Execution Dock Read online

  The wood creaked and settled, water dripped, footsteps sounded uneasily, and the shadows on the walls were always moving. Sometimes it was caused by light from the shifting tide in a dock inlet, water slapping against stone walls, or the thump of timber against the sides. More often it was someone running or creeping, or carrying a load. The stench of river mud and human waste was overpowering.

  The boy refused to be named. He was thin and sallow. It was hard to tell his age, but it was probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty. He had a chipped front tooth, and one finger missing on his right hand. He stood with his back to the wall, staring at them as if expecting an attack.

  “I in't swearing ter nothin’,” he said defensively. “If ‘e finds me, ‘e'll kill me.” His voice wobbled. “Ow d'yer find me, anyway?” He looked first at Monk, then at Orme, ignoring Scuff.

  “From Mr. Durban's notes,” Orme answered. “It's worth two shillings to you to answer truthfully, then we'll forget we ever saw you.”

  “Answer wot? I dunno nothin!”

  “You know why so few boys ever run away,” Monk told him. “Young ones we can understand. They've nowhere to go, and are too small to look after themselves. What about older ones, fourteen or fifteen? If you don't want to go to sea, why not simply leave? Customers are coming and going from the ship, aren't they? Couldn't you go out with one of them? He can't keep you locked up all the time.”

  The boy gave him a look of withering contempt. “There's twenty of us or more. We can't all go! Some are scared, some are sick, some are just babes. Where can we go? ‘Oo'd feed us, get us clothes, give us a place ter sleep? ‘Oo'd ‘ide us from Phillips, or ‘is like? There's just as bad on shore.”

  “You're on shore now and safe from him. And I'm not talking about the young ones. I asked about boys your age,” Monk pressed him. “Why don't they go, one by one, before he sells them to a ship?”

  The boy's face was bitter. “You mean why'd ‘e kill Fig, an’ Reilly an’ them like that? ‘Cause they stood up agin ‘im. It's a lesson, see? Do as yer told an’ yer'll be all right. Fed, somewhere ter sleep, shoes and a jacket. Mebbe a new one every year. Make trouble an’ yer'll get yer throat cut.”

  “Escape?” Monk reminded him.

  The boy gulped, his thin face twisting painfully. “Escape, an’ ‘e'll ‘unt yer down an’ kill yer. But before that, ‘e'll ‘urt the little kids left be'ind, burn their arms an’ legs, maybe worse. I wake up in the night ‘earin’ ‘em scream … an’ find it's just rats. But I still ‘ear ‘em in me ‘ead. That's why I wish I ‘adn't left, but I can't go back now. But I in't swearin’ ter nothin’. I told Mr. Durban that, an’ I'm tellin’ you. Yer can't make me.”

  “I never thought to try,” Monk said gently. “I couldn't live with it either. I have enough already, without adding that. I just wanted to know.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the two shillings Orme had promised the boy. He held them out.

  The boy hesitated, then snatched them. Monk stood aside so he could pass.

  The boy hesitated.

  Monk backed further away.

  The boy dived past him as if terrified he would be seized, then he ran with surprising speed, almost silent on the cobbles. Only then did Monk realize his feet were bound in rags, not boots. Within seconds he had disappeared into one of the many alleys like a tunnel mouth, and he could have been no more than the voice of a nightmare.

  As they walked back towards the open air of the dockside, they kept in step with each other, walking single file because there was no room to do anything else. Monk went first, glad of the enforced silence between them. What the boy had said was hideous, but he never questioned the truth of it. It explained not only why no one had testified against Phillips, but also why Durban had been fired by an uncontrollable anger. Helplessness and a sense of the terror and pain, the sheer despair of others, had drowned the outside world and its balance, its values of caution and judgment.

  Monk felt closer to Durban as he made his way along the tortuous alleys, following memory and the sound of water yard by yard towards the open river. He understood not only his actions but also the emotions that must have crowded his mind and made his muscles clench and his stomach churn. He shared the anger, the need to hurt someone in return for all the wrong.

