Execution Dock Page 13

  There was a boy standing waiting. He was thin and wiry, his face keen. He had a cap jammed on his head, hiding most of his hair. His shirt was ragged and missing several buttons, and his trouser legs were uneven, which complemented his boots, one brown and one black. He appeared to be about ten or eleven. He was the mudlark Scuff, one of the boys who salvaged small items of value from the river to sell. He had helped Monk before, and chose to continue to help him with his knowledge of the dockside and its ways.

  “Sorry sight you are,” he said to Monk disparagingly. “Got a face like a burst boot. S'pose you got a right. Made a pig's ear of it, an’ all.” The boy fell into step behind him as Monk turned to walk along the dockside towards the police station. The boy sniffed. “But yer gonna do summink, in't yer?” There was a note of anxiety in his voice that was close to real fear.

  Monk stopped. The ferryman was not worth the effort of pretense, but Scuff deserved both honesty and the courage not to disappoint him. He looked at the boy and saw the vulnerability bright in his eyes.

  “Yes, of course I'm going to do something,” he said firmly. “I just need to think very hard before I do it, so that I get it right—this time.”

  Scuff shook his head, drawing his breath in through his teeth, but some of the fear in him eased. “Yer gotta be careful, Mr. Monk. Yer may ‘ave been the cat's whiskers wi’ villains on shore, but yer in't much use wi’ river folk. Though come ter think on it, that lawyer's sharp, all right. Pretty as new paint, ‘e is, all striped trousers and shiny shoes.” For a moment his face was full of sympathy. “For all that ‘e's bent as a dog's ‘ind leg.” He kept pace with Monk across the stones.

  “He's not bent,” Monk corrected him. “It's his job to get people off a charge, if he can. It's my fault that I made it possible for him.”

  Scuff was skeptical. “Someone twistin’ ‘is arm ter do it, then?”

  “Possibly. It might just be that he felt that the principle of the law required that even the worst of us deserve a fair hearing.”

  Scuff pulled his face into an expression of deep disgust. “The worst of us deserves ter dance on the end of a rope, an’ if yer don't know that, then yer in't fit ter be out o’ the ‘ouse by yerself.”

  “It doesn't make any difference, Scuff,” Monk told him miserably. “Phillips is free, and it's up to me to clear up the mess and nail him for something else.”

  “I'll ‘elp yer,” Scuff said immediately. “Yer need me.”

  “I'd like your help, but I don't need it,” Monk said as gently as he could. “I have no very clear idea yet where to begin, except by going over what I already know and seeing where the holes are, then pursuing it until I can at least nail him on pornography or extortion. It's dangerous, and I don't want to risk you getting hurt.”

  Scuff thought about it for a moment or two. He was trying to keep up with Monk, but his legs were not long enough, and every third or fourth stride he had to put in an extra little skip.

  “I in't afraid,” he said at length. “Leastways not enough ter stop me.”

  Monk halted and Scuff halted half a step later.

  “I don't doubt your courage,” Monk said clearly, meeting Scuffs eyes. “In fact, if you had a trifle less you might be safer.”

  “Yer want me ter be scaredy-cat?” Scuff asked incredulously.

  Monk made a quick decision. “If it will keep you out of the hands of men like Phillips, yes I do.”

  Scuff stood still on the spot, the stubbornness in his face slowly revealing the hurt. “Yer think I in't no use, don't yer?” he asked, sniffing very slightly.

  Monk was furious with himself for having put them both into such a position. Now he was caught between denying the fact that he cared about the boy, which would be a wounding lie whose damage he might never undo, or admitting that his decision was based on emotion rather than reason. Or the alternative, perhaps crueler still, was to suggest that he really did think Scuff was no use. That one he could not even consider.

  He started to walk again.

  “I think you're a lot of use,” he said quietly, falling back a bit to keep step with the boy, rather than letting him skip to keep up. “For knowledge and brains, not for fighting, and this could become very unpleasant. If I have to get out very quickly, I don't want to have to stop to make sure you are all right. Have you ever heard the expression, ‘hostage to fortune’?”

  “No, I in't,” Scuff said dubiously, but there was a spark of hope in his eyes.

