Dark Tide Rising Page 2

  “Do you know it?” Monk was surprised. As far as he knew, Exeter developed expensive land, and built even more expensive houses on it.

  “By repute. I haven’t been there. Why on earth would I? That’s another reason I need help. I imagine you have to know it?”

  Monk gritted his teeth. “Yes. What instructions did they give you? Any particular time?”

  “They drew a sort of map. I gather there are tunnels and passages when you get across the bridge and into the worst part of it.”

  “Do you have the map with you?”

  “Yes,” said Exeter. He fished in his inside jacket pocket and passed Monk an extremely scruffy piece of paper. It was dog-eared, partly torn, but when it was opened out, it was drawn clearly enough to show directions for access by way of the river, through a couple of very old, collapsing houses, and into a tunnel that divided. An arrow was drawn one way. There was some wreckage to be climbed over and around, and more cellars, stairs, and tunnels.

  “What time?” Monk asked, his stomach knotting up because he was already certain of the answer.

  “What?” Exeter looked at him.

  “Let me guess…about half-past three…four…?”

  “Four o’clock. How did you know?” Exeter was incredulous. He glanced at Rathbone, who also looked startled.

  “Dusk at this time of year,” Monk answered. “And low tide. By five the tide will already be rising again, cutting off some of these tunnels.” He took a long, deep breath. “We’ll do it, Mr. Exeter. But there is no room for error. None at all.”

  “Oh God!” Exeter buried his face in his hands.

  Monk waited a few moments for Exeter to recover himself, then continued, “I will speak to my men, choose which to bring, and we will meet at the Wapping Police Station at quarter-past three—”

  “That’s early,” Exeter interrupted.

  “We have to go by water to get to the place marked on your…map. If we are early we can stand off, a hundred yards away. We can’t afford to be late.”

  “No…no, of course not. I’m sorry.”

  “So meet us at the station. You know where it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “At quarter-past three. With the money…or as much as you have.”

  “I’ll have it all.” Exeter said it without hesitation, but his voice was hoarse.

  “Good. We’ll get her back.” Monk held out his hand, and Exeter grasped it.

  CHAPTER

  2

  MONK WAS UP WELL before dawn the following morning, and by daylight he was already on the water. It was going to be a long day, and he had to get all other business out of the way, plus make plans about meeting the kidnappers, long before three o’clock. The wind had risen in the night and the fog was almost gone. Just a few gray veils of it hung over the center of the river, and even those shredded when the slack tide turned and came back up on the flood. The swell of the water carried the ferry Monk was on, and he felt it with misgiving. In a few hours they would be on Jacob’s Island, aware that time was short, the water deepening, making the mud softer, hungrier, moving the planks and loosening the rotting boards. Half an hour, and it would be enough to knock a man off balance. An hour, and it would suck him down and drown him.

  He shivered as the ferry passed in the shadow of the huge boats anchored in the Pool of London, awaiting their turns to unload. Forty more yards and he would be at the Wapping Stairs and the Thames River Police Station. The night watch would have kept the potbellied stove alight, and inside it would be warm.

  The last few yards of the water were choppy. The ferry swung alongside the stairs. Monk paid the fare with a word of thanks and stepped out of the boat, about the same size as the police rowing boats he was used to. Still, it took balance and care. Anyone who slipped on the wet stone would be in the water in seconds, drenched to the skin.

  He ascended slowly, even though he knew every inch of the steps. When he came to the top he felt the wind catch him again. He was glad of his thick peacoat and the muffler round his neck. He walked quickly across the open dock and through the police station door.

  “Morning, sir,” Bathurst said cheerfully. He was young and keen, although after all-night duty he had to be tired. “You’re early, sir.” His face shadowed with a flicker of anxiety. He started to speak, and then changed his mind.

  “You’re right,” Monk said bleakly. “There’s a reason I’m here this early, and without breakfast. Anything to report for the night?”