  But was Monk remembering him as he had really been? Or was grief painting it in warmer colors of companionship than reality? He did not believe that. It was not only dishonest, it was also cowardly to pretend now that the sense of friendship had been artificial. He could still hear Durban's voice and his laughter, taste the bread and beer, and feel the companionable silence as dawn came up over the river. They watched the light spread across the water, catching the ripples and brightening on the drifting mist that hid some of the harsher outlines, lending beauty to the crooked spars of a wreck and blurring the jagged line of utilitarian buildings.

  Scuff was immediately behind him now, padding along, looking warily to either side. Narrowness frightened him. He did not want to think about what hid in the passages. He had heard what the boy said about the others that Phillips had taken. He knew it could happen to him also. Without Monk, it could happen very easily. He wanted to reach out and take hold of Monk's coat, but that would be a very undignified thing to do, and it would tell everybody that he was afraid. He would not like Orme to think that of him, and he could not bear it if Monk did. He might even tell Hester, and that would be worse still.

  They worked for several more days questioning lightermen, ferrymen, dockers, and mudlarks. They found thieves and beggars, heavy horsemen, and opulent receivers, asking each about Durban and his pursuit of Phillips. It took them upstream and down both sides of the river, on docksides, and into warehouses, alleys, shops, taverns, doss-houses, and brothels.

  On one occasion the search for information took Monk and Scuff into the Strangers’ Home in Limehouse. It was a handsome and commodious building on the West India Dock Road.

  “Cor!” Scuff said, deeply impressed by the entrance. He stared up and round at the sheer size of it, so utterly different from the narrow and squalid houses they had been in earlier where men slept a dozen to a room.

  They were passed by an African seaman, his smooth, dark skin like a polished nut against his white shirt. Almost on his heels came a Malay in striped trousers and an old pea jacket, walking with a slight roll, as if still aboard ship.

  Scuff stood transfixed. He heard a score of languages and dialects around him in the main room crowded with men of every shade of skin and cast of feature.

  Monk yanked him by the hand to waken him from his daydream, and half-dragged him towards the man he was seeking, a seaman from Madras who had apparently given Durban information several times.

  “Oh, yes, sir, yes,” the seaman agreed when Monk put the question to him. “Certainly I spoke to Mr. Durban on several occasions. He was seeking to apprehend a very bad man, which is uncommonly difficult when the man is protected by the fact that he is using children who are too frightened of him to speak out.”

  “Why did he ask you?” Monk said without preamble.

  The man raised his eyebrows. “There are certain men that I know, you see? Not from any choice, of course, but in a way of business. Mr. Durban thought I might be aware of earlier … how shall I express it? Weaknesses? Do you understand me, sir?”

  Monk had neither time nor patience for obliqueness. “Patrons of Phillips's boat, and its entertainment?”

  The man winced at Monk's bluntness.

  “Exactly so. It seemed to me that he had the belief that certain of these men had great influence when it came to bringing the law into such matters, and quite naturally a strong desire that it remain a private affair.”

  “Among Phillips, these gentlemen, and the children they abused?” Monk said brutally.

  “Quite so. I see that you understand entirely.”

  “And were you able to help him?”

  The man shrugged. “I gave him names and instances,
but I have no proof.”

  “What names?” Monk said urgently.

  “Certain harbormasters, revenue men, the owner of a brothel, a merchant who is also a receiver, although very few know it. Another name he looked for was the master of a ship who came ashore and set up his own importing business. Friend of a revenue man, so Mr. Durban said.”

  “That sounds more like corruption of the revenue than anything to do with Phillips,” Monk answered.

  “Oh, it was about Phillips,” the seaman insisted. “Mr. Durban almost had ‘im, two or three times. Then the evidence just vanished away like mist when the sun comes up. You can see it happen, but you can never put your hand on it, do you see?” He shook his head. “Mr. Phillips's goods are not cheap to buy, at least not the ones he sells on his dirty little boat. The men who buy them have money, and power comes from money. That's why Mr. Phillips is very difficult to catch in the hangman's noose.”

