Dark Tide Rising Read online

  He ate his usual breakfast of thick, hot porridge and drank two mugs of tea as he pondered.

  Kidnapping seemed to be increasing lately. This was the third one this year, but both the others had involved men. The money had been paid and the hostages recovered. One of the victims had been badly beaten, but he would heal. This case was infinitely worse. Compared with Kate’s death, the money, although a huge amount, was almost trivial.

  Who had betrayed them? Hooper had fought with that half the night. He had considered every man, and at first cast them all aside. But dreams came even through the exhaustion of sleep, dreams of shifting faces, people not being who they seemed, altering all the time. Even as he pursued and fought them, they changed into someone else, strangers he thought he knew but didn’t. That was why he woke so cold; the feeling was inside him.

  Hooper knew that he himself was not who he seemed. He had faced that fact all of the twenty years since the mutiny that had caused him to leave the Merchant Navy, to seek a new career and a new identity ashore. He had told no one. He had almost told Monk, on occasions when they had been close. There was a rare bond between them, and he admired and trusted Monk. He did not want to break that trust by telling him the truth about himself. He would never break Monk’s trust by telling anyone of Monk’s secret vulnerability and the past he could not remember, yet Hooper could not trust Monk with his own past, which he could remember only too well.

  Why not? Did he think Monk would betray him? Not unless Hester’s life depended on it. It was because Monk would think so much less of him, and that would cut more deeply than he could overcome. Hooper had very few people in his life whose opinions could wound him. In fact, Monk’s was the only one.

  He cleared away his breakfast dish and put the porridge pan to soak, then collected his coat and went out. He lived not far from the Wapping Police Station. It was easier to walk than to look for a hansom, and it was always cheaper. He turned up his collar and walked briskly. The light on the water was glittering. The wind had drawn all the staleness from it and the water was choppy, a touch of white foam curling here and there. It would be hard work rowing against it. The gulls were crying, searching for food. They were noisy, greedy beggars, but he loved to see the light on their wings and the easy, seemingly careless way they rode the currents. At first, he had liked being at sea; there was a freedom to it, always moving, the sense of infinite possibilities.

  But you were also marooned with the men of your crew. Fate chose your companions for you. You had no say in that at all. Your needs and your safety depended upon them, and theirs upon you. There was no escaping that. Even now when he closed his eyes, he could see the white faces of the other men, the fear they could not find words for. The sea was capricious, beautiful, merciless like some primitive god that was never appeased. You could make no bargains with the sea. It was all-powerful. And yet from it came the breath of the world. He was born to an island race. It was in his blood.

  He was almost at Wapping. It was time to put past loyalties out of his mind and face new tests. One of the more bitter ones was starting today, in a matter of minutes. Who had betrayed them? Why? It was going to be painful; it always was. But was it going to be a surprise, or something they always should have seen?

  Hooper reached the Wapping dock, crossed over the open space to the police station door, and went inside. He hung up his coat and immediately knocked on Monk’s office door.

  “Come in,” Monk called from inside.

  Hooper pushed the door open. “Good morning, sir.” He entered and closed the door behind him. One glance at Monk’s lean face, the lines of tiredness, the strain about his stance, and Hooper understood exactly how he felt.

  “Not very,” Monk said in a flat voice. “It’s in the press. They got on to Exeter first thing this morning, and there are flyers out already. I expect the midday editions will have all the details. At the moment, it’s just kidnap and murder, but the rest will come.”

  Hooper gritted his teeth. He thought of suggesting that the papers might help them, but even if not until the evening editions, blame would be placed on the River Police quickly enough, and they would be accused of incompetence. Then the betrayal would be exposed, even if no particular man was blamed. It was only a matter of time. “We better start looking into what happened.”

  “If you’re going to tell me it was one of our own men who betrayed us, I know. For God’s sake why, Hooper? Why would any of us do that?” He looked dazed, as if getting up slowly after a bad fall, still uncertain of his balance. “Is any man that desperate for money? How much? Half the ransom? More?” He shook his head. “Or is it a threat? Next time you are alone on the river at night, you’d better watch every shadow, listen for each footfall? Have we come to that: We’re more afraid of them than they are of us?”

  “No, sir,” Hooper replied, although it was not so difficult to imagine. “But there have been one or two kidnappings lately. What would you have paid for Mrs. Monk?” It was a harsh thing to ask, but appropriate.

  “I’ve no money to pay…” Monk began, but then, as the realization came to him, he stopped. It didn’t have to be money; the motivation could be anything. “God, Hooper, where does it end? The only man who’s safe is the man who has nobody he cares for. And who wants such a man on the force? Who would want to be such a person?”

  Then an even bleaker look came into his face, a pain Hooper had not seen in him before.

  “I don’t know enough about my own men,” Monk began. “Just facts, details, things one says lightly. Not the depth behind it.”

  So, it was regret. Perhaps even shame. “You’re the commander, sir,” Hooper said. “There’s a distance—”

  Monk gave him a glare. Hooper stopped. It was true, even if Monk did not want to hear it. He was in command. It was necessary a captain’s men did not see him as an equal. It may be painful to be alone, but to a degree it was necessary. Hooper remembered his own captain that last voyage. Ledburn had certainly been alone, unapproachable, unreachable. Hooper had wiped from his mind the last time he had seen him. He did not want to face it at all, and certainly not now.

