Cain His Brother (19 page)

She is certainly married to Angus. I thought it possible you might be married to Caleb.”

Her body tightened. Her slim hands on the broken railing were grasping it till the knuckles were white. But her face barely changed.

“Did yer. So wot if I are? 'Oo are yet?”

“I told you, I represent Angus's wife.”

“No yer don't.” She looked him up and down with immeasurable scorn. “She wouldn't give yer 'ouse room! She'd call the rozzers if summink like you even spoke to 'er, less'n it were to ask her for an 'alfpenny's charity.”

Monk enunciated very carefully in his best diction.

“And if I were to come here in my usual clothes, I would be as obvious its you would be dressed like that at a presentation to the Queen. Young ladies wear white for such occasions,” he added.

“An' o' course yer invited ter such frogs, so you'd know!” she said sarcastically, but her eyes were searching his face, and the disbelief was waning.

He put out a strong, clean hand, slim-fingered, immaculate-nailed, and grasped the railing near hers, but did not touch her.

She looked at his hand a moment, then back at his face.

“Wotcher want?” she said slowly.

“Do you want to discuss it on the step? You've got nosy neighbors-upstairs, if nowhere else.”

“Fanny Bragg? Jealous of cow. Yeah, she'd love the chance ter throw a bucket o' slops over me. Come on inside.” And she took out a key and inserted it in the door, turned it and led him in.

The room was dark, being lit by only one window, and that below street level, but it was larger than he would have guessed from outside, and surprisingly clean. The black potbellied stove gave out a considerable warmth, and there was a rug of knotted rags on the floor. There were three chairs of various colors and in different states of repair, but all of them comfortable enough, and the large bed in the shadows at the farther end was made up and covered with a ragged quilt.

He closed the door behind him and looked at her with a new regard. Whatever else she was, she had done her best to make a home of this.

“Well?” she demanded. “So yer come from Angus's wife. Wot abaht it? Why?

Wot does she want wi' me?” Her lips tightened into an unreadable grimace.

Her voice altered tone. “Or is it Caleb yer wants?” There was a world of emotion behind the simple pronunciation of his name. She was afraid of it, and yet her tongue lingered over it as if it were precious and she wanted an excuse to say it again.

“Yes, Caleb too,” he agreed. She would not have believed him had he denied it.

“Why?” She did not move. “She never bothered wi' me afore. Why now? Angus comes 'ere now an' agin, but she never come.”

“But Angus does?” he said gently.

She stared at him. There was fear in the back of her eyes, but also defiance. She would not betray Caleb, whether from love of him, self-interest because in some way he provided for her, or because she knew the violence in him and what he might do to her if she let him down. Monk had no way of knowing. And he would like to have known. In spite of the contempt with which he had begun, he found himself regarding her as more than just a means to find Caleb, or a woman who had attached herself to a bestial man simply to survive.

He had assumed she was not going to answer when finally she spoke.

“'E in't got no love for Angus,” she said carefully. “'E don' understand 'im.”

There was something in her inflexion, the lack of anger in it, which made him think that she did not include herself in the feeling, but it was too subtle to press, and far too delicate.

“Does he ever go uptown to see him?” he said instead.

“Caleb?” Her eyes widened. “No, not 'im. Caleb never goes uptown. Least, never that I knows. Look, mister, Caleb don't live 'ere. 'E just comes 'ere w'en 'e feels like it. I in't 'is keeper.”

“But you are his woman…

“

Suddenly there was a softness in her face. The harsh lines of anger and defense melted, taking years away from her, leaving her, for an instant in the uncertain light, the twenty-five-year-old woman she should have been, would have been in Genevieve's place, or Drusilla's.

“Yeah,” she agreed, lifting her chin a fraction.

“So when he asks you, you go uptown to see Angus.” He made it a conclusion, not a question.

Again she was guarded. “Yeah. 'E told me ter go if he's short on the rent.

But I in't never bin ter 'is 'ouse. Wouldn't know were to look fer it.”

“But you know his place of business.”

“Yeah. So?”

“You went on the eighteenth of January, in the morning.”

She hesitated only fractionally. Her eyes never left his, and she knew he must have spoken to Arbuthnot.

“So wot if I did? 'E in't complainin'.”

“Caleb asked you?”

