Execution Dock (7 page)

“Yes, one cannot help learning.”

“I imagine so. In order to avail himself of such knowledge, did Mr. Monk ask for your assistance in discovering more about how Walter Figgis might have lived, been abused, and then killed?”

“Yes. It was far easier for me to gain the trust of those who deal in such things. I knew people who could help me, and take me to speak to others who might never speak to the police.”

“Precisely. Would you please tell the court, step by step, what you found out with reference to Walter Figgis?” Tremayne directed. “I regret the necessity of such distasteful material, but I require you to be specific. Otherwise the jury cannot decide fairly what is true, and what we have suggested but failed to prove. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

Then gently and very clearly he led her through all the long questioning, collecting, deducing, then more questioning, until they had gathered the evidence creating a portion of Fig's life, his disappearance from the riverbank to Phillips's floating brothel, his years there, and finally his death. Every piece of information was gained from someone she could name, although she chose to give only the nicknames by which they were known on the street, and Rathbone did not object.

“If Fig was working as the evidence says,” Tremayne continued, “why on earth would Phillips, or any other brothel keeper, wish to harm his property at all, let alone murder it? What use is Fig to him dead?”

Hester knew her face showed her revulsion, but she could not control it. “Men whose taste is in children have no interest in the same person once they begin to show the signs of coming manhood. It has nothing to do with any kind of affection. They are used to relieve a need, as a public lavatory is used.”

There was a ripple of disgust around the room, as if someone had opened a door into a cesspit and the smell had drifted in.

Tremayne's own wry, sensitive face reflected it most of all. “Are you suggesting that such men murder all children as they begin to show signs of growing up?” he asked.

“No,” she replied as steadily as she could. Reliving her fury and pity in careful words was making her feel a little queasy. It seemed offensively clinical, although the faces of the jury reflected it as anything but. She drew in her breath. “No, I have been informed that usually they are sold to any merchant captain willing to buy them, and they serve as cabin boys, or whatever is needed.” She permitted her expression to convey the darker meaning of the phrase. “They leave port on the next ship out, and are maybe years gone. In fact, they may never come back.”

“I see.” Tremayne looked pale himself. Perhaps he had sons. “Then why would this not happen to Fig?”

“It might have been intended to,” she answered, for the first time moving her glance from Tremayne and looking at Rathbone. She saw misery and revulsion in his face, and wondered what could possibly have happened that had compelled him to defend Jericho Phillips. Surely he could not ever have done it willingly? He was a civilized man, offended by vulgarity, an honorable man. She had once thought him too fastidious in his passions for him to love her with the totality that she needed.

“Mrs. Monk?” Tremayne prompted her.

“He might have rebelled,” she completed her thought. “If he caused trouble he would be less easy to sell. He might have been a leader of the younger boys, and been murdered as an example of discipline. No quicker way to suppress a rebellion in the ranks than to execute the leader.” She sounded cynical, even to her own ears. Did the crowd, the jury, Rathbone himself, realize that she spoke so to hide a pain of understanding that was unbearable?

Was Rathbone being pressured by someone into doing this? Was it possible that he had not realized how repulsive the reality was? Did he even think how the money was earned that he took in payment? If he had, how could he accept it?

“Thank you, Mrs. Monk,” Tremayne said softly, his face bleak and lips tight as if the grief of it were clenched inside him. “You have shown us a very terrible picture, but one that is tragically believable. May I commend you for your courage and pity in the work you do.”

There was a murmur of approval. Two of the jurors nodded and one blew his nose fiercely.

“The court is obliged to you, madam,” Lord Justice Sullivan said quietly. His face was a mask of disgust, and there was high color in his cheeks, as if the blood burned beneath his skin. “You are excused for today. No doubt tomorrow Sir Oliver Rathbone will wish to question you.” He glanced at Rathbone.

“May it please the court, my lord,” Rathbone affirmed.

The court was duly adjourned and Hester climbed down from the witness stand, grasping the railing. She felt drained, even a little dizzy. One of the ushers offered her his arm, but she declined it, thanking him.

She was in the hall outside the courtroom when she saw Rathbone coming towards her. She had deliberately chosen that way of leaving in hope of meeting him. She wished to ask him, face-to-face, what had made him take such a case. If he were in some kind of trouble, why had he not asked Monk for help? It could hardly be financial. Destitution could hardly be worse than descending to this.