  “It means caring enough about something that you can't afford to lose it, so people can make you do what they want,” Monk explained. “Because you think it's worth a lot, or it's bad that it should be destroyed,” he added, in case Scuff should be embarrassed.

  Scuff turned the idea over in his mind, examining it. “Oh,” he said at last. “So you wouldn't want Phillips ter drown me, take a fr'instance, or cut me throat, like? So you might leave ‘im alone. But if it don't bother yer, yer'd tell ‘im ter get on with it, an’ yer'd nab ‘im?”

  “Something like that,” Monk agreed, thinking that he had made his point rather well.

  “I see.” Scuff nodded very slightly. “Well, if we get someone as is daft enough ter get caught, we'll ‘ave ter make sure it's someone we don't care about … not too much. I s'pose Mrs. Monk is one o’ them ‘ostages, in't she? Yer'd let pretty well the devil ‘isself go ter save ‘er, wouldn't yer?”

  There was no way out of the conclusion. “Yes,” he admitted. “That's why she's staying away from Phillips, and the bad places on the river. I'm going there, and—before you argue anymore—you aren't.”

  “Yer can mebbe tell ‘er wot ter do, ‘cause she's a woman,” Scuff observed, stopping, and standing very stiffly, feet slightly apart. “I in't.” He took a deep breath. “An’ you in't me pa. But I'll look after yer, anyway. Where are yer gonna start? I know—wi’ fishin Fig's body out o’ the river. We better get on wi’ it. Don just stand there like yer grow-in’ out o’ the ground.” And without waiting for a reply, he started to walk nonchalantly towards the edge of the embankment and the nearest steps where they might catch a ferry. He did not look back over his shoulder to see if Monk was following him.

  Monk was irritated at being outmaneuvered, and yet underneath the surface, aware that Scuff was also trying to stay with him, without sacrificing his own dignity. He wanted desperately to belong, and he thought his only way was to be of use. What was the risk, really, compared with those he ran every day living on the river edge, cadging his food and shelter by picking up bits of coal or dropped brass screws from the mud when the tide went down?

  He caught up with Scuff. “All right,” he said, mock grudgingly. “You might help me find the lighterman. You're right; that's where I was going to start.”

  “‘Course,” Scuff said casually, as if he did not really care, but he shrugged his shoulders and then walked a little taller, avoiding Monk's eyes. He did not wish to be read, at this particular moment; he was too vulnerable. “We can get a ferry down a bit,” he added. “Find the lightermen ‘avin’ a cup o’ tea, like as not, at this hour.”

  Monk was uncertain whether to thank him. He decided against it; it might sound a little patronizing. “Hope so,” he said instead. “I could do with one too.”

  Scuff grimaced. Monk knew he had great hopes of being given one himself, if he were lucky; possibly even a sandwich. It was unlikely that he had eaten today.

  They took the ferry downstream, as suggested, and asked specifically after the lighterman they wanted. It took them more than an hour to find him, because he was already at work, first loading and then getting his lighter out into the traffic. They made some of their inquiries of a group of men standing around a brazier with boiling water, and Monk purchased a mug of tea and a thick slice of bread. He offered the same to Scuff, who thought about it as long as he dared, then said with practiced indifference that he didn't mind if he did. All the while he watched Monk out of the corner of his eye to make sure he did not mis
s his chance.

  Monk affected not to notice.

  “I already told yer,” the lighterman said wearily. “Yer let the bastard orff! There in't no more I can say!”

  They were sitting on the canvas bales as the flat-bottomed craft made its slow, heavy way downstream towards Greenwich.

  “I know what you said,” Monk assured him. “And all the evidence bears it out. But we didn't ask you what Mr. Durban said, or if he asked you anything that you didn't mention before.”

  The lighterman screwed up his face in thought, moving his eyes as if looking at the hard, glittering reflections off the water. “‘E were upset,” he replied slowly. “All bent over ‘isself like someone'd ‘it ‘im in the belly. Tell yer the truth, I liked ‘im better fer it.”