“Like I told yer, I goes up if the rent's up an' Caleb or I in't got it.”

“So you go and ask Angus for it and he pays? Why, when Caleb despises him so much?”

Her jaw tightened again. “Caleb don' tell me. In't my business. Jus' waned ter see 'is bruvver. They's twins, yer know. That in't like ordinary bruvvers. 'Is wife won't never stop that, not if she tries till 'er dyin' day. Caleb in't got no love for Angus, like Angus 'as for Caleb. Come if Caleb snaps 'is fingers, 'e does.”

She said it with a kind of pride, and something towards Angus which could almost have been pity, were her loyalties not so plainly defined.

“And Angus came this time?”

“Yeah. Why? I tol' yer, she won't stop 'im!”

“Did you see him that day?”

“Yeah!þþ “I don't mean in the office, I mean here in the Isle of Dogs.”

“Not 'ere. I saw 'im in Lime'ouse, but 'e were comin' this way. I s'pose 'e went over the West India Docks t'wards Blackwall an' the river again.”

She bent and put a piece of rotten wood into the stove and closed the door with a clatter.

“But you saw him?” he persisted.

“I jus' said I saw 'im. Don't yer 'ear good?”

“Did you see him with Caleb?”

She tipped some water out of a pail into a kettle and set it on the stove to boil.

“I tol' jer, I saw 'im goin' inter the Docks t'wards Blackwall, an' that's were Caleb said 'e were goin' ter be. In't that enough for yer?”

“Is that where Caleb said to meet him?” he asked. “What instructions did you give Angus? Or did they always meet in the same place?”

“Down by the Cattle Wharf at Cold'arbour, often as not,” she replied.

“Any'ow, that's wot 'e said that time, why?' She looked back at him. “'Oo cares? 'E in't there now! Why yer askin' me all these things? Ask 'im! 'E knows were 'e went!”

“Maybe he is still there,” Monk said, raising his eyebrows.

She drew breath to mock him, then saw the seriousness beneath his tone, and suddenly doubt entered her.

“Wot jer mean? Yer talkin' daft!” She put her hands on her hips. “Look, wot jer come 'ere fer anyway? Wot jer want? If yer want Caleb, the more fool you! Go look fer 'im! If Angus sent yer, then tell me wot fer, an' I'll tell Caleb. 'E'll come if 'e wants ter, and not if 'e don't.”

There was no point in trying to trick her.

“No one has seen Angus since you did.” He looked her straight in the eyes-large, dark eyes with long lashes. “He never returned home.”

“ 'E never went…” Her face paled under its dirt and paint. “Wotcher sayin'? 'E never ran orff! 'E's got everyfink 'ere. 'As 'e done summink? Is 'e on the run from the rozzers, then?” A flicker of both amusement and pity touched her mouth.

“I think it very unlikely,” he replied with an answering gleam of black laughter. Although even as he did so, he realized it was not a total impossibility, though it had never occurred to him before. “Far more probable that he is dead.”

“Dead!” Her face blanched. “Why would 'e be dead?”

“Ask Caleb!”

“Caleb?” Her eyes widened and she gulped hard. “That's wot yer 'ere fer!”

Her voice rose shrilly. “You fink as Caleb murdered 'im! 'E never! Why?

Why'd 'e kill 'im arter all these years? It don't make no sense.” But her mouth was dry and there was terror in her eyes. She stared at him, searching for some argument to convince him, but even as she did so, the hope faded and disappeared. She knew from his face that he had seen the knowledge in her. Caleb could very easily have killed his brother, and they both knew itshe from knowing Caleb, he from her eyes.

The kettle started to jiggle from the heat of the stove.

“Yer'll never get 'im!” she said desperately, fear and protection equal in her now. “Yer'll never take Caleb Stone.”

“Perhaps not. I'm more interested in proving Angus is dead.”

“Why?” she demanded. “That won't prove it were Caleb, an' it sure as 'ellfire won't catch 'im… or 'ang 'im.” Her face was stricken and her voice had a thickness of emotion in it.

“So his wife can be treated like a widow,” he replied. “And his children be fed.”

She let out her breath. “Well in't nuffin' I can do, even if I were minded to.” She was struggling to convince him, and herself. She put too much certainty into it, torn by loyalties.

“You already have,” he replied. “I knew Angus was last seen here, going towards Blackwall Reach. No one ever saw him after that.”

