AllFreeNovel
Share Us
nbsp; Mary shook her head. She reached out to the white cotton handkerchief, then hesitated. It was dazzlingly clean compared with her gray prison sleeve.
“Please …” Hester urged.
Mary picked it up and pressed it to her cheek. It was faintly perfumed, but such a thing may have been far from her mind now.
Hester continued, mindful of the minutes ticking into oblivion. “Mr. Durban was a hero to his men, but there are other people now who are trying to destroy the River Police, and they are blackening his name to do it. I already know where he was born and spent the first eight years of his life. I spoke to Mrs. Myers …” She saw a smile touch Mary's lips, but dim, struggling against grief. “I know that you saved money and sent him all you could. Do you know what happened to him after he left the hospital?”
Mary blinked and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Yes. We kept in touch for a long time.” She gulped. “Until I realized what kind of man Fishburn was.” She looked down. “After that, I was ashamed, and I kept out of my brother's way. When Fishburn was caught stealing and went to prison, I changed my name and moved away. When he died I sold the house. I didn't dare before that, in case he got out, or he had one of his friends come and find me.” Her voice was very low and she did not once look up at Hester.
Then I kept a lodging house, an’ …”
“You don't need to tell me,” Hester stopped her. “I know how you came to be here. I imagine that was why your brother couldn't find you.”
Mary looked up. “I didn't want him to know I was here. I s'pose the few people that knew me lied to him to cover it up. They'd have known how I didn't want him even to … to know I'd come to this. He used to look up to me … when he was little. We …” she looked down again. “We were close then … close as you can be, when we scarce saw each other. But I never stopped thinking of him. I wish …”
Without thinking, Hester reached out and put her hand on Mary's where it lay on the rough tabletop. “I think he might have understood. He was a good man, but he knew none of us were faultless. He hated cruelty, and he wasn't above bending the law a little to stop people hurting women, or especially children. A lot of people admired him, but there were some who hated him, and a good few were scared half silly if you even said his name. Don't put him on a pedestal, Mary, or think that he put you on one.”
“Too late, now,” Mary replied with self-mockery
“It's not too late to help clear his name,” Hester said urgently. “I'll fight as hard as I can, and more important, so will my husband. But I can't do it without the truth. Please tell me what you know of him, his character, good and bad. It will spoil everything if I try to defend him from an accusation, and then make a fool of myself because it was true. After that no one would believe me, even if I were right.”
Mary nodded. “I know.” At last she met Hester's eyes, shyly, but without flinching. “He was good, in his own way, but he had things to hide. He grew up pretty rough. Had to beg and scrounge, and I shouldn't wonder if he stole a bit. The hospital had to put him out when he was eight. Had no choice. I was the lucky one. It wasn't till the Webbers lost their money that I even knew what it was like to be hungry, I mean the kind of hungry when you hurt inside, and all you can think of is food … any kind, just so you can eat it. He always knew.”
Hester cringed. She did not have to imagine it; she had seen it in too many faces. But she did not interrupt.
“He ran with some pretty rough people,” Mary went on. “I know, because he didn't hide it. But I didn't ever ostracize him. All I wanted was that he would stay alive.” She took a deep breath. “But I didn't know how bad it was, or I'd have been much more scared.”
Hester moved without thinking, her muscles knotted.
Mary nodded imperceptibly. “He had some bad friends up and down the river, mostly Linehouse, and the Isle of Dogs. A bank was robbed, and three of them were caught. They were sent up to the Coldbath Fields. One of them died there, poor creature. Only twenty-three, he was. The other two got broken in health, and one of them at least drunken out of his mind. When they got sent down was when Durban joined the River Police. I never asked him if he was in on the bank job, and he never told me. I didn't want him to think I even thought it of him, but I did. He was pretty wild, an’ a temper on him like one of those snapping eels.”
She sighed. “It was all different after that. He got a fright, and he never went back to the old ways. Reckon maybe that's what made him such a good policeman, he knew both sides of the road. You may not be able to help, or make anyone see that there was so much good in him, but I'd be grateful to you all my life if you'd try.”
Hester looked at the sad woman in front of her, broken and alone, and wished she could offer her something more than words.
“Of course I'll try, every way I can. My husband liked Durban more than anyone else he knew. I liked him myself, although we didn't meet very often. But apart from that, the reputation of the River Police depends on proving that Jericho Phillips and anyone to do with him are liars.”
“Jericho Phillips?” Mary said quietly, her voice tight in her throat. “Is he the one doing this?”
“Yes. Do you know anything about him?”
Mary shivered and seemed to shrink further into herself. “I know better than to cross him. Does he know … who I am?”
“Durban's sister? No. I don't think anybody knows that.” Suddenly a great deal more was clear to Hester, the urgency with which Durban had looked for her, and yet would tell no one why, not even Orme, the fear that must have consumed him for her. If Phillips had found her before he did, it would be a threat even more vivid than to kill another of the boys. “And he won't know anything I do,” Hester added aloud. “I mean to see Phillips hang, so by the time you are out of here he will be dead, and you can start a decent life without giving him a thought. You'll have a little money, because Durban would have wanted you to. We have it safely for you. You are his only relative, so it has to be yours. And if you would like a job, and don't mind some hard work, I'd like to have your help in the clinic I run in Portpool Lane. At least think about it. There'd be a room for you, good work to do, and some decent friends to do it with.”
Hope flared in Mary's tired eyes, so bright and sharp that it hurt to see it. “You be careful of Phillips,” she said urgently. “He isn't alone, you know. He started that business on his boat with money, quite a lot of it. Looks like nothing on the outside, but I heard Fish-burn say it was like the best bawdy house on the inside, comfortable as you like. And photograph machines don't come for nothing.”
“An investor?”
Mary nodded. “Not just that, he's very well protected. There's a few people who wouldn't like anything bad to happen to him, and at least one of them is in the law, and stood up for him in court. A really top lawyer, not one of them that hangs around the courthouse hoping to pick up business, a Queen's Counsel, all silk robes, wigs, that kind of thing.”
Suddenly Hester was ice-cold, imprisoned in something terrible, without escape, as if the iron door were locked forever. She could kick and scream forever, but no one could hear her. A Queen's Counsel, one who had defended Phillips in court.
“I'm sorry,” Mary said apologetically. “I can see I've scared you, but you have to know. I can't sit by and let something happen to you when you've been so kind to me.”
Hester found it hard to speak; her lips seemed numb, her mouth full of cotton batting. “A lawyer? Are you sure?”
Mary stared at her, struggling towards a dark understanding. She had no trouble recognizing the pain. “Phillips has power over lots of people,” she said, lowering her voice as if even in prison she was afraid of being overheard. “Maybe that's why my brother never caught him. Lord knows, he tried hard enough. Be careful. You don't know who he's got in his pocket, who'd like to escape but can't.”
