‘What good does it do now?’ Mr Roberts moved closer to his wife, snarling at Crow, ignoring Hester. ‘You’re not gonna do your doctor thing ter make yourself important over our grief! They’re gone.’

  ‘’E’s only tryin’ ter ’elp, Alfred,’ Mrs Roberts said desperately. ‘Mebbe they in’t gone for good! Mebbe ’e can find ’em!’ Her voice wavered. She looked from Crow to her husband and back again.

  ‘Don’t accuse me!’ Roberts said furiously. There was rage in his face, and something else Hester took a moment to recognise. It was a wild, unquenchable pain, and only after staring at him and seeing the dull flush on his skin did she realise it was also guilt. He had not reported the children’s disappearance because he had something to do with it.

  He had a wife and five children to feed, and he was in financial desperation. Maybe he had sold the children, possibly even to someone who had promised to feed them. She had seen it before. It was a terrible answer, but perhaps all he had. Sell some, to save the others? It was better than losing them all.

  She looked at the woman’s face again and saw the haunted misery in it. She was in such pain she could hardly bear it, and she knew there was no escape.

  There was no escape for Hester or Crow either.

  ‘Mr Roberts,’ Crow turned to the man. ‘I have no interest in trying to prosecute you for whatever you may have done with your children. Their lives now are what matter . . . which you are accountable for! Tell me to whom you sold them, for how much, and what they told you they were going to do with them.’

  Mrs Roberts did not even look at her husband. Guilt for the silence was consuming her also, even though she might have said nothing so as to protect him, and therefore the remaining infants.

  Slowly and painfully Roberts described the man who had approached him and offered to buy the children, feed and care for all of them, so they could be companions for an elderly lady in hospital, who had no children or grandchildren of her own.

  ‘And you believed him?’ Crow raised his black eyebrows.

  Roberts avoided his wife’s eye and totally disregarded Hester.

  ‘’Course I did. ’E were a gentleman. Said they’d be fed the best food, regular, and sleep in proper beds. I can’t give ’em that!’

  There was no point in arguing. The truth was only too bitterly obvious. Was it a crime? Perhaps. Who would do differently, given such a choice?

  Crow stood up slowly. He seemed to be considering saying something more, then changed his mind. He looked beyond Roberts and spoke to his wife.

  ‘What are their names?’

  ‘Charlie, Maggie and Mike,’ she replied, staring at him with desperation in her eyes.

  ‘They’re all right, for now,’ he said. ‘We’ll try to see that they stay that way.’

  They went outside into the darkening evening. Neither of them spoke, but Crow touched his hand to Hester’s shoulder for a moment.

  Scuff moved into step behind them.

  At the same time that Hester, Scuff and Crow were walking along the High Street in the Isle of Dogs, Monk and Orme were rowing easily, smoothly over the water towards the Customs and Excise office in the Pool of London. The evening air was soft, filled with the sounds and smells of incoming tide, salt and tar, river mud, fish.

  Around them the hulls of ocean-going ships loomed up in the sunset haze, sails furled and lashed to the spars.

  ‘Dawn is the only other time as good as this,’ Orme said with a slow smile. ‘Good as it is at home, quiet; long, flat marshes with birds flying over, thousands of them, black against the sky. Sometimes you can hear the creak of their wings, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Monk agreed. ‘It’s a good sound.’

  ‘I’ll still miss these,’ Orme said ruefully, gazing at the huge hulls resting almost motionless on the flat tide. ‘They’ve been round the world, and back. And my dreams with them.’

  ‘You can always come up here if you want to,’ Monk reminded him.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Orme replied. ‘That’s what Devon used to say. Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?’

  Monk thought back. He could see Devon’s face vividly that last time they met, before Devon took the step down the river with all that terrible death in the hold, and set fire to it, sacrificing himself so they would all be safe.

