Execution Dock (16 page)

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah? Well, the cop wot caught ‘im were just the local constable, and Durban were a commander in the River Police. Yer can't be daft enough not ter work that out fer yerself Constable might ‘a grumbled, but ‘e din't do nothing, nor Jetsam neither. If any of us ‘ad known ‘oo Mary Webber were, we'd ‘a told ‘im.”

Monk did not pursue it any further. It was too late today to see if he could substantiate any of it. He walked in silence with Scuff to the nearest steps where there was a light and he could hire a ferry to take them back across the river to Rotherhithe. It was slack tide now and the long stretch of mud and stones gleamed in the yellow glare from the lamps. In its own way it was both sinister and beautiful. The slick surface of the river barely moved. Even the ships at anchor lay still, their spars lumpy with furled sails. The blur of smoke hung above some still-burning factory chimney where industry never slept.

Did he believe Biddie? Who was Mary Webber? Nothing he had learned about Durban had made any mention of a woman. Why such passion? Who was she that Durban would so lose control of himself, and of all the beliefs he had so clearly lived by, that he would attack a man to beat information out of him? And perhaps even worse, he had apparently then coerced a junior officer into ignoring his duty and overlooking the whole episode!

Monk could not imagine Durban doing either of these things. But then, how much had he really known him? He had liked him. They had shared food, warmth, and exhaustion of body and mind in the relentless search to find men who could unknowingly destroy half the world. They had found them. He still relived the horror of it in dreams.

But in the end it had caught up with Durban himself. He had gone nobly, willingly, to death by fire in order to save others, and take the threat with him. And he had gone alone, refusing to allow Monk to share his fate. He had physically thrown him off the stern of the ship into the boiling wake rather than let him also perish, and had not had time to save himself before the magazines exploded.

What kind of friendship or loyalty can you give to someone who is so supremely brave, and yet also desperately flawed? What do you owe to promises made, or understood? What if the other person is gone, and no more explanations can be asked for or given, and still you have to act, and believe something?

Scuff was watching him, waiting to see what he did because of this latest revelation, and Monk was intensely aware of it.

“Mebbe she could ‘ave put Phillips away.” Scuff said hopefully. “D'yer think that were why ‘e were after ‘er? Or mebbe Phillips did ‘er in too, d'yer think? An’ that's why nobody found ‘er?”

Monk had to answer him. “No, not really.”

“She might ‘ave.” Scuff raised his voice to sound more positive, even trying to be cheerful. Monk knew it was for his sake. “She's ‘iding ‘cause she's scared stiff o’ Phillips. She could ‘ave seen wot ‘appened. Mebbe she's somebody's ma wot Phillips done.”

“Perhaps,” Monk conceded, although he did not believe it. “ Durban never mentioned her in his notes, and surely he would have, if that's who she was.”

Scuff thought about that for quite a long time. They had hailed a ferry and were more than halfway across the river, weaving in and out of the great ships at anchor, before he found a solution.

“Mebbe that were to keep ‘er safe. If she saw summink Phillips'd kill ‘er fer. An’ ‘e would,” he suggested.

Hank could not see Scuffs face in the darkness of the river, but he could see the hunch of his narrow shoulders and the way he held himself when he was hurt.

The oars splashed in and out. The ferryman had a good rhythm, probably from years of practice.

“An’ like you said,” Scuff replied unhappily, “there's gentlemen in it up ter their necks. Gentlemen wot got enough money ter pay yer friend the lawyer wot spoke up fer Phillips. And yer don't know ‘oo they are, ‘cause they don't exactly go round tellin people they go in fer wot ‘e does.”

“You're right, Scuff,” Monk said decisively. “I should have thought of that for myself. Of course you are.”

He could see Scuffs grin, even in the dark.

When a bed had been made up for Scuff and he was sound asleep in it, Hester and Monk sat in the kitchen over a very late supper-really no more than two large pieces of fruitcake and two cups of tea.

“I can't let him go back until Phillips is arrested and locked up,” he said anxiously, watching her face.

“It's as much my responsibility as yours,” she answered. Then she smiled. “Of course we can't. And that might be quite a while, so you had better get him some clean clothes. I'm much too busy to wash these every night, even supposing I could dry them. You might even get a pair of boots that fit him-and really are a pair.”

