" MONK ATE DINNER IN the comfort of the kitchen, with Hester and Scuff. There was a checked cloth on the table, and the yellow china jug full of flowers on the dresser at the side was so big it hid half of the plates kept there. The back door was open to let in the warmth of the summer evening and the faint smell of earth and cut grass. “Why’s it matter so much?” Scuff asked. They had been speaking of the new canal at Suez. “Because it will take about five thousand miles off the journey from Britain to the Far East,” Hester replied, eager to sharpen his interest in anything connected with schoolwork. "

― Anne Perry , Blood on the Water (William Monk, #20)