  He had left a request that Monk should replace him in command. Orme had honoured that, and supported Monk through all his early, stumbling leadership trials. Now Orme deserved to step down with honour, and the gratitude of the River Police, and sit by the riverside with his daughter and his new grandchild.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Monk said.

  ‘For a while,’ Orme agreed with some satisfaction. ‘Hooper’s a good man. But he won’t watch for you the way I did. He’ll push you. Maybe you’re ready for that, now.’

  ‘I’d better be,’ Monk agreed, but with a sudden chill of loneliness. He could not tell Orme how much he would miss him; it would not be fair to cast that shadow over his retirement.

  He dragged the oar a little and Orme lengthened his stroke to pull the boat up to the steps. Monk stepped ashore and looped the rope around the bollard. Orme followed after him.

  The plan was already made. They needed only McNab’s co-operation to keep the raid secret from the rest of the Customs and Excise. There was no need for them to confer again.

  They walked up the path, across the road and into the Customs office. Monk stated their names and ranks.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the man at the desk replied. ‘That’ll be the second door on the right, one floor up, sir.’

  Monk and Orme followed the man’s directions up the stairs and knocked on the door with McNab’s name on it. Perhaps that should have told him something. He had never bothered to have a plate on his own door. Everyone who mattered knew where to find him.

  McNab obliged him to wait several moments before he answered. He was a stocky man, a little less than Monk’s height, but with a powerful body that strained his uniform into awkward shapes across the shoulders. His hair was thinning and he had it carefully combed.

  There seemed for an instant something familiar about him, then Monk dismissed it as being merely that he resembled many others, a type often found in the police, or the army.

  Monk introduced himself again, and then Orme.

  ‘I know who you are,’ McNab replied. There was no pleasure in his voice, no sense of an old colleague met with again. Usually it was Orme who made this connection with the senior Excise officer. Their relationship was not comfortable, but it was easy with use. And yet Monk must surely have met him in the past, in all his years in the Metropolitan Police.

  Monk felt a twinge of warning, and ignored it. He could not afford to quarrel with this man. On the river, in particular, they had too many cases in common. He drew in his breath to state his reason for having come.

  McNab pre-empted him.

  ‘I know all about your gunrunning ship,’ he said aggressively. ‘Should by rights be our case. Smuggling is Customs and Excise, as you well know! But this one’ll hit the news, if it’s done right.’ A slight touch of amusement was in his face. ‘Or wrong. They’ll make a meal of that, too.’

  It was a long time since Monk had met an old enemy who knew him, but of whom he had no recollection. What was it with McNab? Had they been rivals? Enemies? Had Monk wronged him in some way? He knew enough to know he was not proud of everything in his past, and there were so many ghosts whose faces he did not see clearly, just an impression here and there, a familiar turn of phrase, a reference that struck a chord, and then was lost again.

  He was right back in that open, vulnerable place he had been when he first started trying to make his way, blindly; with a past he did not know.

  ‘Then we had better get it right,’ Monk replied, keeping his temper with difficulty. ‘I am informing you of our plans, as a professional courtesy, and hoping that you will be able to assist us with another boat, and just three or four armed men. These gunrunners have a lot to lose and if they have a good watch out, the battle could be fierce.’

  Now McNab’s smile was overly hard.

  ‘Indeed it could, Mr Monk,’ he agreed. ‘You’d better tell me exactly what you have planned, or we could end up shooting each other! And wouldn’t that be a sad end to such an . . . interesting career.’ He met Monk’s eyes with a brittle smile.

  Now Monk had no doubt that he and McNab had known each other before his accident, and perhaps McNab’s dislike of him was founded in genuine wrongs. That was unalterable now, but what must be faced was the possibility that McNab would take out his dislike of Monk on his men as well. It looked very much as if this was his chance for a long-delayed revenge.

  Monk would not let his men pay for offences they were no part of, if indeed they existed. And this was far too important and potentially dangerous an operation to allow room for anyone’s personal feelings, justified or not.

