Execution Dock Page 0,77

Orme to avoid the answer if he wanted to.

Orme cleared his throat. He relaxed so very slightly it was almost invisible. "What they said, sir. Don't remember the words exactly. Something about what they knew, and remembered, that sort of thing."

Monk thought about asking if they had known each other long, since youth, maybe, and then he decided against it. Orme would only say that he did not hear anything like that. Monk understood. The water was the answer, the cold, and Phillips's hatred. Hester's prostitute was not lying.

"Thank you, Mr. Orme," he said quietly. "I appreciate your honesty."

"Yes, sir." Orme totally relaxed at last.

Together they turned and walked back towards Wapping.

***

For the next two days Monk called into the station only to keep track of the regular work of the police. Reluctantly he took Scuff with him. Scuff himself was delighted. He was quite aware that some of the earlier errands had been to keep him safe rather than because they needed doing. Monk had imagined himself tactful, and was somewhat taken aback to find that Scuff had read him so easily. He certainly could not apologize, at least not openly, but he would be less clumsy in the future, at least in part because Scuff was so determined to prove his value, and his ability to take care not only of himself but of Monk also.

Their paths crossed Durban 's several times. He had learned the names of almost a dozen boys of various ages who had ended up in Phillips's care. Surely among them there must have been at least two or three willing to testify against him.

They followed one trail after another, up and down both banks of the river, questioning people, searching for others.

At one point Monk found himself in a fine old building at the Legal Quay. He stood with Scuff in a wooden-paneled room with polished tables and floorboards worn uneven with the tread of feet over a century and a half. It smelled of tobacco and rum, and he almost felt as if he could hear age-old arguments from the history of the river echoing in the tight, closed air.

Scuff stared around him, eyes wide. "I in't never been in 'ere before," he said softly. "Wot der they do 'ere, then?"

"Argue the law," Monk answered.

"In 'ere? I thought they did that in courts."

Maritime law, Monk explained. To do with who can ship things, laws of import and export, weights and measures, salvage at sea, that sort of thing. Who unloads, and what duty is owed to the revenue."

Scuff pulled a face of disgust, dragging his mouth down at the corners. " Lot o' thieves," he replied. "Shouldn't believe a thing they tell yer."

"We're looking for a man whose daughter died and whose grandson disappeared. He's a clerk here."

They found the clerk, a sad, pinch-faced man in his fifties.

"How would I know?" he said miserably when Monk began his questions. "Mr. Durban asked me the same things, an' I gave 'im the same answers. Moll's 'usband got killed on the docks when Billy were about two year old. She married again to a great brute wot treated 'er real 'ard. Beat Billy till 'e broke 'is bones, poor little beggar." His face was white, and his eyes were wretched at the memory, and his own helplessness to alter it. "Weren't nothin' I could do. Broke my arm when I tried. Off work for two months, I were. Damn near starved. Billy ran off when 'e were about five. I 'eard Phillips took 'im in an' fed 'im reg'lar, kept 'im warm, gave 'im a bed, an' far as I know, 'e never beat 'im. I let it be. Like I told Mr. Durban, it were better than 'e'd 'ad before. Better than nothin'."

"What happened to Moll?" Monk asked, then instantly wished he had not.

"Took ter the streets, o' course," the clerk answered. "Wot else could she do? Kept movin', so 'e wouldn't find 'er. But 'e did. Killed 'er wi' a knife. Mr. Durban got 'im for that. 'Anged, 'e were." He blinked away tears. "I went an' watched. Gave the 'angman sixpence to 'ave a drink on me. But I never found Billy."

Monk did not reply. There hardly seemed anything to say that was not trite, and in the end, meaningless. There must be many boys like Billy, and Phillips used them. But would their lives without him have been any better, or longer?

Monk and Scuff ate hot meat pies, sitting by