“I'll deny it!”

“Of course you will. Caleb's your man. Even if he weren't, you wouldn't dare say it if he didn't want you to.”

“I 'int afraid o' Caleb,” she said defiantly. “'E wouldn't 'urt me. He did not bother to argue. It was another thing they both knew was a lie.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Good-bye… for the moment.”

She did not answer. On the stove the kettle started to steam.

Monk left Manilla Street and went east through the West India Docks, the way Angus Stonefield must have gone, and spent all afternoon combing the docks and slums along the Isle of Dogs and the Blackwall Reach. Caleb Stone was known well enough, but no one was willing to say where he was. Most of them would not even commit themselves to when they had last seen him. A knife grinder admitted to having spoken with him two days before, a chandler to having sold him rope a week ago, the keeper of the Folly House Tavern to seeing him regularly, but none of them knew where he was to be found at any specific time, and all spoke his name carefully, not necessarily with fear, but not lightly. Monk had no doubt whose side they would be on if there were ever a necessity to choose. He left Blackwall at dusk, and was pleased to get back to Fitzroy Street to wash and change into his more customary attire. He would go to Ravensbrook House to report to Genevieve. After all, he had something to say this time.

Then he had a dinner engagement with Drusilla Wyndham. The very thought of it made him smile. It was like a sweet smell after the dirt and stench of the Isle of Dogs, like laughter and bright colors after the gray misery.

He wore his very best jacket, perhaps partly because of the memory of Selina and her opinion of him, but mostly it was the mood he felt every time he thought of Drusilla. He could see her face in his mind's eye: the wide hazel eyes, the delicate brows, the soft mass of honey-shaded hair, the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. She had grace and charm, assurance, wit. She took nothing too seriously. She was a joy to the eye and to the ear, to the mind and the emotions. She seemed to have the perfect judgment of exactly what to say, and even when to remain silent.

He looked at himself in the glass, adjusting his cravat to perfection.

Then, taking his overcoat and his hat, he went out of the door and walked smartly to find a hansom, humming a little tune to himself.

Of course Hester was likely to be at Ravensbrook House, but that was something he could not avoid. He would almost certainly not run into her.

She would be in the sickroom, where he would not be permitted, even had he wished to go, which he certainly did not.

He tipped his hat to a woman he passed in the arc of the street lamp. The knowledge that he would not see Hester was an instant relief. He was in no mood to have his pres ent happiness spoiled by her criticism, her constant re minder of the pain and injustices of life. She was so one-sided about everything. She had no sense of proportion.

It was a fault possessed by many women. They took every thing both literally and personally. Those like Drusilla, who could see the realities and yet had the courage to laugh and carry herself with consummate grace, were rare indeed. He was extraordinarily fortunate that she was so obviously enjoying his company every bit as much as he did hers.

Unconsciously he increased his pace, striding out over the wet pavement.

He was quite aware that women found him attractive. He did not have to work at it; there was an element in his nature which drew their fascination.

Perhaps it was a sense of danger, of emotions suppressed beneath the surface. It was of no importance. He simply realized it was there, and from time to time had taken some slight advantage of it. To use it fully would be stupid. The last thing he wanted was some woman pursuing him, thinking of romance, even marriage.

He could marry no one. He had no idea what lay in his past beyond the last couple of years, and perhaps even more frightening than that, what lay in his character. He had very nearly killed one man in a blinding rage. That he knew beyond question. Memories of those awful moments were still there, buried in his mind, sometimes troubling his dreams.

The fact that the man was one of the worst blackguards he had ever known was immaterial. It was not the evil in the man he feared. He was dead now, killed by another hand. It was the darkness within himself.

But Drusilla knew nothing of that, which was part of her allure.

Hester did, of course. But then he did not want the thought of Hester in his mind, especially tonight, or of the typhoid fever, its anguish or its bitter realities. He would tell Genevieve Stonefleld he had made a considerable stride forward today, then he would leave and spend a bright, witty and elegant evening with Drusilla.

He stepped off the curb and hailed a hansom cab, his voice bright with anticipation.

The next morning, Monk woke with a smile and arose early. The February morning was dark and windy and there was a hard frost in the sheltered hollows of the streets, but he set out before eight for the East End again, and the Blackwall Reach. He meant to find Caleb Stone, and he would not cease until he did, today, tomorrow, or the day after. If the man were alive, he was too angry, too distinctive and too well known to disappear.

