Cain His Brother (27 page)

They walked in silence past the Rice Mill and the Seysall Asphalt Company and made an acute right down to the pier. The cry of the gulls above the water came clearly over the rattle of wheels and the shouts of dockers handling bales of goods, bargees calling to one another, and the endless hiss and slap of the tide.

Monk hung back, not to intrude into Benyon's questioning. This was his area and he knew the people and what to say, what to avoid.

Benyon came back after several minutes.

“Not bin 'ere terday,” he said, as if it proved his point.

Monk was not surprised. He nodded, and together they proceeded along Manchester Road past the Millwall Wharf, Plough Wharf, as far as Davis Street, then turned right and then left into Samuda Street. They stopped for a pint of ale at the Folly Tavern, and there at last heard news of Caleb Stone. No one admitted to having seen him at any specific time lately, but one little rat of a man with a long nose and a walleye followed them out and discreetly, at a price, told Benyon that Caleb had a friend in a tenement house on Quixley Street, off the East India Dock Wall Road, about three quarters of a mile away.

Benyon passed over half a crown and the man almost immediately disappeared across the alley and into the Samuda Yard with its piles of timber.

“Is that worth anything?” Monk asked dubiously.

“Oh yeah,” Benyon replied with conviction. “Sammy 'as one or two 'ostages ter fortune. 'E won't lie ter me. We'd better find the sergeant. This'll need at least ' alf a dozen of us. If you'd seen Quixley Street yer'd not doubt that.”

It took them over an hour and a half to find the pair from Limehouse and for all five of them, including the sergeant, to get to Quixley Street, which was a narrow throughway hardly a hundred yards long backing into the Great Northern Railway goods depot, just short of the first East India Dock. Two men were sent to Harrap Street at the back, and Benyon to Scamber Street at the side. The sergeant took Monk in at the front.

It was a large building, four stories high with narrow, dirty windows, several of them cracked or broken. The dark brick was stained with damp and soot but only one of the tall chimney stacks smoked, dribbling a fine gray-black trail into the cold air.

Monk felt a shiver of excitement, in spite of the filth and misery of the place. If Caleb Stone really was here, within a matter of minutes they would have him. He wanted to see him face-to-face, to watch those extraordinary green eyes when he knew he was beaten.

There was a man lying in the doorway, either drunk or asleep. His face had several days' growth of beard on it, and he breathed with difficulty. The sergeant stepped over him and Monk followed behind.

Inside the air smelled of mold and unemptied slops. The sergeant pushed open the door of the first room. Inside three women sat unraveling ropes.

Their fingers were callused and swollen, some red with sores. Half a dozen children in various stages of undress played on the floor. A girl of about five was unpicking the stitching on a length of cloth which presumably had been a garment a short while ago. The window was boarded up. One candle relieved the shadows. It was bitterly cold. Obviously Caleb Stone was not here.

The next room was similarly occupied.

Monk glanced at the sergeant, but the grim look on his face silenced his doubts.

The third and fourth rooms were no more help. They climbed the rickety stairs, testing each stone before allowing their full weight on it. The steps rocked alarmingly, and the sergeant swore under his breath.

The first room on the next floor held two men, both in drunken sleep, but neither was Caleb Stone. The second room was occupied by a prostitute and a bargee, who hurled lurid abuse at them as they withdrew. An old man lay dying in the third, a woman keening gently beside him, rocking back and forth.

The third floor up was crammed with women sewing shirts, their heads bent, eyes straining to see, fingers flying with needle, thread weaving in and out. A man with pincenez glasses balanced on his nose glared at the sergeant and hissed his irritation, wagging his finger like a schoolmis- tress. Monk longed to hit him for his meticulous cruelty, but he knew it would have done no good. One piece of paltry violence would not relieve anyone's poverty. And he was after Caleb Stone, not one wretched sweatshop profiteer.

The first room on the top floor up was occupied by a one-armed man, carefully measuring powder into a scale. In the next room three men played cards. One of them had thin gray hair and a stomach which bulged out over his trousers. The second was bald and had a red mustache. The third was Caleb Stone.

