William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

steps. After a hurried conversation Scuff scrambled in and beckoned for Monk to follow.
    Monk did not want the child with him. What he had to do was going to be awkward and unpleasant, possibly even dangerous. And he certainly could not afford to have Scuff learn the truth.
    “C’mon then!” Scuff said sharply, his face wrinkled in puzzlement. “Y’in’t gonner find ’im standin’ there!”
    Monk dropped down into the boat. “Thank you,” he said politely, but his voice was rough, as if he were trembling. “I don’t need you to come. Go back to your own work.” He was uncertain whether to offer him money or not; he might see it as an insult to friendship.
    Scuff pulled a face. “If yer ’aven’t noticed, the tide’s up. Like I said, yer shouldn’t be out by yerself, yer in’t fit!” He sat down in the stern, a self-appointed guardian for someone he obviously felt to be in need of one.
    “Word is ’e’s gorn down Debtford Creek way,” the boatman said pleasantly. “Bin a bit o’ trouble that way yesterday. Yer wanna go or not?”
    Monk accepted. If he put Scuff ashore against his will he would lose the boatman’s respect, possibly even his cooperation. “Yes. As quick as you can, please.”
    They pulled out onto the main stream of traffic and went south along Limehouse Reach, weaving in and out of strings of barges, moored ships waiting to unload their cargoes, and a few still seeking anchorage.
    It took them nearly three quarters of an hour, but finally Monk recognized Durban’s figure on the quayside above a flight of steps near Debtford Creek. Then he saw the police boat on the water just below, with two men at the oars and Orme standing in the stern.
    “Over there!” Monk told his own boatman. The raw edge to his voice gave it all the urgency he needed. “How much?”
    “A shilling,” the boatman replied instantly.
    Monk fished a shilling and threepence out of his pocket, and as soon as they pulled in to the steps he passed it over and stood up. Scuff stood up also. “No!” Monk swung around, all but losing his balance. “I’ll be all right now.”
    “Yer might need me!” Scuff argued. “I can do things.”
    There was no time to explain, or be gentle. “I know. I’ll find you when I have something for you to do. For now, keep out of the rozzers’ way!”
    Scuff sank back reluctantly and Monk leapt for the step and went on up without looking back.
    Durban turned around just as Monk reached the top. He was about to speak when he saw Monk’s face. Instead, he looked at the other man, a sullen, weary creature with one shoulder higher than the other. “Do it again an’ I’ll have you. Now get gone.”
    The man obeyed with alacrity, leaving Monk and Durban alone at the top of the steps in the wind.
    “What is it?” Durban asked. “You look like you’ve seen hell.”
    “Not yet, but that could be truer than you think,” Monk said with bitter humor. How could he laugh at anything now? Except, insane as it seemed, perhaps it was the only sanity left. “I need to talk to you alone, and it’s more important than anything else at all.”
    Durban drew in his breath, possibly to tell him not to exaggerate, and then let it out again. “What is it? If you’re going to tell me you were lying about the ivory, and that Gould’s innocent of the murder of Hodge, I already know the first, and I might believe the second, with proof. Do you have any?”
    Maybe telling the truth was going to be less difficult than Monk had thought, and facing Durban’s contempt was going to be more. Already, guilt was eating him inside. “It might be proof, but that isn’t what matters,” he replied. “It’s not quick, or easy to tell.”
    Durban stood motionless, waiting, his hands in his pockets. He did not ask or prompt. Somehow that made it harder. “There were fourteen tusks originally,” Monk began. “I found all of them on Jacob’s Island, and hid one as proof.”
    “An’ gave the rest to Louvain, which I presume is what you were hired for.” Durban nodded.
    Monk had no time to indulge in excuses. He was conscious of the other police in the boat a few yards away, and that any moment Orme might come up to see what was the matter.
    “I saw Hodge’s body when Louvain first told me about the robbery,” Monk answered. “It was my condition for doing the job that I found whoever killed him and handed them to you. I only looked at the back of his head, nothing else.”
    Durban’s