Execution Dock Page 0,139

"I don't think he is going to forgive me, whatever it is," she replied. "I am not quite sure what I am going to do. I shall have to give it a great deal of thought. If... if he puts me out, may I live here?" She looked frightened, and embarrassed.

"Of course," Hester said instantly. "If you wish to, for whatever reason." She nearly added that Rathbone would give her legal help, then she thought that was a little premature. Surely Wallace Burroughs would calm himself and behave a little more reasonably. Although his behaving reasonably was a very long way indeed from giving Claudine any kind of happiness. "I shall write to him that you were helping someone in an accident." There was a note of gentleness in her voice. "He will never know differently," she went on. "You had better say the same. You know enough details to give them to him if he should ask you."

"He won't. He is never interested in such things," Claudine told her. "But thank you."

Hester very briefly told Squeaky that she was going to the Wapping police station to find Monk, then she left immediately, dreading the chance of running into Margaret on the way out.

She caught a cab on Farringdon Road, and half an hour later was in Wapping. She had a further hour to wait before Monk returned from the water, but she was prepared to wait far longer, had it been necessary.

He closed the door of his office and stood waiting for her to speak.

Briefly, leaving out everything that was irrelevant to the issue, she told him of Claudine's adventure, and that she was certain beyond any doubt that it had been Arthur Ballinger she had seen.

"She must be wrong," he said. "She was tired, frightened, upset after seeing the cards..."

"No she wasn't, William," Hester said levelly "She knows Ballinger."

"How would she know him? He's not her solicitor, surely?"

"No. They move in the same circles in Society," she explained. "Claudine may scrub kitchens and cook for the sick in Portpool Lane, but in her own home she's a lady. She probably knows most people in Society, more or less. Now she is terrified because he looked so closely at her she was afraid he had recognized her too."

He did not fight any longer; the grief in his eyes showed his acceptance.

"We have to be prepared," she continued more gently. "I don't imagine Oliver knows, but perhaps he does. It may even be the reason he took Phillips's case in the first place. But I'll wager Margaret doesn't. Or her mother." She winced. "I can't imagine what that will be like for them, if they are forced to know."

Monk breathed out slowly. "God! What a mess!"

There was a sharp rap on the door and before Monk could answer, it opened and Orme stood there, ashen-faced, eyes hollow. Hester saw him before Monk did.

"What is it?" she demanded, fear gripping her like a tightening noose.

Monk swung around to Orme.

Orme handed him a sheet of paper, folded over once.

Monk took it and read, his hand shaking, the color draining from his cheeks.

"What is it?" Hester demanded more urgently, her voice high-pitched, her heart pounding.

"Jericho Phillips has Scuff," Monk replied. "He says that if we don't stop pursuing him, all of us, the River Police, then he will use Scuff in his trade. And when he's finished with him, he'll either sell him on to someone, or if he's a nuisance and causes trouble, then he'll kill him."

"Then we will stop." Hester nearly choked on the words, but she could not even imagine letting Scuff endure that. The possibility did not exist to consider.

"That's not all," Monk went on, his voice shaking now. "I must publicly condemn Durban and say everything bad about him that I can, including his early involvement with the men who robbed the bank. Then I must retract all the charges I've made against Phillips, and say that they were motivated by my desire to vindicate Durban 's name, and pay my debt to him. His price is Scuffs life. If I don't, his death will be slow, and very unpleasant."

She stared at him for interminable seconds, unable to grasp what he had said, then slowly it became clear, indelible, impossible to bear. "We must do it." She felt as if she were a betrayer even as the words were on her lips, and yet any other answer was unthinkable. What happiness or honor could there ever be again