“A good idea that he was dead?” Monk suggested.

“Mebbe.”

“And who killed him?”

Coburn shook his head. “Mebbe that too, but ’e wouldn’t tell us.”

“Then, we’d better find Mickey’s friends, and enemies,” Monk responded. “I suppose there’s no hope it could be an accident?”

“ ’Ope all you like, sir, but we don’t often get so lucky that a piece o’ vermin like Mickey ’as accidents.”

Monk glanced up at Orme.

Orme frowned. He was a quiet, solid man, used to the river and to those who preyed on its business and its pleasures. “Wonder if the blow killed him, or if he drowned,” he said thoughtfully. “An’ what was he doing down here anyway? Was he alone? How far upstream did he go into the water?”

Monk was thinking of the blood in the dead man’s eyes. The eyes did not look like those of someone who had drowned. He bent down and lifted one eyelid again, then the other. It was the same—stained with small hemorrhages. Carefully, using both hands, he pulled the jacket open and the collar of the wet shirt, exposing the thin neck.

Orme let out a sigh between his teeth.

“Oh, Gawd!” Coburn said hoarsely.

The throat was horribly swollen, but the thin line of a ligature was still unmistakable, biting deep into the flesh. Irregularly, every few inches, there were spreading bruises, as if whatever it was had knots in it that had further lacerated the flesh.

“There’s no way that happened by accident,” Monk said grimly. “I’m afraid we very definitely have a murder. Let’s get him out of the water and ask the police surgeon to tell us what he can. And we’ll speak to Mr. ’Orrie Jones, who so fortuitously found him. And Tosh. What’s the rest of his name?” He looked at Coburn.

“Never heard it,” Coburn said apologetically.

They waded ashore, Orme and Coburn dragging the body. Then the three of them lifted it awkwardly onto the bank, scrambling to keep a footing as the mud gave way beneath their feet. The last thing Monk wanted was to land spread-eagled in the water, soaked to the skin. It was bad enough that his shoes were sodden and his trouser legs were flapping coldly around his ankles.

They laid the body in the cart that Coburn had sent for, and then followed behind it in a grim troop across the fields to the roadway. Then they climbed up into it for the rest of the journey.

Monk was only slowly getting used to the tidal waters of the Thames, even this far upstream. Initially he had assumed that the body would have been carried down toward the sea, but just in time he prevented himself from saying so.