They looked up as the sergeant opened the door. For a moment there was silence, prickling cold. The fat man belched.

The sergeant took a step forward, and in that instant Caleb Stone saw Monk behind him. Perhaps it was some look of victory in Monk's face, maybe he recognized the sergeant. He climbed to his feet and lunged towards the win- dow, throwing himself out of it with a shattering of glass.

The fat man rolled over onto all fours and charged at Monk. Monk raised his knee and caught him in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards, spitting blood. The other man was locked in a struggle with the sergeant, swinging backwards and forwards together like a parody of a dance.

Monk ran over to the window and smashed the rest of the glass out of the frame, then leaned out, half expecting to see the figure of Caleb broken on the pavement four stories below.

But he had forgotten the twists and turns of the stairs. They were facing the back of the building, and beneath him was the roof of a high wooden shed, not more than twelve feet away. Caleb was running across it, agile as an animal, making for the opposite side and a half-open window.

Monk scrambled over the sill and leaped, landing with a jar that shocked his bones. Within a moment he was on his feet and racing after Caleb, the shed roof rattling under his weight.

Caleb swung around once, his wide mouth grinning, then he jumped for the window and disappeared inside.

Monk went in after him, finding himself in another cold, suffocating room just like those he had left. Three old men sat with bottles in their hands around a potbellied stove smelling of soot.

Caleb flung the door open and charged across the landing and Monk heard his footsteps hard on the stairs. He dived after him, tripped on the fourth or fifth step, which was broken, and fell the remaining half dozen, landing bruisingly and only just missing cracking his head on the newel post. He heard Caleb's laughter as he clattered on down, a floor below him. Monk clambered to his feet, furious with pain and frustration, and went down the rest of the stairs as fast as he could. He was just in time to see Caleb's back as he went out the door into Prestage Street and turned towards Brunswick Street, which ran all the way down to the river, Ashton's Wharf and the Blackwall Stairs.

Where the devil were the other constables? Monk yelled as loudly as his lungs would bear.

“Benyon! Brunswick Street!”

His elbow and shoulder were sore where he had hit them on the wall as he fell, and one ankle throbbed, but he charged along the footpath, barging into an old woman with a bag of clothes who was determined not to step aside for him. He knocked her against the wall, unintentionally, having been sure she would move. Her body felt heavy and soft, like a sack of porridge. She swore at him with a string of oaths he would have expected from a bargee.

Caleb had vanished.

Monk got into his stride again. Someone else was running along Harrap Street, coattails billowing. It must be one of the constables.

He swung around the corner and saw Caleb running easily, almost dancing as he turned around and waved, his face laughing, then scampered on towards the river.

Monk extended his pace, his lungs gasping, his blood pounding. It had been too long since he had been obliged to chase a man on foot. This was a hard way to discover it.

The constable caught up with him and forged ahead. Caleb was still twenty yards beyond them, and running easily, every now and then leaping, as if in mockery. They had passed the turning to Leicester Street and were approaching Norfolk Street. Where was Caleb making for?

Caleb passed the corner of Russell Street and there was nothing ahead of him but the dock and the stairs! A wild thought crossed Monk's mind that he was going to jump into the river. Suicide? Many a man would think it better than the hangman's rope. Monk would himself.

Then he would make for the wharf, not the stairs.

It was already mid-afternoon and the light was failing. A grayness crept up from the river and robbed everything of what little color there was. The mist deadened Caleb's flying footsteps as he raced across the stones to the edge of the water and the flight of steps downward. The constable was only a couple of yards behind him.

Monk's breath labored in his lungs but his ankle was easing.

Caleb disappeared down the stairs and the constable after him. Then there was a yell and a heavy splash, then a scream of fear, choked off almost instantly.

Monk reached the edge of the wall just as a second constable came behind him.

Caleb was on the steps, feet wide apart, balanced, laughing, his head thrown back. The constable was thrashing around in the water, sinking, dragged down by his boots and his heavy clothing.

“He'll drown!” Caleb shouted, looking at Monk. “You'd better pull him out!

You can't leave him, Mr. Righteous!”

