William Monk 16 - Execution Dock

women she knew, and in background and hopes for the future; in health, ability, and the things that made them laugh or lose their temper. But in some ways they were also heartbreakingly the same. Those were the things that twisted inside her with a warmth of pity, and all too often of helplessness.
    She finished her tea and excused herself without saying anything more about it, and went to see Squeaky Robinson, a man with whom she had a most awkward relationship. That she spoke to him at all was a circumstance that had been forced upon her, at least to begin with. Now they had a kind of restless and extremely uneasy truce.
    She knocked on his door; heaven only knew what she might find him doing if she went in without that precaution. When he answered she opened it, walked through, and closed it behind her.
    “Good morning, Mr. Robinson,” she said a little stiffly. “When we have finished talking I will fetch you a cup of tea, if you would like it. First I need to speak with you.”
    He looked up warily. He was wearing the same rumpled jacket as usual, and a shirt that had probably never felt an iron, and his hair was standing up at all angles from where he had obviously run his fingers through it in some degree of frenzy.
    “Good,” he said immediately. “Say what yer ‘ave to. I'm thirsty.” He did not put his pen down but kept it poised above the inkwell. He wrote all his figures in ink. Apparently he did not make mistakes.
    Her temper flared at his dismissiveness, but she kept it under control. She wanted his cooperation. A plan was beginning to take shape in her mind.
    “I would like to have your attention, if you please, Mr. Robinson,” she said carefully. “All of it.”
    He looked alarmed. “Wot's ‘appened?”
    “I had thought you were as aware of it as I, but perhaps you are not.” She sat down uninvited. “I shall explain it to you. Jericho Phillips is a man who …”
    “I know all about that!” he said tartly.
    “Then you know what has happened,” she responded. “It is necessary that we conclude the matter, so that we can all get back to our own business without the distraction of his behavior. He is causing Mrs. Monk some distress. I would like to be of assistance.”
    A look of total exasperation filled his face, raising his wispy eyebrows and pulling the corners of his mouth tight. “Yer got no more chance o’ catching Jericho Phillips than yer ‘ave o’ marryin’ the Prince o’ Wales!” he said with barely concealed impatience. “Get back ter yer kitchen an’ do wot yer good at.”
    “Are you going to catch him?” she said frostily.
    He looked uncomfortable. He had expected her to be deeply affronted and lose her composure, and she had not. That gave him a surprising and inexplicable satisfaction. It should have infuriated him.
    “Well, are you?” she snapped.
    “If I could, I wouldn't be sittin’ ‘ere,” he retorted. “Fer Gawd's sake, fetch the tea.”
    She sat without moving. “He takes and keeps small boys to be photographed performing obscene acts, is that so?”
    He blushed, annoyed with her for embarrassing him. She should have been the one embarrassed. “Yes. Yer shouldn't even be knowin’ about such things.” That was a definite accusation.
    “A lot of use that's going to be,” she told him witheringly “I assume he does it for money? There could be no other reason. He sells these pictures, yes?”
    “O’ course ‘e sells them!” he shouted at her.
    “Where?”
    “What?”
    “Don't pretend to be stupid, Mr. Robinson. Where does he sell them? How much more plainly can I put it?”
    “I dunno. On ‘is boat, in the post, ‘ow do I know?”
    “Why not in shops as well?” she asked. “Wouldn't he use every place he could? If I had something I knew I could sell, I would offer it everywhere. Why wouldn't he?”
    “All right, so ‘e would. Wot about it? That don't do us no good.”
    With difficulty she forebore from correcting his grammar. She did not want to anger him any more than she had already.
    “Is there not any law against such things, if it involves children, boys?”
    “Yes, o’ course there is.” He looked at her wearily. “An’ ‘oo's goin’ ter force it, eh? Yer? Me? The cops? Nobody, that's ‘oo.”
    “I am not quite certain that there is nobody,” she said softly. “You might be surprised what Society can do, and will, if it feels itself in danger, either financially or more important, in comfort and