  “No, sir. Marbury and Walcott aren’t back yet, but it’s been a quiet night. I think the fog kept everybody in. No point in stealing if you can’t see what you’ve got.”

  “Then write it up and go home and get a good day’s sleep. I want you bright and full of energy back here at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Sir?” That was well before his next shift began, and Bathurst’s uncertainty about whether to point that out showed clearly on his face. He was twenty-six, but sometimes to Monk he looked about nineteen.

  “We’ve got an operation later today, at turn of the tide. I want all my best men on it. Is there any tea left?”

  Bathurst turned away, but not before Monk had seen the flush of pleasure in his face. “Yes, sir. I’ll fetch you a mug. There’s bread I could toast, if you like?”

  “Yes,” Monk accepted. “Thank you.” Poor devil. Bathurst would be a good deal less pleased when he knew they had to go to Jacob’s Island. He hated the place as much as everyone else.

  Monk had eaten two slices of toast and drunk a large enamel mug full of hot, slightly bitter tea by the time the other two men came back. Hooper arrived, and Bathurst eventually left.

  “He looks cheerful,” Hooper remarked, taking his heavy seaman’s coat off. He had been in the Merchant Navy before joining the River Police, and he knew how to dress for all weathers. He hung it up and turned to look at Monk. He had a comfortable face, strong features, and steady blue eyes, often narrowed against the wind or the light off the water. He was a big man, with a rare, sweet smile. “You’re in early,” he remarked. “Something happened?”

  Monk signaled him to close the office door. Other men would arrive in a moment or two, and he wanted to keep the Exeter case private, until he could decide who else to use on it.

  Hooper closed the door silently and then, without asking, sat in the chair opposite Monk’s desk. They had worked many years together, since Devon had died and Monk had replaced him as commander. When Orme was killed, Hooper had taken over his position as Monk’s second. There had never been any formal decision. The whole battle, with the gunrunners and the fire, had demanded the utmost from every man. Their grief afterward had prevented any celebration of a promotion. No one felt any pleasure in filling a dead man’s place.

  Hooper seemed to know something was troubling Monk, and he was waiting to learn what it was.

  “We have a big task later today,” Monk answered the unasked question. “I told Bathurst to come back, but I haven’t decided who else to use, or how many men we’ll need.” He looked at Hooper’s face. He was a hard man to read. There was strength in him, and beneath it an unusual gentleness, but scars of hardship and bad weather at sea, experiences that he told no one, made his expression more opaque the longer you looked at him.

  “Oliver Rathbone came to my house last night,” Monk went on. “He represents a man whose wife was kidnapped on Saturday afternoon. The kidnappers want a lot of money, but he can raise it. He wants us to go with him to make certain the exchange takes place without any trouble.”

  “Us? You mean the Thames River Police?” Hooper’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”

  Monk breathed out slowly. “Partly because she was taken off the riverbank at Battersea.”

  Hooper stiffened.

  “But mostly because the exchange is to take place at low water this afternoon, which is
just before dusk,” Monk finished.

  He saw Hooper’s face change. There was no perceptible movement, but it was as if somewhere inside him a light had gone out. Perhaps Monk saw it because it reflected perfectly how he felt himself.

  Hooper took a breath and asked the practical questions. “The husband told you? How does he know she was taken from the river walk? Did anybody see it happen? Who is he? How did they get in touch with him?”

  “Yes, he told me. He doesn’t want to fight over it. He’s more than willing to pay. He just wants his wife back, and safe. His name is Harry Exeter. Big property developer. Got a project going in Lambeth. He’s done quite a few things.”

  “Rich? Or pretending to be?”

  “He says he’s going to get the last of the money today. He doesn’t seem concerned about it.” Monk remembered Exeter’s dismissal of the amount, which was more than even most professional men would earn in a decade. And he spoke of it as if it was only an idea in his head, not a reality. Monk wondered what he had sold, or pledged, to come up with so much in so short a time.

  Hooper frowned. “You didn’t say how they got in touch with him.”

