Execution Dock

He could argue with himself forever and resolve nothing. It was time to look harder for the truth, to stop using loyalty to justify evading it. He put the papers away and found Orme.

But it was late in the morning before they were alone where there would be no interruption. They had very satisfactorily solved a warehouse robbery and the thieves had been arrested. Orme stood on the dock near the King Edward Stairs as Monk finished congratulating him on the arrest.

“Thank you, sir,” Orme acknowledged. “The men did a good job.”

“Your men,” Monk pointed out.

Orme stood a trifle straighter. “Our men, sir.”

Monk smiled, feeling worse about what he had to do. There was no time to delay it. He liked Orme and he needed his loyalty. More than that, he admitted, he wanted his respect, but leadership was not about what you wanted. There would not be a better time to ask; maybe not another time at all today.

“How well did Durban know Phillips, Mr. Orme?”

Orme drew in his breath, then studied Monk's face, and hesitated.

“I have a good idea already,” Monk told him. “I want your view of it. Was Fig's death the begi

“No, sir.” Orme stood more stiffly. The gesture was not one of insolence-there was nothing defiant in his face-just a stiffening against an awaited pain.

“When was the begi

“I don't know, sir. That's the truth.” Orme's eyes were clear.

“So far back, then?”

Orme flushed. He had given himself away without meaning to. It was obvious in his tightened lips and squared shoulders that he also saw that Monk knew, and that evasions were no longer possible. It would have to be the truth, or a deliberate, pla

Monk hated everything that had put him in the position of having to do this. He still did not wish to give away Durban 's own lies about his youth. Orme might guess; that was different from knowing.

“When was the first time you knew it was personal?” Monk asked. He phrased it carefully.

Orme took a deep breath. The sounds and movement of the river were all around them: the ships, swaying in the fast-ru

“About four years ago, sir,” Orme replied. “Or maybe five.”

“What happened? How was it different from what you'd seen before?”

Orme shifted his balance. He was very clearly uncomfortable.

Monk waited him out.

“One minute it was just Mr. Durban asking questions, the next minute the whole air of it changed an’ they were shouting at each other,” Orme replied. “Then before you could do anything about it, Phillips had a knife out-great long thing it was, with a curved blade. He was swinging it wide…” He gestured with his own arm. “Like he meant to kill Mr. Durban. But Mr. Durban saw it coming an’ moved aside.” He swerved with his body, mimicking the action. There was both strength and grace in it. What he was describing became more real.

“Go on,” Monk urged.

Orme was unhappy.

“Go on!” Monk ordered. “Obviously he didn't kill Durban. What happened? Why did he want to? Was Durban accusing him of something? Another boy killed? Who stopped Phillips? You?”

“No, sir. Mr. Durban stopped him himself.”

“Right. How? How did Durban stop a man like Phillips coming at him with a knife? Did he apologize? Back off?”

“No!” Orme was offended at the thought.

“Did he fight back?”

“Yes.”

“With a knife?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He was carrying a knife, and he was good enough with it to hold off a man like Jericho Phillips?” Monk's surprise showed in his voice. He could not have done that himself At least he thought he could not have. Possibly in the closed-up past, further back than his memory, he had learned such things. “Orme!”

“Yes, sir! Yes, he was. Phillips was good, but Mr. Durban was better. He fought him right back to the edge of the water, sir, then he drove him into it. Half drowned, Phillips was, and in a rage fit to kill us all, if he could have.”

Monk remembered what Hester had told him about Phillips and the water, and about being cold. Had Durban known that? Had Orme? He looked across at Orme's face and tried to read it. He was startled to see not only reluctance, but also a certain kind of stubbor

They stood facing each other in the sun and the wind, the smell of the tide and the swirl and slap of the water.

“Why did that make you think they knew each other?” Monk asked. It was only part of the question, allowing 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.”