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Scuff tried to hide his sense of injustice, and failed. “That didn’t take long,” he said critically, his face clouded over. “Can’t ’ave been that ’ard, so why’d they make such a fuss?”
Hester drew in her breath, then changed her mind and waited for Monk to answer.
“They haven’t got him yet, but a sergeant near Westminster Bridge told me it’ll be soon. He says it was an Egyptian man, reckons it has something to do with the Suez Canal …”
Hester looked startled, but it was Scuff who spoke.
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever ’eard! How do they figure that?” he said hotly. “They’re goin’ to ’ang someone just so they can say they got ’im!” He was staring at Monk, and there was a tiny spark of panic in his eyes. Monk knew he must find an answer that was both honest and credible. It was hard enough lately to keep Scuff at school; believing in law and government—which were naturally alien to him—without seeing Monk do the same, would be impossible.
What could Monk say? Scuff did not need a lecture in geography and economics, the fortunes made and lost, the men who had died as the price of great undertakings. He needed to believe that the government who ruled his country was largely competent, and almost entirely honest. They figured Scuff to be around sixteen—they would never be sure exactly how old he was—and Monk knew it was age that carried with it a vulnerable mixture of naïveté and worldly wisdom, of hope in the face of the bitterest of experience. It was frightening that Scuff would likely accept whatever Monk or Hester would tell him. The responsibility of it was, for a moment, overwhelming.
Scuff was waiting for a reply. Monk had already taken too long.
“Sometimes we arrest the wrong people.” He measured his words, watching Scuff’s face. “There’s often no solid proof, just bits of evidence. But they always have a trial and that’s when the truth comes out …”
“They tried Sir Oliver,” Scuff said immediately. “He weren’t guilty! They still punished him. He can’t do the law anymore. It would’ve bin too late for ever if they’d ’ave hanged him, wouldn’t it!”
“He was guilty, Scuff,” Monk said quietly.
“That man in court was wrong!” Scuff said angrily, challenging Monk, believing he was mistaken now, yet needing him to be right.
Monk was struck by how much of Scuff’s precious, fragile new world depended upon his belief in Monk and Hester: that they were right, and that they loved him. Those two things would never change, even if food, shelter, and acceptance by others were all destroyed.
“I know he was wrong,” Monk said as calmly as he could. Scuff should not hear anger or uncertainty in his voice. “And he paid for that. The one who killed those people was hanged for it. But Sir Oliver was wrong too.”
“He had to do that!” Scuff protested.
“He thought so,” Monk agreed. “And perhaps that was the truth. But what he did was against the law, and he knew he would have to pay for it.”
“But he isn’t doing law now.” Scuff clung to his point. “That in’t right. ’E was really, really good at it.” There was desperation in his voice. “They shouldn’t have put him out!”
“He’s only out for a while,” Monk assured him. “He’s taking a holiday in Europe, going with his father, whom he loves very much.” He made himself smile. “He’ll come back. Then you can ask him if he thinks it was fair or not. I believe he’ll say it was.”
Scuff stared at him levelly for several seconds. Then he turned to Hester, his eyes demanding, waiting.
“Sometimes there isn’t any good choice,” she said gently, moving her shoulders a little in a gesture of acceptance. “You have to pick the one you think is least bad, and hope you’re right. I think he was. But not everything comes with an easy answer, or without a price.”
Scuff turned that over in his mind for a few more moments, and then he seemed satisfied. He looked at Monk again. “So what are they going to do about the boat and all those people what drowned?”
“Those people who drowned,” Hester corrected him automatically. Scuff’s grammar still tended to slip when he was upset.
“They’re going to catch who did it, possibly this Egyptian man, and try him. And then if he’s guilty they’ll hang him,” Monk replied.
“An’ if he isn’t?” Scuff persisted.
“Then they’ll let him go, and start again,” Monk said firmly.
Scuff looked a little doubtful. “They’ll look stupid then, as they got it wrong. You think they’ll own up to it? People’ll be red-hot angry. They’re bad enough now, ’cos it’s taking weeks to catch him. If I was them, I’d be scared, and I wouldn’t want to own up I got it wrong.”
Monk drew in a quick breath, and then let it out again.
“Of course you would be scared,” Hester said before he could find the words. “But I hope you’d be a lot more scared of how you would feel if you deliberately hanged the wrong person, and let the real one go free.”
“ ’Course I would!” Scuff said angrily, his skin flushed.
Hester took a step closer and put her hand on his arm. It was not a caress, but it might as well have been, given the tenderness in it.
His face brightened immediately.
