Execution Dock (25 page)

There was a ferry making its way across the oily black surface of the water, oars dipping in and out rhythmically.

“Brave boy, Reilly,” Phillips added. “Foolish, mind. Trusted those ‘e shouldn't ‘ave, like River Police. Found out more'n it's good fer a boy like ‘im ter know.”

“So you killed him, just as you killed Fig,” Hester said bitterly.

“No reason to, Miss,” Phillips told her. “It weren't me Reilly were goin’ ter tell on. I treat my boys very well. Stupid not to. Ask ‘em! You won't find one as'll speak against me. I don't beat ‘em, don't forget me-self an’ ‘oller and scream at ‘em. I know me business, an’ I look after it proper.”

She looked at him with total loathing, but she could find no answer with which to retaliate.

“Think about it, Miss,” Phillips went on. “Yer been askin’ a lot o’ questions about Durban. Wot did yer find out, eh? Liar, weren't ‘e? Lied about everythin’, even where ‘e came from. Lost ‘is temper something rotten, beat the tar out o’ some folks. Covered up crime in some, lied about it in others. Now me, I might do that, but then yer'd expect it o’ me.” He smiled utterly without humor. “ Durban 's different. Nobody trusts me, but they trusted ‘im. That makes it somethin’ else, a kind o’ betrayal, right? Fer ‘im ter break the law is bad, very bad. Believe me, Miss, yer don't want ter know all about Mr. Durban, yer really don't. Neither does your good man. Saved my life twice over, ‘e did. Once in the river… oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “Din't ‘e tell you that?”

She stared at him with hatred.

His smile widened. “Yeah, could ‘a let me drown, but ‘e saved me. An’ then o'course all that evidence of ‘is in court. Reckon without that I would've ‘anged, fer sure. Not a pretty way ter go, Miss, the rope dance. Not at all. You don't want ter know what ‘appened ter poor Reilly, Miss, nor all about Mary Webber neither. Now here's a ferryboat come ter take yer ‘ome. Yer sleep well, an’ in the mornin’ go tend to yer clinic, an’ all them poor ‘ores wot yer bent on savin.” He turned and stalked away, consumed almost immediately by the shadows.

Hester stood on the steps shivering with rage, but also fear. She could not refute a single thing Phillips had said. She felt helpless, and so cold in the summer night that she might as well have fallen in the dark, swift-moving water.

The ferry was now bumping on the steps, the oarsman waiting.

“Yer want ter leave it, Miss ‘Ester?” Squeaky asked.

She could not see his face; they had their backs to the light now. How could she read his emotions from his voice? “Can it get any worse?” she asked. “Hasn't anything got to be better than accepting this?”

“‘Course it can!” he said instantly. “It can get a lot worse. Yer could find out that Durban killed Reilly, an’ Phillips can prove it.”

“No, he can't,” she said with a sudden burst of logic. “If he could prove that, he would have done so already, and destroyed Durban 's evidence without having to hope Rathbone could discredit us. It would have been much safer.”

“Then if yer want, I'm ‘appy ter go on. Nailin’ that bastard'd be better than a bottle o’ Napoleon Brandy.”

“Do you like Napoleon Brandy?” she said in surprise.

“No idea,” he admitted. “But I'd like ter find out!”

Hester slept late the next morning, and was far less disturbed than usual to find that Monk had already left. There was a note from him on the kitchen table. Scuff was nowhere to be seen, so she assumed that he had gone with Monk.

However, she was halfway through her breakfast of tea and toast when the boy appeared in the doorway looking anxious. He was already dressed and had obviously been out. He was holding a newspaper in his hands. He seemed uncertain whether to offer it to her or not. She knew he could not read, but she did not want to embarrass him by referring to the fact.

“Good morning,” she said casually. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“I ‘ad some,” he replied, coming a couple of steps into the kitchen.

“There is no reason not to have some more, if you would like it,” she offered. “It's only toast and jam, but the jam is very good. And tea, of course.”

“Oh,” he said, eyes following her hand with the toast in it. “Well, I don't mind if I do.”

“Then come and sit down, and I will make it for you.” She finished her own toast and raspberry jam, holding it in one hand while she cut and toasted more bread with the other.

They sat at opposite sides of the table and ate in silence for some time. He took apricot jam, twice.

“May I look at your newspaper please?” she asked at length.

“‘Course.” He pushed it over towards her. “I got it fer yer. Yer in't gonna like it.” He looked worried. “I ‘eard ‘em talkin’ around the newsboy, that's why I got it. They're sayin’ bad things.”

She reached for the paper and looked at the headlines, then opened it and read inside. Scuff was right, she did not like it at all. The suggestions were veiled, but they were not so very far from the sort of thing that Phillips had said on the dockside the previous evening. There were questions about the River Police, their record of success suspiciously high. But were the figures honest? How had they come to recruit a man as obsessed with personal vengeance as Durban had been-and apparently not just once, but twice? Was the new man, William Monk, any better? What was known about him? For that matter, what was known about any of them, including Durban?

It was a dangerous state of affairs for the nation when a body of men such as the River Police had the kind of power they did, and there was no check upon the way they used it, or abused it. If the members of Parliament who represented the constituencies along the river were doing their duty, there would be questions asked in the House.

