William Monk 16 - Execution Dock

to say to the ferryman. There was not really anything to say to anyone, until he could rescue at least something from the ashes.
    He paid his fare, got out at the other side at Wapping New Stairs, and climbed up the short way to the top.
    There was a boy standing waiting. He was thin and wiry, his face keen. He had a cap jammed on his head, hiding most of his hair. His shirt was ragged and missing several buttons, and his trouser legs were uneven, which complemented his boots, one brown and one black. He appeared to be about ten or eleven. He was the mudlark Scuff, one of the boys who salvaged small items of value from the river to sell. He had helped Monk before, and chose to continue to help him with his knowledge of the dockside and its ways.
    “Sorry sight you are,” he said to Monk disparagingly. “Got a face like a burst boot. S'pose you got a right. Made a pig's ear of it, an’ all.” The boy fell into step behind him as Monk turned to walk along the dockside towards the police station. The boy sniffed. “But yer gonna do summink, in't yer?” There was a note of anxiety in his voice that was close to real fear.
    Monk stopped. The ferryman was not worth the effort of pretense, but Scuff deserved both honesty and the courage not to disappointhim. He looked at the boy and saw the vulnerability bright in his eyes.
    “Yes, of course I'm going to do something,” he said firmly. “I just need to think very hard before I do it, so that I get it right—this time.”
    Scuff shook his head, drawing his breath in through his teeth, but some of the fear in him eased. “Yer gotta be careful, Mr. Monk. Yer may ‘ave been the cat's whiskers wi’ villains on shore, but yer in't much use wi’ river folk. Though come ter think on it, that lawyer's sharp, all right. Pretty as new paint, ‘e is, all striped trousers and shiny shoes.” For a moment his face was full of sympathy. “For all that ‘e's bent as a dog's ‘ind leg.” He kept pace with Monk across the stones.
    “He's not bent,” Monk corrected him. “It's his job to get people off a charge, if he can. It's my fault that I made it possible for him.”
    Scuff was skeptical. “Someone twistin’ ‘is arm ter do it, then?”
    “Possibly. It might just be that he felt that the principle of the law required that even the worst of us deserve a fair hearing.”
    Scuff pulled his face into an expression of deep disgust. “The worst of us deserves ter dance on the end of a rope, an’ if yer don't know that, then yer in't fit ter be out o’ the ‘ouse by yerself.”
    “It doesn't make any difference, Scuff,” Monk told him miserably. “Phillips is free, and it's up to me to clear up the mess and nail him for something else.”
    “I'll ‘elp yer,” Scuff said immediately. “Yer need me.”
    “I'd like your help, but I don't need it,” Monk said as gently as he could. “I have no very clear idea yet where to begin, except by going over what I already know and seeing where the holes are, then pursuing it until I can at least nail him on pornography or extortion. It's dangerous, and I don't want to risk you getting hurt.”
    Scuff thought about it for a moment or two. He was trying to keep up with Monk, but his legs were not long enough, and every third or fourth stride he had to put in an extra little skip.
    “I in't afraid,” he said at length. “Leastways not enough ter stop me.”
    Monk halted and Scuff halted half a step later.
    “I don't doubt your courage,” Monk said clearly, meeting Scuffs eyes. “In fact, if you had a trifle less you might be safer.”
    “Yer want me ter be scaredy-cat?” Scuff asked incredulously.
    Monk made a quick decision. “If it will keep you out of the hands of men like Phillips, yes I do.”
    Scuff stood still on the spot, the stubbornness in his face slowly revealing the hurt. “Yer think I in't no use, don't yer?” he asked, sniffing very slightly.
    Monk was furious with himself for having put them both into such a position. Now he was caught between denying the fact that he cared about the boy, which would be a wounding lie whose damage he might never undo, or admitting that his decision was based on emotion rather than reason. Or the alternative, perhaps crueler still, was to suggest that he really did think Scuff was no use. That one he could not even consider.
    He started to walk again.
    “I think you're a lot of use,” he said quietly, falling back a bit to keep step with the boy, rather than