Page 47 of Cain His Brother (William Monk 6)

“Yeah?” the landlord inquired cautiously. Monk looked ordinary enough, but he was a stranger.

“Ale.” Monk leaned against the bar casually.

The landlord pulled it and presented him with the tankard.

Monk handed over threepence, and a penny for the landlord, who took it without comment.

“Do you know Caleb Stone?” Monk said after a few minutes.

“I might,” the landlord said guardedly.

“Think he’ll be in today?” Monk went on.

“Dunno,” the landlord replied expressionlessly.

Monk took half a crown out of his pocket and played with it in his fingers. Along the bar counter several other drinkers ceased moving and the dull background chatter stopped.

“Pity.” Monk took another sip of his ale.

“Don’t never know wiv ’im,” the landlord said carefully. “ ’E comes w’en ’e suits, an’ goes w’en ’e suits.”

“He was here yesterday.” Monk made it a statement.

“So wot if ’e were? ’E comes ’ere now an’ then.”

“Did you see him when he was here two weeks ago last Tuesday?”

“ ’Ow do I know?” the landlord said in amazement. “D’yer fink I write down everyone wot comes in ’ere every day? Fink I got nuffink better ter do?”

“ ’E were.” Another little man leaned forward, bright gray eyes in a narrow face. “ ’Im an’ ’is bruvver, both.”

“Garn! ’Ow jer know?” a short man said derisively. “ ’Ow jer know it were Tuesday?”

“ ’Cos it were same day as ol’ Winnie fell orff the dray an’ broke ’is ’ead,” the little man replied with triumph. “That were Tuesday, an’ it were Tuesday as Caleb an’ ’is bruvver were ’ere. Lookin’ at each other fit to kill, they was, both of ’em blazin’ mad, faces like death, they ’ad.”

Monk could hardly believe his luck.

“Thank you, Mr.…”

“Bickerstaff,” the man replied, pleased with the attention.

“Thank you, Mr. Bickerstaff,” Monk amended. “Have a drink, sir. You have been of great assistance to me.” He passed over the half crown, and Bickerstaff grabbed it before such largesse could prove a mirage.

“I will,” he said magniloquently. “Mr. Putney, hif you please, we’ll ’ave drinks all ’round for them gents as is me friends. An’ fer me new friend ’ere too. An’ fer yerself, o’ course. Not forgettin’ yerself.”

The landlord obliged.

Monk stayed another half hour, but even in the conviviality of free-flowing beer, he learned nothing further of use, except a more detailed description of precisely where Bickerstaff had seen Caleb and Angus, and their obvious quarrel.

The early afternoon found him pursuing an ephemeral trail downriver towards the East India Docks and Canning Town. Twice it seemed he was almost on Caleb’s heels, then the trail petered out and he was left in the gray, wind-driven rain staring at an empty dockside. Dark-mounded barges moved silently up the river through the haze, voices calling across the water in strange, echoing singsong, and the incoming tide whispering in the shingle.

He started again, coat collar turned up, feet soaked, face set. Caleb Stone would not escape h

im if he combed every rookery and tenement along the river’s edge; every rickety, overlapping wooden house; every dock and wharf; every flight of dark, water-slimed and sodden steps down to the incoming tide. He questioned, bullied, argued and bribed.

By half past three the light was beginning to weaken and he was standing on the Canal Dock Yard looking across the river at the chemical works and the Greenwich marshes beyond, veiled in misty rain. He had just missed Caleb again, this time by no more than half an hour. He swore long and viciously.

A bargee, broad-chested and bow-legged, swayed along the path towards him, chewing on the stem of a clay pipe.