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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 the dockside in the noise of unloading, watching the lightermen coming and going across the water. There was a long apprenticeship to the craft of steering them, and Monk watched them with a certain admiration. There was not only skill but also a peculiar grace in the way they balanced, leaned, pushed, realigned their weight, and did it again.
There was steady noise around them as they ate their pies and drank from tin mugs of tea. Winches ground up and down with the clang of chains, dockers shouted at one another, lumpers carried kegs and boxes and bales. There was the occasional jingle of harness and clatter of hooves as horses backed up with heavily loaded drays, and then the rattle of wheels on the stone. The rich, exotic aroma of spices and the gagging smell of raw sugar drifted across from another wharf, mixed with the stinging salt and fish and weed of the tide, and now and then the stench of hides.
Once or twice Scuff looked at Monk as if he were going to say something, then changed his mind. Monk wondered if he were trying to find a way to tell him that boys like Billy were better off with Phillips than frozen or starved to death in some warehouse yard.
“I know,” he said abruptly.
“Eh?” Scuff was caught by surprise.
“It isn't all one way. We aren't going to get boys like Billy to tell us anything.”
Scuff sighed, and took another huge bite of his pie.
“Would you like another one?” Monk asked him.
Scuff hesitated, unused to generosity and not willing to chance his luck.
Monk was not hungry, but he lied. “I do. If you fetch one for me, you might as well get one for yourself.”
“Oh. Well.” Scuff considered for about a second, then stood up. “Don't mind if I do.” He held out his hand for the money. “D'yer want another cup o’ tea, an’ all?”
“Thank you,” Monk replied. “I don't mind if I do.”
It took them quite a while to find a boy willing to speak to them, and it was Orme who finally succeeded. It was in one of the alleys close to the water. The passageway was so narrow a tall man could stretch his arms and touch both sides at the same time, and the buildings almost met at the roof edges, creating the claustrophobic feeling of a series of tunnels. It was crowded with shops: bakers, chandlers, ships’ outfitters, ropemakers, tobacconists, pawnbrokers, brothels, cheap lodging houses, and taverns. There were openings into workshops and yards for the making, mending, or fitting of every piece of wood, metal, canvas, rope, or fabric that had to do with the sea and its cargo or its trade.
The wood creaked and settled, water dripped, footsteps sounded uneasily, and the shadows on the walls were always moving. Sometimes it was caused by light from the shifting tide in a dock inlet, water slapping against stone walls, or the thump of timber against the sides. More often it was someone running or creeping, or carrying a load. The stench of river mud and human waste was overpowering.
The boy refused to be named. He was thin and sallow. It was hard to tell his age, but it was probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty. He had a chipped front tooth, and one finger missing on his right hand. He stood with his back to the wall, staring at them as if expecting an attack.
“I in't swearing ter nothin’,” he said defensively. “If ‘e finds me, ‘e'll kill me.” His voice wobbled. “Ow d'yer find me, anyway?” He looked first at Monk, then at Orme, ignoring Scuff.
“From Mr. Durban's notes,” Orme answered. “It's worth two shillings to you to answer truthfully, then we'll forget we ever saw you.”