  So did Monk, but it was not the answer he needed. He had already asked Orme these questions, but Orme was so defensive of Durban that his answers were no longer useful; they had become simply a repetition that Durban had done the right thing. Monk was hoping the lighterman would remember some other information that Durban had let slip, some word, or even omission, that might lead in a new direction. He was fumbling, and he knew it. The lighterman's face showed his disappointment. He had expected more, and he had not received it. He had endangered himself to testify, and Monk had let him down.

  “Are you afraid of Phillips?” Monk asked suddenly.

  The lighterman was caught off guard. “No!” he said indignantly. “Why should I be? I never said he done nothin’. In't got no cause ter come after me.”

  “And if he had cause, would he?” Monk asked, trying to keep all expression out of his voice.

  The lighterman stared at him. “Wot's the matter with yer? Yer simple, or summink? ‘E'd bloody carve out me guts an’ ‘ang ‘em on Execution Dock ter dry in the wind!”

  Monk continued to look skeptical.

  Scuff looked from Monk to the lighterman and back again, waiting, his eyes wide.

  “An’ yer won't catch ‘im fer it neither,” the lighterman added. “Not that you bleedin’ lot could catch a cold soppin’ wet in winter. Mr. Durban knew wot ‘e were about. Reckon if ‘e'd ‘a lived, ‘e'd a swung the bastard by ‘is neck, all right.”

  Monk felt the words land like a blow, the harder because it was the one case Durban had not solved, and he did not want to admit it. But there was a thread in what the lighterman had said that was worth following. “So he was still working on it?” he asked.

  The lighterman looked at him witheringly.

  “‘Course ‘e were. I reckon ‘e'd never ‘ave given up.” He squinted a little in the hard light, and leaned very slightly on his long oar to steer a few degrees to port.

  “What is there to follow?” Monk found the words hard to say, placing himself so vulnerably, as if he were asking a bargee how to do his own job.

  The lighterman shrugged. “Ow the ‘ell do I know? ‘E said sum-mink about money, an’ making them fat bastards pay for their pleasures twice over. But I dunno wot ‘e meant.”

  “Extortion,” Monk replied.

  “Yeah? Well, you in't gonna get any o’ them exactly ter complain, now are yer?” the lighterman sneered.

  Monk kept his voice level and his face as expressionless as he could. “Unlikely,” he agreed. “At least not to me.”

  The lighterman turned slowly from his position holding the oar. He was a lean, angular man, but the movement was unconsciously graceful. For a moment surprise caught him off guard. “Yer not so daft, are yer! Gawd ‘elp yer if ‘e catches yer is all I can say.”

  Monk could wrest no more out of him, and twenty minutes later he and Scuff were back on the dockside.

  “Yer gonna set ‘is customers agin’ ‘im?” Scuff said in awe. “Ow yer gonna do that?” He looked worried.

  “I'm not sure what I'm going to do,” Monk answered, starting to walk along the dockside. They were on the north bank, back near the Wapping Police Station. “For now I'll settle for learning a great deal more about him.”

  “If yer can prove for sure that ‘e killed Fig, will they ‘ang ‘im?” Scuff asked hopefully.

  “No.” Monk kept his pace even, though he was not yet certain where he was going. He did not want Scuff to realize that, although he was beginning to appreciate that Scuff was a far sharper judge of character than he had previously given him credit for. It was disconcerting to be read so well by an eleven-year-old. “No,” he said again. “He's been found not guilty. We can't try him again, no matter what we find. In fact, even if he confessed, there'd still be nothing we could do.”

  Scuff was silent. He turned towards Monk, looking him up and down, his lips tight.

  Monk was unpleasantly aware that Scuff was being tactful. He was touched by it, and at the same time he was hurt. Scuff was sorry for him, because he had made a mistake he did not know how to mend. This was a far cry from the brilliant, angry man he had been in the main Metropolitan Police onshore, where criminals and slipshod police alike were frightened of him.

  “So we gotta get ‘im for summink else, then,” Scuff deduced. “Wot like? Thievin’? Forgin’? ‘E don't do that, far as I know. Sellin’ stuff wot was nicked? ‘E don't do that neither. An’ ‘e don't smuggle nothin’ so ‘e don't pay the revenue men be'ind ‘is back, like.” He screwed up his face in an unspoken question.