She looked up at Scuff. He was watching her, trying to judge what the paper said from her expression.

“Yes, they are saying bad things,” she told him. “But so far it is just talk. I need to know whether they are true or not, because we can't deal with it until we know.”

“Wot'll ‘appen to us if it's true?” he asked.

She heard the fear in his voice, and the inclusion of himself in their fate. She wondered if he had meant her to notice that or not. She would be very careful to reply in the same tones, equally casually.

“We'll have to face it,” she answered. “If we can, we'll prove that we're not like that, but if we aren't given the chance, then we'll have to find some other job. We will, don't worry. There are lots of things we can do. I could go back to nursing. I used to earn my own living before I married Mr. Monk, you know.”

“Did yer? Like lookin’ after the sick? They pay yer fer that?” His eyes were wide, his toast and jam halfway to his mouth.

“Definitely,” she assured him. “If you do it well enough, and I was very good. I did it in the army, for soldiers injured in battle.”

“When they come ‘ome again?”

“Certainly not! I went to the battlefield and tended them there, where they fell.”

He blushed, then he grinned, sure that she was making a joke, even if he didn't understand it.

She thought of teasing him back, then decided he was too genuinely frightened to absorb it right now. He had just found some kind of safety, perhaps for the first time in his life, people not only to love but also to trust, and it was slipping out of his hands.

“Really in the battlefield,” she answered. “That's where soldiers need doctors and nurses. I went to the Crimea with the army. So did quite a few other ladies. The fighting was pretty close to us. People used to go out in carriages to the heights above the valley and watch the fighting. It's not dangerous, or of course they wouldn't do it. But we nurses sometimes saw it too, and then went to find those who were still alive, and who we could help.”

“Weren't it ‘orrible?” he asked in a whisper, toast still ignored.

“Yes, it was. More horrible than I ever want to think of again. But looking away doesn't solve anything, does it.” That was a statement more than a question.

“Wot can yer do fer soldiers as are ‘urt real awful?” he asked. “Don't they ‘ave ter ‘ave doctors, an’ such?”

“There aren't enough doctors to attend to everybody at once,” she told him, remembering in spite of herself the sounds of men in agony, the chaos of the wounded and dying, and the smell of blood. She had not felt overwhelmed then, she had been too busy being practical, trying to pack wounds, amputate shattered limbs, and save men from dying of shock. “I learned how to do some things myself, because it was so bad I couldn't make it worse. When it's desperate, you try, even if you don't know what to do to begin with. You can be a lot of help with a knife, a saw, a bottle of brandy, and a needle and thread, and of course as much water and bandages as you can carry with you.”

“Wot's a saw for?” he asked quietly.

She hesitated, then decided that lies would be worse than the truth. To saw through jagged bones so you can make a clean cut, and sew it up,” she told him. “And sometimes you have to take somebody's arm or leg off, if it's gone bad with gangrene, which is sort of like rotten meat. If you don't, it will go all through them, and they'll die.”

He stared at her. He felt as if he were seeing her for the first time, with all the lights on. Before it had been almost as if they were in the half dark. She was not as pretty as some of the women he had seen, certainly not as fancy as some of the ladies; in fact, the clothes she wore were downright ordinary. He'd seen just as good on women near the docks when they went out on Sundays. But there was something extra in her face, especially in her eyes, and when she smiled, as if she could see things other people didn't even think of.

He always used to think that women were nice, and certainly useful in the house, the best of them. But most of them had to be told what to do, and they were weak, and scared, when it came to fighting. Looking after important things was men's work; protecting, fighting, seeing that nobody stepped out of line had to be done by a man. And for clever things, it was always men, of course. That went without anybody needing to say it.

Hester was smiling at him, but there were tears in her eyes, and she blinked quickly when she talked about the soldiers dying, the ones she couldn't help. He knew what that felt like, the ache in your throat so big you couldn't swallow, the way you kept gulping breath, but it didn't get any better, nor did the tightness go out of your chest.

But she didn't cry. He hoped to goodness Mr. Monk looked after her properly. She was a bit thin. Usually real ladies had a bit more… softness… about them. Somebody should take care of her.

“Yer gonna ‘ave another piece o’ toast?” he asked.

“Would you like one?” She misunderstood him. He was not asking for himself.

“Will yer ‘ave one?” he changed his approach. “I'll make it fer yer. I know ‘ow ter make toast.”

“Thank you,” she accepted. “That would be very nice. Perhaps I should boil the kettle again?” She began to rise.

“I'll do it!” He stepped in her way so she had to sit down. “All I gotta do is move it over on ter the ‘eat.”

“Thank you,” she said again, slightly puzzled, but willing to accept.

Very carefully indeed he cut two more slices of bread, a little thick, a trifle crooked, but good enough. He put them on the toasting fork and held them to the open door of the stove. This was not going to be easy, but he could look after her. It needed doing, and it was his new job. He would see to it from now on.

The toast started to smoke. He turned it round just before it burnt. He had better concentrate.

