“No idea, sir. ’Ard to say on a misty night ’oo goes where. That’s the trouble with the river, but being River Police an’ all, I expect you know that better than I do.”

“Did Mickey own the boat?”

The sergeant looked startled. “Dunno. But I s’pose yer could find out.”

“I intend to.” Monk thanked him and went outside into the brightening morning air. The sharp light off the water shifted and glittered with the incoming tide. Barge sails showed rusty-red, canvases barely filled. A few leaves were beginning to turn color. Some even drifted down.

Already the street was busy. Carts rattled over the rough stones, and men shouted to one another as they loaded and unloaded sacks, barrels, lengths of timber.

“What d’you reckon he was out there for at that hour of night?” Orme asked quietly as they walked over the road to the water’s edge. “Someone set him up?”

“Possibly,” Monk conceded. “Hitting him over the head could be a crime of opportunity. The assailant could have used any piece of wood lying around, a broken oar, half a branch, anything. But who carries around a rope with knots in it?”

“Piece of rigging from a boat?” Orme questioned. “Always rope on boats, or in a boatyard.”

“True,” Monk agreed. “But did he carry it with him? Or did he kill Mickey somewhere else, then toss him into the water and let him drift? There aren’t any boatyards upstream of where he was found—at least not near his own boat, which is where we think he went in. I suppose we could be wrong. But if the next boatyard is miles upriver, why carry him back again? Just to confuse us?”

Orme pursed his lips. “Premeditated,” he said with certainty. “Somebody came meaning to kill him. Not surprising, considering his occupation. What’s surprising is that it didn’t happen sooner.”

“Maybe ’Orrie, Crumble, and Tosh looked after him?” Monk was thinking aloud. “In which case either they were outwitted or they turned on him and at least one of them sold him to his murderer.”

Orme looked at him sideways, a rare amusement in his eyes, perhaps at the justice of the idea. Then, before Monk could be absolutely certain of it, he looked away again. “I suppose we’d better look for who that could be,” he said expressionlessly.

They spent the morning speaking to the various men whose livelihood kept them on the river, or close to its banks: boatbuilders, shipwrights, chandlers, breakers, suppliers of oars, sculls, and other fittings for boats. They learned nothing that added to what they already knew.

They had a lunch of bread, cold ham, and chicken, and a glass of ale each. Then Orme left to question the ferrymen. Monk went to find ’Orrie Jones again, in the cellars of the public house, moving kegs of ale.