  Monk seemed frozen.

  “I can tell you a little about them,” Hooper said, his own voice sounding strange in his ears. He knew the men were shy in front of Monk, afraid their personal remarks would leave them vulnerable.

  Monk was waiting. Perhaps it was time for a measure of truth.

  “Laker has a brother,” Hooper began. “Don’t know whether he’s older or younger, but they’re not close. Yet a bit of a rivalry there. I think the brother’s more…orthodox. Never considered Laker quite good enough. Don’t think they keep in touch, but he’s always there in the background.”

  “Does Laker need his approval?” Monk said with surprise.

  “Probably. Although he’d never admit it.” Hooper smiled very slightly. “And he’d certainly not make the changes in his own way of living that would earn it. But family loyalty is a hard thing to deny, when it comes to the point.”

  “You mean that if the brother was in trouble, Laker wouldn’t let him down?”

  “I think if his brother was in trouble, Laker would be the last person he would ask for help,” Hooper said, remembering the expression on Laker’s face when mentioning his brother’s name, the mixture of anger and pain in it. “Which is a pity,” he went on, “because Laker would be the best person to help him—in most things anyway—maybe the only person who would be brave enough, and imaginative enough.”

  Monk winced.

  “Bathurst comes from a big family,” Hooper said. “Lost his father a while back.”

  “And if the kidnappers took one of his family?” Monk asked. His whole body was awkward when he spoke, his muscles aching.

  “He’d have come to you,” Hooper replied simply. “He thinks very highly of you. He’d expect you to understand…and help.
God knows how!” Monk looked as if Hooper had just placed a lead weight on his shoulders. Hooper felt as if he could see right into his head.

  “Walcott has a wife and son,” Hooper went on. “Don’t know much about them. Don’t know much about Walcott himself, for that matter.”

  Monk’s curiosity showed. He did not bother to put the question into words.

  “There’s nothing really wrong with him,” Hooper answered. “Doesn’t fit in yet. Too soon. He’s a man who takes his time.”

  “And Marbury? He hasn’t been long with us either,” Monk said.

  “He’s good on the water,” Hooper replied. He was surprised at that. For a man not born to the water, Marbury was unusually at ease. “Quiet. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “No family?”

  “Yes. Wife and daughter. Lost a son a while back. Don’t know how. He doesn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask.”

  Monk thought for a moment.

  Hooper waited.

  Monk raised his head. “Who don’t we know about? Who’s in debt? Who’s courting someone, and vulnerable? Who’s got God knows what secret, and is terrified of being exposed?” A shadow crossed his eyes, of memories lost, or imagined. “Maybe terrified of having someone they love cut to pieces by the bastards who did this? We’ve got to get them, Hooper, or this is never ending!”

  “I know that, sir. And we’ve got to keep the river safe as well. This could be meant to rock us so badly that we forget everything else. There could be something else planned, and we’re so full of doubt about ourselves, and each other, that we miss it.” He met Monk’s eyes squarely and saw a sudden flare of gratitude in them. It was there and then gone again, but he recognized it. He smiled very sadly. “We’re still on for the raid tonight on the warehouse? There have been two others there recently, but this time we know, and there’ll be no excuse if we fail.”

  “I know. And yes, we are,” Monk said firmly. “Can’t let everything else slide because of this. What did we do wrong, Hooper? Why did they kill Kate?”

  “I don’t know. I might go and see the cousin again. See what else she knows about Kate…or Exeter.” He felt a faint heat rising up in his face. “This feels personal. He’s done a lot of business. Made a lot of money.”

  Monk’s answer was very quiet. “Yes, it does. Seems like a deep and terrible hatred to me. Frightening thought—to have an enemy like that.”

  “Does Exeter have any suggestions?” Hooper asked.

  “Not that he’s telling us.”

  “Can’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to think that anyone hated me that much. Or even more, that in some way, however obliquely, her death was my fault.”

  * * *

  —

  HOOPER COLLECTED CLACTON AND explained their task as he had decided he would, walking along dockside, close together so they would not have to raise their voices to be heard.

  “All of them, sir?” Clacton was clearly extremely uncomfortable. He was about fifty, a very ordinary-looking man, until you noticed his mouth. Even in repose he almost smiled. There was an ease about him usually, but now that Hooper had just told him they were to investigate the five men who had been on last night’s rescue attempt, he was uncomfortable.

  “Yes,” Hooper said firmly. “If you leave someone out, then they are unprotected…”

  “Unprotected!” Clacton stopped and turned to face Hooper. “You’re saying one of them betrayed you—more important, betrayed that poor woman to her death. And I’m supposed to investigate all of them to see if…if they did it?”

  “What would you do, Clacton, if they took the person most important to you, and said you betray your mates or I’ll kill her—or him—slowly? Pull them apart like a cooked chicken.”