  ‘Then let’s make damn sure it works, Mr McNab,’ Monk said softly. ‘I can’t think you want those guns on the street any more than I do.’

  McNab evaded a reply. ‘So let me have the details, if you please?’ He looked at Orme.

  Stiffly, Orme obliged.

  When Monk got home that night it was far later than he had intended, and he was so tired he had difficulty concentrating. He had partial memories of McNab, but he could not determine if they were recent or not. It was just McNab’s face, angry, his eyes filled with loathing. Had that been real? Or was it tricks of the shadows, and half-recalled emotion?

  Hester and Scuff had already eaten, and Monk had bought a ham sandwich from a pedlar along the river-bank. Hester made him a cup of tea and he ate a slice of cake with it. She started to say something to him, but she stopped again, just smiling at him and touching him lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Go to bed,’ she said gently. ‘It can wait.’

  Chapter Five

  MONK WAS on the river early, well before dawn the next morning. A clear sky was just paling in the east and the shadows were still long melting into one another. At a glance the boat where he sat would have seemed like any other returning from a long night’s patrol, until one noticed that there were three men in it, not the usual two, one for each oar, and another crouched in the stern. They were closely followed by a second heavy, two-man boat also with a third man in the stern. They were picking their way towards the three-masted schooner anchored out in the stream. It was one of the many still laden with cargo, waiting its turn to off-load at one of the docks.

  It was Orme who sat in the stern of the first boat, facing Monk, his grizzled face turned downstream, watching the distance close between them and their quarry. The riding lights of the schooner marked its position clearly, but as the darkness faded in the east its masts were black against the horizon and its fat, wide-bellied shape was easy to see.

  Monk and Bathurst moved in comfortable unison, guiding the boat through the quickly running tide. The other boat slid just as easily twenty yards away, Laker and Hooper at the oars. If all went according to plan, they would board just as the light was breaking and the dock was visible. They were coming from the west, in the last of the night shadows. If McNab were right, she was carrying smuggled cargo. If it had been brandy or tobacco, Monk would have been happy to leave it to McNab and the rest of the Excise men, but this was a gunrunner, a different thing altogether. A thousand rifles like the one he had seen in the Wapping Station, with ammunition, could start a small war on the streets of London. They could even provoke street battles for their possession the moment they landed.

  The River Police were almost in the lee of the schooner now. Monk could feel the difference in the drag on the oar as they were sheltered from the swifter-moving current. He nodded at Bathurst and saw him shorten his stroke so the boat would not swing round.

  Monk raised his arm in signal. Orme stood, his balance perfect; the rock of the boat, the movement of wind and tide were second nature to him. He swung the grappling iron and let it fly. It landed, caught the rail, and he pulled it taut.

  At the bow of the other boat, Laker did the same and secured the rope.

  Bathurst sat back. Monk had given him his orders, no argument. He had to wait with the boats.

  Without hesitation, Orme went straight up the rope, pulling himself up the ship’s side and over the railing, grasping at it and heaving himself over.

  At the bow rope, Monk could see Hooper’s long figure going up, but more cautiously, hesitating before he swung over.

  Monk glanced back, expecting to see Orme at the top, but there was nothing. What had he missed? He peered upwards. Still nothing.

  With one movement Bathurst was standing beside him, staring at the unbroken line of the deck.

  ‘Please, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Monk replied. ‘We need someone to stay with the boat.’

  But there was something wrong. Orme should have been at the rail. Monk looked along at Hooper. He saw an arm flailing and Hooper lurch forward. On the water below, Laker looked confused, uncertain what to do. He reached for the bottom of the rope.

  Monk grasped the line Orme had left.

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered Bathurst. He went up the rope himself as fast as he could, faster than was safe, but he had to know what had happened on the deck. They had come up quietly, without any warning, climbed up in the shadow on the lee side of the ship. It should have been safe.

  He was almost at the top. His fingers were chafed, his muscles crying out at holding his weight. He heard a thud and a muffled cry. He stopped with his head just below the vision of anyone on deck.