By nine he was standing in thin daylight on the banks of the Blackwall Reach on the Isle of Dogs. This time he did not bother with pawnbrokers or street peddlers, but went straight to the places where Caleb might have eaten or slept. He tried hot pie sellers, alehouses and taverns, other vagrants who slept rough in old packing cases and discarded sails or awnings, piles of rotting rope, with timbers rigged to make some kind of shelter.

Yes, one old man had seen him the night before last, striding down Coldharbour towards the Blackwall Stairs. He had been wearing a huge coat, and the tails of it had flapped wide around his legs, like broken wings.

Was he sure it was Caleb?

The answer was a hollow laugh.

He did not ask anyone else if they were sure. Their faces told it for them.

A young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, simply ran away. A one-legged man sitting awkwardly, splicing ropes with horny hands, said he had seen him yesterday going toward the Folly House Tavern. He was walking rapidly against the wind, and looked pleased with himself.

Monk took himself to the Folly House Tavern, a surprisingly clean establishment full of dark oak paneling and the smell of tallow candles whose flickering lights reflected in a mirror over the bar. Even at this hour of the morning there were a dozen people about, either drinking ale or busy with some chore of fetching or cleaning.

“Yeah?” the landlord inquired cautiously. Monk looked ordinary enough, but he was a stranger.

“Ale.” Monk leaned against the bar casually.

The landlord pulled it and presented him with the tankard.

Monk handed over threepence, and a penny for the landlord, who took it without comment.

“Do you know Caleb Stone?” Monk said after a few minutes.

“I might,” the landlord said guardedly.

“Think he'll be in today?” Monk went on.

“Dunno,” the landlord replied expressionlessly.

Monk took half a crown out of his pocket and played with it in his fingers.

Along the bar counter several other drinkers ceased moving and the dull background chatter stopped.

“Pity.” Monk took another sip of his ale.

“Don't never know wiv 'im,” the landlord said carefully. “'E comes Wen 'e suits, an' goes w'en 'e suits.”

“He was here yesterday.” Monk made it a statement.

“So wot if 'e were? 'E comes 'ere now an' then.”

“Did you see him when he was here two weeks ago last Tuesday?”

“'Ow do I know?” the landlord said in amazement. “D'yer fink I write down everyone wot comes in 'ere every day? Fink I got nuftink better ter do?”

“ 'E were.” Another little man leaned forward, bright gray eyes in a narrow face. “'lm an' 'is bruvver, both.”

“Gars! 'Ow jer know?” a short man said derisively. “ 'Ow jer know it were Tuesday?”

“ 'Cos it were same day as of Winnie fell orff the dray an' broke 'is 'ead,” the little man replied with triumph. “That were Tuesday, an' it were Tuesday as Caleb an' 'is bruvver were 'ere. Lookin' at each other fit to kill, they was, both of 'em blazin' mad, faces like death, they 'ad.” Monk could hardly believe his luck.

“Thank you, Mr…”

“Bickerstaff,” the man replied, pleased with the attention.

“Thank you, Mr. Bickerstaff,” Monk amended. “Have a drink, sir. You have been of great assistance to me.” He passed over the half crown, and Bickerstaff grabbed it before such largesse could prove a mirage.

“I will,” he said magniloquently. “Mr. Putney, hif you please, we'll 'ave drinks all 'round for them gents as is me friends. An' fer me new friend 'ere too. An' fer yerself, o' course. Not forgettin' yerself.”

The landlord obliged.

Monk stayed another half hour, but even in the conviviality of free-flowing beer, he learned nothing further of use, except a more detailed description of precisely where Bickerstaff had seen Caleb and Angus, and their obvious quarrel.

The early afternoon found him pursuing an ephemeral trail downriver towards the East India Docks and Canning Town. Twice it seemed he was almost on Caleb's heels, then the trail petered out and he was left in the gray, winddriven rain staring at an empty dockside. Dark-mounded barges moved silently up the river through the haze, voices calling across the water in strange, echoing singsong, and the incoming tide whispering in the shingle.

