taller, avoiding Monk's eyes. He did not wish to be read, at this particular moment; he was too vulnerable. “We can get a ferry down a bit,” he added. “Find the lightermen ‘avin’ a cup o’ tea, like as not, at this hour.”
Monk was uncertain whether to thank him. He decided against it; it might sound a little patronizing. “Hope so,” he said instead. “I could do with one too.”
Scuff grimaced. Monk knew he had great hopes of being given one himself, if he were lucky; possibly even a sandwich. It was unlikely that he had eaten today.
They took the ferry downstream, as suggested, and asked specifically after the lighterman they wanted. It took them more than an hour to find him, because he was already at work, first loading and then getting his lighter out into the traffic. They made some of their inquiries of a group of men standing around a brazier with boiling water, and Monk purchased a mug of tea and a thick slice of bread. He offered the same to Scuff, who thought about it as long as he dared, then said with practiced indifference that he didn't mind if he did. All the while he watched Monk out of the corner of his eye to make sure he did not miss his chance.
Monk affected not to notice.
“I already told yer,” the lighterman said wearily. “Yer let the bastard orff! There in't no more I can say!”
They were sitting on the canvas bales as the flat-bottomed craft made its slow, heavy way downstream towards Greenwich.
“I know what you said,” Monk assured him. “And all the evidence bears it out. But we didn't ask you what Mr. Durban said, or if he asked you anything that you didn't mention before.”
The lighterman screwed up his face in thought, moving his eyes as if looking at the hard, glittering reflections off the water. “‘E were upset,” he replied slowly. “All bent over ‘isself like someone'd ‘it ‘im in the belly. Tell yer the truth, I liked ‘im better fer it.”
So did Monk, but it was not the answer he needed. He had already asked Orme these questions, but Orme was so defensive of Durban that his answers were no longer useful; they had become simply a repetition that Durban had done the right thing. Monk was hoping the lighterman would remember some other information that Durban had let slip, some word, or even omission, that might lead in a new direction. He was fumbling, and he knew it. The lighterman's face showed his disappointment. He had expected more, and he had not received it. He had endangered himself to testify, and Monk had let him down.
“Are you afraid of Phillips?” Monk asked suddenly.
The lighterman was caught off guard. “No!” he said indignantly. “Why should I be? I never said he done nothin’. In't got no cause ter come after me.”
“And if he had cause, would he?” Monk asked, trying to keep all expression out of his voice.
The lighterman stared at him. “Wot's the matter with yer? Yer simple, or summink? ‘E'd bloody carve out me guts an’ ‘ang ‘ em on Execution Dock ter dry in the wind!”
Monk continued to look skeptical.
Scuff looked from Monk to the lighterman and back again, waiting, his eyes wide.
“An’ yer won't catch ‘im fer it neither,” the lighterman added. “Not that you bleedin’ lot could catch a cold soppin’ wet in winter. Mr. Durban knew wot ‘e were about. Reckon if ‘e'd ‘a lived, ‘e'd a swung the bastard by ‘is neck, all right.”
Monk felt the words land like a blow, the harder because it was the one case Durban had not solved, and he did not want to admit it. But there was a thread in what the lighterman had said that was worth following. “So he was still working on it?” he asked.
The lighterman looked at him witheringly.
“‘Course ‘e were. I reckon ‘e'd never ‘ave given up.” He squinted a little in the hard light, and leaned very slightly on his long oar to steer a few degrees to port.
“What is there to follow?” Monk found the words hard to say, placing himself so vulnerably, as if he were asking a bargee how to do his own job.
The lighterman shrugged. “
“Extortion,” Monk replied.
“Yeah? Well, you in't gonna get any o’ them exactly ter complain, now are yer?” the lighterman sneered.
Monk kept his voice level and his face as expressionless as he could. “Unlikely,” he agreed. “At least not to me.”
The lighterman turned slowly from his position holding the oar. He was a lean, angular man, but the movement was unconsciously graceful. For a moment surprise caught him off guard. “Yer not so daft, are yer! Gawd ‘elp yer if ‘e catches yer is all I can say.”
Monk could wrest no more out of him, and twenty minutes later he and Scuff were back on the dockside.
“Yer gonna set ‘is customers agin’ ‘im?” Scuff said in awe. “
“I'm not sure what I'm going to do,” Monk answered, starting to walk along the dockside. They were on the north bank, back near the Wapping Police Station. “For now I'll settle for learning a great deal more about him.”
“If yer can prove for sure that ‘e killed Fig, will they ‘ang ‘im?” Scuff asked hopefully.
“No.” Monk kept his pace even, though he was not yet certain where he was going. He did not want Scuff to realize that, although he was beginning to appreciate that Scuff was a far sharper judge of character than he had previously given him credit for. It was disconcerting to be read so well by an eleven-year-old. “No,” he said again. “He's been found not guilty. We can't try him again, no matter what we find. In fact, even if he confessed, there'd still be nothing we could do.”
Scuff was silent. He turned towards Monk, looking him up and down, his lips tight.
Monk was unpleasantly aware that Scuff was being tactful. He was touched by it, and at the same time he was hurt. Scuff was sorry for him, because he had made a mistake he did not know how to mend. This was a far cry from the brilliant, angry man he had been in the main Metropolitan Police onshore, where criminals and slipshod police alike were frightened of him.
“So we gotta get ‘im for summink else, then,” Scuff deduced. “Wot like? Thievin’? Forgin’? ‘E don't do that, far as I know. Sellin’ stuff wot was nicked? ‘E don't do that neither. An’ ‘e don't smuggle nothin’ so ‘e don't pay the revenue men be'ind ‘is back, like.” He screwed up his face in an unspoken question.
“I don't know,” Monk said frankly. “That's what I need to find out. He does lots of things. Maybe Fig isn't the only boy he's killed, but I need something I can prove.”
Scuff grunted in sympathy and walked beside Monk, trying very hard to keep in step with him. Monk wondered whether to shorten his stride. He decided not to; he did not want Scuff to know that he had noticed.
The police surgeon was busy and short-tempered. He met them in one of the stone-floored and utilitarian outer rooms of the mortuary. He had just finished an autopsy and his rolled-up sleeves were still splashed with blood.
“Made a mess of it, didn't you,” he said bitterly. It was an accusation, not a question. He glanced at Scuff once, then disregarded him. “If you expect me to rescue you, or excuse you, for that matter, then you're wasting your time.”
Scuff let out a wail of fury, and stifled it immediately, terrified Monk would make him go away, and then he would be no use at all. He stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other in his odd boots, and glaring at the surgeon.
Monk controlled his own temper with difficulty, only because his need to find some new charge against Phillips was greater than his impulse for self-defense. “You deal with most of the bodies taken out of this stretch of the river,” he replied, his voice tight. “Figgis can't have been the only boy of that age and general type. I'd like to hear about the others.”
“You wouldn't,” the surgeon contradicted him. “Especially not in front of this one.” He indicated Scuff briefly. “Won't give you anything useful, anyway. If we could've tied any of them to Jericho Phillips, don't you think we would have?” His dark face was creased with an inner pain that perhaps he did not realize showed so clearly.
Monk's anger vanished. Suddenly they had everything that mattered in common. The retort that apparently the surgeon had been no cleverer than anyone else died on his tongue.
“I want to get him for anything I can,” he said quietly. “Loitering with intent or being a public nuisance, if it would put him away long enough to start on the rest.”