  Monk asked more questions, and the man answered him, but when Monk rose to leave, closely followed by Scuff, he was not certain how much more he knew. All kinds of men were involved, and at least some of them had the power to protect Phillips from the River Police.

  “Yer better be careful,” Scuff said, his voice tight and a little high with anxiety. He had abandoned even trying to look as if he were not frightened. He kept pace with Monk now, putting in an extra little step every so often to make up for his shorter stride. “Them revenue men is summink wicked. Get them on yer tail an’ yer might never get out o’ trouble. Mebbe that's why Mr. Durban backed off, like?”

  “Maybe,” Monk agreed.

  The day after that Scuff accompanied Orme, and Monk went alone to pursue the few friends or informants he had gained in the short time he had been on the river. He began with Smiler Hobbs, a dour north countryman whose lugubrious face had earned him his nickname.

  “Wot are yer after now?” Smiler asked when Monk walked into his pawnshop and closed the door behind him. “I got nothin’ stolen, an’ don't yer stand there like the judgment o’ the Almighty. Yer put off me customers. Worse than buildin’ next to a garbage dump, yer are.”

  “Good morning to you also, Smiler,” Monk replied, making his way through the piles of pots and pans, musical instruments, flat irons, several chairs, and an endless variety of odd china. “I'll go as soon as I learn what I want to know.”

  “Then yer in fer a long wait, ‘cause I in't got nowt stolen an’ I don't know nowt about owt.” Smiler glared at him.

  “Of course you don't. And as to what you haven't got, I don't care,” Monk responded.

  Smiler looked surprised, then his eyes narrowed.

  Monk remained exactly where he was. “But I could always become interested,” he observed. “Nice sextant you have there. Pity it isn't at sea, doing some good.”

  Smiler's expression became even more dismal, as if he were staring at the ultimate disaster.

  “When Mr. Durban was trying to prove that Jericho Phillips was responsible for the boy's death, did he speak to you about it?” Monk asked.

  “Which boy's death?” Smiler retorted.

  Monk was about to snap back with Fig's name, then he saw the wider opportunity and seized it. “Reilly,” he replied. “Or any of the others?”

  “‘E asked everyone,” Smiler told him. “Like I said, I know nowt about it, or anythin’ else. I buy things as people need ter sell, an’ I sell things they need ter buy. Public service, it is.”

  “I know you do. I need to buy information.”

  “I don't give away nowt.”

  “Neither do I,” Monk agreed. “At least not often. You tell me what I want to know, and I'll pay you by not coming back here to keep on asking.”

  Smiler pulled down the corners of his mouth until his face was a mask of tragedy. “No better than Durban, yer aren't. Pick on the easy ones an’ twist them, an’ all the while creatures like Phillips, Pearly Boy, an’ the Fat Man cut people's throats like they was rats, an’ wot do yer lot do about it? Nowt! Absolutely, bloody nowt!”

  “The Fat Man's dead,” Monk told him.

  “Yeah? Maybe.” Smiler was skeptical.

  “For certain,” Monk responded truthfully. “I saw him go down, and I know for sure he never came up. I was there.”

  Smiler gave a long sigh. “Then yer done summink right fer once. But yer made an almighty mess o’ gettin’ Phillips. I s'pose someone got ter yer too, just like they did ter Durban. Yer can't beat the devil. Yer'll learn, if yer live long enough.” He sighed again. “Which I doubt.”

  Monk swallowed. “Who got to Durban?”

  “Ow do I know?” Smiler asked sadly. “‘Arbormaster, magistrates, men with money and their heads in politics. Lumpers, fer all I know, judges too. Yer cut off one arm, an’ while yer lookin’ for the second one, it'll grow the first one back again. Yer'll not win. Yer'll just end up dead, like Durban. No one'll care. They'll say yer were a fool, and they'll be right.”

  “They won't say I didn't try!”

  Smiler pulled an exaggerated expression, curling his lips downwards. “An’ what good'll that do yer, in yer grave?”

