Execution Dock Page 0,142

not make the mistakes I made with Phillips."

"Monk!" Rathbone said urgently, his voice sharp, like a lash.

Monk swung around and stared at him, ready to accuse him of cowardice, or even complicity.

"He is no use to us a gibbering wreck," Rathbone said gently. "Don't frighten him witless." He looked at Sullivan. "Nevertheless, what Monk says is true. Are you with us? You wanted danger-this should be full of it. Weigh the risks. Phillips might get you, and he might not. We certainly will, no shadow of a doubt. I personally will ruin you, I swear it."

Sullivan was almost beyond speech. He nodded and mumbled something, but the words were unintelligible.

Monk wondered if the excitement for which he had risked so much had only ever been an idea to him, and being caught, exposed, and torn apart never a reality. There must be a streak of sadism in him as well. There had never been chance, or excitement, or a hope of escape for the boys. Disgust welling up inside him, cold and sour, he turned away. "Rathbone will tell you what to do," he said. "Perhaps he'd better bring you."

"Of course I'll bring him," Rathbone retorted with a sting in his voice. "Do you think I'm not coming?"

Monk was startled. He swung back, eyes wide, warmth inside him again.

Rathbone saw it. He smiled very slightly, but his eyes were bright and clear. "You'll need all the help you can get," he pointed out. "And possibly a witness whose word may stand up in court." His mouth twisted with irony. "I hope. Apart from that, do you think I could miss it?"

"Good," Monk responded. "Then we will meet at the Wapping Stairs at dusk. Hester will join us."

Rathbone was stunned for a moment, then denial swept in. "You can't possibly let her come!" he protested. "Apart from the danger, it'll be something no woman should see! Haven't you listened to your own evidence, man? We're not going to find just poverty, or even fear or pain. It'll be..." he stumbled to a halt.

"I gave her my word," Monk told him. "It's Scuff." He found it hard to say. "And apart from that, she is the only one with any real medical ability, if someone is hurt."

"But it will be men at their most..." Rathbone started again.

"Raw?" Monk suggested. "Naked?"

"No woman should..." Rathbone tried again.

"Do you think you'll manage?" Monk said with an edge of pain in his voice that surprised him.

Rathbone's eyes widened.

"Have you ever seen a battlefield?" Monk asked him. "I have, once. I've never known such horror in my life, but Hester knew what to do. Forget your preconceptions, Rathbone; this will be reality."

Rathbone closed his eyes and nodded, speechless.

Monk waited on the dockside just beyond Wapping Stairs at dusk, Hester beside him. She was dressed in trousers that Orme had borrowed from the locker of a young River policeman. It would be dangerously impractical for her to go on an expedition like this either hampered by a skirt or recognizably vulnerable as a woman.

Darkness was shrouding the water, and the farther side was visible only by the lights along the bank. Warehouses and cranes stood up hard and black against the southern sky and after the warmth of the day, a few threads of mist dragged faint veils across the water, catching the last of the light.

There was a bump of wood against stone as Orme drew up with one of the police boats. The second boat loomed out of the shadows with Sutton already in it, Snoot crouched beside him on the rear seat.

Footsteps sounded along the quay. Rathbone crossed the shaft of light from the police station lamp, Sullivan reluctantly behind him, his shoulders high and tight, his eyes sunken like holes in his skull.

No one spoke more than a word, a gesture of recognition. Sutton nodded at Rathbone, possibly remembering many of their narrow escapes.

Rathbone nodded back, a bleak smile brief in his face before turning to the business of climbing down the wet, slimy steps into the two boats. They had four River Police to row, and, as soon as they were seated, they slid out into the still water, which was slack at the turn of the tide. They moved out noiselessly except for the bump of metal against wood as the oars rattled in their locks.

No one spoke. Everything had already been said, all the plans argued over and decided. Sullivan knew the price of refusal, and worse, of betrayal. Even so,