  “Stop it!” Clacton raised his voice angrily. “I’d tell Mr. Monk and—”

  “Would you? Are you sure?” Hooper asked. “Believe me, you’re not…not if it happens to you. I don’t know what I’d do…if I had someone I loved.”

  Clacton was about to speak; then he seemed to see the second meaning behind what Hooper was saying. That he had no one.

  Hooper could see the moment of compassion in Clacton’s eyes. And he liked him for it.

  “Yes, sir,” Clacton said. “I’ll make sure they’re all safe and accounted for. I may not get it all done today, if they aren’t exactly where they ought to be.”

  “Just be thorough. I’ll see Mrs. Monk’s all right, and Scuff…sorry, Will.” He could not help a bleak smile at his own correction. Scuff was a mudlark, a child who survived by scavenging in the tidal mud at the Thames bank—at least he used to be. He did not know exactly how old he’d been at the time Monk first met him, but he claimed to be eleven, which made him about twelve when Monk had adopted him. Actually, he had adopted Monk. He had been street-smart, and river-wise. At eleven, he had known about the tricks of the eddies and tides, of the sudden weather changes, and certainly more of the various kinds of people who survived on the river’s margins than Monk did. He had also known that Monk was a soft touch for a ham sandwich and a hot cup of tea. Hooper thought Scuff must have been closer to nine than eleven. But that was years ago…what did it matter now?

  Scuff had gone reluctantly to live in Monk’s house, at first very nervous of Hester. Women were an unknown quantity, and he was afraid of her gentleness. He would not expose his vulnerability by needing anyone. Over the years he had adapted, even gone to school. Monk had expected he might become a River Policeman like himself. Instead, Scuff had chosen very firmly to be a doctor, or at least as far along that way as he could…like Hester. After her experience as a nurse with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, she knew as much as many doctors. Scuff was now apprenticed to a man named Crow who had practiced unlicensed medicine among the poor for years. Recently, he had qualified officially with Hester’s help and on her insistence. Scuff, who had no idea what his real name was, had decided that “Scuff” was not a name for a doctor. He would not be William, like Monk, but he would be Will.

  Clacton had learned all this by listening. He would begin the task Hooper had given him. Anyone who cared was vulnerable. He said very little, but it was there in his face. He would understand what torn loyalties were about. “Yes, sir,” he said to Hooper.

  Hooper smiled, satisfied, as much as was possible in the circumstances.

  It took Hooper most of the morning to make sure Hester was safe. He ascertained that she was at the clinic she ran in Portpool Lane, and left it at that. It took him longer to find Scuff…Will, but he, too, seemed safe.

  He found him assisting Crow, the doctor who was training him, with a street accident.

  Hooper was pleased, but not without a twinge of envy. There was no one he had influenced so well, no one who trusted him, no…“love” was the word. No one who loved him as completely as this young man loved Monk. What opportunities had Hooper wasted by being so self-contained? Had he allowed the past to close him off? He knew the answer even as he framed the question. Monk’s past was a shut book. He himself had no idea what ghosts, good or bad, it might hold. But he had not denied the present.

  Hooper had. Perhaps it was time he changed that.

  Except that the past lay across him like a shadow, and he was afraid that it heralded the coming of the night. He had escaped the mutiny so thoroughly he had almost forgotten it. Now, with Monk needing to know about the vulnerabilities of all his men, it loomed large again, filling the horizon. Hooper had kept his silence for so long it amounted to a lie. It was a burden that would prevent him from getting any job at all, let alone as a River Policeman, which he loved and was good at. One reason he had not sought promotion was to avoid the attention and the exhumation of the past that it would bring.

  So why was he going even now to see Celia Darwin for information about the Exeters? Because she was the only source they had on a personal level? Or
because he wanted to see that strange, gentle, quiet woman who seemed to have so much more to say, if only she was asked? And because he found himself smiling at the thought of seeing her again?

  It was a painful conflict of feelings inside him, high up in his chest, where it choked his throat, but he went anyway. His feet seemed to take him there, without his conscious direction. He was still turning over the weight of it when he stood at the door and she answered it.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hooper,” she said in surprise. “Have you some news already?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m afraid not.” He felt guilty for raising her hopes falsely. It occurred to him only now to wonder if Exeter had even told her of Kate’s death. Damn! He should have thought of that. She did not look as grieved as she surely would had he done so. There was no choice open to him but to be honest. “Has Mr. Exeter not spoken to you today?”

  She stared at him, and the color drained from her face. Her eyes were clear, gray, like the evening sky, and filled now with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in little more than a whisper. It was not the time to express the fury he felt that Exeter had not told her himself. She should not hear of Kate’s death from a stranger.

  She shook her head slowly, not denying what he implied, but perhaps denying the hope inside her.

  “Would you like to go inside and sit down?” he suggested. “If you have no maid present, I can make you a cup of tea. Tell me where the kitchen is.”

  “No…I…I can…Mary is out on an errand. She’ll be back soon.” She was fumbling for words. “If you didn’t mean to tell me about Kate, then you came for some other reason.” She backed away from the front door and found her way to the parlor, accidentally catching her elbow on the corner of the doorframe. She winced, but said nothing, as if she barely felt it.