William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

time he prevented himself from saying so.
    “How far do you think he was carried?” he asked Coburn. Ignorance of the local tide was acceptable. There were several factors involved: speed, currents, obstacles, as well as time.
    “Depends where ’e went in,” Coburn said, chewing his lip. He guided the horse to the right, down toward Chiswick. “Could a bin carried both ways, if nothing on the shore stopped ’im. ’Ard to tell.”
    “Many barges this far up?” Monk asked. He had seen only two all the time they had been there, and it was now midmorning.
    “Not many,” Coburn replied. “An’ they usually stay as far out as they can. Nobody wants to get caught up on sandbanks, fallen logs, rubbish. Easier to find out what ’e were doin’ in the water at all than try to reckon where ’e went in by where we found ’im.”
    The town was barely a mile away, and they arrived in clear sunshine. The streets were full of carts, drays, wagons of one sort or another, and the pavements were crowded with people. Several barges lay moored at the docks, loading and unloading.
    The police surgeon had come from the city and took charge of what was left of Mickey Parfitt, promising a report in good time. He seemed to be waiting for a challenge, a demand for haste, but he did not get one. Monk already knew that Parfitt had been strangled and had taken a hard blow to the head first—there was no sense in hitting a man after he was dead. The weapon that had struck him could have been almost anything. What had strangled him was more interesting, but the shape of the bruises told him that. The surgeon would have to cut the ligature off to find out more.
    “I want to see this Tosh,” Monk said to Coburn as they left the morgue.
    “Yes, sir. Thought yer would. Got ’im at the station. Unusually ’elpful, ’e is.” Again the look of distaste twisted his mouth.
    Monk made no reply but followed Coburn across the roadway and into the police station, where Tosh was sitting in the interview room, sipping a mug of tea and eating a large, sugary bun. He looked suitably sober, as befitted a man who had reported finding a corpse. However, Monk detected a certain sheen of satisfaction in his long face as he rose to his feet slowly, careful not to spill his tea.
    “Morning, gentlemen,” Tosh said in a remarkably well-modulated voice. He was a tall man, narrow-shouldered, with rather a long nose and decidedly frizzy hair, which stood out all over his head. “Sad business.” He turned to Monk, recognizing authority immediately. “Tosh Wilkin. What can I do to ’elp you?”
    Monk introduced himself.
    “ ’Ow do yer do, Mr. Monk?” Tosh said soberly. “All the way up from Wapping, eh? You must take it all very serious.”
    “Murder is always serious, Mr. Wilkin.”
    “Murder, is it?” Tosh affected mild surprise. “ ’Ere was I ’oping ’e were just unfortunate, an’ fell in by ’imself.”
    “Really? You didn’t notice the ligature around his neck?”
    Tosh affected innocence. “The what?”
    “The knotted rope around his neck,” Monk elaborated. He watched Tosh’s eyes, his face, the long, scrupulously clean hands at his sides. Nothing gave him away.
    “Can’t say as I did,” Tosh replied. “But, then, I didn’t look more ’n to make sure ’Orrie wasn’t ’avin’ visions, like. Police business, either way. Don’t do for ordinary folk to meddle. ‘Don’t touch’ is my watchword. Just called Constable Coburn ’ere.”
    He hesitated, as if undecided about exactly how to go on. He looked only at Monk, avoiding the eyes of the other two. “Actually, Mr. Monk, to tell the truth, ’Orrie came to me early, about ’alf past six in the morning. I could ’ave brained ’im for waking me up. But ’e said ’e took Mickey out to ’is boat, about eleven o’clock or so, last night. Mickey told ’im to go back for ’im in about an hour. Well, when ’Orrie went, there were nobody there. No Mickey, no anyone. ’E said ’e ’ung around for a while, calling out, looking, but then ’e reckoned ’e must ’ave got it wrong, an’ ’e went ’ome. But when Mickey wasn’t there this morning, ’Orrie was scared something ’ad ’appened.”
    “At half past six?” Monk said with disbelief.
    “That’s it,” Tosh agreed. “You see, I didn’t believe ’im. I told ’im to get out an’ leave me alone. Go back to bed like civilized folk, and don’t be so stupid. An’ off ’e went.”
    Monk