  “A note was pushed through the letter box.”

  “Was that the first he knew of it?”

  “No, she was out walking with a cousin, a Celia Darwin, when she was taken. But apparently Miss Darwin is somehow disabled, and couldn’t do much about it. She called for the police, but of course the kidnappers and Mrs. Exeter were long gone by the time the police got there. I would guess almost certainly in a rowing boat, for them to disappear so completely and so quickly.”

  “Does that make it our case?” Hooper asked.

  “Not specifically, but they want the exchange at Jacob’s Island.” He saw Hooper’s mouth tighten. “Exeter asked Rathbone for help, and Rathbone came to me. I think that was Exeter’s hope, God help him.” He meant it. What was getting to Monk more than his dislike of any of the waterside slums, the alleys, the slack-water refuse on the tide, the rotting wood, the stench was putting himself in Exeter’s place, and imagining how he would feel if it was Hester, or anyone he knew. This was the price of caring, and caring is a driving force of life. He had discovered that slowly, step by step, in the years since his life had begun for a second time, when he had awoken from an accident without a past, except in other people’s memories. He seemed to have no family or friends who wanted to claim him. Day by day he had learned why, at least in part. He had lost none of his skills, physical or mental. He was still the best detective in the Metropolitan Police. But he was also a man with enemies, many of them perhaps deserved. He did not like much of what he had learned about himself.

  Finally, the police had dismissed him. He had worked as an independent inquiry agent for a while, but it had been an erratic living. Then he had had a case that led him to the Thames River Police and, at the end of that affair, he had joined them.

  Now he knew the pleasure and the pain of friendship, of love, of belonging. Without knowing anything of Harry Exeter, he imagined being in his place.

  Many years ago, Hester had been a nurse with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War. She was stubborn, brave, quick-tempered, and loyal. She had a fierce tongue that had got her into all kinds of trouble. She always kept her promises, however wild, and she cared about all sorts of people, mostly those the rest of society preferred to ignore.

  If Kate Exeter was anything like Hester, her loss would leave an emptiness that nothing else would fill. If Monk was alone, he would hear nothing but silence, forever—and having known love, the loneliness would be vast enough to consume him.

  “Sir…” Hooper broke into his thoughts. “Has anyone spoken to this cousin?”

  Monk smiled bleakly. “Not yet. It’s a little early to call. Apparently, she was upset yesterday and the police didn’t think she’d be of much use. They hardly even believed her account at first.”

  “Is there anything else to try?”

  “No. Exeter only wants us to assist him in paying the money and getting his wife back. And on Jacob’s Island, that’s no foregone conclusion.”

  Hooper’s face showed his disgust. It was only the slightest change from his normal expression, but the alteration was clear to anyone who knew him as well as Monk did. He was certain he understood what was in Hooper’s mind.

  “I don’t know if she’s still alive,” Monk said. “The thought occurred to me, too, and I daresay it has to Exeter.”

  Hooper looked at him quickly.

  “Of course,” Monk went on, “they may have no intention of handing her over. She could already be dead. But they want the money, so it’s not likely. If she’s not alive, we’ll have to take the kidnappers, whatever Exeter says. But if she is, getting her back is our priority. It’s what we’re there for.” He said the words slowly, as if he thought Hooper might misunderstand, though he knew better. He was repeating them to himself. He was afraid that his own emotions might override his judgment, and he would make choices he would regret. “But once Kate is safe…” He did not need to finish.

  “Jacob’s Island,” Hooper said. “There is a score of ways in and out of that place, ’specially at low tide. We’re taking no risks.” It was not a question but a reminder that they would easily lose their own men if they were trapped in the low-lying passages as the incoming tide swirled through the ruins, eddying in places, carrying away more timber, shifting mud, and debris.

  “I know!” Monk said sharply. He did not need reminding. He was not the only man to have nightmares about being trapped by a newly fallen timber below the high tide just as the filthy water rose.

  “Who are we taking?” Hooper included himself without question.