She wanted to talk about something that was worrying her. He could see it in her eyes, in a kind of hesitation, as though she were still looking for a way to avoid saying it at all.

He told her about hearing of Mary Webber, but not of Durban 's violence towards the pawnbroker, or his use of rank to prevent the constable from charging him. He realized with surprise that it was not Hester he was protecting-it was Durban. Because he himself cared so intensely what Hester thought of him, he was imagining that Durban would too.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked him, puzzled and a little off balance.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “At Scuffs help, I suppose.”

Suddenly she was profoundly serious.

“Be careful, William,” she warned. “Please? I know he's looked after himself for years, but he's only a child. Lots of people die on the river…” She left the rest unsaid. There were more like Fig than like Scuff, and they both knew that.

He looked down at her hands on the table. They were very slender, like a girl's, but strong. Their beauty lay not in soft, white skin or delicate nails, but in grace; they were quick and gentle, and their touch was light. They would be broken before they would let a drowning man go, but they would allow a butterfly to leave as simply as it had come. He loved her hands. He wanted to reach out and touch them, but he felt self-conscious when there was so much more urgent business at hand.

“ Durban was being blackmailed,” she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. “I don't yet know what for. Could that be to do with this Mary Webber, whoever she is?”

“I don't know,” he confessed. He wished he did not have to know. He was overburdened with knowledge already, and the more there was of it, the more it hurt. What was it that drove people on and on to seek the truth, to unravel every knot, even when it was the ignorance and the peace of heart that made it all endurable? Was truth going to heal anything? How much of it could any one person grasp?

She stood up. “That's enough for today. Let's go to bed.” She said it gently, but she was not going to accept an argument, and he had no wish to offer any.

Hester was concerned for Durban 's reputation too, not so much for himself as for what the discoveries could do to Monk. Her husband had had few friends, at least that he could remember. At one time he and Runcorn had been more than allies. They had shared the involvement and the tragedy of police work, and the dangers.

But Monk's abrasive tongue and his ambition had driven Runcorn to a bitter jealousy He was a narrower man in both his vision and his ability. The rivalry had brought out the meanest spirit in him. Friendship had eventually become enmity.

Of course she did not explain any of this to Sutton when she met him to take up the search again. He would think their purpose was to find some evidence to prove Phillips guilty of something for which they could try him. He must know that the death of Fig was closed to them now, even if he had been tactful enough to refrain from saying so.

They rode the bus in companionable silence, Snoot by Sutton's feet as always.

Hester sat in the top of the bus watching the narrow, closely crammed houses with the stained walls and sagging roofs as they moved closer to Limehouse and the printer Sutton had told her they were going to. He had helped in many things, and she knew he would do all he could now. He would call in favors, incur more, spend all day away from his own work to help her find what she was seeking.

But Sutton could not tell her what it was that she wanted to find, or what she hoped it would prove. They could not undo the failure of Phillips's trial, nor the fact that Rathbone had defended him. They might find out the reason for that choice-if indeed it had been choice, and not some kind of necessity. But it might be confidential and something they could never learn. Did it matter? Could they not trust Rathbone, after all the battles they had fought together?

In framing the question, she realized with a jolt of cold surprise that the answer must be that she did not, or she would not have asked. She would not have said the same a year ago. Had his marriage to Margaret really changed him so much? Or was it simply that it had brought to the fore a different, weaker part of his character?

Or was it a different part of hers? She had never been in love with him; it had always been Monk, even if she had doubted at times that he would ever love her, or make her happy. In fact, she had considered it impossible that he would even wish to try. But she had liked Rathbone deeply, and she had trusted a decency in him. If this were a lapse, for whatever reason, could she not forgive him? Was her loyalty so shallow that one mistake ended it? Loyalty had to be worth more than that or it was little more than convenience.

The bus stopped again and more people climbed on, standing packed together in the aisle.

