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“Answer wot? I dunno nothin!”
“You know why so few boys ever run away,” Monk told him. “Young ones we can understand. They've nowhere to go, and are too small to look after themselves. What about older ones, fourteen or fifteen? If you don't want to go to sea, why not simply leave? Customers are coming and going from the ship, aren't they? Couldn't you go out with one of them? He can't keep you locked up all the time.”
The boy gave him a look of withering contempt. “There's twenty of us or more. We can't all go! Some are scared, some are sick, some are just babes. Where can we go? ‘Oo'd feed us, get us clothes, give us a place ter sleep? ‘Oo'd ‘ide us from Phillips, or ‘is like? There's just as bad on shore.”
“You're on shore now and safe from him. And I'm not talking about the young ones. I asked about boys your age,” Monk pressed him. “Why don't they go, one by one, before he sells them to a ship?”
The boy's face was bitter. “You mean why'd ‘e kill Fig, an’ Reilly an’ them like that? ‘Cause they stood up agin ‘im. It's a lesson, see? Do as yer told an’ yer'll be all right. Fed, somewhere ter sleep, shoes and a jacket. Mebbe a new one every year. Make trouble an’ yer'll get yer throat cut.”
“Escape?” Monk reminded him.
The boy gulped, his thin face twisting painfully. “Escape, an’ ‘e'll ‘unt yer down an’ kill yer. But before that, ‘e'll ‘urt the little kids left be'ind, burn their arms an’ legs, maybe worse. I wake up in the night ‘earin’ ‘em scream … an’ find it's just rats. But I still ‘ear ‘em in me ‘ead. That's why I wish I ‘adn't left, but I can't go back now. But I in't swearin’ ter nothin’. I told Mr. Durban that, an’ I'm tellin’ you. Yer can't make me.”
“I never thought to try,” Monk said gently. “I couldn't live with it either. I have enough already, without adding that. I just wanted to know.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the two shillings Orme had promised the boy. He held them out.
The boy hesitated, then snatched them. Monk stood aside so he could pass.
The boy hesitated.
Monk backed further away.
The boy dived past him as if terrified he would be seized, then he ran with surprising speed, almost silent on the cobbles. Only then did Monk realize his feet were bound in rags, not boots. Within seconds he had disappeared into one of the many alleys like a tunnel mouth, and he could have been no more than the voice of a nightmare.
As they walked back towards the open air of the dockside, they kept in step with each other, walking single file because there was no room to do anything else. Monk went first, glad of the enforced silence between them. What the boy had said was hideous, but he never questioned the truth of it. It explained not only why no one had testified against Phillips, but also why Durban had been fired by an uncontrollable anger. Helplessness and a sense of the terror and pain, the sheer despair of others, had drowned the outside world and its balance, its values of caution and judgment.
Monk felt closer to Durban as he made his way along the tortuous alleys, following memory and the sound of water yard by yard towards the open river. He understood not only his actions but also the emotions that must have crowded his mind and made his muscles clench and his stomach churn. He shared the anger, the need to hurt someone in return for all the wrong.
But was Monk remembering him as he had really been? Or was grief painting it in warmer colors of companionship than reality? He did not believe that. It was not only dishonest, it was also cowardly to pretend now that the sense of friendship had been artificial. He could still hear Durban's voice and his laughter, taste the bread and beer, and feel the companionable silence as dawn came up over the river. They watched the light spread across the water, catching the ripples and brightening on the drifting mist that hid some of the harsher outlines, lending beauty to the crooked spars of a wreck and blurring the jagged line of utilitarian buildings.
Scuff was immediately behind him now, padding along, looking warily to either side. Narrowness frightened him. He did not want to think about what hid in the passages. He had heard what the boy said about the others that Phillips had taken. He knew it could happen to him also. Without Monk, it could happen very easily. He wanted to reach out and take hold of Monk's coat, but that would be a very undignified thing to do, and it would tell everybody that he was afraid. He would not like Orme to think that of him, and he could not bear it if Monk did. He might even tell Hester, and that would be worse still.
They worked for several more days questioning lightermen, ferrymen, dockers, and mudlarks. They found thieves and beggars, heavy horsemen, and opulent receivers, asking each about Durban and his pursuit of Phillips. It took them upstream and down both sides of the river, on docksides, and into warehouses, alleys, shops, taverns, doss-houses, and brothels.
On one occasion the search for information took Monk and Scuff into the Strangers’ Home in Limehouse. It was a handsome and commodious building on the West India Dock Road.
“Cor!” Scuff said, deeply impressed by the entrance. He stared up and round at the sheer size of it, so utterly different from the narrow and squalid houses they had been in earlier where men slept a dozen to a room.
They were passed by an African seaman, his smooth, dark skin like a polished nut against his white shirt. Almost on his heels came a Malay in striped trousers and an old pea jacket, walking with a slight roll, as if still aboard ship.
Scuff stood transfixed. He heard a score of languages and dialects around him in the main room crowded with men of every shade of skin and cast of feature.
Monk yanked him by the hand to waken him from his daydream, and half-dragged him towards the man he was seeking, a seaman from Madras who had apparently given Durban information several times.
“Oh, yes, sir, yes,” the seaman agreed when Monk put the question to him. “Certainly I spoke to Mr. Durban on several occasions. He was seeking to apprehend a very bad man, which is uncommonly difficult when the man is protected by the fact that he is using children who are too frightened of him to speak out.”
“Why did he ask you?” Monk said without preamble.
The man raised his eyebrows. “There are certain men that I know, you see? Not from any choice, of course, but in a way of business. Mr. Durban thought I might be aware of earlier … how shall I express it? Weaknesses? Do you understand me, sir?”
Monk had neither time nor patience for obliqueness. “Patrons of Phillips's boat, and its entertainment?”
The man winced at Monk's bluntness.
“Exactly so. It seemed to me that he had the belief that certain of these men had great influence when it came to bringing the law into such matters, and quite naturally a strong desire that it remain a private affair.”
“Among Phillips, these gentlemen, and the children they abused?” Monk said brutally.
“Quite so. I see that you understand entirely.”
