Execution Dock

by Anne Perry

  “You conducted the case brilliantly,” Ballinger said. “And there is nothing even remotely questionable about it. I don't understand what it is that could disturb you now.” The moment he spoke, he realized his mistake. It allowed Rathbone the opening he would otherwise have had to create.

  Rathbone smiled very slightly. “I was naturally very careful not to ask Phillips directly if he was guilty. I behaved as if he were not, as I was obliged to, but I find myself more and more convinced that in fact he did murder that child …” He saw Ballinger wince, and ignored it. “And probably others as well. I know that the River Police are still investigating him, in the hope of building a different case, and I have no doubt at all that they will be a great deal more careful the second time.”

  Ballinger shifted very slightly in his chair.

  “If they do bring another case,” Rathbone continued, “is your client going to wish you to deal with it again? Or, if I may put it more plainly, is this debt of honor now satisfied, or does it stretch to defending Jericho Phillips indefinitely, whatever the charge?”

  Ballinger flushed a painful color, and Rathbone felt guilty for having placed him in such a situation. It was going to make friendship between them impossible. He had already crossed a boundary that could not be forgotten. This man was his wife's father; the price was high.

  “If you cannot answer for him, which would be perfectly understandable, perhaps proper,” he continued, “then may I speak to him myself?” It was what he had wanted from the outset. The anonymity of the man who would pay to defend Phillips had always troubled him. Now, with so much darker a picture emerging of Phillips's trade, it disturbed him even more. “Who is he?”

  “I am afraid I cannot tell you,” Ballinger replied. There was no wavering in him, not an instant of uncertainty. “The matter is one of complete confidentiality, and, to be professional, I cannot tell you. Certainly I shall convey to him your concern. However, I think it may be premature. The River Police have not arrested Phillips or laid any new charge. Naturally they are distressed at the failure of their case, and at the ensuing suggestion that the late Commander Durban was of questionable competence, even of conduct not always becoming to his office.” He moved his hands in a slight gesture of regret. “It is most unfortunate for their reputation that their new man, Monk, seems to be cut from the same cloth. But we cannot alter the law to suit the weaknesses of those who administer it. I am sure you would be among the first to agree.”

  He smiled very slightly; the warmth was on his lips but not in his eyes. “Your own words in defense of the law still ring in my mind. It must be for all, or it is eventually for no one. If we build either reward or punishment on our own likes, loyalties, or even sense of outrage, then justice is immediately eroded.” He shook his head, his gaze direct, candid. “The time will come when we ourselves are disliked or misunderstood, or strangers, different from our judges in race or class or creed, and if their sense of justice depends upon their passion rather than their morality, who is to speak for us then, or defend our right to the truth?” He leaned forward. “That is more or less what you said to me, Oliver, here in this room, when we spoke of this very subject earlier. I have never admired any man's honor more than I did yours, and still do.”

  Rathbone had no answer. His emotions were intensely troubled, and his mind was utterly wrong-footed, off balance as a runner who is tripped, and suddenly finds his own speed his enemy. It flashed into his mind to wonder if the person who had paid to have Phillips defended not only wanted it, but far more than that, needed it. Was he one of Phillips's clients, who could not afford to have him found guilty? Who, exactly, did Phillips cater to? Considering Rathbone's fee for his services, a man of very considerable means indeed. He felt a sharp stab of guilt for that. It was a sizable amount of money, and now it felt dirty in his hands. He could buy nothing with it that would bring him pleasure.

  Ballinger was waiting, watching and judging his reactions.

  Rathbone was angry, first with Ballinger for knowing so well how to use him, then with himself for being used. Then another thought occurred to him, which was painful, halting his emotions with an icy hand. Was the man a friend of Ballinger's? A man he had possibly known in his youth, before this desperate twist of hunger had imprisoned him in loneliness, shame, deceit, and then terror? Does one ever quite forget the innocence one has known in the past, the times of greater hope, unforced kindness, among boys before they became men? Or the debts incurred then?

