The Dark Assassin

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

ONE

Waterloo Bridge
loomed in the distance as William Monk settled himself more comfortably in the
bow of the police boat. There were four men, himself as senior officer, and
three to man the four oars. Rowing randan, it was called. Monk sat rigid in his
uniform coat. It was January and bitterly cold as he and his companions
patrolled the Thames for accidents, missing craft, and stolen cargo. The wind
ruffled the water and cut the skin like the edge of a knife, but he did not
want anyone to see him shivering.

It was five
weeks since he had accepted the position leading this section of the River
Police. It was a debt of honor he already regretted profoundly, the more so
with every freezing, sodden day as 1863 turned into 1864 and the winter settled
ruthlessly over London and its teeming waterway.

The boat rocked
in the wash of a string of barges going upriver on the incoming tide. Orme, at
the stern, steadied the boat expertly. He was a man of average height, but
deceptive suppleness and strength, and a kind of grace exhibited as he managed
the oar. Perhaps he had learned in his years on the water how easy it was to
capsize a boat with sudden movement.

They were
pulling closer to the bridge. In the gray afternoon, before the lamps were lit,
they could see the traffic crossing: dark shadows of hansoms and four-wheelers.
They were still too far away to hear the clip of horses' hooves above the sound
of the water. A man and woman stood on the footpath close to the railing,
facing each other as if in conversation. Monk thought idly that whatever they
were saying must matter to them intensely for it to hold their attention in
such a bleak, exposed place. The wind tugged at the woman's skirts. At that
height, where there was no shelter, she must have been even colder than Monk
was.

Orme guided the
boat a little further out into the stream. They were going downriver again,
back towards the station at Wapping where they were headquartered. Six weeks
ago Inspector Durban had been commander and Monk had been a private agent of
enquiry. Monk still could not think of it without a tightening of the throat-a
loneliness and a guilt he could not imagine would ever leave him. Each time he
saw a group of River Police and one of them walked slowly with a smooth,
ambling stride, a little rounded at the shoulder, he expected him to turn and
he would see Durban's face. Then memory came back, and he knew it could not be.

The bridge was
only two hundred feet away now. The couple were still there against the
balustrade. The man held her by the shoulders as if he would take her in his
arms. Perhaps they were lovers. Of course, Monk could not hear their words-the
wind tore them from the couple's mouths-but their faces were alive with a
passion that was clearer with every moment as the boat drew towards them. Monk
wondered what it was: a quarrel, a last farewell, even both?

The police
oarsmen were having to pull hard against the incoming tide.

Monk looked up
again just in time to see the man struggling with the woman, holding her
fiercely as she clung to him. Her back was to the railing, bending too far.
Instinctively he wanted to call out. A few inches more and she would fall!

Orme, too, was
staring up at them now.

The man grasped
at the woman and she pulled away. She seemed to lose her balance and he lunged
after her. Clasped together, they teetered for a desperate moment on the edge,
then she pitched backwards. He made a wild attempt to catch her. She flung out
a hand and gripped him. But it was too late. They both plunged over the side
and spun crazily, like a huge, broken-winged bird, until they hit the racing,
filthy water and were carried on top of it, not even struggling, while it
soaked into them, dragging them down.

Orme shouted,
and the oarsmen dug their blades in deep. They threw their backs against the
weight of the river, heaving, hurtling them forward.

Monk, his heart
in his mouth, strained to keep the bodies in sight. They had only a hundred
feet to go, and yet he knew already that it was too late. The impact of hitting
the water would stun them and drive the air out of their lungs. When at last
they did gasp inward, it would be the icy water laden with raw sewage, choking
them, drowning them. Still, senselessly he leaned forward over the bow,
shouting, "Faster, faster! There! No ... there!"

They drew level,
turning a little sideways. The oarsmen kept the boat steady in the current and
the changing balance as Orme heaved the body of the young woman over the
gunwale. Awkwardly, as gently as he could, he laid her inside. Monk could see
the other body, but it was too far away to reach, and if he stretched he could
tip the boat.

"Port!"
he instructed, although the oarsmen were already moving to do it. He reached
over carefully to the half-submerged body of the young man, whose coat was
drifting out in the water, his boots dragging his legs downwards. Awkwardly,
straining his shoulders, Monk hauled him up over the gunwale and in, laying him
on the bottom of the boat next to the young woman. He had seen many dead people
before, but the sense of loss never diminished. From the victim's pale face,
smeared with dirt from the river water and plastered with hair across the brow,
he appeared about thirty. He had a mustache but was otherwise clean-shaven. His
clothes were well cut and of excellent quality. The hat he had been wearing on
the bridge was gone.

Orme was
standing, balancing easily, looking down at Monk and the young man.

"Nothing we
can do for either of 'em, sir," he said. "Drown quick going off the
bridge like that. Pity," he added softly. "Looks no more'n twenty,
she does. Nice face."

Monk sat back on
the bench. "Anything to indicate who she was?" he asked.

Orme shook his
head.

"If she 'ad
one of 'em little bags ladies carry, it's gone, but there's a letter in 'er
pocket addressed to Miss Mary 'Avilland o' Charles Street. It's postmarked
already, like it's bin sent and received, so could be it's 'er."