  Monk had been considering it since Rathbone had left the previous evening. Each time he had woken in the night, the question had come back. “You, me, Bathurst,” he began. “Laker…”

  Hooper looked at him steadily. Laker was young, cocky, ambitious, far too often flippant when he should have been serious. On the surface, he seemed pretty full of his own opinions. But ever since Monk had seen his courage in the gunfight on the smugglers’ ship three years ago, and his loyalty and grief over Orme’s death, he had not doubted Laker’s worth. None of which stopped him from criticizing him, or slapping back his occasional insolence, but the trust was there, and Laker knew it. And, of course, Hooper knew it, too. He had been as much a part of that dreadful night as Monk himself.

  “We’ll need more than that,” Hooper reminded him. “Even if we knew where we’re going to meet them, there are at least six ways out of any part of the place. And I don’t suppose we know how many kidnappers there are?”

  “No idea,” Monk replied. “We could manage four or five of them.”

  “I’d say we need as many as…six. Judiciously placed, they should be able to stop any escape,” Hooper said thoughtfully. “Two more.”

  “Marbury…?” Monk made it more of a question. Hooper had worked with Marbury more than he had. Marbury was a lean, quiet man from the Kent coast. He had worked the marshes of the estuary and was used to the vast skies and tangled waterways, with their interconnecting rivers. The flight paths of birds fascinated him.

  Hooper smiled. “Yes, sir. He watches things. Good at observing the smallest differences. Good on tides, too.”

  “Jones?”

  Hooper hesitated.

  “What?” Monk asked.

  “Not yet,” Hooper replied. “He’ll be good in a couple of years. Too green now.”

  “He’s one to watch,” Monk said. “He’s good with oars. Guide a boat anywhere.”

  “Too quick,” Hooper said. “Needs to take a second look before he acts.”

  Monk was unconvinced. He was interested to see if Hooper would stick with his view. “Sometimes you need quick action, or the chance is lost. We’ll be fighting the darkness and the ris
ing tide, as well as the kidnappers. We can’t afford to wait while someone makes up his mind.”

  “What none of us can afford is a man who jumps before he looks,” Hooper argued. “You asked me, sir. I say take Walcott. He’s a stubborn little bastard. Snappy, like a terrier. Got no fear, once he’s on the scent.”

  Monk smiled in spite of himself. The description was a good one. “Right! Then Marbury and Walcott it is, with Bathurst, Laker, and you and me. We should be on the water by half-past three, and at Jacob’s Island before four.” He took a chart out of the wide drawer that held them and spread it over his desk. It showed the part of the river where Jacob’s Island was, with mud-banks and tidal ebb and flow marked very clearly. Made that spring, it was the most up-to-date chart available.

  Hooper studied it wordlessly and Monk followed his gaze, noting the half-sunken slipways, the mooring posts that emerged from the mud like rotting teeth, the channels where the water was deeper and the current correspondingly swifter, the wharfs that were still usable.

  Of course, one extra-high tide could alter them considerably. The late September neap tide this year had been very high indeed.

  “No time to check it,” Hooper said, thinning his lips as he spoke. “And we can’t afford to ask now. Word would get around. Did they ask Exeter to go alone? Make any threats about bringing in police?” He looked troubled.

  “No. Exeter said as long as they got the money, that was it. He begged me to come, with men. All he cares about is getting his wife back. He’s afraid they’ll double-cross him at the last moment.”

  “The kidnappers may kill her anyway, if they see us,” Hooper pointed out. “Has he really thought this through?”

  “I don’t know. He’s just terrified of going in there alone and not being able to get out again. I’ll go in with him, up to just short of the meeting place, and then they can make the exchange. Six of us armed and dressed like off-duty merchant sailors or dockers should be enough,” Monk continued.

  “More like river pirates or beggars,” Hooper replied. “Seamen can do better than Jacob’s Island. If I was sleeping rough, I’d rather be somewhere the tide doesn’t reach.”