She looked at him with total loathing, but she could find no answer with which to retaliate.
“Think about it, Miss,” Phillips went on. “Yer been askin’ a lot o’ questions about Durban. Wot did yer find out, eh? Liar, weren't ‘e? Lied about everythin’, even where ‘e came from. Lost ‘is temper something rotten, beat the tar out o’ some folks. Covered up crime in some, lied about it in others. Now me, I might do that, but then yer'd expect it o’ me.” He smiled utterly without humor. “ Durban 's different. Nobody trusts me, but they trusted ‘im. That makes it somethin’ else, a kind o’ betrayal, right? Fer ‘im ter break the law is bad, very bad. Believe me, Miss, yer don't want ter know all about Mr. Durban, yer really don't. Neither does your good man. Saved my life twice over, ‘e did. Once in the river… oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “Din't ‘e tell you that?”
She stared at him with hatred.
His smile widened. “Yeah, could ‘a let me drown, but ‘e saved me. An’ then o'course all that evidence of ‘is in court. Reckon without that I would've ‘anged, fer sure. Not a pretty way ter go, Miss, the rope dance. Not at all. You don't want ter know what ‘appened ter poor Reilly, Miss, nor all about Mary Webber neither. Now here's a ferryboat come ter take yer ‘ome. Yer sleep well, an’ in the mornin’ go tend to yer clinic, an’ all them poor ‘ores wot yer bent on savin.” He turned and stalked away, consumed almost immediately by the shadows.
Hester stood on the steps shivering with rage, but also fear. She could not refute a single thing Phillips had said. She felt helpless, and so cold in the summer night that she might as well have fallen in the dark, swift-moving water.
The ferry was now bumping on the steps, the oarsman waiting.
“Yer want ter leave it, Miss ‘Ester?” Squeaky asked.
She could not see his face; they had their backs to the light now. How could she read his emotions from his voice? “Can it get any worse?” she asked. “Hasn't anything got to be better than accepting this?”
“‘Course it can!” he said instantly. “It can get a lot worse. Yer could find out that Durban killed Reilly, an’ Phillips can prove it.”
“No, he can't,” she said with a sudden burst of logic. “If he could prove that, he would have done so already, and destroyed Durban 's evidence without having to hope Rathbone could discredit us. It would have been much safer.”
“Then if yer want, I'm ‘appy ter go on. Nailin’ that bastard'd be better than a bottle o’ Napoleon Brandy.”
“Do you like Napoleon Brandy?” she said in surprise.
“No idea,” he admitted. “But I'd like ter find out!”
NINE
Hester slept late the next morning, and was far less disturbed than usual to find that Monk had already left. There was a note from him on the kitchen table. Scuff was nowhere to be seen, so she assumed that he had gone with Monk.
However, she was halfway through her breakfast of tea and toast when the boy appeared in the doorway looking anxious. He was already dressed and had obviously been out. He was holding a newspaper in his hands. He seemed uncertain whether to offer it to her or not. She knew he could not read, but she did not want to embarrass him by referring to the fact.
“Good morning,” she said casually. “Would you like some breakfast?”
“I ‘ad some,” he replied, coming a couple of steps into the kitchen.
“There is no reason not to have some more, if you would like it,” she offered. “It's only toast and jam, but the jam is very good. And tea, of course.”
“Oh,” he said, eyes following her hand with the toast in it. “Well, I don't mind if I do.”
“Then come and sit down, and I will make it for you.” She finished her own toast and raspberry jam, holding it in one hand while she cut and toasted more bread with the other.
They sat at opposite sides of the table and ate in silence for some time. He took apricot jam, twice.
“May I look at your newspaper please?” she asked at length.
“‘Course.” He pushed it over towards her. “I got it fer yer. Yer in't gonna like it.” He looked worried. “I ‘eard ‘em talkin’ around the newsboy, that's why I got it. They're sayin’ bad things.”
She reached for the paper and looked at the headlines, then opened it and read inside. Scuff was right, she did not like it at all. The suggestions were veiled, but they were not so very far from the sort of thing that Phillips had said on the dockside the previous evening. There were questions about the River Police, their record of success suspiciously high. But were the figures honest? How had they come to recruit a man as obsessed with personal vengeance as Durban had been-and apparently not just once, but twice? Was the new man, William Monk, any better? What was known about him? For that matter, what was known about any of them, including Durban?
It was a dangerous state of affairs for the nation when a body of men such as the River Police had the kind of power they did, and there was no check upon the way they used it, or abused it. If the members of Parliament who represented the constituencies along the river were doing their duty, there would be questions asked in the House.
She looked up at Scuff. He was watching her, trying to judge what the paper said from her expression.
“Yes, they are saying bad things,” she told him. “But so far it is just talk. I need to know whether they are true or not, because we can't deal with it until we know.”
“Wot'll ‘appen to us if it's true?” he asked.
She heard the fear in his voice, and the inclusion of himself in their fate. She wondered if he had meant her to notice that or not. She would be very careful to reply in the same tones, equally casually.
“We'll have to face it,” she answered. “If we can, we'll prove that we're not like that, but if we aren't given the chance, then we'll have to find some other job. We will, don't worry. There are lots of things we can do. I could go back to nursing. I used to earn my own living before I married Mr. Monk, you know.”
“Did yer? Like lookin’ after the sick? They pay yer fer that?” His eyes were wide, his toast and jam halfway to his mouth.
“Definitely,” she assured him. “If you do it well enough, and I was very good. I did it in the army, for soldiers injured in battle.”
“When they come ‘ome again?”
“Certainly not! I went to the battlefield and tended them there, where they fell.”
He blushed, then he grinned, sure that she was making a joke, even if he didn't understand it.
She thought of teasing him back, then decided he was too genuinely frightened to absorb it right now. He had just found some kind of safety, perhaps for the first time in his life, people not only to love but also to trust, and it was slipping out of his hands.
“Really in the battlefield,” she answered. “That's where soldiers need doctors and nurses. I went to the Crimea with the army. So did quite a few other ladies. The fighting was pretty close to us. People used to go out in carriages to the heights above the valley and watch the fighting. It's not dangerous, or of course they wouldn't do it. But we nurses sometimes saw it too, and then went to find those who were still alive, and who we could help.”
“Weren't it ‘orrible?” he asked in a whisper, toast still ignored.
“Yes, it was. More horrible than I ever want to think of again. But looking away doesn't solve anything, does it.” That was a statement more than a question.
“Wot can yer do fer soldiers as are ‘urt real awful?” he asked. “Don't they ‘ave ter ‘ave doctors, an’ such?”
“There aren't enough doctors to attend to everybody at once,” she told him, remembering in spite of herself the sounds of men in agony, the chaos of the wounded and dying, and the smell of blood. She had not felt overwhelmed then, she had been too busy being practical, trying to pack wounds, amputate shattered limbs, and save men from dying of shock. “I learned how to do some things myself, because it was so bad I couldn't make it worse. When it's desperate, you try, even if you don't know what to do to begin with. You can be a lot of help with a knife, a saw, a bottle of brandy, and a needle and thread, and of course as much water and bandages as you can carry with you.”
“Wot's a saw for?” he asked quietly.
She hesitated, then decided that lies would be worse than the truth. To saw through jagged bones so you can
