William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

can. Are you hungry, Scuff?”
    Scuff nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

ELEVEN
    B y the time Monk returned home to Paradise Street after the following day’s court, it was dark and raining again. The gutters were awash, slopping over onto the cobbles. The reflections from the lamps danced on wet stone, and the clatter of hooves was broken by splashing. The cold wind coming up from the river carried wreaths of mist that stretched out, wrapped around trees and even houses, then elongated and disappeared again.
    Inside, the house was warm. The kitchen smelled of new bread, clean linen, and something savory. Hester greeted him at the door.
    “He’s fine,” she said before he asked.
    He smiled as the sweetness of it soaked into him.
    “He’s been asleep on and off,” she went on. “He looks a lot better.”
    He held her close, kissing her mouth, then her cheek and eyes and hair, allowing the rest of the world to be closed out for a few precious minutes. Then he went upstairs to change into dry clothes and to see Scuff.
    “How are you?” he asked.
    Scuff stirred and sat up very slowly, blinking a little. He seemed uncertain how to answer.
    “Are you worse?” Monk said anxiously.
    Scuff grinned lopsidedly. “It ’urts like bleedin’ ’eck,” he said frankly. “But that egg stuff as she makes is real good. D’yer know some o’ ’em places she’s bin?” His eyes were huge with amazement and more admiration than he was probably aware of. “I in’t never ’eard o’ some o’ ’em!”
    “Neither have I,” Monk conceded, coming in and sitting on the edge of the bed.
    “She told me ’bout wot she done in the army an’ such.”
    “Me too, now and then. She doesn’t talk about it a lot.”
    “Sad, eh? All ’em men ’urt bad.” Scuff frowned. “Lot o’ ’em died. She din’t say so, but I reckon as they did.”
    “Yes, I reckon so, too. Are you hungry?”
    “Yeah. Are you?”
    “Yes.”
    Scuff tried to climb over to the edge of the bed, as if he would come downstairs to eat.
    “No!” Monk said sharply. “I’ll bring it up to you!”
    “Yer don’t ’ave ter,” Scuff began.
    “I’d rather carry the supper up than have to carry you again,” Monk told him dryly. “Stay where you are!”
    Scuff subsided and inched back to the center again. He lay against the pillow, watching Monk.
    “Please don’t fall out,” Monk said more gently. “You’ll hurt yourself worse.”
    Scuff said nothing, but he did not move again.
    They were all three of them in the bedroom, halfway through eating, when the interruption came. Hester was cutting up vegetables for Scuff and letting him pick them up with a fork. He did it carefully, uncertain at first how to manage. Monk was eating steak and kidney pie with a vigorous appetite. Suddenly there was a loud knocking on the door, again and again, almost as if someone were trying to break in.
    Monk put his plate on the tray, the last mouthful uneaten, and went downstairs to find out what it was.
    Orme stood on the step in the rain, his hair plastered to his head, his face white. He did not wait for Monk to ask what it was, nor did he attempt to come in.
    “There’s bin a cave-in,” he said hoarsely. “Down at the Argyll tunnel. The ’ole lot. It all came in and God knows ’ow many men’s buried.”
    It was what James Havilland had feared, and Monk would have given everything he owned not to have had him proved right. “Do they know what caused it?” he asked, his voice shaking. Even his hand on the door felt cold and somehow disembodied.
    “Not yet,” Orme said, ignoring the rain dripping down his face.
    “Suddenly the ’ole side just slid in, wi’ water be’ind it, like a river. An’ then ’bout fifty yards further up the line ’nother lot went. I’m goin’ back there, sir, ter see if I can ’elp. Although God knows if anyone can.”
    “Another slide? That means there are men trapped between the two? Is there any sewage down there?”
    “Dunno, Mr. Monk. Depends on wot it were that slid. It’s close ter one o’ the old sewers as is still used. Could be. I know wot yer thinking—gas…” He did not finish.
    “I’ll come with you.” There was no question of what he must do.
    “Come in out of the rain while I tell my wife.” He left the door open and went up the stairs two at a time.
    Hester was standing in the bedroom doorway, Scuff sitting up on the bed behind her. Both of them had heard Orme’s voice and caught the sound of fear