She moved to the center of the hall so he could not avoid encountering her.

He saw her and faltered in his step, but he did not stop. She did, waiting for him to reach her, his eyes on hers.

He moved steadily forward. He was only a few yards from her, and she was about to speak when another man, older, came out of one of the side rooms. His face was familiar, but she could not immediately place him.

“Oliver!” he called.

Rathbone turned, his relief at escape momentarily undisguised. “Arthur! Good to see you. How are you?”

Of course: Arthur Ballinger, Margaret's father. There was nothing Hester could do now. The conversation she wished for could only be held in absolute private, even from Margaret. In fact, perhaps most of all from Margaret. She did not wish her to ever know how close Hester and Rathbone had once been. What she might guess was one thing; knowledge was another.

She lifted her chin a little higher, and kept walking.

Rathbone's cross-examination of Hester began as soon as ‘court resumed the next morning. She took her place again in the witness stand. She was wearing a plain, blue-gray dress, not unlike the sort of uniform a nurse would wear, but more flatteringly cut, and she knew it made the most of her fair coloring and steady wide gray eyes. She wanted to appear both competent and feminine, and of course respectable. Tremayne had mentioned this to her, quite unnecessarily. She understood what a jury wanted and what kind of person they would believe. During Monks many cases there had been times when she had testified, or seen others do so, and watched the faces of the jurors.

“May I add my admiration to that of the court, Mrs. Monk,” Rathbone began. “It is a brave and charitable work that you do.”

“Thank you.” She did not trust him, even though she knew he did admire her, intensely, even with a degree of envy for her passion. Too often thought had robbed him of action. She simply cared enough to take the risk anyway. Now he stood elegantly in the middle of the floor, and complimented her.

“How much of your time do you put to your work in Portpool Lane, Mrs. Monk?” he went on.

Tremayne moved in his seat uneasily. Hester knew it was because he was waiting for Rathbone to attack, and he did not know from which direction it would come.

“It varies,” Hester replied, meeting Rathbone's eyes. “At times of crisis we work all the time, taking turns to sleep. At other times when there is relatively little to do, I may not go in every day, perhaps only two or three times a week.”

“A crisis?” Rathbone turned the word over as if tasting it. “What would constitute a crisis, Mrs. Monk?”

The question sounded innocent, and yet Hester sensed a trap in it, if not now, then later, after he had led her carefully with other questions. The ease with which he asked it was like a warning. Why was he defending Jericho Phillips? What had happened to him while she had not been paying attention?

He was waiting for her answer. It felt as if everyone in the court was looking at her, waiting with him.

“Several people seriously injured at once, perhaps in a fight,” she answered levelly “Or worse than that, in the winter, seven or eight people with pneumonia, or bronchitis, or perhaps consumption. And then a bad wound, or gangrene on top of it.”

He looked impressed. “And how do you cope with all of that?”

Tremayne stared forward, as if he would object, but no one was listening or watching him.

“We don't always succeed,” Hester replied. “But we help. Most of the time it isn't nearly as bad as that.”

“Don't you get the same people in again and again?” Rathbone asked.

“Yes, of course. Any doctor does.” She smiled very slightly. “What has that to do with it? You try to help whom you can, one person, one day at a time.”

“Or day, and night, and day,” he amended.

“If necessary.” She was anxious now as well. He was making a heroine out of her, as if he had temporarily forgotten that she was there to give the evidence that would damn Jericho Phillips.

“You have a marvelous dedication to the poor and the wretched, Mrs. Monk.” Rathbone said it with respect, even admiration, but she was waiting for the question beyond, the one that hid an attack.

“Thank you. I don't think of it that way, but simply as an attempt to do what you can,” she answered.

“You say that quite casually, Mrs. Monk.” Rathbone moved back and then turned and walked the other way. The gesture had a grace that drew the eyes. He looked up at her again. “But surely you are speaking of a passion, a self-sacrifice that is far beyond that which most people experience?”

“I don't see it as such,” she answered, not merely in modesty, but because it was true. She loved her work. She would be hypocritical were she to allow it to be painted as a nobility, at cost to herself.

Rathbone smiled. “I expected that you would say that, Mrs. Monk. There are some women, like your mentor, Miss Nightingale, whose life is to give their time and emotion to bettering the lot of others.”

