The Twisted Root

He could let him drown, easily. He needed to be only a moment late and it would be beyond anyone’s skill to fish him out. Injured as he was, he would drown in minutes. It would be an end better than he deserved. But Monk wanted him alive, so he could be tried and hanged. Durban would be proved right, and all the boys Phillips had used and tortured would have a proper answer.
    Monk leaned forward with both arms over the side and caught Phillips by the shoulders, felt his hands lock onto his arms, and used all the strength he possessed to haul him out. He was wet, heavy, and almost a dead weight. His lungs were already filling with water, and he made no resistance.
    Monk took out the handcuffs and locked them on before he balanced to roll Phillips over and pump his chest to get the water out. “Breathe!” he said between his teeth. “Breathe, you swine!”
    Phillips coughed, vomited up river water, and drew in his breath.
    “Well done, Mr. Monk, sir,” Orme said from the lighter coming alongside. “Mr. Durban’d have been happy to see that.”
    Monk felt the warmth spread through him like fire and music, and peace after desperate exertion. “It needed tidying up,” he said modestly. “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Orme.”
    Monk arrived home at Paradise Place in Rotherhithe before six, a time that was relatively early for him. He had walked rapidly up the street from where the ferry had landed at Princes Stairs, and walked all the way up to Church Street, then the dogleg into Paradise Place. All the way he was refusing to think that Hester might not yet be home and he would have to wait to tell her that they had Phillips at last. And yet idiotically he could not get the fear of it out of his mind.
    The police surgeon had stitched up the gashes Phillips had made in his arm and leg, but he was bruised, filthy, and covered with blood. He had also bought an excellent bottle of brandy for his men, and shared it with them. It had been for all the station, so no one was the worse for wear, but he knew the flavor of it hung around him. However, he did not even think of such a thing as he skipped a step, ran the last few dozen yards up the short length of Paradise Place, and unlocked his own front door.
    “Hester!” he called, even before he closed it behind him. “Hester?” Only now did he fully face the possibility that she was not yet home. “I got him!”
    The words fell on silence.
    Then there was a clatter at the top of the stairs and she came running down, feet flying. Her hair was half undone, thick and fair and unruly as always. She hugged him with all her strength, which was considerable, in spite of her slender frame and lack of fashionable curves.
    He picked her up and swung her around, kissing her with all the joy and victory he felt, and the sudden upsurge of belief in everything good. Most of all his elation was due to the possibility that she was right to have had faith in him, not just in his skill but in his honor, that core of him that was good and could treasure and hold on to love.
    And Phillips’s capture at last meant that Durban was right to have trusted him too, which he realized now had also mattered.

A Ballantine Book
    Published by The Random House Publishing Group
    Copyright © 1999 by Anne Perry
    Excerpt from Treason at Lisson Grove
copyright © 2011 by Anne Perry.
    Excerpt from
Execution Dock
copyright © 2009 by Anne Perry.
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
    Ballantine and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
    www.ballantinebooks.com
    Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-104507
    First Mass Market Domestic Edition: September 2000
    www.randomhouse.com
    eISBN: 978-0-307-41744-2
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