pockets. “But if yer comin’ after me, I’d be ’appier if yer ’ad a boatman I could trust. I’ll get Jimmy Corbett. ’e won’t let yer down.” And without waiting for Monk’s agreement he strolled over towards the edge and started to walk along, scanning the water.
    Scuff picked up the mugs and returned them, at a run, and he and Monk set off a comfortable distance behind Crow as he went to search for Jimmy Corbett, and then for Gould.
    It took them nearly an hour before it was accomplished and Monk and Scuff saw the lanky figure of Crow finally step down into Gould’s boat and pull away just to the east of Wapping New Stairs and turn back upstream, not down, as they had expected. They climbed hastily into Jimmy Corbett’s waiting boat and pulled away into the traffic on the river, turning west as well. This was going to prove an expensive business.
    “I thought you said Greenwich!” Scuff said urgently.
    “I did,” Monk admitted, equally surprised.
    A pleasure boat passed them moving swiftly. People were lining the decks, scarves and ribbons fluttering. The sound of music drifted across the water from the band on deck. Some people were waving their hats and shouting.
    There were ferries in the water, lighters, all kinds of craft about their business. It was not always easy to keep Gould in sight, although the tall figure of Crow in the stern helped.
    Monk and Scuff sat in silence as they wound through the anchored ships, Monk wondering where they could be going. Where was there upstream that Gould would have hidden a boatload of ivory? Why would he not have left it near Culpepper’s warehouses, if not actually in one of them?
    Jimmy was taking them steadily closer to the middle of the river, and then towards the south bank. They must be almost in line with Bermondsey by now.
    “I know where we’re goin’!” Scuff said suddenly, his face earnest, his voice strained. “Jacob’s Island! It’s an awful bad place, mister! I in’t never bin there, but I ’eard of it.”
    Monk turned to look at him and saw the fear in his face. Ahead of them, Gould’s boat was swinging around, bow to the shore where rotting buildings leaned out into the water, the tide sucking at their foundations. Their cellars must be flooded, wood dark with the incessant dripping and oozing of decades of creeping damp. Looking at it across the gray water, Monk could imagine the smell of decay, the cold that ate into the bones. Even in the city he had heard this place’s reputation.
    He looked again at Scuff’s face. “When the boat drops me off, go back and tell Mr. Louvain to come immediately,” he said. “Tell him I’ve got his ivory, and if he doesn’t want the police to take it as evidence, to come and collect it before they do. Do you understand?”
    “ ’e won’t know where!” Scuff protested. “I gotter foller yer till I sees where yer goin’.” He clenched his jaw tight in frightened refusal.
    Monk looked at his stubborn face and the shadows in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.
    They were pulling in close to the shore now. Ahead of them, Gould was only a foot from landing on a low, almost waterlogged pier. He reached it and scrambled out, tying his boat to a rotted stake and waiting while Crow climbed out after him. Monk could tell by the way Crow moved that he was nervous. His legs were awkward, his back stiff as though he half expected to have to defend himself any moment. Was it insane to have come here alone?
    Too late to change the plan now. Monk told Jimmy to put him ashore at the next landing steps onward, around the jutting buttress of the warehouse and out of sight of Gould. “Go and get Louvain!” he hissed at Scuff, who was making ready to follow him. “Now! Then get Durban!”
    Scuff hesitated, glancing at the dark waste of timber ahead, the alleys,