  Perhaps it was even worse than that? It would be a double pressure, a debt compounded, if it were his other son-in-law, Margaret's sister's husband. It could be. All ages and types of men were subject to hungers that tortured and in the end destroyed both the victim and the oppressor in their grip.

  Or was it Mrs. Ballinger's brother, or one of her sisters’ husbands? The possibilities were many, all of them harsh and full of entangled obligations and pities, loyalties too complex to untangle, and where words did nothing whatever to ease shame or despair.

  Without warning, Rathbone's anger was overtaken by pity. He searched for something to say, and before he found it, there was a tap on the door, but it did not open. It had to be the maid.

  Ballinger rose to his feet and went to the door. A low voice spoke with the deferential tones of a servant. Ballinger thanked him and turned back to Rathbone.

  “I'm sorry, but I have an unexpected visitor. A client who needs urgent help, and I cannot put him off. Anyway, I think I have explained my position, and there is nothing further I can add. I apologize.” He stood as if waiting to usher Rathbone out, and the invitation to leave was implicit.

  Rathbone stood up. He had no idea who this new client was, and the fact that Ballinger did not introduce him was not remarkable. Business with one's attorney could be sensitive. In fact, if one called personally on a Saturday morning, then it was at the very least extraordinary and unexpected.

  “Thank you for your courtesy in receiving me, without notice,” he said with as much grace as he could muster.

  “Not at all,” Ballinger replied. “Were there not an emergency, it would have been a pleasure to offer you tea, and to speak longer.”

  They shook hands, and Rathbone went out into an empty hall. Whoever had called to see Ballinger had been shown into another room, at least until Rathbone had left. It flashed into his mind to wonder, with some discomfort, if it was someone he would have recognized. It was not a pleasant thought.

  As he was riding home in a cab, a certain degree of anxiety would not leave his mind. If Phillips had among his clientele men with the money to pay Rathbone's fee, and to call on Ballinger uninvited on a Saturday morning, what else could they do, if pressured with sufficient threat of exposure?

  Not that he knew that Ballinger's guest this morning had anything to do with Phillips, but the possibility would not leave his mind. Ballinger had made clear that the client was someone to whom he owed loyalty, whatever the nature of his client's problem.

  Rathbone was troubled as he rode through the bustling Saturday streets with their tall, elegant facades, their carriages with matched pairs, the horses’ coats gleaming, footmen in perfect livery, fashionable ladies. Who else could Jericho Phillips call upon, if he felt threatened by Monk's continuing investigation? And what power might such men have, and be willing to use, to save their reputations?

  And, colder and closer to him than that, whose side would Margaret be on, if any of it came into the open, or at the very least, into family hostility? Her father of a lifetime, or her husband of a year? He did not wish to know the answer to that. Either would be painful, and he hoped profoundly that she would never be put to that test. And yet if she were not, wouldn't he still wonder?

  Monk took a brief respite over the weekend. He and Hester walked in the park, climbing the slow rise and standing close to each other on the top in the sun. They stared down at the brilliant light on the river below them, watching the boats ply up and down, like long-legged flies, oars
dipping and rising. Monk knew exactly the sound the water would make off the blades, if he were close enough to hear it. From this distance, the music drifted in snatches and the breeze was cool, rustling the leaves, mellowing the sharp smell of the tide with the sweetness of grass.

  But Monday was different. He was met by Orme on Princes Stairs, on his own side of the river, even before he got on the ferry to take him over to the Wapping Police Station. His uniform was immaculate, but his face was weary, as if even at seven in the morning he had already worked long and exhaustingly.

  “Morning, sir,” he said, standing to attention. “I've a ferry here for you, if you like?”

  Monk met his eyes and felt a tightening in his stomach, a slow clench into a knot. “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “Have you learned something since I was in?” He followed Orme to the edge of the dock-side and down the steps to where the ferry was rocking gently in the wash of a passing lighter. They stepped in, and the ferryman set out for the farther bank.

