William Monk 16 - Execution Dock

interrupt her. “Did you defend him because you thought no one else would do it adequately or even at all? Perhaps you are right if you think no one else would have done it as well. Or did you do it to pay a debt to some friend to whom you owe a loyalty a pity, or a matter of honor, past or future?” She swallowed. “Or to show off, because it seemed impossible, and yet you accomplished it?”
    He was very pale now. “Is that what you think of me, Hester?”
    She did not flinch.
    “It is not what I wish to think. Before the trial I would have stood in that witness box and sworn that you would not.” She thought of mentioning money, and decided against that ultimate insult. “Do you even know who actually paid you?” she said instead. “Are you certain it was not Phillips himself? Isn't he clever enough to have done it through so many other avenues you could not trace it back to him? Then the question is, if he had come to you directly, not through a client, and a friend, would you still have taken the case?”
    “I don't know. That is not how it happened,” he replied. “I cannot explain it to you because it is in confidence, as are all legal consultations. You know that, and you knew it when you came here. You are not usually impractical enough to waste time and energy railing against the past. What is it you want?” It was blunt. His eyes were hard and hurt. He was also surprised that she had outmaneuvered him.
    “I would like to know who paid you …” she began.
    “Don't be foolish,” he said sharply. “You know I cannot possibly tell you that!”
    “I didn't ask you that!” she answered equally sharply. “I know you cannot. If either you or they were willing to own up to it you would have done so already.” She allowed her fear to show through, brittle and bright. “I wanted you to know that because of the doubt cast on Commander Durban's honor, now the whole of the Thames River Police is under suspicion to the degree that they may even be taken over completely, as a separate arm of the Metropolitan Police. All theirspecialist experience will be lost. And don't bother to tell me that that is as much my fault as yours. I know it is. I am not concerned with blame. As you said, it is a waste of time to cry over the past, which cannot be changed. I am concerned for the future.”
    She leaned towards him. “Oliver, between us we have come close to destroying something that is good. You can help us save Durban's reputation without damaging your own.”
    “And Monk's, of course,” he said cruelly.
    Again she did not flinch. “Of course. And mine too, for that matter. Is helping us a reason for not doing it?”
    “Hester, for … no, of course it isn't!” he protested. “I didn't expose any of you because I wanted to. You left yourselves wide open. I did what I had to do, to uphold the law.”
    “So now do what you can to uphold justice,” she returned. “Jericho Phillips killed Fig, although it is pointless to prove that now, even if we could. He killed others too, and we'll be a lot more careful about our evidence next time. But in order to do that, the River Police have to survive with their own command, not broken up into a dozen different entities, each just part of their local station.”
    She stood up slowly, careful to straighten her skirt—something with which she did not usually bother. “We have all done something ugly, all three of us. I am asking you to help us mend it, as much as it can be mended. We may never catch Phillips, but we can do all that is possible to prove to London that the River Police need and deserve to remain a separate department, with their own command.”
    He looked at her with what for him was an extraordinary sense of confusion. Emotions conflicted with intellect: loneliness, dismay, perhaps guilt, breaking apart his usual sanctuary of reason.
    “I'll do what I can,” he said quietly. “I have no idea if it will be of use.”
    She did not argue. “Thank you,” she said simply. Then she smiled at him. “I thought you would.”
    He blushed, and looked down at the papers on his desk, overwhelmed with relief when the clerk knocked on the door.

    She considered returning home to change from her most flattering dress, which naturally she had worn to see Rathbone, before going to Portpool Lane, but decided that it was a waste of the fare. She always kept clean working clothes at the clinic in case of accidents, which happened quite often.
    She found