“Mr. Sutton,” she said breathlessly, straightening herself and attempting to look respectable. Her hair had fallen out of its pins, as it frequently did, and she had simply poked it behind her ears. “I'm very relieved to have found you.”

He stood up politely, partly because there was no second chair for her to be seated. She could see immediately from his expression that he knew Phillips had been acquitted. It made it easier that she did not have to tell him, but she would have preferred that the news not be so very widespread. Perhaps everyone in London knew by now.

“Can I get something fer yer, Miss Hester?” he said dubiously.

“No, thank you, I have already eaten,” she answered. It was not strictly true, but she knew he had no time to waste in the middle of his working day. She had enough favors to ask without using them up unnecessarily now.

He remained standing, sandwich in his hand. Snoot stared at it hopefully, but was ignored.

“Please continue,” Hester invited him. “I would be most uncomfortable if I spoiled your lunch. All the same, I need to ask your help… please?”

He nodded grimly, as if a foreseen disaster were about to break over him, and continued standing. “You're goin’ to go after that slimy bastard Phillips again, aren't you.” It was a conclusion, not a question. “Don't, Miss Hester,” he pleaded anxiously. “He's a bad one, an’ he's got friends all over the place, people yer or me wouldn't even think of knowing the likes of ‘im. Wait. ‘E'll make a mistake one day, an’ some-body'll have ‘im. ‘E was born for the gallows, that one.”

“I don't mind if they hang him, or simply lock him up in the Cold bath Fields and throw away the key,” she replied. “What I care about is that they do it soon, in fact, very soon. Before he has the chance to kill any more children, or anyone else, for that matter.”

He looked at her carefully for several moments before speaking. She began to feel uncomfortable. His eyes were blue and very clear, as if nothing whatever could impede his vision. It gave her a peculiarly vulnerable feeling. She had to force herself not to try to explain to him even further.

“You want ter go over all the evidence again?” he asked slowly, his expression tense and troubled. “You're sure o’ that?”

She felt a chill, even in this hot, close room. What was he trying to warn her from?

“Can you think of a better way?” she countered. “We made a mistake, several in fact, but they were errors in connecting people, not in the basic fact that Jericho Phillips is a child pornographer and murderer.”

“You made a mistake in ‘ow long ‘is arm is,” Sutton corrected her, biting into the sandwich at last. “You'll ‘ave to be a lot more careful to catch a canny sod like ‘im. An’ ‘e'll be watching for you this time.” His eyes creased in concern.

She felt a shiver of fear. “You think he'll come after me? Wouldn't that just prove we're right? Wouldn't he be safer to let us wear ourselves out, and prove nothing?”

“Safer, yes,” Sutton agreed. “But he might get annoyed and come after you anyway, if you get close enough to ‘im to scare off some of ‘is custom. And that in't all. There's the other thing to think about, an’ I can't protect you from that, ‘cause no one can.”

“What thing?” she asked immediately. She trusted Sutton; he had proved both his friendship and his courage. If he feared something, then it was dangerous.

“The way I heard it, it wasn't just you and Mr. Monk who proved a bit sloppy,” he said reluctantly. “It was Mr. Durban as well. You trusted in what ‘e'd done, so you didn't take care to prove everything so not even a clever beggar like Mr. Rathbone could undo it. But what about Mr. Durban, eh? Why'd he slip up?”

“Because…” She had been about to say that he could not have realized how clever Rathbone would be, but that wouldn't do. He should have been prepared for anyone. “He was emotional about it too,” she said instead.

Sutton shook his head. “That in't good enough, Miss Hester, an’ you know that. He stopped an’ started all over the place, way I heard it. You sure you want to know why?” His voice was gentle. “What do you know about him, for sure?”

She did not answer. There was no point in being defensive and saying that she knew he was good. She did not know it, she believed it, and she did that only because Monk did.

Sutton sighed. “Sure you want to?” This time he was not arguing, just waiting to allow her space to retreat, if she needed to.

But there was no point; Monk would go ahead regardless of whether she went with him or not. He could not leave it alone now. Something of his belief in himself, in his value as a friend, depended upon Durban being essentially the man he supposed him to be. And if he were to be disillusioned, he would need Hester's strength all the more. Standing apart would leave him bitterly alone.

“Better to know,” she replied.

Sutton sighed and finished the last of his sandwich, still standing, then drained his glass. “Then we'd better go,” he said with resignation. “C'mon, Snoot.”

“What about your rats?” she asked.

“There's rats… an’ rats,” he replied enigmatically. “I'll take you to see Nellie. What she don't know in't worth the bother. Just follow me, and keep your ears open an’ your mouth shut. It in't nice places we're goin’. By rights I'd rather not even take you, but I know you'll insist, and I ‘aven't got time for an argument I in't goin’ to win.”

She smiled bleakly and followed after him along the narrow street, the dog between them. She did not ask what Nellie's occupation might be, and he did not offer any further information.

They took a bus eastwards into Limehouse. After walking with him another further half mile on foot through tangled lanes and cobbles, with awkward roofs almost meeting above them, she had lost her sense of direction entirely. She could not even smell the incoming tide of the river above the other odors of dense, swarming city life: the drains, the stale smoke, the horse manure, the sickly sweetness of a nearby brewery.

They found Nellie in a dim back room behind a public house. She was a small, tidy woman dressed in black that had long ago faded to a variety of grays. She wore a widow's lace cap on hair that sat in absurd little-girl ringlets down the sides of her creased face. Her eyes were small, narrow against the light, and-when Hester met them almost accidentally-as sharp as gimlets. She could probably see a pin on the floor at twenty paces.

Sutton did not introduce them, he merely told Nellie that Hester was all right, that she knew when to speak and when not to.

Nellie grunted. “That's as may be,” she said curtly. “What d'yer want?” The last was addressed to Sutton; Hester was already dismissed.

“Like to know a bit more about some o’ the river police,” Sutton replied.

“Wot for?” Nellie regarded him suspiciously. “They in't never gonna cross your path.”

“For a friend of mine,” Sutton said.

“If your ‘friend’ is in trouble, better ter deal wi’ the reg'lar cops,” she told him unequivocally. “River Police is right bastards. Not many of ‘em, an’ not much way round ‘em.”

“Straight?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Mostly,” she conceded.

“Monk?”

“Used ter be reg'lar p'lice, so I ‘eard. Mean bastard, an’ clever. ‘Ang on ter a case like a bleedin’ bulldog.” She glanced at Snoot sitting at Sutton's feet. “Bulldog,” she repeated.

“But straight?” Sutter insisted.

“Yeah. Leave ‘im alone. Best ‘e never ‘eard of yer.”

“Orme?”

“Straight as a stair rod,” she replied with a sniff.

“ Durban?”

“Don't matter. ‘E's dead. Blew ‘isself up on a ship.”

“But was he straight?”

She tilted her head to one side and twisted her mouth until it looked like she had tasted a bad egg. “If yer after Jericho Phillips again, ye're a fool. ‘E ‘ad summink on Durban, same as Durban ‘ad on ‘im. Dunno wot it were, an’ reckon I'm best ter keep it that way. Although I like ter know things. Never say when it might come in useful. But someone ‘ad the bite on Durban. Dunno if it were Phillips ‘isself or just that ‘e knew about it. But I do know that Mr. Durban weren't nothin’ like wot ‘is precious river police thought ‘e were. Got secrets, that one, an’ I never found out wot they were, so it in't no use askin’ me, Mr. Sutton, no matter wot yer thinks I owe yer.”