  “Yes, sir,” Orme said quietly, dropping his voice so they would not be overheard above the creak of the oars and the hiss of the water. “I'm afraid charges've been laid against Mr. Durban, though he's dead an’ not here to face them or tell them the truth. And if you ask me, that's a coward's way of getting at a man you didn't ‘ave the courage to face in life.” His voice shook with indignation, and far more powerful than that, a deep, unconcealable pain.

  “Then we'll have to answer for him,” Monk responded instantly, and realized as the words were on his lips just how rash they were. But he was prepared to follow through. The cowardice of it was despicable. “What are they charging? And for that matter, who is saying it?”

  Orme's face was stiff. He was a quiet man, gentle, but perhaps lacking in breadth of thought. Once or twice he had hinted at a religious upbringing. Certainly he could be suspicious of laughter, except of the most good-natured sort. He was offended to have to say the words that Monk had asked of him.

  They were pulling out into the mainstream of the river now, bucking a little against the strength of the tide. The slap of the water was louder, and Orme had to raise his voice against it. “Government officer, sir, a couple of magistrates. They're saying that he got hold o’ boys for Phillips in his trade. They're using the same evidence we found as to how Mr. Durban helped some o’ the mudlarks and pickpockets and lookouts and sweeps’ boys turn to honest work. They're saying that he sent them Phillips's way, into use for prostitution, an’ playacting, and photographs.” He swallowed with difficulty.

  Monk could see he was having trouble even framing the thoughts that followed. “Yes?” he prompted, finding his own throat tight.

  “An’ that Mr. Durban fell foul o’ Phillips an’ wanted to put him away so's he could take the business an’ run it for himself,” Orme finished wretchedly. He looked at Monk, his eyes imploring a denial, and the will and strength to fight.

  Monk felt sick. The evidence he had uncovered about Durban could very easily be used to support such allegations. It was all capable of being interpreted against him as well as for him. Why had he pursued Phillips so erratically, harrying him one month, and then ignoring him the next? Was it to protect Reilly, or another boy like him? Or was it to further his own interests in the business, or worse, to elicit money from Phillips? Was it a personal war? Yes, of course it was! Everything pointed to that, and Orme knew it even better than he did, even if he did not know why. Durban had loathed Phillips with a driving passion. At times it had consumed him. His temper had exploded. He had gone far beyond the limits of the law. But he had also used his power of office to coerce people into what he wanted them to do. Some would say he had abused it.

  And who was Mary Webber? No one seemed to know. No one else had connected her name to the case anywhere.

  Why had Durban lied about his own origins? Was it the ordinary human weakness that tempts everyone to make themselves more important than they are, more interesting, more talented, more successful? What was his past really that he denied its entirety?

  Orme was still watching him, waiting for a word of encouragement. He must feel dreadfully alone, abandoned to a fight for which he had been given no weapons.

  “We have to learn the truth,” Monk said firmly. “Nothing else is going to help us in this. And we need to be careful whom we trust. There seems to be someone working against us.”

  “More than one,” Orme said unhappily, but his eyes were steady. “I'm sorry, sir, but there's something else. There's talk of the Metropolitan Police taking us over completely, so we don't even have our own commander anymore, just come under the nearest local station. We wouldn't have the river anymore, just our bit at the bank. The news papers are saying we're corrupt, an’ we need sorting out, most of us got rid of. They even said something in the House of Commons! As if we hadn't looked after them near a hundred years! No loyalty. One bad patch, an’ they're on us like wolves.”

  Doubt lurched up inside Monk, like nausea. They were almost at the far bank by the Wapping Stairs. They would reach it and have to go ashore in minutes, then there would be no more time to speak without the risk of being overheard. It would take only minutes to cross the open dockside and reach the station.

  Orme was waiting for him to make the decision whether to go forward, fight all the way, or retreat now before even more was exposed, and perhaps all reputation was lost.

  They were at the steps. The ferry bumped at the landing, wood against stone. There was no more time. Monk paid the ferryman and climbed out a step behind Orme.