There was a murmur of approval around the room.

Tremayne rose to his feet, his expression confused and unhappy. Something was happening that he did not understand, but he knew it was dangerous. “My lord, I am aware that Sir Oliver is long and well acquainted with Mrs. Monk, and that Lady Rathbone also gives her time freely to the Portpool Lane Clinic. Admirable as this is, there is no question in Sir Oliver's observations, and they seem irrelevant to the case against Jericho Phillips.”

Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “Sir Oliver, in the unlikelihood that Mrs. Monk is unaware of your regard for her, would it not be better to make such remarks privately?”

Rathbone colored, perhaps at the implication, but he was not disconcerted with his tactic. “The relevance will become clear, my lord,” he replied, with an edge to his voice. “If you will permit me?” But without waiting he turned again to Hester.

Reluctantly Tremayne resumed his seat.

“Were you acquainted with the late Commander Durban, Mrs. Monk?” Rathbone asked mildly.

He knew the circumstances of the Louvain case; he had played a major part in it. Of course he already knew that she did not know Durban, except through Monk.

“No,” she answered, uncertain why he had asked. He was not challenging her evidence, which was what she had expected, and prepared for. “Only by repute.”

“From whom?” he asked.

“To begin with, my husband.
Later
I also heard Mr. Orme speak very highly of him.”

“What opinion did you form of his character?”

She could not understand why he asked. Her answer was bound to be against every point he must establish to raise any doubt as to Phillips's guilt. Surely it was inconceivable that he would deliberately sabotage his own case? It was contrary to everything she had ever known of him that he would take a case, any case whatever, in order to deliberately lose it!

“Mrs. Monk?” he prompted.

“That he was a man of passion, humor, and great integrity,” she answered. “He was a good policeman, and an exceptional leader of men. He was honorable and brave, and in the end he gave his life to save others.”

Rathbone smiled very slightly, as if that were the answer he had not only foreseen, but also wanted.

“I will not ask you the circumstances. I know what they are; I also was there at the time, and it was exactly as you say. But it was a matter that, for the public good, must be kept discreet.” He moved a step or two, as if to mark the change of subject. “There is no purpose in my asking if you are devoted to your husband; how else would you answer but in the affirmative? But I will ask you to describe your circumstances at the time Mr. Monk first met Mr. Durban. For example, were you well off? How was your husband employed? Had he good opportunities for advancement?”

Lord Justice Sullivan moved uncomfortably on his high seat and looked at Rathbone with a flicker of anxiety, then away from him and beyond to somewhere in the body of the court, as if to gauge how the public mood interpreted this extraordinary direction of events.

Tremayne half rose to his feet, then sank back again. By not allowing Hester to answer, he would be implying that she or Monk had something to hide or to be ashamed of. The jury might imagine all kinds of things, all of them discreditable.

“My husband was a private agent of inquiry,” Hester replied. “Our circumstances were uncertain from week to week. Occasionally clients did not pay, and some cases were incapable of solution.”

“That cannot have been easy for you,” Rathbone sympathized. “And obviously no advancement was possible. As the court is aware, Mr. Monk succeeded Mr. Durban as commander of the Wapping Station of the River Police, which is a fine job, with good remuneration, high status, and opportunity for advancement to even higher rank eventually. Even Commissioner of Police would not be impossible for an able and ambitious man. How did it come about that Mr. Monk took this position, and not one of the men already employed there? Mr. Orme, for example.”

“Mr. Durban recommended him,” Hester replied, now with some idea where Rathbone might be leading. But even if she were correct, and saw every step ahead before she reached it, she could see no way of escape. Her hands felt clammy on the railing, and yet she was cold inside. The air was stale in the crowded room.

“You must be very grateful for such a remarkable and unforeseen improvement in your circumstances,” Rathbone went on. “Your husband is now a commander in the River Police, and you have financial security and social respect. And apart from yourself, you must be very pleased for your husband also. Is he happy in the River Police?”

She could not possibly say other than that he was, even if in fact he hated it. Fortunately she did not have to lie, as Rathbone knew.

“Yes, he is. They are a fine body of men with a high reputation for both skill and honor, and he is proud to be among them.”

“Let us not be overmodest, Mrs. Monk; to lead them!” Rathbone corrected her. “Are you not proud of him also? It is a great achievement.”

