“Right y'are then,” he agreed. “We'll be off in”-he consulted his pocket watch, a handsome silver piece of considerable size-”fifteen minutes.”

Half an hour later Monk was walking down Wharf Road beside a Constable Benyon, a lean young man with an eager face and a long, straight nose. The wind, smelling of smoke, damp and sewage, blew in their faces. They had be- gun on the east side of the Isle of Dogs, where the Greenwich Reach moves towards the Blackwall Reach, with instructions to follow the river downstream on the north shore. Two others were taking Limehouse, two more Greenwich and the south shore. The sergeant himself was coordinating their efforts from a hansom, moving from east to west. A further constable was detailed to cross the river and meet the team from Greenwich at the Crown and Sceptre Tavern at two o'clock, unless they were hot on the trail, in which case a message would be left.

“Reckon 'e'll be downriver, meself,” Benyon said thoughtfully. “More like Blackwall, or the East India Docks. Else 'e'll be on t'other side. I'd a' taken ter the marshes, if I'd a bin 'im.”

“He doesn't think we can touch him,” Monk replied, hunching his shoulders against the chill coming up off the water. “Told me himself we'd never find the body.”

“Mebbe we won't need one,” Benyon said, willing himself to believe it.

They turned off Barque Street onto Manchester Road, passing a group of dockers going down towards the ferry. On the corner a one-legged sailor was selling matches. A running patterer jogged towards Ship Street corner, turned and disappeared.

“Wastin' our time 'ere.” Benyon pulled a face. “I'll ask at the Cubitt Town pier. That's about the best place ter start.”

They walked in silence past the Rice Mill and the Seysall Asphalt Company and made an acute right down to the pier. The cry of the gulls above the water came clearly over the rattle of wheels and the shouts of dockers handling bales of goods, bargees calling to one another, and the endless hiss and slap of the tide.

Monk hung back, not to intrude into Benyon's questioning. This was his area and he knew the people and what to say, what to avoid.

Benyon came back after several minutes.

“Not bin 'ere terday,” he said, as if it proved his point.

Monk was not surprised. He nodded, and together they proceeded along Manchester Road past the Millwall Wharf, Plough Wharf, as far as Davis Street, then turned right and then left into Samuda Street. They stopped for a pint of ale at the Folly Tavern, and there at last heard news of Caleb Stone. No one admitted to having seen him at any specific time lately, but one little rat of a man with a long nose and a walleye followed them out and discreetly, at a price, told Benyon that Caleb had a friend in a tenement house on Quixley Street, off the East India Dock Wall Road, about three quarters of a mile away.