The police boat plunged forward and to port as the other lighter crossed to starboard. The first man leapt aboard, then the second, pistols drawn.
Phillips was the one case Durban had not closed, and it had remained, even in his last notes, a still-bleeding wound in his mind. Monk had read every page since he had inherited them from Durban, along with the job. The facts were there, dates, times, people questioned, answers, conclusions, resolutions as to what to pursue next. But through all the words, the letters, sprawled and jagged, burned the emotion. There was an anger far deeper than the mere frustration of failure, or the injured pride at being outwitted. There was a deep, scalding fury at the suffering of children, and a pity for all the victims of Phillips’s trade. And whether Monk wanted it to or not, it scarred him too. He thought about it when the day was ended and he was at home. It invaded the peace of mealtimes. It intruded into his conversations with his wife, Hester. Very little else had ever done that.
He sat rigid in the stern of the boat now, aching to join the men on the lighter. Where were they? Why had they not reappeared with Phillips?
Then he understood—they were on the wrong side. Phillips had judged it exactly. Knowing they would have to pass to port to avoid ramming the other lighter, he had gone to starboard and jumped again. It was risky, but he had nothing to lose. When they caught him he would be tried, and there could be only one verdict. Three Sundays later, he would be hanged.
“Get the men back!” he shouted, half rising from the seat. “He’s gone to starboard! On the other lighter!”
They must have realized it too. Orme took the other oar, unshipped it, and began to pull hard to bring the boat astern of the first lighter.
The two men returned, leaping down, sending the boat rocking violently. This was no time to change places with Orme. The other lighter was already twenty yards away and heading towards the dock. If Phillips made it before they caught him he would disappear among the boxes and bales, the tea chests, rum and sugar casks, the piles of timber, horn, hides, and pottery that crowded the quayside.
Monk’s body was rigid, the wind blowing in his face sharp with the smells of salt and fish on the outgoing tide. Catching Phillips was the one thing he could still do for Durban. It would justify the trust Durban had placed in him after knowing him only a few weeks. They had shared nothing of daily life and routine, only one case of a horror almost beyond imagination.
The lighter ahead passed out of sight for a few moments, hidden by the stern of a five-masted schooner. Monk watched intently. It seemed to take far too long to reappear. Was Phillips catching a loose rope, calling out for help from the stevedores, anything to board the ship? If so, Monk would have to go back to the station at Wapping and get more men. Anything could happen in that time.
Orme must have seen the possibility too. He hurled his weight behind his oar, shouting at the other men. The boat leapt forward and the lighter appeared again, still comfortably ahead of them. Monk swiveled to stare at the hull of the schooner, but there was no one on the ropes over its sides. The stevedores on the deck were still bent- backed, hauling casks up out of the hold.
Relief swept over Monk as they closed on the lighter. Another minute or two and they would have Phillips. The long chase would be over. With him in custody it would only be a matter of waiting for the law to take its course.
The police boat came alongside the lighter. Again two armed men boarded, and came back moments later, bleak-faced and shaking their heads. This time Monk swore. Phillips had not gone up the sides onto the schooner, he was certain of that. No matter how agile, a man could not climb the ropes swiftly enough in the few minutes he had been out of sight. No lighter had passed them going to the north bank. It could only have been to the south.
Angry, rowing with tight-knotted shoulders, the men sent the boat straight around the stern of the schooner into the wash of a stream of barges going upriver. They bucked and veered, slapping hard down into the water and sending up spray. Monk clung on to the sides, snarling between his teeth as he saw another lighter going south to Rotherhithe.
Orme saw it at the same moment, and gave the order.
They wove through the traffic. A ferry crossed swiftly in front of them, passengers crouched against the wind; a pleasure boat sent snatches of music into the air. This time the lighter made it to the dockside only twenty yards ahead of them, and they saw Phillips’s agile figure, hair and coattails flying, jump from the stern as they passed the East Lane Stairs. He landed on the lowest step, which was slimed over from the tide. He teetered for a moment, arms wheeling, and then fell sideways, hard against the stone wall green with weed. It must have hurt, but he knew the police boat was not far behind him, and fear must have spurred him to scramble to his hands and knees and clamber upwards. It was a maneuver utterly without dignity, and a couple of lightermen jeered at him, but it was extremely rapid. By the time the police boat jarred against the stone, Phillips was at the top on the dry surface. He sprinted towards the Fore and Aft Dock with its crates of pottery from Spain, dumped haphazardly amid dark brown barrels and lighter piles of unfinished timber. The stench of hides was thick in the air, mixed with the sickening sweetness of raw sugar and the heady aroma of spices. Beyond that was the Bermondsey Road, and a whole network of streets and alleys, doss-houses, pawnshops, chandleries, taverns, and brothels.
Monk hesitated only a moment, fearing wrenched ankles, the howls of laughter from the dockers and lightermen if he actually fell into the river, and how idiotic he would feel if Phillips escaped because his own men had had to stop to fish him out. There was no time for such weighing and judging. He stood up, felt the boat pitch sideways, and launched himself towards the steps.
He landed awkwardly. His hands hit stone and weed, but his one goal kept him going. He slipped on to one knee, cracking it hard on the ledge of the next rise. Pain shot through him, but no numbness to prevent him from straightening up and climbing behind Phillips, almost as if he had meant to land as he did.
He reached the top of the steps and saw Phillips thirty feet ahead, running towards a stack of dark, wooden barrels and the winch beyond it. The lumpers unloading more from a lighter below took no notice at all. Some of them were bare-chested in the sun, skin glistening with sweat.
Monk ran across the open space. Then he hesitated when he reached the barrels, knowing Phillips could be just behind them, at best with a length of wood or pipe, at worst a blade. Instead he swung around and went along the length of the stack and around the farther side.
Phillips must have counted on exactly that. He was climbing the long barrier of a pile of bales, going up it as an able seaman might climb a spar, hand over hand, easily. He looked back once, his mouth pulled wide in a sneer, then heaved himself over the top and stopped just for an instant before dropping down the far side.
Monk had no choice but to follow, or lose him. Phillips might leave his wretched boat, find some hovel on the bank for a while, then reappear in half a year, and in the meantime God knew how many more boys would suffer, or