Hester had debated whether to take Scuff with her or not when she went back to look further into Durban 's history and whether the charges against him were in any part true. The matter was taken out of her hands by Scuff himself. He simply came.

“I'm not sure…” she began.

He smiled at her, continuing to look oddly important. “You need me,” he said simply, then fell in step beside her as if that settled the matter.

She drew in her breath to argue, and found that she had no idea how to tell him that she did not really need him. The silence grew until it became impossible, and by default she had accepted that she did.

As it transpired, he helped her find most of the people she eventually wished to speak to. It was long and tiring walking from one narrow, crowded street to another, arguing, asking, pleading for information and then trying to sort out the lies and the mistakes and find the elements of truth. Scuff was better at that than she was. He had a sharp instinct for evasion and manipulation. He was also more prepared than she to threaten or call a bluff.

“Don't let ‘em get away with nothin’!” he said to her urgently as they left one smooth-tongued man with a wispy black mustache. “That's a load o’…” He bit his tongue to avoid the word he had been going to use. “I reckon as it were Mr. Durban ‘as pulled ‘im out o’ the muck, an’ ‘e's too… mean ter say it. That's wot that is.” He stood in the middle of the narrow pavement looking up at her seriously.

A costermonger wheeled his barrow past them, knowing at a glance that she would not buy.

“Yer din't ought ter b'lieve every stupid sod as tells yer,” Scuff continued. “Well, yer din't,” he granted generously. “I'll tell yer if it's true or not. We better go and find this Willie the Dip, if ‘e's real.”

Two washerwomen barged past them, sheets tied around dirty laundry bouncing on their ample hips.

“You don't think he is?” Hester asked.

Scuff gave her a skeptical look. “Dip means ‘e picks pockets. ‘Oo don't, round ‘ere? I reckon ‘e's all guff.”

And so it turned out. But by the end of the day they had heard many stories of Durban from a variety of people up and down the dockside. They had been discreet, and Hester believed with some pride that they had also been inventive enough not to betray the reason for their interest.

It was well after dusk with the last of the light faded even from the flat surface of the water when they finally made their way up Elephant Stairs just a few yards along from Princes Street. The tide was running hard, slapping against the stone, and the sharp river smell was almost pleasant in the air after the closed-in alleys they had walked all day, and the heavy, throat-filling odors of the docks, where men were unpacking all manner of cargoes, pungent, clinging, some so sweet as to be rancid. The quiet movement of water was a relief after the shouting, clatter of hooves, and clank of chains and winches and thus of heavy loads.

They were tired and thirsty. Scuff did not say that his feet were sore, but possibly he regarded it as a condition of life. Hester ached all the way up to her knees, and beyond, but in the face of his stoicism, she felt that it would be self-indulgent to let it be known.

“Thank you,” she said as they started to walk up in the direction of Paradise Place. “You are quite right. I do need you.”

“S'all right,” he said casually, giving a little lift of his shoulder visible as he passed under the street lamp.

He took a deep breath. “‘E weren't a bad man,” he said, then looked sideways at her quickly.

“I know, Scuff.”

“Does it
matter
if ‘e told a few lies about ‘oo ‘e were or where ‘e come from?”

“I don't know. I suppose it depends what the truth is.”

“Yer think it's bad, then?”

They came to the end of Elephant Lane and turned right into Church Street. It was completely dark now and the lamps were like yellow moons reflected over and over again right to the end. There was a faint mist drifting up in patches from the water, like castaway silk scarves.

“I think it might be. Otherwise why would he lie about it?” she asked. “We don't usually lie about good things.”

He was quiet.

“Scuff?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“You can't go on calling me ‘miss’! Would you like to call me ‘Hester’?”

He stopped and tried to look at her. “Hester?” he said carefully, sounding the
H.
“Don't you think Mr. Monk might say I'm bein’ cheeky?”

“I shall tell him I suggested it.”

“Hester,” he said again, experimentally, then he grinned.

Hester lay awake and thought hard about what steps she should take next. Durban had tried for a long time, well over a year, to find Mary Webber. He was a skilled policeman with a lifetime of experience in learning, questioning, and finding, and he had apparently failed. How was she to succeed? She had no advantages over him, as far as she knew.

Beside her, Monk was asleep, she thought. She lay still, not wanting to disturb him, above all not wanting him to know that she was thinking, puzzling.

Durban must have searched for all the families named Webber who lived in the area and gone to them. He would even have traced any who had lived there and moved, if it were possible. If he had not found Mary that way, then Hester would not either.

Then just as she was finally drifting off towards sleep, another thought occurred to her. Had Durban gone backwards? Had he found out where they had come from before that?

The idea did not seem nearly as clever in the morning, but she could think of nothing better. She would try it, at least until another avenue occurred to her. It would be better than doing nothing.

It was not particularly difficult to find the local families by the name of Webber who had a Mary of roughly the right age. It was simply tedious looking through parish registers, asking questions, and walking around. People were willing to help, because she embroidered the truth a little. She really was looking for someone on behalf of a friend who had died tragically before finding them, but whether Mary Webber was a friend or witness, help or a fugitive, she had no idea. If it had not been for Monk's sake, she might have given up.