Monk leaned
forward and systematically went through the pockets of the dead man, keeping
his balance with less ease than Orme as the boat began the journey downstream,
back towards Wapping. There was no point in putting a man ashore to look for
witnesses to the quarrel, if that was what it had been. They could not identify
the traffic that had been on the bridge, and on the water they themselves had
seen as much as anyone. Two people quarrelling-or kissing and parting-who lost
their balance and fell. There was nothing anyone could add.

Actually, as far
as Monk could remember, there had been no one passing at exactly that moment.
It was the hour when the dusk is not drawn in sufficiently for the lamps to be
lit, but the light wanes and the grayness of the air seems to delude the eye.
Things are half seen; the imagination fills in the rest, sometimes
inaccurately.

Monk turned to
the man's pockets and found a leather wallet with a little money and a case
carrying cards. He was apparently Toby Argyll, of Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth.
That was also south of the river, not far from the girl's address on Charles
Street off the Westminster Bridge Road. Monk read the information aloud for
Orme.

The boat was
moving slowly, as only two men were rowing. Orme squatted on the boards near
Argyll's body. On the shore the lamps were beginning to come on, yellow moons
in the deepening haze. The wind had the breath of ice in it. It was time to
trim their own riding lights, or they would be struck by barges-or the ferries
going crosscurrent- carrying passengers from one bank to the other.

Monk lit the
lantern and carefully moved back to where Orme had laid the woman. She lay on
her back. Orme had folded her hands and smoothed the hair off her face. Her
eyes were closed, her skin already gray-white, as if she had been dead longer
than just the few minutes since they had seen her on the bridge.

She had a wide
mouth and high cheekbones under delicately arched brows. It was a very feminine
face, both strong and vulnerable, as if she had been filled with high passions
in life.

"Poor
creature," Orme said softly. "S'pose we'll never know wot made 'er do
it. Mebbe 'e were breakin' orff an engagement, or somethin'." The
expression on his face was all but masked by the deepening shadows, but Monk
could hear the intense pity in his voice.

Monk suddenly
realized he was wet up to the armpits from having lifted the body out of the
water. He was shuddering with cold and it was hard to speak without his teeth
chattering. He would have given all the money in his pocket for a hot mug of
tea with a lacing of rum in it. He could not remember ever being this
perishingly cold on shore.

Suicide was a
crime, not only against the state but in the eyes of the Church as well. If
that was the coroner's verdict, she would be buried in unhallowed ground. And
there was the question of the young man's death as well. Perhaps there was no
point in arguing it, but Monk did so instinctively. "Was he trying to stop
her?"

The boat was
moving slowly, against the tide. The water was choppy, slapping at the wooden
sides and making it difficult for two oarsmen to keep her steady.

Orme hesitated
for several moments before answering. "I dunno, Mr. Monk, an' that's the
truth. Could've bin. Could've bin an accident both ways." His voice
dropped lower. "Or could've bin 'e pushed 'er. It 'ap-pened quick."

"Do you
have an opinion?" Monk could hardly get the words out clearly, he was
shaking so much.

"You'd be
best on an oar, sir," Orme said gravely. "Get the blood movin', as it
were."

Monk accepted
the suggestion. Senior officers might not be supposed to row like ordinary
constables, but they were not much use frozen stiff or with pneumonia, either.

He moved to the
center of the boat and took up one of the oars beside Orme. After several
strokes he got into the rhythm and the boat sped forward, cutting the water
more cleanly. They rowed a long way without speaking again. They passed under
Blackfriars Bridge towards the Southwark Bridge, which was visible in the
distance only by its lights. The wind was like a knife edge, slicing the breath
almost before it reached the lungs.

Monk had
accepted his current position in the River Police partly as a debt of honor.
Eight years ago he had woken up in hospital with no memory at all. Fact by fact
he had assembled an identity, discovering things about himself, not all of
which pleased him. At that time he was a policeman, heartily disliked by his
immediate superior, Superintendent Runcorn. Their relationship had deteriorated
until it became a debatable question whether Monk had resigned before or after
Runcorn had dismissed him. Since the detection and solving of crime was the
only profession he knew, and he was obliged to earn his living, he had taken up
the same work privately.

But
circumstances had altered in the late autumn of last year. The need for money
had compelled him to accept employment with shipping magnate Clement Louvain,
his first experience on the river. Subsequently he had met Inspector Durban and
had become involved with the Maude Idris and its terrible cargo. Now Durban was
dead, but before his death he had recommended Monk to succeed him in his place
at the Wapping station.

Durban could
have had no idea how Monk had previously failed in commanding men. The former
policeman was brilliant, but he had never worked easily with others, either in
giving or taking orders. Runcorn would have told Durban that, would have told
him that-clever or not, brave or not-Monk was not worth the trouble he would
cost. Monk had been mellowed by time and circumstance, and above all, perhaps,
by marriage to Hester Latterly, who had nursed in the Crimea with Florence
Nightingale and was a good deal more forthright than most young women. She
loved him with a fierce loyalty and a startling passion, but she also very
candidly expressed her own opinions. Even so, Runcorn would have advised
Superintendent Farnham to find someone else to take the place of a man like
Durban, who had been wise, experienced, and profoundly admired.