William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

right.”
    “Oh, yeah? An’ what price would that be, then?” Gould still had confidence.
    “Twenty pounds,” Monk said rashly.
    “Fifty!” Gould retorted with undisguised derision.
    Monk pushed his hands into his pockets and stared at the pile of tusks thoughtfully, as if considering.
    “Forty-five is the lowest I’ll go,” Gould offered.
    Monk was disgusted, but he dared not show it. He thought of Hodge lying on the step above the hold, his head broken, his brain crushed.
    “Twenty-five,” he said.
    They argued back and forth, up a pound, down a pound. Monk realized that Crow had gone—please God to fetch help, though he owed Monk nothing, no friendship, no loyalty. But he prayed that Scuff had managed to get Louvain. Durban would not need to be asked more than once.
    “It’s worth more than that!” Gould said angrily when Monk refused to go any higher, afraid of agreement and the end of the conversation. “I worked bleedin’ ’ard fer it!” Gould went on. “You any idea ’ow ’eavy them things are?”
    “Too heavy for one man,” Monk responded. “Someone helped you. Where is he? Behind me? Or are you planning to cut him out of the deal?”
    There was a faint movement in the passage ten or fifteen feet beyond the doorway. Now he wished Crow had not gone—although there was no guarantee of which side he would have been on. Perhaps a thieves’ quarrel was his best chance. “Were you the one that went into the hold of the
Maude Idris
?” he asked, his voice louder than he meant, and unsteady. He wanted to know who had killed Hodge then he would have no guilt in killing him in return, if he had to in order to escape with his own life. Where the hell was Louvain? He had had time to get there by now.
    “Why d’you care?” Gould’s eyes narrowed.
    “Were you?” Monk demanded, taking a step forward.
    “Yeah! So wot of it?” Gould challenged.
    “Then it was you who murdered Hodge!” Monk accused. “Perhaps your partner won’t be so happy to share the rope that’s waiting for you, along with the price of your tusks?”
    Gould froze. “ ’Odge? I never murdered no one! ’Oo’s ’Odge?” He sounded honestly confused.
    “The night watchman whose head you beat in,” Monk said bitterly. “Did that slip your mind?”
    “Geez! I din’t bash ’is ’ead in!” Gould’s voice rose to a screech. “There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ ’is ’ead!” He looked gray-white, even in the gloom, his eyes wide with horror. Had he not seen Hodge’s body himself, Monk would have sworn it was genuine.
    “Rubbish!” he barked, rage welling up inside him for the lie as much as the violence. It was twisting his own emotions because he wanted to believe him, and it was impossible.
    “So ’elp me Gawd, it’s the truth!” Gould ignored the ivory and stepped forward towards Monk, but there was no threat in him, only urgency, even pleading. “ ’e were lyin’ there on the step. I thought ’e were dead drunk. He must a fell from the top.”
    Monk hesitated. “Did you look at the back of his head?” he asked.
    “There weren’t nothin’ wrong wi’ it!” Gould insisted. “ ’e might a banged it bad, I dunno, but it weren’t bashed so’s I could see. ’Ow’d you know, anyway?”
    “I’m looking for the ivory because I’m paid to,” Monk said bitterly. “But I’m looking for whoever killed Hodge because I want him to answer for it.”
    “Well, it in’t me!” Gould said desperately.
    Monk stood still, his back to the doorjamb. It was bitterly cold in there, so cold his fingers were dead and his feet were growing numb. The damp was everywhere, heavy with the reek of mud and effluent and the sweet stench of rot. Everything was sagging, dripping, full of slight sounds like the soft tread of feet, rat feet, human feet, creaking like the shifting of weight, and always water oozing and trickling, the slow sinking of the land and the rising of the river.
    He tried to clear his head. He was beginning to believe Gould, and yet it made no sense. Who would beat in the head of a man already dead?
    There was a distinct sound about a dozen yards away, a movement too big to be a rat. Monk swiveled around to look. The shadows changed. Was there someone there, a man coming this way, creeping step by step? The sweat broke out on his skin, and his body was shaking. He backed farther into the room, looking at Gould. “Someone’ll hang for it,” he said softly. “The police are coming,