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.”

“No,” Hester whispered back without knowing why. “No, I suppose you can't.”

TEN

It was the middle of the afternoon and Monk was busy catching up on some of the more pedestrian cases of theft from various yards along the waterfront when one of the men came to his door and told him that Superintendent Farnham had arrived and wished to see him, immediately.

Farnham was sitting down when Monk went into the room, and he did not rise. He was clearly unhappy and in a very bad temper. He indicated curtly for Monk to take the chair opposite him.

“The Phillips case is over,” he said grimly, his eyes hard and flat. “You lost. In fact, not only you, Monk, but the whole of the River Police. You don't seem to be aware of quite how much.” He held up his hand to keep Monk silent, just in case he should think of defending himself. “It was bad enough when the wretched man was acquitted, through your inefficiency and your wife's emotionalism, although one expects such a thing from women, but…”

Monk was so furious he could barely keep still. “Sir, that…”

“When I have finished!” Farnham exploded. “Until then, you will hold your peace. I am disappointed in you, Monk. Durban recommended you highly, and I was fool enough to listen to him. But thanks to your meddling, your obsession with this Phillips case, not only I, but most of the senior police in general, and half the ferrymen, lightermen, dockers, and warehousemen up and down both banks of the river also know a great deal more about the late Commander Durban than we wish to. Leave it, Monk. That is an order. There is quite enough crime on the Thames that genuinely needs your attention. Solve it, all of it, with speed and justice, and you may begin to redeem not only your own reputation but ours as well.”

“Commander Durban was a good officer, sir,” Monk said between his teeth, acutely conscious of everything Hester had told him the previous evening. “I have learned nothing about him to his discredit,” he added bluntly.

“That only suggests that you are not a very good detective, Monk,” Farnham replied. “There is a considerable amount that it seems, for all your effort, you failed to discover.”

“No, sir, there is not,” Monk contradicted. It was a firm lie, and he intended to stick to it. “I have traced him back to the day he was born. I just choose not to discuss it with others, when it is none of their business. He was a good man, and deserves the same dignity of keeping his family affairs private that is accorded to the rest of us.”

Farnham stared at him across the table, and gradually some of the temper died out of his eyes and left only tiredness and anxiety.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But now we have newspapermen asking more and more questions about him, why he was so obsessed with this damned Phillips case, and why you're just as bad, if not worse, and we are doing nothing to curb you. You're leaving half the regular work that should be your responsibility for Orme to do. He denies it, but others say it's true. He's a loyal man, Orme. He deserves better than to be lumbered with your job while you chase after Phillips. Phillips beat us. It happens sometimes. We can't catch every single villain on the river.”

“We need to get this one, sir. He's like a malignant wound, one that if it isn't cut out will poison the whole body.”

Farnham raised his eyebrows.

“Is he? Or have you just convinced yourself of that because he beat Durban, then he beat you? Can you swear to me that it isn't pride, Monk? And prove it to me?”

“Sir, Phillips murdered a young boy, Figgis, because Figgis wanted to escape the servitude Phillips had him in, which was far more than labor. He was an object of pornography for the use and entertainment of Phillips's customers…”

“It's filthy.” Farnham shivered with disgust. “But there are brothels all over London, and every other city in Europe. In the world, for all I know. Yes, he murdered the boy, God knows why. It would surely have been much simpler to have put him on one of the ships leaving port, and much less of a risk…”

It was discipline, sir, Monk interrupted. To demonstrate to the rest of his boys what happens to those who defy him.”