Execution Dock Page 0,145

ter keep yer job, Mr. Monk. Not as I minds if yer don't! Ye're too stupid ter be a real bother ter me, but I wouldn't care if yer went. 'Oo'ever comes after yer won't be no better neither, just like Durban wasn't." His voice was softer, and still he did not move his hands. "The river'll go on, an' men wi' 'ungers they can't feed wi'out me, or someone like me. We're like the tide, Mr. Monk; only a fool stands in our way. Get yerself drownded." He relished the word on his tongue. The tension was slipping out of him now. The years of self-discipline were winning. He was in control again; the moment of fear had passed.

Monk had to balance Phillips's likely impulses either to panic and bolt for freedom, or to marshal his returning confidence and attack the police. Neither would help find Scuff. The one advantage he had was that Phillips did not want violence either; it would be bad for business. His clients wanted imaginary danger, not the reality. They sought sexual release, bloodshed, but not their own.

He made his decision. "Jericho Phillips, I am arresting you for the murder of the boy known as Scuff." He held the gun so that it was clearly visible now, pointed at Phillips's chest. "And Mr. Orme is going to arrest Sir John Wilberforce there." He named the only other guest whose face he recognized.

Wilberforce burst into protest, his cheeks scarlet, streaming with sweat. Orme, his back to the bulkhead, raised his gun. The light gleamed on the barrel, and Wilberforce abruptly fell silent.

It was Phillips who spoke, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "Makin' a fool o' yerself again, Mr. Monk. I dunno where your boy is, an' I dint kill no one. We been through all o' that, as 'is Lordship Sullivan'll 'ere tell yer, an' Sir Oliver an' all. Yer jus' don't learn, do yer!" He turned to Wilberforce, the sneer broadening on his face, his contempt naked. "No need to get inter a sweat, sir. 'E can't do nothin' to yer. Think o' 'oo you are, an' 'oo 'e is, an' get an 'old o' yerself. Yer got all the cards, if yer play 'em right."

There was a snigger of laughter from one of the other men. They began to relax. They were the hunters again, no longer the victims.

Orme had taken off his jacket and given it to the older boy to cover his nakedness and his humiliation. Sutton did the same for the younger one.

The movement caught Hester's eye and suddenly she realized that they were all frozen here, arguing, and any torture could be happening to Scuff. There was no purpose in pleading with Phillips to tell them where he was. She slipped between two of the customers and touched Orme. "We have to look for Scuff," she whispered. "There may be other guards, so keep your gun ready."

"Right, ma'am." He yielded immediately. He nodded to Sutton, who was almost beside him, Snoot now on the floor at his heels. The three of them inched towards the doorway as the quarrel between Monk and Phillips grew uglier. Monk's men were posturing themselves to take over with violence, moving to get the physical advantage, disarm those most likely to have weapons, or to be able to seize one of the children to use as a hostage. Wilberforce was drawn in. Sullivan swayed from one side to the other, his face dark, congested with a desperate hatred like a trapped creature between its tormentors.

Monk would strike soon, and then the fighting would be swift and hard.

Hester was afraid for him, and for Rathbone as well. She had seen a horror in his eyes far beyond the cruelty or coarseness of the scene. He was struggling with some decision of his own that she did not yet recognize. She imagined that it could be a kind of guilt. Now at last he was seeing the reality of what he had defended, not the theory, the high words of the law. Perhaps some time she would even apologize to him for the harsher things she had said. This was not his world; he might really not have understood.

Now all that mattered was to find Scuff. She dared not let her mind even touch on the chance that he was not here, but held captive locked in some room on shore, or even dead already. That would be almost like being dead herself.

She