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“No.” Monk kept his pace even, though he was not yet certain where he was going. He did not want Scuff to realize that, although he was beginning to appreciate that Scuff was a far sharper judge of character than he had previously given him credit for. It was disconcerting to be read so well by an eleven-year-old. “No,” he said again. “He's been found not guilty. We can't try him again, no matter what we find. In fact, even if he confessed, there'd still be nothing we could do.”
Scuff was silent. He turned towards Monk, looking him up and down, his lips tight.
Monk was unpleasantly aware that Scuff was being tactful. He was touched by it, and at the same time he was hurt. Scuff was sorry for him, because he had made a mistake he did not know how to mend. This was a far cry from the brilliant, angry man he had been in the main Metropolitan Police onshore, where criminals and slipshod police alike were frightened of him.
“So we gotta get ‘im for summink else, then,” Scuff deduced. “Wot like? Thievin’? Forgin’? ‘E don't do that, far as I know. Sellin’ stuff wot was nicked? ‘E don't do that neither. An’ ‘e don't smuggle nothin’ so ‘e don't pay the revenue men be'ind ‘is back, like.” He screwed up his face in an unspoken question.
“I don't know,” Monk said frankly. “That's what I need to find out. He does lots of things. Maybe Fig isn't the only boy he's killed, but I need something I can prove.”
Scuff grunted in sympathy and walked beside Monk, trying very hard to keep in step with him. Monk wondered whether to shorten his stride. He decided not to; he did not want Scuff to know that he had noticed.
The police surgeon was busy and short-tempered. He met them in one of the stone-floored and utilitarian outer rooms of the mortuary. He had just finished an autopsy and his rolled-up sleeves were still splashed with blood.
“Made a mess of it, didn't you,” he said bitterly. It was an accusation, not a question. He glanced at Scuff once, then disregarded him. “If you expect me to rescue you, or excuse you, for that matter, then you're wasting your time.”
Scuff let out a wail of fury, and stifled it immediately, terrified Monk would make him go away, and then he would be no use at all. He stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other in his odd boots, and glaring at the surgeon.
Monk controlled his own temper with difficulty, only because his need to find some new charge against Phillips was greater than his impulse for self-defense. “You deal with most of the bodies taken out of this stretch of the river,” he replied, his voice tight. “Figgis can't have been the only boy of that age and general type. I'd like to hear about the others.”
“You wouldn't,” the surgeon contradicted him. “Especially not in front of this one.” He indicated Scuff briefly. “Won't give you anything useful, anyway. If we could've tied any of them to Jericho Phillips, don't you think we would have?” His dark face was creased with an inner pain that perhaps he did not realize showed so clearly.
Monk's anger vanished. Suddenly they had everything that mattered in common. The retort that apparently the surgeon had been no cleverer than anyone else died on his tongue.
“I want to get him for anything I can,” he said quietly. “Loitering with intent or being a public nuisance, if it would put him away long enough to start on the rest.”
“I want to see him hang for what he does to these boys,” the surgeon replied. His voice shook very slightly.
“So do I, but I'll settle for what I can get,” Monk replied.
The surgeon looked up at him, his eyes hard, then very slowly the disgust seeped out of him and he relaxed.
Scuff stopped fidgeting.
“I've had a few boys I think were his,” the surgeon said. “And if I could have proved it I would have. One he acknowledged. Police asked him, and he came in here, brass-faced as the Lord Mayor, and said he knew the boy. Said he'd taken him in, but he'd run away. He knew I coul
dn't prove anything different. I'd have happily dissected him alive, and he knew it. He enjoyed looking at me and seeing me know that I couldn't.” He winced. “But I'd have taken you apart when that verdict came in. You so bloody nearly had him! I've no right. I didn't get him myself.”
“How sure are you that he's done it before?” Monk asked. “I mean sure, not just instinct.”
“Absolutely, but I can't prove a damn thing. If you can get him, I'll be in your debt for life, and I'll pay it. I don't care whether he's on the end of a rope or knifed to death by one of his rivals. Just take him off our river.” For a moment it was a plea, the urgency in him undisguised. Then he hid it again, rolling up his sleeves even higher and turning away. “All I can tell you is that he's fond of torturing them with burning cigars, but you probably know that. And when he finishes them it's with a knife.” His body was rigid and he kept his back to them. “Now get out of here and do something bloody useful!” He stalked away, leaving them alone in the damp room with its smells of carbolic and death.
Outside, Monk breathed in the air deeply. Scuff said nothing, looking away from him. Perhaps he was frightened at last, not just aware of dangers that he must live with every day, but of something so large and so dark it stripped away all bravado and pretense. His fear was out of his control, and he did not want Monk to see it.
They walked side by side near the edge of the water, both lost in their own thoughts on the reality of death, and its pedestrian, physical immediacy. They were barely aware of the slap of the tide on the wall of the steps, and the shouts of the lightermen and stevedores a hundred yards away unloading a schooner from the Indies.
“This is worse than I thought,” Monk said after a while. He stopped walking and looked out over the water. He must be careful how he phrased it or Scuff would know he was being protected, and would resent it. “I don't like to involve you, because it's dangerous,” he went on. “But I don't think Orme and I can do it without your help. There are boys who will trust you who won't even speak to us, unless you're there to persuade them.”
Scuffs narrow shoulders were tight, as if he were waiting to be struck; it was his only outward sign of fear. Now he stopped, hands in his pockets, and turned slowly to face Monk. His eyes were dark, hollow, and embarrassed by what he saw as his own weakness. “Yeah?” He wanted desperately to meet expectations.
“I think we'll need you all the time, to help with the questioning, until we get him,” Monk said casually, starting to walk again. “It would be a sacrifice, I know. But we'd find you a proper place to sleep, where you could shut the door and be alone. And there'd be food, of course.”
Scuff was too startled to move. He stood rooted to the spot. “Food?” he repeated.
Monk stopped and turned back. “Well, I can't come looking for you every day. I haven't time.”
Suddenly Scuff understood. Joy filled his face, then very quickly he sobered up to a proper dignity. “I reckon I could,” he said generously. “Just until yer get ‘im, like.”
“Thank you,” Monk replied, almost certain that Hester would see the necessity of keeping Scuff safe as long as Jericho Phillips was free, however long that might be. “Well, come on then! The first boy we need to find is the one who identified Fig from Durban's drawings. He might know something else, if we ask him the right questions.”