There was a barge about ten yards out, the first of a string moving slowly upriver with the incoming tide, low in the water, heavy with bales covered over with dark canvas. The bargee in the stern looked at the man in the water and threw his hands wide. He could not stop the impetus of his vessel. There were another dozen behind him, like railway carriages. Monk hesitated only a moment. The constable was drowning. His face was white with terror. He had not the faintest idea how to swim and his own panic was killing him. There was a piece of timber lying on the edge. Monk threw it in and waited long enough to see it float.

The instant was enough. Caleb charged up the steps again, thrusting past him and onto the river wall, racing upstream towards the Artichoke Tavern fifty yards away.

The second constable arrived, swerving to go after Caleb and leave Monk to rescue the man in the water.

“Get him!” Monk shouted, jabbing his arm down the steps towards the water, and spun on his heel to run after Caleb.

The constable gasped, saw his colleague struggling, clasping for the wood, and swung around, plunging down the steps after him.

Monk sprinted along the hard pavement behind Caleb, who seemed to be veering away from the edge as if he would go around to the front of the tavern and the door. Why? Had he friends there? Reinforcements? He could hardly hope to hold off half a dozen police! There was no escape through the back-it fell sheer into the rising tide.

Monk was only fifteen yards behind him.

Then suddenly Caleb swerved again, turned on his foot and picked up speed, running straight towards the river. He was going to kill himself after all.

He ran even faster and at the dock made an almighty leap. Only then did Monk realize what he meant to do. The barge was only twenty feet from the shore. He landed awkwardly, sprawled across the canvas, and all but pitched off the far side, but he was on it and already it was carrying him away.

With more rage than judgment, Monk backed off to give himself a launching distance, then in desperation leaped as well.

He landed with a numbing crash on the third barge. The breath was knocked out of him, and it was several seconds before he could even think to rise.

When he did his hands were grazed and he found it hard to expand his lungs and gasp in the damp, darkening air. He could see the dim shape of the bargee, but he was barely aware of the sergeant on the river wall shouting and gesticulating, he was swearing wildly, his face contorted with fury.

Certainly he did not even try to understand what he was saying. There was only one thought in his mind-get Caleb.

He straightened up and started to make his way forward, moving with his arms wide, keeping his foothold on the wet canvas with difficulty. The barges were close, but there were still several feet of dark, filthy river water between the bow of one and the stern of another. If he fell he would be between the two, and would be crushed long before he could be drowned.

Caleb was on the lead barge, facing him, leaping up and down on the spot in mockery. He put his hands to his mouth to cup the sound.

“Come on!” he yelled. “Come and get me! Come on, Mr. Policeman! I killed Angus, didn't I? I destroyed him! He's gone forever! Finished! No more smart clothes, no more virtuous wife by the fireside! No more church on Sunday and `Yes Sir,' `No sir,' `Aren't I a good boy, sir'!” He folded his anus across his chest, flat, hands down, then flung them wide. “Dead!” he cried. “Gone forever! You'll never find him. Nobody'll find him, ever!

Ever!”

Monk started off towards him, floundering on the canvas piles, stumbling and regaining his balance, taking a wild leap across the dark water to the barge ahead, landing splayed and bruised on his hands and knees. He scrambled forward again, oblivious of pain or danger.

The bargee was yelling something but he ignored it.

They had passed the Blackwall entrance to the South Dock. Ahead of them was the Cubitt Town pier, then the curve of the river around the Isle of Dogs.

He could no longer see the lights of Greenwich on the far side. The fog and darkness were closing in. The marshes to the left were a dim outline. There were other boats, but he saw them only from the corner of his eye. He leaped to the front barge just in time to see Caleb apparently overbalance, land on his knees, then disappear over the side. Then he heard his laughter coming up from the water and just as he reached the edge himself, a rowing boat pulled away, one man heaving on the oars, another crouching in the stern, seemingly terrified.

Monk swore savagely. He swung around to the bargee, although even as he did, he knew it was pointless. The man had no way on earth of changing course. The heavily laden barges were tied together and going upstream on the tide.