He started again, coat collar turned up, feet soaked, face set. Caleb Stone would not escape him if he combed every rookery and tenement along the river's edge; every rickety, overlapping wooden house; every dock and wharf; every flight of dark, water- slimed and sodden steps down to the incoming tide. He questioned, bullied, argued and bribed.

By half past three the light was beginning to weaken and he was standing on the Canal Dock Yard looking across the river at the chemical works and the Greenwich marshes beyond, veiled in misty rain. He had just missed Caleb again, this time by no more than half an hour. He swore long and viciously. A bargee, broad-chested and bow-legged, swayed along the path towards him, chewing on the stem of a clay pipe.

“Gonna throw yourself in, are ye?” he said cheerfully. “Wi' a face like that it wouldn'a surprise me. Ye'll find it powerful cold. Take yer breath away, it will.”

“It's bloody cold out here,” Monk said ungraciously.

“In't nothing compared with the water,” the bargee said, still with a smile. He fished in the pocket of his blue coat and brought out a bottle.

“ ' Ave a drop o' this. It don't cure much but the cold, but that's somethin'!”

Monk hesitated. It could be any rotgut, but he was frozen and bitterly angry. He had come so close.

“Not if yer goin' to jump, mind,” the bargee said, pulling a face. “Waste o' good rum. Jamaickey, that is. Nothin' else like it. Ever bin ter Jamaickey?”

“No. No, I haven't.” It was probably true, and it hardly mattered. The man held out the bottle again.

Monk took it and put it to his lips. It was rum, a good rum too. He took a swig and felt the fire go down his throat. He passed it back.

“Thank you.”

“Why don't ye come away from the water an' have a bite ter eat. I got a pie. Ye can have half.”

Monk knew how precious the pie was, a whole pie. The man's kindness made him feel suddenly vulnerable again. There was too much that was worth caring about.

“That's good of you,” he said gently. “But I have to catch up with a man, and I keep just missing him.”

“What sort of a man?” the bargee said doubtfully, although he must have heard the change in Monk's voice, even if he could not see his expression in the waning light.

“Caleb Stone,” Monk replied. “A violent sort of man, who almost certainly murdered his brother. I don't suppose I can prove that, not when the body could be anywhere. But I want to know if he's dead, for the widow's sake.

I don't give a damn about Caleb.”

“Don't ye? He murdered his brother, and ye don't care?” the bargee said with a sideways squint.

“I'd prove it if I could,” Monk admitted. “But I'm hired to prove the brother's dead, so she can at least have what's hers and feed his children.

I think she'd sooner have that than revenge. Wouldn't you?”

“Aye,” the bargee agreed. “Aye, I would that. So ye want Caleb?”

“Yes.” Monk stared fixedly at the darkening river. Was it worth trying to get across to the other side now? He had no idea where to start looking, or even if Caleb might have doubled back and by now be safe in some comfortable public house in the Isle of Dogs.

“I'll take ye,” the bargee offered suddenly. “I know where 'e's gone.

Leastways, I know where Vs likely gone. I don't do wi' leavin' baims without a father. He's a bad one, Caleb.”

“Thank you,” Monk accepted before the man had time to change his mind.

“What's your name? Mine's Monk.”

“Oh, aye. Don't suit ye, less it be one o' them inquisitor monks what used to burn folks. Mine's Archie McLeish. Ye'd better come wi' me. I've a boat a few paces along. Not much, cold and wet, but it'll get us across.” And he turned and ambled off, walking on the sides of his feet with a sway as if the dockside were moving.

Monk caught up with him. “The inquisitors burned peo- ple for their beliefs,” he said waspishly. “I don't give a sod what people believe, only what they do to each other.”

“Ye have the face o' a man who cares,” Archie replied without looking at him. “I wouldn'a want ye after me. I'd as soon have the de'il himself.” He stopped at the top of a narrow flight of steps leading down to the water where a very small boat was rising gently as the tide rose. “It's a hard thing to care,” he added.

Monk was about to deny that he cared, but Archie was not listening to him.

He had bent his broad back and was loosening the moorings, which seemed to be in an extraordinarily complicated knot.

Monk climbed in and Archie settled to the oars. He pulled out skillfully, twisting the boat around, propelling it and steering it at the same time.

