William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

The smell of the tide was harsh, but he was becoming used to it. Even the constant slurping of the water against the embankment and on the steps down to the ferryboats and barges assumed a kind of familiar rhythm. The foghorns were booming again because the rain blinded vision; lights loomed out of the darkness before there was time to change course.
    He wondered about Scuff. Where was he on a night like this? Had he eaten? He had shelter, Monk knew that, but had he any warmth? Then he remembered that the chief booty of mudlarks was coal. Very often the lightermen would deliberately knock pieces off their barges into the shallow water for the small boys to get. Perhaps he had a fire. The riverside was full of children scraping by the best they could—like the rest of the city. It was irrational to worry about one.
    He forced his mind back to the case.
    Had Havilland found anything to make it necessary for someone to kill him? It seemed unlikely. What could it be? Argyll’s had had no serious accidents. But Havilland had been an engineer himself, and he knew exactly what their huge machines were capable of, what safeguards were taken, and that Alan Argyll, of all people, would not want injuries or time lost. An unforeseen incident might kill dozens of men, but it would ruin the company.
    So what had Havilland imagined?
    Had he really learned something so dangerous he had been murdered to hide it? And then Mary had followed in his footsteps and found it also, and in turn been murdered?
    Or was Havilland simply a man who had lost his mental balance, become obsessed, and imagined danger where there was none? Were the diverted streams and the threat of slippage an excuse rather than a reason, in order to close that tunnel and avoid ever going down there again? Was it even possible he had some kind of a grudge against the Argylls personally? Mary, devoted to him, had believed his view, and then when she had finally been forced by the evidence to face the truth, had she been unable to bear it? Only for her it was worse! First her father’s error, his suicide, her own broken betrothal to Toby Argyll, then an estrangement from her sister, the shame of her false accusations, and nothing to look forward to in the future, not even financial security.
    Had Toby told her some truth so bitter it had broken her at last? Could she even have lashed out at him because of it?
    Hester would be hurt to know that. He winced and shuddered in the cold as he thought of having to tell her, perhaps tomorrow or the day after.
     
    The next day he decided to go directly to the deepest tunnel, again using his authority to oblige them to allow him in.
    It was a vast hive of labor—men wheeling, digging, hacking, and shoring up the entrance where load after load of earth, clay, stones, and shale came out in wagons. Each cart was hauled up the forty-foot cliff face to the level above. The tunnel itself was like the entrance to a mine, high enough for a man to walk in. But it would be far less when the brickwork was laid. It would become a hollow tube with occasional holes for storm drains to empty. Iron-ringed ladders would lead up to the street and daylight, so sewer men could go down and clean out any blockages that would impede the flow.
    A huge steam engine pounded, shuddering the ground, drawing the chain that pulled up the loads of debris and carried them away to a pile where they were emptied. It hissed and belched steam, and the noise of it caused the men to shout to each other within twenty or thirty yards of it. The stokers shoveled more coal into the furnace, then returned to hauling and tipping.
    Monk showed his police identification. Grudgingly they gave him access to the bottom down a steep cutting, but no one went with him. He found himself slipping and losing his balance several times, only just avoiding falling into the wet clay beneath him. Several times he banged against the loosely timbered sides.
    Once at the bottom he could walk more easily on the boards laid on the rubble and clay. The swill of dirty water seeped from the sides and gathered in puddles, trickling slightly down towards the tunnel mouth. He looked upwards quickly. How deep was he? He felt a flutter of panic. The walls towered up to a narrow strip of sky, and the movement of clouds across it made him reel.
    He was sharply aware of the smell of it all around him—wet, earthy, moldy, as if nothing was ever dry and the wind never cleansed it.
    He faced the dark