by Anne Perry
“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 if they let Phillips keep Scuff, and one day torture him to death? The power of terror and extortion was sickeningly clear, and without escape.
She saw something else in Monk's face, intelligence, understanding, and deeper horror.
“What is it?” she demanded, leaning forward as if to grasp him, and at the last moment stopping. “What do you know?”
“I was thinking that I should go to Rathbone and tell him about Ballinger,” he replied, almost in a whisper. “He needs to know, for his own sake, hideous as it will be for him. And he might be able to help; I don't know how.”
“Poor Oliver,” she said quietly. “But I would tell everybody any truth, if I had to, to get Scuff back.”
“Claudine thought Ballinger might have recognized her,” Monk said quietly, his voice rasping. “It seems he did, and told Phillips. That's why Phillips has taken Scuff now. They know the net is tightening.” His face was very pale, eyes hollow. “We have to get Scuff back, or get some hostage of our own that will force Phillips to let him go. I'll go to Rathbone …”
“I'm coming too,” she said instantly.
“No. I won't shut you out, I promise …”
“I'm coming! If you go after Scuff, and anyone is hurt, I can do more for them than any of the rest of you.” For the first time her glance took in Orme, pleading. “You know that!”
Monk turned back and faced her. “Yes, I do know it. I also know that you would not forgive me if anything went wrong and you might have prevented it, and I couldn't live with that. I give you my word that I will not go without you. Or Orme, if you'll come?” he added, looking at the other man.
“I'll come,” Orme said simply. “I'll get a boat ready, and some pistols.”
Monk nodded his thanks, and touched Hester's hand in passing. It was just a momentary warmth, skin to skin, and then it was gone.
Monk went straight to Rathbone's office and asked to see Oliver.
His clerk, Dobie, was apologetic. “I'm sorry, Mr. Monk, but Sir Oliver is with a client at the moment. I expect him to be free in half an hour, if it is urgent,” he said courteously.
“It is extremely urgent,” Monk replied. “Unless his client is coming up for trial tomorrow, it cannot wait. Jericho Phillips has kidnapped another child. Please interrupt Sir Oliver and tell him so. Tell him it is Scuff.”
“Oh, dear,” Dobie said with extreme distaste. “Did you say Scuff, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, sir. Would you please wait here?” He did not bother to ask Monk to be seated. He could see very well that he was too distressed to sit down.
Monk paced back and forth. The seconds seemed drawn out, even the minutest sound ringing in his ears.
Finally Dobie returned, solemn-faced. “Sir Oliver will see you immediately,” he said. “I shall ask all other clients to wait, until you inform me otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Monk strode past him and opened Rathbone's office door.
Rathbone turned, face pale, eyes wide. “Are you sure?” He did not elaborate; there was no need.
“Yes,” Monk replied, closing the door behind him. “He sent a message to say that if I didn't stop pursuing him, and blacken Durban's name in public, he'd use Scuff in his trade, and then kill him.” It was difficult to even say the words, as if they gave it a more intense reality. “I'm going to get him back, and I need your help.”
Rathbone started to say that it was not a legal matter, then realized that of course Monk knew that. He had not yet come to the worst.
Monk told him quickly, sparing nothing. “Claudine Burroughs dressed as a match woman and went to try to find where they were selling Phillips's photographs. She succeeded in finding at least one shop. The photographs were appalling, but what matters is that she recognized one of the purchasers, because she knew him socially. She is afraid that he also recognized her, and that is why Phillips has attacked.”
Rathbone frowned. “I don't follow your logic. Why would Phillips do that? He won't care about individual customers, even if Mrs. Burroughs was right.”
Monk hesitated for the first time. He loathed doing this. “It was Arthur Ballinger,” he said quietly. “I think he warned Phillips that we are closing in on him, and this is Phillips's retaliation. I'm sorry.”
Rathbone stared at him, the blood draining from his face. He looked as if he had been struck such a blow as to rob him momentarily of thought, or the power to respond.
Monk wanted to apologize again, but he knew it was futile.
“It is the only thing that has changed,” he said aloud. “Before that, Phillips was winning, and he knew it. He had no need to do anything but wait us out. Now we have seen Ballinger, and that must matter to him.”
Rathbone moved to the chair and sat down slowly. “I'll do what I can.” His voice was hoarse.
“I'll do what I can to help you rescue Scuff,” he said, his voice strained. He stood up and swayed very slightly. “Sullivan is the weak link. He will know where Phillips's boat is, and I can force him to take us. He'll know the times and places because he goes there. I don't think we have time to waste.” He moved to the door.
Monk followed him. He wanted to ask about Ballinger's involvement, but the wound was too raw, and too deep to probe yet. He could barely imagine how it must hurt Rathbone, not for Ballinger, but for Margaret. He thought of Hester, whose father had taken his own life after a financial scandal that had ruined him. He had believed it to be the only decent way out, and he had had no fault but faith in a man who was beneath honor of any kind.
They took a cab and rode in silence to Sullivan's chambers. The hot air was sharp with the smells of horse dung, the leather inside the cab, and stale sweat.
Monk's imagination was crowded with fear for Scuff. How had he managed to get caught? How terrified he must have been when he recognized Phillips, knowing what lay ahead of him. Was he already burned, bleeding? Where would Phillips begin, slowly, delicately, or straight into the maximum pain? The sweat broke out and ran cold on his own skin as he tried to force the images out of his mind.
They reached Sullivan's chambers still without speaking again. It was understood that Rathbone would address the subject for both of them.