  “I'm going to see Phillips hang, I promise you,” Monk said rashly. He could feel the rage boil up inside him and see in his mind Phillips's sneering face in the dock as the verdict came in.

  “Yer'd best slit ‘is throat, if yer can catch ‘im,” Smiler advised. “Yer'll not catch him fair, any more than Durban did. After ‘im like a terrier with a rat one minute, an’ the next he backed off like ‘e'd been bit ‘isself Then six months later, back after ‘im again. Then out of the blue sky, ‘ands off an’ leave ‘im alone as if ‘e were the Lord Mayor o’ the river. Durban din't call the tune, I can promise you that. An’ neither will yer, for all yer swank coat an’ yer quality boots. Yer'll end up just like ‘im, bitin yer own tail. I'll give yer ten shillings fer them boots, if yer don't ruin ‘em first?”

  “So someone's protecting him,” Monk said acidly. “I'll get them too. And I'll keep my boots.”

  Smiler gave a sharp bark that with him passed for laughter. “Yer don't even know ‘oo they are. An’ before yer start threatening me, like Durban did, I take bloody good care not ter know either. Offer's open on the boots.”

  “Who is Mary Webber?”

  “Gawd! Not yer too?” Smiler rolled his eyes. “I got no idea. I never ‘eard of ‘er till Durban came threatenin’ everyone with Gawd knows what if we didn't tell ‘im. I dunno!” His voice rose sharply aggrieved. “Get it? I dunno!” Now get out of ‘ere an’ leave me to do me business, before I set the dog on yer … by accident, like. I keep ‘im on a chain, but sometimes I think it in't too strong. Not my fault. Not that that'll ‘elp yer much.”

  Monk retreated, his mind crowded with thoughts. He was quite sure Smiler would lie if it suited him, but what he had said fit in too well with the facts so far.

  Durban was not the simple man that Monk had thought, and that he had wanted him to be.

  He crossed the road and turned back towards Shadwell High Street.

  Yet Monk could remember the man he had known vividly: his patience, his candor, the way he unquestioningly shared food and warmth, his optimism, his compassion for even the most wretched. Could it all have been a lie, even his laughter?

  He shivered even though the sun was bright off the water and the air was warm. There was a sound of music in the distance from a hurdy-gurdy somewhere out of sight.

  What a living hell this world was. But for boys like Fig, and perhaps Reilly, and any number of others whose names he would never know, there had been no choice, and no escape, except death.

  No wonder Durban had done everything he could to catch Phillips and have him hanged, even at the cost of bending a few rules. Or that the men who had already paid so much paid even more to protect their provider and tormentor. It gave new layers to the concept of corruption.

  Who had paid Oliver Rathbone to defend this man in court? And why?

  Monk was on the open dock n
ow, not far from Wapping. The tide was rising, and the water lapped over the stone steps, creeping higher and higher. The smell of it was harsh, and yet he had become accustomed to it, welcomed it. This was the greatest maritime highway in the world, beautiful and terrible in all its moods. At night its poverty and dirt were hidden. Lights of ships from Africa and the Pole, China and Barbados, danced on the tides. The city, domed and towered, was black against the stars.

  At dawn it would be misted, softened by silver, fast-running waters glittering. There were moments in the flare of sunset when it could have been Venice, the dome of St. Paul's above the shadows a marble palace floating on the lagoon towards the silk roads of the east.

  The sea lanes of the world met here: the glory, the squalor, the heroism, and the vice of all humanity, mixed with the riches of every nation known to man.

  He faced the question deliberately.

  What would Monk have done were it someone he loved who faced exposure and ruin from Phillips? Would he have protected them? Belief in your ideals was one thing, but when it was a living human being who trusted you, or perhaps deepest of all, who loved and protected you in your need, that was different. Could you turn away? Was your own conscience more precious than their lives?

  Did you owe loyalty to the dead? Yes, of course you did! You did not forget someone the moment the last breath left their lips.

  He looked around the skyline to the north and south, and across the teeming water. This was a city of memories, built of the great men and women of the past.