William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

be another person hoping to find a hansom. Their steps were quiet and they seemed to be moving very rapidly. He stepped aside to let them pass. It was at that instant that he felt the blow on his shoulder, so hard it numbed his whole left arm. Had it landed on his head it would have knocked him senseless.
    His assailant regained his balance and swung again, but this time Monk lashed out with his foot hard and high. He caught the man in the groin and the attacker pitched forward. Monk raised his knee under the man’s jaw as he collapsed, snapping his head back so hard Monk was afraid he might have broken his neck. The cudgel clattered away across the pavement and into the gutter.
    Monk’s own left arm was still paralyzed.
    The man rolled over, gasping, struggling to get up onto his hands and knees.
    Relieved that he was alive, Monk kicked him again, hard, in the lower chest where it would knock the wind out of him.
    The man coughed and retched.
    Monk straightened up. There was another figure on the far side of the street, not running toward him, as someone might do if he meant to help, but moving easily, carrying something in his right hand.
    Monk swung round. There was a dense shadow ahead of him also, maybe the bulk of someone half concealed in a doorway. He turned on his heel, his left arm still leaden and throbbing with pain. He ran as fast as he could back the way he had come.
    He was less than a mile from Runcorn’s house. He did not knowhow many more attackers there might be. He was in an area he did not know, and it was close to midnight. His left arm was useless.
    He did not go directly back to Runcorn’s house. Whoever was after him would expect that. He kept to the broader streets, going as fast as he could, around the back, through other people’s gardens, and eventually arrived at Runcorn’s kitchen door, searching desperately for a sign someone was still up.
    He saw nothing. He crouched in the back garden, trying to be invisible among rows of vegetables and a potting shed. He could not imagine Runcorn doing anything as domestic as gardening. He smiled to himself, in spite of the fact he was beginning to shiver. He could not stay out here. For one thing it was extremely cold and beginning to rain again, and he was hurt. More urgently, sooner or later they would think to look here for him. Very likely, it would be sooner!
    He picked up a handful of small stones out of the earth and tossed them at one of the upstairs windows.
    Silence.
    He tried again, harder.
    This time the window opened and Runcorn put his head out, just visible as a greater darkness against the night sky.
    Monk stood up slowly. “They’re after us,” he said in the dark. “I was attacked.”
    The window closed and a moment later the back door opened and Runcorn came out, a jacket over his nightshirt. He said nothing but helped Monk in, locked the back door again, and shot the bolt home, then looked Monk up and down.
    “Well, at least we know we’re right,” he said drily. “We’ve got a spare room. Are you bleeding?”
    “No, just can’t move my arm.”
    “I’ll fetch you a clean nightshirt, and a stiff whisky.”
    Monk smiled. “Thank you.”
    Runcorn stood still for a moment. “Like the way it used to be, isn’t it?” he said with a bleak satisfaction. “Only better.”

CHAPTER

12
    O LIVER R ATHBONE SAT IN his chamber in the Old Bailey trying to compose his mind to begin the defense of Dinah Lambourn, on the charge of murdering Zenia Gadney. It was the highest-profile case he had appeared in for some time. He had already received considerable criticism for taking it at all. Of course, the remarks had been oblique. Everyone knew that all accused persons had the right to be represented in court, whoever they were and whatever they were charged with, regardless of the certainty of their guilt. That was the law.
    Personal revulsion was an entirely different matter. Acknowledging mentally that somebody should represent her was quite different from actually doing it yourself.
    “Not a wise move, Rathbone,” one of his friends had said, shaking his head and pursing his mouth. “Should have let some hungry young beggar take it, one who has nothing to lose.”
    Rathbone had been stung. “Is that who you’d want defending your wife?” he had demanded.
    “My wife wouldn’t hack a prostitute to death and dump her in the river!” the man had replied with heat.
    “Maybe Dinah Lambourn didn’t, either,” Rathbone