As expected, they were told to wait, and possibly Lord Justice Sullivan would see them. Rathbone replied that it was a police emergency, concerning a matter of the utmost personal importance to Sullivan, and that the man would rue the day he did so if he attempted to block their way.
Within half an hour they stood in Sullivan's rooms, facing a man who was both angry and frightened. His big body was clenched and shivering, sweat shining on his skin in the heat as the sun shone in through the long windows.
“What is it you want?” He ignored Monk and look
ed only at Rathbone, as if expecting the details from him.
He was not disappointed. Rathbone came immediately to the point.
“We wish you to take us to Jericho Phillips's boat tonight, secretly. If you do not, innocent people will die, so there is no bargain to be made, no equivocation or denial possible.”
“I have no idea where his boat is!” Sullivan protested, even before Rathbone had finished speaking. “If the police wish to board it, that is up to them. I am sure they have informants whom they can ask.”
“There are all sorts of people we could speak to,” Rathbone replied icily. “With all sorts of information to give or to trade. I am sure you already understand that, in all its shades of meaning. We must do it tonight, and without Phillips receiving any warning so he could move the child he has kidnapped.”
“I can't!” Sullivan protested, his hands white-knuckled, the sweat running down his face.
“For a man who thrives on the thrill of danger, you seem to singularly lack courage,” Rathbone said with disgust. “You told me you loved the danger of risking being caught. Well, you are about to have the greatest excitement of your life.”
Monk stepped forward, not out of pity for Sullivan—who appeared to be about to choke—but because he was afraid they would lose his usefulness if he had a stroke. “You can leave once we are there,” he said raspingly “If we find the boy alive. If not, believe me, I will expose you to the whole of London—more important, to the judiciary who presently admire you so much. You may well have friends there, but they will not be able to help you, and unless they are suicidal, they will not try to. Ballinger will not get Sir Oliver to help you, and I will 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, Hester sat beside Monk in the stern of the second boat and watched the judge with coldness creeping up inside her, cramping her stomach and tightening her chest until she found it hard to breathe. There was a desperation in him that she could smell in the air, sharp and sour, above the detritus drifting on the oily water. He was cornered, and she was waiting for him to attack. Something, long ago, had separated him from the compassion he should have had, and left him erratic and ultimately unreachable.
At another time she could have pitied him as a man incomplete. Now all she could think of was Scuff alone and terrified, intelligent enough to know exactly what Phillips would do to him. He would know that Monk would try everything he knew or could invent to rescue him; he also knew that they had all failed before. Phillips had beaten them, and mocked them, and escaped to continue unhampered. He had won every time. All the love in the world did not blind Scuff to the reality that they could fail again. He was a child with hope, optimism, and a lifetime's knowledge of failure behind him. The difference between surviving and not was wafer-thin.
She did not even think what Scuffs death would do to Monk. She could feel his weight beside her. He was too muffled by his clothes to warm her, but the feeling was there in her memory and imagination. The darkness inside was colder and denser than anything on the water around her. They could not afford mistakes of judgment, hesitation, even mercy.
They made good speed in the strange stillness of the turn of the tide. In only a few minutes the tide would begin to run again, gathering speed upriver, rising, slapping against the steps, lifting the ships at anchor, pulling everything upstream, carrying in the hungry sea, bringing back the rubbish and the flotsam of life, and death, and trade.
They were almost at Sufferance Wharf on the south bank. The low line of a moored boat was just discernible, perhaps twenty yards from the stone embankment. It was riding at anchor, only its lanterns visible at bow and stern. All was silent except for a footfall now and then on the
deck. A faint scuffle as someone briefly opened a hatch and the inside light and noise escaped: voices, a stifled laugh, and then gone again. It was in one of those movements that Hester saw the motionless figures of watchmen on deck, prepared to repel boarders. They might have guns, but it was far more likely to be knives, or sharpened grappling hooks. A quick stab, a lunge, and there would be another corpse carried up with the returning tide.
She knew Monk and Orme were armed. She could not imagine that Rathbone was, since he usually forswore using weapons; but then she had discovered that she did not know him nearly as well as she had supposed.
They were almost to the boat. Monk stood up and hailed them. She saw with slight surprise how easily he balanced now, in spite of the slight rocking as he moved his weight. He had learned quickly.
The watchman answered. He demanded to know who Monk was, but his voice was quiet, controlled. He was only twenty feet away.
“Got a gentleman to see you,” Monk said. “Gave him a lift.”
The boat rocked a little. The seconds ticked by.
Hester's breath choked in her throat. What could they do if Sullivan's courage failed him and he would not board? What if his terror of Jericho Phillips was greater than his terror of Monk, or even of Society's ruin of him?
“Get up!” Rathbone whispered to him harshly. “Or I will let Monk give you to the brothel owners you've put away in the past. That death will be very slow, and very intimate, I promise you.”
Hester gasped. She saw Monk stiffen.
Sullivan staggered to his feet and swayed as his clumsiness rocked the boat and nearly plunged him over the side. Monk caught hold of him just in time.
Sullivan spoke his name, and repeated the password that identified him.
The watchman relaxed. He turned and spoke to his companion, who had come to reinforce him, just in case Monk should try to board as well. He offered his hand to Sullivan. The boat pulled close enough for Sullivan to scramble up and heave himself on to the deck just as Hester saw the shadow move behind him. A moment later first one watchman fell, and then the other. Orme, Sutton, and more River Police crowded over the deck.