  He could not ask anyone else to make the decision. He was the leader; he must lead. Durban would have; that was one thing of which he was certain. And evasion, willing blindness, was no way out. Whatever was discovered, at least it was a way to move forward. Discretion was sometimes an answer, cowardice never. Which was this?

  He followed Orme across the quayside to the station, then inside, still without answering.

  They had to spend the rest of the morning dealing with the usual River Police business of thefts, smuggling, and the occasional violence. By the middle of the day Monk was back near Wapping again, knowing that with luck he would have most of the afternoon to think about Durban.

  Since the charge was that Durban had procured boys, first for Phillips, then later with the intention of using them in the same trade himself, he knew he should go back and retrace every connection Durban had had with boys, seek the proof his enemies would use, pursue it as ruthlessly as they would, and then hopefully not find it. For that he would need Scuffs help.

  “South bank, please,” he said to the ferryman. “Rotherhithe.”

  “Thought you said Wapping!” the man responded tartly.

  “I did. I've changed my mind. Princes Stairs, and wait for me. I'm going up to Paradise Place, and I'll be back.”

  The man nodded agreement.

  Monk settled back in the stern as they swung around and headed across the river. He knew from the man's manner that word had already spread that the River Police were in trouble. Even in these few hours their influence was beginning to erode.

  Monk had a sudden moment of helplessness, a sickening doubt that he would never stop the destruction. How could he find the skill to prevent the rising confidence of the thieves and chancers up and down the river, the thousands of men who were kept reasonably honest only by the certainty of the River Police's authority, the knowledge that crime was punished immediately and effectively? To some extent it was a matter of bravado, of who kept their nerve the longest. Since the days of Harriott and Colquhoun, the River Police had had the upper hand. But now the greedy on the river were gathering, strengthening, circling to attack.

  When they reached the far side he went immediately to Paradise Place. He opened the door and shouted for Scuff as loudly as he could. He tried to think of a suitable punishment if the boy had gone, and knew there was none. He had no right to give commands, except those pertaining to conduct in the house. And yet Scuff was roughly ele
ven, a child in years if not in experience. He might have strong and subtle knowledge of the street, but his emotions were still appallingly easy to hurt, as vulnerable as any other child's.

  Scuff appeared at the top of the stairs, his hair damp and a clean shirt on, which was a little too large for his narrow shoulders, and hanging over the top of his trousers.

  “Ah!” Monk said with relief. “I need your help. Are you busy?”

  “No!” Scuff said eagerly, starting down. Then he remembered his dignity and slowed. “Not very. What're we gonna do?”

  Monk had already decided to tell him the truth. “People are saying some very ugly things about Mr. Durban. In fact, they are actually going to charge that he was guilty of getting boys for Phillips to use on his boat, knowing what it was for.”

  “That's stupid!” Scuff said disgustedly. “‘E'd ‘a never done that! Anyway, ‘e's dead.” Then instantly he was sorry, but now it was too late to take it back. “I din't mean ter say that,” he apologized, looking ruefully at Monk to see how hurt he was. “But wot fer? They can't do nothin’ to ‘im now, even if it was true.”

  “It's a cowardly thing to blame a dead man who can't answer you back,” Monk said with as much composure as he could. He did not want Scuff to think he had been clumsy. “And it's a good way to get out of it yourself. It turns us away from what we should really be looking at, but all the same, I'm going to find out.”

  Scuff looked doubtful. “It won't ‘ang Phillips.”

  Monk had a sudden flash of understanding. Scuff was afraid it might be true, and he was imagining how Monk would be disillusioned by it.

  “Not directly,” Monk agreed casually, keeping the emotion out of his voice with difficulty. “But just at the moment I'm even more concerned with saving Mr. Durban's good name …” He stopped, catching the anxiety in Scuffs eyes. “Because he was commander of the River Police, and now people are beginning to say we're all rotten, and they're taking liberties,” he explained. “I have to put a stop to that.”