Murf listened, and Hood could see the Naval College exploding on his eyes. He tugged his ear-ring and said, ‘Provo?’
‘Verloc?’ said Hood. ‘No.’
‘No wonder he fucked it up.’ Murf sang, keeping the tune in his nose. ‘Arfa’s taking his time.’ He laughed. ‘He’s scared, he is. Thinks he’s going to get rompered.’ Murf sang again, stamping when he said boom, then said, ‘Yeah, I should have stuck the geezer and all.’
‘Look,’ said Hood. A low black boat was going past, almost without sound. It ploughed the water, a creeping shadow with lanterns on its bulkheads, and behind it a laden barge, like a snooping whale. There was a look of funereal stealth about it, and the small voice that carried from the hidden deck muttered, emphasizing the immensity of water. It passed out of sight and then waves began beating the river-wall like an eruption of surf. The backwash made the reflections of the Greenwich lights dance in eddies, like wind through fire, feeding the blaze and making separate flames leap all over the river’s surface.
Murf said, ‘What’s that?’
A crackle, like sticks of dry kindling coming alight. Murf bowed his head to listen, but the sound was familiar to Hood. It was rain, sweeping from the far side of the river, crackling towards them, making the surface flames small and numerous. They heard it clearly before it descended on them a moment later, like the tropical rain that had surrounded Hood with this simulation of burning — a murmur from Vietnam, pattering on leaves before it drenched him, a few warning drops, then a downpour.
‘We’ll have to sit it out,’ said Hood, ‘or Muncie won’t find us.’
‘We’ll get soaked.’ Murf stood up, as if to avoid it, and walking up and down the narrow promenade next to the iron guard rail he beat his hands on his streaming coat and shouted into the storm, ‘Hey Arfa! Let’s go, mate — stop wanking!’
Now Greenwich and all its lights were filtered through the drizzle, and as the rain grew heavier the opposite bank began to recede, losing its contours; the storm wrenched the land away by blending it with the night sky, and it diffused the lights so they matched their spangled reflections in the river.
Filfy wevva, Murf was saying, as he returned to the bench and put his collar up. The two crouched there, like wet roosting crows in their black coats, watching the river’s changing dazzle, saying nothing more. For Hood, the time moved with the pace of the rain, slowly as it dripped and more quickly when the wind sprang up and blew it harder into his face. It gusted as sped the minutes, then it slowed and poured and the time dragged. And it seemed to him as if his life was not made of action, but an absence of it, this waiting at a river’s edge in rain that stopped him and moved the river.
Raising his voice against the wind, Murf said, ‘But I’m glad it’s you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This fucking offensive. You’re the guv’nor now. I’m dead glad it’s you.’ He screamed impatiently, ‘Arfa!’
Hood said, ‘I’m the guv’nor all right.’
Murf turned his dripping face to Hood’s and with hoarse enthusiasm said, ‘Give it to ’em, son.’
‘One villain at a time,’ said Hood. He heard a muffled cry and splashing feet and saw Muncie running clumsily from the far end of the park. ‘There he is.’
‘The wanker,’ said Murf. He stood up and danced in the downpour. ‘Hey, Arfa!’
Muncie was out of breath, his hair was plastered flat to the top of his head and hung in strings at his ears. He gasped and wiped his face on his sleeve, then said, ‘I seen him go in. But he’s a crafty bastard. He parks his motor up the road and sneaks in by the back way. The house was dark before he come, so he must be alone.’
‘He doesn’t travel alone,’ said Hood.
‘Well, he ain’t travelling, is he?’ said Muncie, backing away slightly as if expecting Hood to hit him for contradicting him.
‘Good thinking,’ said Murf. He laughed loudly. ‘The great Arfa.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Hood.
They crossed the small park and entered the road, walking east, past the abandoned earth works and a high wooden fence marked with Millwall slogans and swaying in the storm. The old church looked only blacker in its windy corner. Up another road, past more temporary fences: but nothing showed above the fences — here there were no buildings, and the streetlights illuminated only the broken cobbles of the road and the holes filling with rainwater. It looked like the newest ruin, knocked sideways and devastated, and not a soul to be seen: a glimpse of the end.
A bus lumbered past, lighted but empty, and pitching in the uneven road. It appeared from the darkness at one turning and entered the darkness beyond the last streetlamp. They walked up the street that ran along the eastern margin of Millwall, and then they saw — on a side street and set back — a terraced row of four bowfronted houses. Somehow, these houses had been spared the destruction that was obvious around them. They stood alone on the derelict road, another island of damp eroded walls in a flat sea of rubble.
‘The one with the light,’ said Muncie. He hunched and indicated the house, concealing his pointing finger with the flap of his jacket, as if afraid of being seen. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’
‘Where you going, Arfa?’
‘Out of this filthy rain.’
‘You’re already wet, you silly bastard.’
But Muncie was running, stamping in the puddles. He vanished behind a fence, fleeing in the direction of Greenwich.
‘The great Arfa.’
‘Wait here,’ said Hood. ‘I’m doing this alone.’
‘Let me come wif you.’
‘Sorry. I need you here. If anyone goes in after me, you thump him.’
‘Take this.’ Murf jerked the knife out of his sheath and handed it to Hood. ‘Stick the bugger. Like I should have.’
Hood slipped the knife into his pocket and walked towards the house, feeling safely hidden by the driving rain. He detoured around the lighted front window and ducked down the side entrance to the rear of the house. He climbed a wobbly fence and found himself in a dark back-garden, at the bottom of which was a high wall. A ladder in the weeds tripped him, and he paused and heard a boat’s thudding hoot and the water’s splash, and he smelled the oily air; the river lay just behind the wall, and now — his eyes growing accustomed to the dark — he saw a steel door in the bricks. The entrance was wide enough to take crates from a boat moored on the other side, Rutter’s own quay.
He walked over to the house and tried the door, then raised himself for a look through the window. Locked and black; but he wouldn’t kick the door down, he didn’t want to give Rutter time to respond. He made his way to the front of the house. Ring the bell and wade in, he thought; give him the chance he’d given Lorna. He waited, fingering Murf’s knife. The light burned in the front window, but the curtains were drawn. Holding himself against the house he sidled to the window, and easing himself near he peered through a slit in the curtains. He sipped air and looked again.
In a chair drawn up to an electric fire, and still in his raincoat, was Sweeney. The man sat clutching a drink against his chest with his mutilated hand. He frowned and sat up, finished his drink, then stared into the empty glass. Bastard, thought Hood. He trembled and fought an urge to break in and kill him. Sweeney! But another thought cautioned him, and he slipped away.
‘— Because it wasn’t Rutter,’ Hood was saying on the way back, in the echoing footway tunnel under the river.
‘Bloody Arfa,’ said Murf. He kicked the tunnel floor. ‘But who was it?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Hood angrily, his voice ringing on the wall. ‘I don’t know these creeps.’