The bank and the steps disappeared into the gray rain within yards. The thought crossed Monk's mind that no one knew where he was. He had accepted the offer without taking the slightest precaution. Archie McLeish could have been paid by Caleb to do precisely this! He must know Monk was after him. Monk could go overboard in the darkness and mist of the river and be swept out with the ebb tide, his body washed up days later, or never. Caleb Stone might be blamed, but no one could prove it. It would be one more accident. Maybe Archie McLeish would even say Monk threw himself in. He sat gripping the gunwales, determined if it came to that, he would make a damned good fight of it. Archie McLeish would go over with him.

They passed barges moving steadily, dark mounds in the mist, riding lights to port and starboard, hundreds of tons of cargo making them juggernauts on the tide. If they were caught in front of one of those they would be splintered like matchwood. There was no sound but the water, the dismal hoot far off of a foghorn, and now and then someone shouting.

They passed a square-rigger coming down from the Pool of London, its bare spars looming above them in the mist, reminding Monk of a row of gibbets. It was growing perceptibly colder. The raw wind blew through his coat as if it had been cotton shoddy, and touched his bones.

“Afraid o' Caleb Stone, then, are ye?” Archie McLeish said cheerfully.

“No,” Monk snapped.

“Well, ye look it.” Archie pulled hard on the oars, leaning his weight into them. “Feel like I was rowing a man to 'is 'anging wi' a face like that, an' grippin' me boat like it'd escape ye if ye let it go.”

Monk realized grimly how he must look, and made an effort to smile. It might well be worse.

“Goin' ter kill 'im, are ye?” Archie said conversationally. “It'd surely be one way. Then ye'd have a corpse ter pass off. I daresay no one'd know it wasn't his brother. Alike as two peas, they say.”

Monk laughed abruptly. “I hadn't thought of it-but it sounds like a good idea… in fact, a brilliant one. Accomplish justice for everyone in one blow. Only trouble is, I don't know if Angus is dead. He might not be.”

“Angus'd be the brother,” Archie said with wide eyes. “Well, I don't know either, I'm glad to say. So I'll not be havin' to take ye back, because I'll no be party to murder… even o' the likes o' Caleb Stone.” Monk started to laugh.

“And why'll that be so funny?” Archie asked crossly. “I may be a rough man and not the gentleman ye seem to be, although God knows, ye look hard enough… but I've me standards, same as ye!”

“Maybe better,” Monk granted. “It had just occurred to me you might murder me out here in the middle of this godforsaken waste of water… on Caleb's account.”

Archie grunted, but his anger appeared to evaporate.

“Oh, aye,” he said quietly. “Well… I could have an' all.”

He rowed in silence for several minutes. The shadows of the chemical works on the farther shore loomed through the mist, and Archie had to change course with a wrench of the oars to avoid a barge moving out from the dim wharves as the rain drove in their faces.

“Ye'll be needing a spot o' help then,” Archie said after several more minutes. “Ye'll no catch the like o' Caleb on your own.”

“Possibly,” Monk conceded. “But I'm not trying to take him into custody, only to speak with him.”

“Oh, aye,” Archie said skeptically. “An' ye suppose he'll believe that, do ye?”

On the face of it, it was unlikely, and Monk was indisposed to attempt explanation, partly because it was unclear in his mind anyway. He simply had no alternative but to pursue Caleb.

“If you are offering to help, I'm obliged,” he said tartly. “What do you want for it? It won't be easy, or pleasant. Not necessarily even safe.”

Archie grunted with disgust. “Think I'm a fool? I know what it'll be a sight better than you do, laddie. I'll come for the satisfaction o' it. I dinna need payin' for every damn thing I do!”

Monk smiled, although in the darkness he was not sure if Archie could see him.

“Thank you,” he said graciously.

Archie grunted.

They came ashore on the mudflats and moored the boat to a post sticking up like a broken tooth, then Archie led the way up the bank to the rough grass, tussock and mud, now heavily shrouded in lessening rain and near darkness. There were lights ahead of them across the fields, if one could call them such, although from the squelch and suck on his boots, Monk thought it was bogland.

“Where are we?” he asked quietly.

“Headin' for Blackwall Lane,” Archie answered. “Keep quiet. Sound travels, even when ye don't think it.”

“He's here?”

“Aye, he came this way not ten minutes before us.”

“Why? What's here?” Monk struggled to keep up with him, feeling the ground cling to his feet and the freezing rain drift against his face.