"Thought you saw it," Clacton challenged, moving his weight a little to stand more aggressively. "Sir," he added as an afterthought.

"From the river," Monk replied. "It could have been accidental during a quarrel, or she jumped and he tried to stop her. Or even that he pushed her."

Clacton stared at him. "Why would 'e do that? No one else said so!"

"I thought it could be," Orme contradicted him. He was visibly irritated by Clactons attitude as well. His blunt, weathered face showed a quiet anger.

"If 'e was goin' to push 'er in, why wouldn't 'e wait 'alf an 'our, until dark?" Clacton demanded, his expression tightening. He moved a little closer to the stove, blocking it from Orme. "Don make sense. An' with a police boat right in front of 'im! No, she jumped, and 'e tried to stop 'er and lost 'is own balance. Clear as day."

"Don suppose 'e saw us," Jones answered him. " 'E'd a' bin lookin' at 'er, not at us was on the water below."

"Still make more sense ter wait until dark," Clacton retorted.

"Wot if she weren't goin' ter stand there on the bridge waitin' until it were dark?" Jones countered. "Mebbe she weren't that obligin'." He helped himself to more tea, deliberately taking the last of it.

"If 'e planned to push 'er over, 'e'd 'ave planned to get there at the right time!" Clacton said angrily, looking at the teapot, then moving to block the fire from Jones rather than from Orme.

"And o' course plans always go exactly right," Jones added sarcastically. "I seen 'at!"

There was a guffaw of laughter, probably occasioned by some failure of Clactons in the past. Monk was still trying to learn not only the job it-self but, at times even more important, the relationships between the men, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Lives could depend on it. The river was a more dangerous place than the city. Even the worst slums-with their creaking, dripping tenement houses, blind alleys, and occasional trapdoors-gave you ground to stand on and air to breathe. It had no tides to rise, to slime the steps, to carry things up- or downstream. It was not full of currents to pull you under and drifting wreckage just beneath the surface to catch you.

"We don't know," Monk said to all of them. "Mary Havilland's father died recently, and according to her sister, Mary was convinced that he was murdered. I have to investigate that possibility. If he was, then perhaps she was murdered also. Or her death and Toby Argyll's may have been a quarrel that ended in a tragic accident, not suicide by either one of them."

Kelly put down the final pieces of paper. "And then we could have them buried properly. Their families'd want that."

"Very much," Monk agreed.

"But if she wasn't murdered, it's not our job." Clacton looked at Kelly, then at Monk.