Blood on the Water Read Online Free

and he forced himself to control his breathing before he choked. As he looked around, he could see what they had already suspected: the explosion had been caused by something placed in the bow deliberately. There were no boilers or other mechanical equipment anywhere near the heart of the destruction. But there was no evidence of what had caused the explosion either, at least in the area they were able to safely walk.
    He signaled to his companion that it was time to go back up again. He had to force himself not to hurry as he made his way back toward the light, and finally up into the air and the day. When he reached the surface he was heaved back onto the deck of the boat and eager hands unfastened his face plate. He breathed in clean air in grateful gasps. When the helmet was unscrewed and lifted off, the width of the sky could have been heaven itself. For all the horror of what he had seen, he was smiling, gulping, almost wanting to laugh.
    “Seen enough, sir?” his diving companion asked, struggling out of his own suit.
    “Yes.” Monk forced himself back to the moment. “Yes, thank you. We’ll tell them to begin getting her up.” He put the corpses out of his mind and concentrated on the fabric of the boat, the hole where the bow had been. The explosives must all have been there. Thinking about it coldly, it was the perfect place to put them. There was nothing dangerous or valuable there, so no reason for any of the crew to be on watch. No chance of an accidental ignition of the charge. It had been not only deliberate, but also clever and very carefully planned.
    But why?
    The exhilaration of surfacing passed and Monk found anger overtaking him again. He thanked the diving crew and asked them to puthim ashore at the nearest steps. He made his way back to where Orme was standing with the overseer of the crew that was to raise the wreck. Orme looked exhausted, his face pale, the stubble of his beard adding to his crumpled air. But as always he stood straight, eyes narrowed against the light, pink-rimmed with weariness.
    “Bow blown out, as we thought,” Monk said quietly. “Pretty clean job. Couldn’t see any other damage. People trapped below never had a chance.”
    Orme nodded but did not speak. He was a man who never forced words in where they had no meaning.
    “It’ll take a fair time to get her up,” the overseer said grimly, giving Monk a slight gesture of acknowledgment. “Get the bodies off as we can. Bound to lose some of them as everything shifts inside. Send men after the rest. You just catch the bastards that did this.”
    “We will,” Monk replied, knowing full well that it was a promise he might not be able to keep.
    He watched a few moments longer, then nodded to Orme and turned away. He should not have said they would succeed, but how else did one answer to such an atrocity? “We’ll try”? It would sound as if he thought it ordinary, just another case. It wasn’t. Possibly a hundred and fifty completely innocent people had been drowned in the dark, filthy waters of the Thames. Some of them might never even be found for their relatives to bury. And for what? What end could it possibly serve?
    But someone had to have planted the bomb. Perhaps they had even been paid to do so. And there were avenues along which to search for such a person. There were expert dealers in explosives, such as nitroglycerin. Amateurs did not handle it; it was far too volatile. There was always somebody who had seen something, heard something, who could be pressured to talk.
    Monk walked across the open space toward the street. All around him were warehouses, cranes, men beginning the day’s work of loading and unloading. It was May and the sun was already bright. Six weeks and it would be the longest day of the year.
    One of the first things to look for was opportunity. Who had hadthe chance to place explosives in the bow of the ship? And nitroglycerin was the most common explosive, but in the last year or two