Did he believe Biddie? Who was Mary Webber? Nothing he had learned about Durban had made any mention of a woman. Why such passion? Who was she that Durban would so lose control of himself, and of all the beliefs he had so clearly lived by, that he would attack a man to beat information out of him? And perhaps even worse, he had apparently then coerced a junior officer into ignoring his duty and overlooking the whole episode!

Monk could not imagine Durban doing either of these things. But then, how much had he really known him? He had liked him. They had shared food, warmth, and exhaustion of body and mind in the relentless search to find men who could unknowingly destroy half the world. They had found them. He still relived the horror of it in dreams.

But in the end it had caught up with Durban himself. He had gone nobly, willingly, to death by fire in order to save others, and take the threat with him. And he had gone alone, refusing to allow Monk to share his fate. He had physically thrown him off the stern of the ship into the boiling wake rather than let him also perish, and had not had time to save himself before the magazines exploded.

What kind of friendship or loyalty can you give to someone who is so supremely brave, and yet also desperately flawed? What do you owe to promises made, or understood? What if the other person is gone, and no more explanations can be asked for or given, and still you have to act, and believe something?

Scuff was watching him, waiting to see what he did because of this latest revelation, and Monk was intensely aware of it.

“Mebbe she could ‘ave put Phillips away.” Scuff said hopefully. “D'yer think that were why ‘e were after ‘er? Or mebbe Phillips did ‘er in too, d'yer think? An’ that's why nobody found ‘er?”

Monk had to answer him. “No, not really.”

“She might ‘ave.” Scuff raised his voice to sound more positive, even trying to be cheerful. Monk knew it was for his sake. “She's ‘iding ‘cause she's scared stiff o’ Phillips. She could ‘ave seen wot ‘appened. Mebbe she's somebody's ma wot Phillips done.”

“Perhaps,” Monk conceded, although he did not believe it. “ Durban never mentioned her in his notes, and surely he would have, if that's who she was.”

Scuff thought about that for quite a long time. They had hailed a ferry and were more than halfway across the river, weaving in and out of the great ships at anchor, before he found a solution.

“Mebbe that were to keep ‘er safe. If she saw summink Phillips'd kill ‘er fer. An’ ‘e would,” he suggested.

Hank could not see Scuffs face in the darkness of the river, but he could see the hunch of his narrow shoulders and the way he held himself when he was hurt.

The oars splashed in and out. The ferryman had a good rhythm, probably from years of practice.

“An’ like you said,” Scuff replied unhappily, “there's gentlemen in it up ter their necks. Gentlemen wot got enough money ter pay yer friend the lawyer wot spoke up fer Phillips. And yer don't know ‘oo they are, ‘cause they don't exactly go round tellin people they go in fer wot ‘e does.”

“You're right, Scuff,” Monk said decisively. “I should have thought of that for myself. Of course you are.”

He could see Scuffs grin, even in the dark.

When a bed had been made up for Scuff and he was sound asleep in it, Hester and Monk sat in the kitchen over a very late supper-really no more than two large pieces of fruitcake and two cups of tea.

“I can't let him go back until Phillips is arrested and locked up,” he said anxiously, watching her face.

“It's as much my responsibility as yours,” she answered. Then she smiled. “Of course we can't. And that might be quite a while, so you had better get him some clean clothes. I'm much too busy to wash these every night, even supposing I could dry them. You might even get a pair of boots that fit him-and really are a pair.”

She wanted to talk about something that was worrying her. He could see it in her eyes, in a kind of hesitation, as though she were still looking for a way to avoid saying it at all.

He told her about hearing of Mary Webber, but not of Durban 's violence towards the pawnbroker, or his use of rank to prevent the constable from charging him. He realized with surprise that it was not Hester he was protecting-it was Durban. Because he himself cared so intensely what Hester thought of him, he was imagining that Durban would too.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked him, puzzled and a little off balance.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “At Scuffs help, I suppose.”

Suddenly she was profoundly serious.

“Be careful, William,” she warned. “Please? I know he's looked after himself for years, but he's only a child. Lots of people die on the river…” She left the rest unsaid. There were more like Fig than like Scuff, and they both knew that.

He looked down at her hands on the table. They were very slender, like a girl's, but strong. Their beauty lay not in soft, white skin or delicate nails, but in grace; they were quick and gentle, and their touch was light. They would be broken before they would let a drowning man go, but they would allow a butterfly to leave as simply as it had come. He loved her hands. He wanted to reach out and touch them, but he felt self-conscious when there was so much more urgent business at hand.

“ Durban was being blackmailed,” she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. “I don't yet know what for. Could that be to do with this Mary Webber, whoever she is?”

“I don't know,” he confessed. He wished he did not have to know. He was overburdened with knowledge already, and the more there was of it, the more it hurt. What was it that drove people on and on to seek the truth, to unravel every knot, even when it was the ignorance and the peace of heart that made it all endurable? Was truth going to heal anything? How much of it could any one person grasp?

She stood up. “That's enough for today. Let's go to bed.” She said it gently, but she was not going to accept an argument, and he had no wish to offer any.

Hester was concerned for Durban 's reputation too, not so much for himself as for what the discoveries could do to Monk. Her husband had had few friends, at least that he could remember. At one time he and Runcorn had been more than allies. They had shared the involvement and the tragedy of police work, and the dangers.

But Monk's abrasive tongue and his ambition had driven Runcorn to a bitter jealousy He was a narrower man in both his vision and his ability. The rivalry had brought out the meanest spirit in him. Friendship had eventually become enmity.

Of course she did not explain any of this to Sutton when she met him to take up the search again. He would think their purpose was to find some evidence to prove Phillips guilty of something for which they could try him. He must know that the death of Fig was closed to them now, even if he had been tactful enough to refrain from saying so.

They rode the bus in companionable silence, Snoot by Sutton's feet as always.

Hester sat in the top of the bus watching the narrow, closely crammed houses with the stained walls and sagging roofs as they moved closer to Limehouse and the printer Sutton had told her they were going to. He had helped in many things, and she knew he would do all he could now. He would call in favors, incur more, spend all day away from his own work to help her find what she was seeking.

But Sutton could not tell her what it was that she wanted to find, or what she hoped it would prove. They could not undo the failure of Phillips's trial, nor the fact that Rathbone had defended him. They might find out the reason for that choice-if indeed it had been choice, and not some kind of necessity. But it might be confidential and something they could never learn. Did it matter? Could they not trust Rathbone, after all the battles they had fought together?