  There was a sound like the clash of steel on metal, and a cry. Laker was almost to the top also. Monk used all his strength to heave himself up and roll over on to the deck. He rose to his feet instantly, hand on his pistol.

  Ahead of him on the deck, now clear in the broadening light, Orme was facing a man with a cutlass in his hand. Orme was motionless, his pistol still in his belt.

  At the far end of the deck Laker was over the edge and on to the deck, creeping forward, his pistol drawn. If he fired he would save Orme’s life but the noise would bring the rest of the crew up on to the deck, armed. There would be a pistol fight and they might all end up wounded or dead.

  Then Monk saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned slightly to see a hand come over the far edge of the deck, and then a head. Suddenly he realised what was happening. The ship was being boarded by a rival gunrunner, from the windward side! How could that happen? Were they wrong in their guess about the rogue Excise man, and it was McNab after all and now he was betraying Monk and his men?

  Hooper must have seen the intruder the instant later. He waved an arm and pointed along at the hatch, making a chopping motion in the air.

  Monk nodded.

  Hooper closed the hatch and locked it shut just as Laker raised his gun to shoot the boarder.

  Then Orme moved, lunging forward at the man so suddenly he had no time to react. Orme caught him in the belly with his shoulder and they both went down hard. Monk had a clear shot at the other boarder on the windward side. He ran forward, keeping low, but instead of firing at him, he hit him as hard as he could over the side of the head. He might have killed him with the weight he had put behind the blow, but it was silent, nothing more than a splash in the swift river. No one below could have heard him fall.

  Monk had no idea how many more of them there were. Still on his hands and knees he moved to the edge and glanced down. There were two longboats in the water. Perhaps eight men and still leaving room for the guns they must have come to steal. There were four more crawling up the nets hanging over the sides.

  He swivelled around to see how Orme was faring with the man who had the cutlass. Monk needed that blade.

  It lasted only seconds, but the moment was caught like a photograph image on Monk’s mind: Laker frozen, not certain what to do; Orme on his hands and knees, the man with the cutlass sprawled on the deck, beginning to get up again.

  There were shouts and crashes from the deck below as the crew realised someone had battened them in and they were prisoners on their own ship. Would they go for the guns? Presumably they had ammunition as well as the actual weapons in the cargo? How long would it take them to think of that, break open the boxes and come back to shoot their way out of the hold? Then they would mow down everyone on the deck, police and pirates alike. They had the perfect cover to do it. They would kill Monk and all his men, and claim they never saw them. Sink their boats, and possibly their bodies as well. They could blame the gun robbers, leave on the tide, and sell their merchandise elsewhere. There was always a market.

  Monk hurled himself across the deck and smashed the butt of his pistol on the wrist of the man with the cutlass. He felt the bone break before the man screamed. He snatched the cutlass and went back to the edge of the deck. The light was strengthening now. It caught the swirls in the current and the dark shapes of flotsam.

  The men climbing up on the far side were nearly at the top. Monk lifted the cutlass and brought it down as hard as he could on the ropes, cutting one, two and the third. The whole web fell away, dragged loose by the men’s weight, tying them in it as it crashed into the water, carrying them all down, burying them in the tide.

  Hooper was at the other end of the deck. There were different ropes there, a different web. Monk threw the cutlass to him and Hooper caught it just as it touched the deck. He grabbed the hilt and slashed at the ropes as the first man put his hand over. Hooper winced, and then kicked the man in the side of the jaw. He toppled backwards, taking the ropes with him. The second man peeled away and crashed into the water, tangled in the net, his arms and legs thrashing.

  Laker was beside Orme, trussing the watchman in ropes, jamming a wad of rags in his mouth.

  Monk went back to the side where they had boarded and saw Bathurst, ashen-faced, still obediently in the stern of the boat. He signalled that all was well, and for Bathurst to stay there, and then he went back to the deck.