“Yes, of course I am proud of him.” Again, she could give no other answer.

He did not belabor the point. He had made it sufficiently for the jury. Both she and Monk owed Durban a great deal, personally and professionally. Rathbone had placed her in a position where she had to say so, or appear utterly graceless. Now anything in which she supported Durban would appear as gratitude, and be suspected as founded in emotion rather than fact. How well he knew her. He had forgotten nothing of her from the days when they had been much closer, when he had been in love with her, not with Margaret.

She felt very alone in the stand with everyone in the court staring at her, and with Rathbone's knowledge of her so delicate and intimate. She was horribly vulnerable.

“Mrs. Monk,” Rathbone resumed. “You played a large part in helping identify this tragic boy, through your knowledge of the abuse of women and children in the trade of sexual relations.” He said it with distaste, reflecting what all the people in the gallery-and more particularly in the jury box-must feel. “It was you who learned that he was once a mudlark.” He turned slightly in a peculiarly graceful gesture. “In case there is anyone in the jury who does not understand the term, would you be good enough to explain it to us?”

She had no choice but to do as he asked. He was guiding her as a skilled rider does a horse, and she felt equally controlled. To rebel in the public gaze of the court would make her appear ridiculous. How well he knew her!

“A mudlark is a person who spends their time on the banks of the river, between low and high tide lines,” she said obediently. “They salvage anything that may be of value, and then sell it. Most of them are children, but not all. The things they find are largely brass screws and fittings, pieces of china, lumps of coal, that sort of thing.”

He looked interested, as if he were not already familiar with every detail of the facts.

“How do you come to know this? It does not seem to lie within the area of your usual assistance. Who did you ask for the information that led to your discovering that the boy, Fig, had once been a mudlark?”

“In a case a short while ago a young mudlark was injured. I looked after him for a couple of weeks.” She wondered why he was asking about Scuff. Did he mean to challenge the identification of the body?

“Really? How old was he? What was his name?” he inquired.

Why was he asking? He knew Scuff. He had been in the sewers with them, as desperate to ensure Scuffs safety as any of them.

“He is known as Scuff, and he thinks he is about eleven,” she replied, her voice catching with emotion in spite of her efforts to remain detached.

Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “He thinks?”

“Yes. He doesn't know.”

“Did he identify Fig?”

So it was the identification! “No. He introduced me to older boys, and vouched for me, so they would tell me the truth.”

“This boy Scuff trusts you?”

“I hope so.”

“You took him into your home when he was injured, and cared for him, nursed him back to health?”

“Yes.”

“And an affection grew between you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have children of your own, Mrs. Monk?”

She felt as if he had slapped her without warning. It was not that she had desperately wanted children; she was happy with Monk and her work. It was the implication that somehow she was lacking, which hurt, that she had taken Scuff in not because she liked him, but to fill an emptiness in herself. By a sort of oblique reference backward, it made it seem as if all she had done in the clinic, and even in the Crimea, had been to compensate for her own lack of family, of purpose, in the more usual sense.

It was not true. She had a husband she loved far more than most women did theirs; she was married of choice, not convenience or ambition or need. She had work to do that stretched her intellect, and used her imagination and courage. Most women got up in the morning to the same endless domestic round, filling their days with words rather than actions, or accomplishing small tasks that had to be begun again in exactly the same fashion the next day, and the day after. Hester had only once in her life been bored, and that was for the brief time spent in the social round before going to the Crimea.

But if she said any of that, she would sound as if she were defensive. He had attacked her so delicately, so obliquely, that people would think she was protesting too much. She would immediately make him seem right.

They were all waiting now for her to reply. She could see the beginning of pity in their faces. Even Tremayne looked uncomfortable.

“No, I don't have children,” she answered the question. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that neither did he, but that would be unbecoming; again, an attack in order to defend, before there was justification for it.

“May I say that it is a very noble thing you are doing, giving of your time and means to fight for those children of others who suffer from the abuse and neglect of the very people who should be caring for them.” He spoke sincerely, and yet after what he had said before, it still managed to sound like pity. He moved his hand in the air as if to dismiss the subject. “So you sought the help of other mudlarks to identify the body of this poor boy who was found near Horseferry Stairs. And because of your rescue of Scuff, they were willing to help you, in a manner that they would not help the police. Is that accurate?”