  “I don't know,” Monk said frankly. “That's what I need to find out. He does lots of things. Maybe Fig isn't the only boy he's killed, but I need something I can prove.”

  Scuff grunted in sympathy and walked beside Monk, trying very hard to keep in step with him. Monk wondered whether to shorten his stride. He decided not to; he did not want Scuff to know that he had noticed.

  The police surgeon was busy and short-tempered. He met them in one of the stone-floored and utilitarian outer rooms of the mortuary. He had just finished an autopsy and his rolled-up sleeves were still splashed with blood.

  “Made a mess of it, didn't you,” he said bitterly. It was an accusation, not a question. He glanced at Scuff once, then disregarded him. “If you expect me to rescue you, or excuse you, for that matter, then you're wasting your time.”

  Scuff let out a wail of fury, and stifled it immediately, terrified Monk would make him go away, and then he would be no use at all. He stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other in his odd boots, and glaring at the surgeon.

  Monk controlled his own temper with difficulty, only because his need to find some new charge against Phillips was greater than his impulse for self-defense. “You deal with most of the bodies taken out of this stretch of the river,” he replied, his voice tight. “Figgis can't have been the only boy of that age and general type. I'd like to hear about the others.”

  “You wouldn't,” the surgeon contradicted him. “Especially not in front of this one.” He indicated Scuff briefly. “Won't give you anything useful, anyway. If we could've tied any of them to Jericho Phillips, don't you think we would have?” His dark face was creased with an inner pain that perhaps he did not realize showed so clearly.

  Monk's anger vanished. Suddenly they had everything that mattered in common. The retort that apparently the surgeon had been no cleverer than anyone else died on his tongue.

  “I want to get him for anything I can,” he said quietly. “Loitering with intent or being a public nuisance, if it would put him away long enough to start on the rest.”

  “I want to see him hang for what he does to these boys,” the surgeon replied. His voice shook very slightly.

  “So do I, but I'll settle for what I can get,” Monk replied.

  The surgeon looked up at him, his eyes hard, then very slowly the disgust seeped out of him and he relaxed.

  Scuff stopped fidgeting.

  “I've had a few boys I think were his,” the surgeon said. “And if I could have proved it I would have. One he acknowledged. Police asked him, and he came in here, brass-faced as the Lord Mayor, and said he knew the boy. Said he'd taken him in, but he'd run away. He knew I coul
dn't prove anything different. I'd have happily dissected him alive, and he knew it. He enjoyed looking at me and seeing me know that I couldn't.” He winced. “But I'd have taken you apart when that verdict came in. You so bloody nearly had him! I've no right. I didn't get him myself.”

  “How sure are you that he's done it before?” Monk asked. “I mean sure, not just instinct.”

  “Absolutely, but I can't prove a damn thing. If you can get him, I'll be in your debt for life, and I'll pay it. I don't care whether he's on the end of a rope or knifed to death by one of his rivals. Just take him off our river.” For a moment it was a plea, the urgency in him undisguised. Then he hid it again, rolling up his sleeves even higher and turning away. “All I can tell you is that he's fond of torturing them with burning cigars, but you probably know that. And when he finishes them it's with a knife.” His body was rigid and he kept his back to them. “Now get out of here and do something bloody useful!” He stalked away, leaving them alone in the damp room with its smells of carbolic and death.

  Outside, Monk breathed in the air deeply. Scuff said nothing, looking away from him. Perhaps he was frightened at last, not just aware of dangers that he must live with every day, but of something so large and so dark it stripped away all bravado and pretense. His fear was out of his control, and he did not want Monk to see it.

  They walked side by side near the edge of the water, both lost in their own thoughts on the reality of death, and its pedestrian, physical immediacy. They were barely aware of the slap of the tide on the wall of the steps, and the shouts of the lightermen and stevedores a hundred yards away unloading a schooner from the Indies.

  “This is worse than I thought,” Monk said after a while. He stopped walking and looked out over the water. He must be careful how he phrased it or Scuff would know he was being protected, and would resent it. “I don't like to involve you, because it's dangerous,” he went on. “But I don't think Orme and I can do it without your help. There are boys who will trust you who won't even speak to us, unless you're there to persuade them.”