Sutton grasped his collar but the dog was excited, and he squirmed out of Sutton's grasp, yelping.
Sutton bent forward and Hester was right behind him. Looking more closely at the floor, she saw that the lines of the boards were not quite even.
“It's a trapdoor!” she said, hardly daring to believe it.
“To the bilges. Mind your hands, there'll be rats. Always is,” Sutton warned her, his voice breaking with tension. He reached for the knife at his belt, flicked open the blade, and used it as a handle to ease the trap open and pull it up.
Below them Scuffs ashen face looked up, eyes wide with terror, skin bruised and smeared with blood and filth.
Hester forgot all the decorum she had promised herself and reached down to pull him up and hold him so tightly in her arms she might easily have hurt him. She pressed her face into his neck, ignoring the stench of rot on his skin and hair and clothes, thinking only that she had him at last, and he was alive.
He clung to her, shuddering uncontrollably, sobs racking his thin chest.
It was Sutton's voice that brought her back to the present, and the danger she had momentarily forgotten.
“There's rats down ‘ere all right,” he said quietly. “It's straight to the bilges, an’ there's been another boy down ‘ere, poor little thing, but there in't much left of ‘im now, just bones an’ a bit o’ flesh. Don't look, Miss ‘Ester. Take the boy out of ‘ere. Enough to drive ‘im out of ‘is ‘ead, stuffed in ‘ere with rats and the ‘alf-rotted corpse of another child. I'll tell you this, if Mr. Monk don't get that son of the devil ‘anged this time, I'll do it with me own ‘ands…” His voice trailed off, suffocated by emotion.
Reluctantly Hester let go of Scuff, but he couldn't let go of her. He whispered softly, just a little cry, and fastened on to her more tightly. She would have had to break his fingers to loosen his hold. She staggered to the door, arms around him, keeping her head low beneath the boarded ceiling, and met Orme at the top of the steps, his face shining with relief.
“I'll tell Mr. Monk,” he said simply, swiveling to go back up again. “I'll… I'll tell ‘im.” He stood still for a moment, as if imprinting the scene on his eyes, then grinning even more widely he swung around and made his way rapidly back to the main saloon.
Hester lost count of how long she sat on the floor cradling Scuff in her arms before Monk came down, just to look at the boy for himself. The other boys explained that the corpse below the trapdoor was that of Reilly, the other missing boy who had tried to rebel. He had been almost old enough to sell to one of the ships leaving London, but he had tried to rescue some of the younger boys and had been locked in the bilges for his rebellion, as an example. He could be identified by the small charm around what was left of his neck.
“We can hang Phillips for that,” Rathbone said hoarsely, his eyes dark with horror and that terrible grief she had seen in him before.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Really sure, Oliver? Please don't promise something you only believe. I don't want comforting. I need the truth.”
“It's the truth,” he replied.
At last she let go of Scuff and reached out to touch Rathbone's arm, very gently. Even though her hand was cold and filthy, warmth shot between them like the force of life, and passion, and gentleness.
“Then what is the truth?” she asked.
He did not evade her. “You asked me before who it was that paid me to defend Phillips,” he replied. “I thought I could not tell you, but now I know it was also he who set Phillips up in business in the beginning, knowing the weakness of men like Sullivan, and feeding it until it became consuming.”
She waited, understanding something of his horror, imagining his guilt.
“Yes, I know.” His voice was so low she could barely hear it.
Margaret's father! No, she was wrong, she had barely touched the magnitude of the horror he felt. This drowned anything else she had conceived of. It touched the very core of his own life. She struggled for words, but what could she say? She tightened her hand on his and lifted it very slowly to her cheek, then let it go. She rose and carried Scuff past him up into the light of the passage outside the saloon, leaving Rathbone by himself.
The big room was nearly empty. Monk was standing in the center with Orme. The rest of the police were gone, as were the other clients. Monk looked pale and unhappy. There was a bruise already darkening on his cheek.
“What's happened?” Hester demanded, surprised. But there was no fear in her. She had Scuff by the hand; he was standing up now, but pressed hard against her side.
“Most of them are under arrest,” he answered.
She felt a chill. “Most?”
“I'm sorry.” His voice was tight with pain, and guilt. “In the dark and the fighting, the men we left upstairs got drawn in. Sullivan betrayed us and got Phillips away. I should have watched him and seen it coming. We'll get him back, and when we do no one will help him escape the rope this time.”
She nodded, not wanting to blame him, and too near tears to speak. She felt as if some enormous weight had all but crushed her. The injustice of it was monstrous. They had tried so hard. Even as she fought for breath she knew her disappointment was childish. No one had ever promised justice, not quickly, or that she would see it happen. They had Scuff back, alive. He might have nightmares for years, but they would look after him. She was never going to let him be alone or cold or hungry again.
She shook her head, blinking hard. “In time,” she said a little stumblingly “We've got Scuff, and you've proved what Phillips is. No one will doubt you, or Durban, or the River Police now.”
He tried to smile, then turned away. No one mentioned Sullivan, or what might happen to him, what he might testify to, beyond tonight. What was there that they could prove against him, if he accused them, as Phillips had suggested?
It was well past midnight now, and all Phillips's men were either under arrest or waiting under guard for more boats to come and collect them. There were boys frightened, humiliated, and in need of care. They were all half- starved; many had bruises on their bodies, and some had bleeding and suppurating burns.
The police were busy with the arrests.
Rathbone questioned the boys gently, drawing out detail after hideous detail. He persisted, writing everything down in a little notebook from his pocket.
Meanwhile, Sutton rummaged for all the food he could find. Most of it was delicacies meant for the jaded palates of gentlemen, not the empty stomachs of children, but he made something better of it than Hester could have.
She did the best she could to treat the boys’ hurts with cold water, salt, and good shirts and underwear torn up to make bandages. For once it was a disadvantage not to have been wearing petticoats. As soon as there were boats available she would get them to the clinic in Portpool Lane and do all this better. For now just care and gentleness helped, and the knowledge that they were on the brink of freedom. She did not stop to think how much better it would be if she could tell them that Phillips was on his way to prison, and would soon be dead.
Monk climbed the steps on to the deck as the pale, cold fingers of light crept across the water. The high tide was past and beginning to drop again. The outlines of the warehouses and cranes were sharp black against the sky. Even as he watched, the darkness receded and he saw the stakes of Execution Dock tracking the shining surface of the river. It was not until he looked more closely that he realized there were bodies there, just tipping above the tide.
A string of lighters went by, their passage creating a wash, which uncovered Sullivan's dead body. His throat gaped open where he had slashed it himself in a last act of despair. Possibly it was some kind of reparation, because trapped inside the pirate gallows, eyes wide open, mouth in an eternal shriek as the water he dreaded closed over his living face, was what was left of Jericho Phillips.
There were footsteps on the wood behind him and Monk turned to see Hester. “Don't…” he began, but it was too late.
She looked across the retreating wash, her mouth pulled tight, her eyes filled with great pity “I've seen dead men before,” she told him, slipping her hand into his. “I would sooner that God had to deal with that one than we did. We'll just try to heal some of the pain.”
He put his arms around her and held her, feeling the strength in her, and the gentleness. It was all he needed to face any battle, now or ever.