And Monk's loyalty to Durban, she thought. That also had to be strong enough to handle the truth. She wanted desperately to protect him from the disillusion she feared was coming. There were moments when she did not want to know why Rathbone had defended Phillips. But they passed. Her better self despised the weakness that preferred ignorance, or worse, lies. She would not want anyone she cared for to love a false reflection of her. After all, could there be a greater loneliness than that?

They reached the terminus and alighted. It was a walk of about half a mile along the busy street, and she had to go behind Sutton and Snoot because the way was so narrow they could not pass together without bumping into the traffic going the other way. Every few moments Sutton would look back to make sure she was still on his heels.

Sutton stopped at a small door next to an alley no more than ten feet long, and ending in a blind wall. Snoot instantly sat at his heels. Sutton knocked, and several moments passed before it was opened by a small hunchbacked man with an extraordinarily sweet expression on his face. He nodded when he recognized Sutton and his dog, then he glanced at Hester, more questioning whether she were with them than for her name or business. Satisfied by Sutton's nod, he led them inside to a room so cluttered with books and papers he had to clear two chairs for them to sit down. There were reams of blank paper stacked against the wall; the smell of ink was sharp in the air. The little man hitched himself back with some difficulty into what was obviously his own chair.

“I dint print it,” he said without any preamble. His voice was deep and chesty, and his diction remarkably clear.

Sutton nodded. “I know that. It was Pinky Jones, but he's dead, and he'd lie about the time of day. Just tell Mrs. Monk what it said, if you please, Mr. Palk.”

“It's not nice,” Palk warned.

“Is it true?” Hester asked, although she had not yet been included in the conversation.

“Oh, yes, it's true. Lots of folks around here know that.”

“Then please tell me.”

He looked at her, for the first time, curiosity sharp in his face.

“You have to understand, Durban was a man of strong passions,” he began. “Nice on the surface, funny when he wanted to be. I've seen him set the whole room laughing. And generous, he could be. But he felt some things hard, and it seems this Mary Webber was one o’ them. Never heard why. Never heard who or what she was that made him care.”

“He never found her?”

“Don't know, Miss, but if he didn't, it wasn't for want of trying. This all started when he went to Ma Wardlop's house. Brothel it is-mebbe a dozen girls or so. Asking her if she'd seen Mary Webber.” He shook his head. “Wouldn't let it drop, no matter what. Finally Ma Wardlop told him one of the girls knew something, and took him to her room. He questioned her in there for more than an hour, until she was screaming at him. That point Ma went an’ fetched a revenue man who lived a couple o’ doors away. Big man, he was.” He pulled his lips into a thin line, an expression of great sadness. “Punched the door in and said he found Durban in a position no policeman should be with a whore, but didn't say what it was, exactly. She claimed he'd forced himself on her. He said he never touched her.”

Hester did not reply. Her mind raced from one ugly scene to another, trying to find an answer that would not disgust Monk.

Palk's face was screwed up in revulsion, but it was impossible to say whether it was for Durban, or the lie the prostitute might have told. “Ma Wardlop said she'd keep her mouth shut about it all if Durban would be wise enough to do the same. Only she meant about anything he might see in the future, and he knew that.”

“Blackmail,” Hester said succinctly.

He nodded again. “He told her to go to hell, and take the revenue man with her.” Palk said it with some satisfaction, curling back his lips in a smile that showed surprisingly strong white teeth. “They said they'd not just spread it around the streets, they'd put it in the papers too. He told them he agreed with the Duke of Wellington-‘publish and be damned.’ He wasn't going to keep his mouth shut about anything he didn't want to.”

“And what happened?” she asked, fear and admiration tightening inside her, her stomach knotted, her breath slow, as if the noise of it might stop her hearing what he would say next. It was stupid. Durban was dead and could not be hurt anymore. And yet she cared painfully that he had had the courage and the honor to defy them.

“Nothing, until the next time he caught them robbing a customer,” the little man answered. “And put the girl in prison for it. Then they published it all right.” His eyes did not move from hers. “Very embarrassing it was for Durban, but he weathered it. Lost a good few he'd thought were friends. Hard way to find out they weren't. Got laughed at in places where they used to call him ‘sir.’ It hurt him, but I only seen him show it once, and then just for a moment. He took it like a man, never complained, and never, far as I know, looked the other way on anything they did.”