William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

would in the end also administer the wounds that would bleed them dry. For that Monk had a shard of pity.
    What he did not forgive was that they had not considered thewretched children who paid for men’s entertainment with humiliation and pain, sometimes with their lives.
    Yes, he knew now, here in the place of his own precious safety, that he did not want to catch whoever had killed Mickey Parfitt. The law would not recognize self-defense, because this murder had obviously not been done in hot blood. The knotted rope embedded in Parfitt’s throat alone proved that. But morally that is what it was: getting rid of a predator who destroyed the young and the weak.
    “William?” Hester prompted.
    He looked up. “Yes, I suppose Ballinger might have been frightened by Phillips’s death. Sooner or later I would have gone after whoever was behind Phillips. But if Parfitt hadn’t been murdered, it might have been later.”
    The shadow of a smile touched her mouth. “How much later? A month? Two?”
    He shrugged slightly.
    She was very serious now. “Do you suppose Parfitt knew that, and got greedy, put on a little pressure, took advantage of what he thought was a vulnerability?”
    It was possible. If Parfitt were the opportunist he seemed, then he might well have seized the chance to try to take over a far larger part of the business. It was something Monk could not evade, wherever it led him.
    As if reading his thoughts, Hester asked the question he did not want to answer. “Could Sullivan have been telling the truth?”
    “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking up and meeting her eyes. “I’d give a lot for it not to be, for Margaret’s sake, and even more for Rathbone’s.”
    “And Scuff?”
    He frowned. “Is it better for him to let it all go, hoping he’ll forget it, or to drag it out into the open and get rid of it, if we can? That means exposing it like a great new wound, for him to see and feel all over again.”
    “And all the other boys?” Her voice was measured.
    “We can’t heal the world,” he replied. “There will always be thosewe can’t do anything about. What we can touch is so small as to be almost invisible, compared with what we can’t.”
    “It isn’t how much you do; it’s the question of whether doing anything or nothing is better for him.”
    “Is that what matters? What’s right for Scuff?” he asked.
    “Yes!” She breathed in and out, and looked away from his eyes. “No! Of course that’s not all. But it’s where I start. You didn’t answer me. Which is better for Scuff?”
    “I know he still has nightmares. I hear you get up in the night. I know he’s probably about nine or ten, for all that he says he’s eleven, and has been saying for nearly a year. In some ways he’s far older than that. Fairy tales won’t do for him. The only thing he’ll believe is something close to the truth.” He lowered his voice. “He doesn’t have a very high opinion of my knowledge, or my common sense. He takes great pride in looking after me. But at least he thinks I don’t ever lie to him. It’s the only thing he knows for certain. I can’t break that.”
    “I know.” Hester was still chewing her lip. “You’re right; to try to protect him from it is ridiculous. It’s a sort of denial of his experience, as if we didn’t believe him. That’s the last thing he needs. I don’t know how much he’s a child and how much a man.” She smiled, and he saw the hurt behind it. “And I don’t think I really know very much about children anyway. I think he’s afraid of being touched, in case he loses the independence he needs to keep in order to survive. Maybe one day …”
    “You’ll do it right,” Monk said gently. “You’re good with the difficult ones.”
    He looked at her sitting across the table from him in the lamp-lit kitchen, with its gleaming pans and familiar china on the dresser. Her eyelids were heavy, her hair falling out of its pins from her sleep in the chair, her plain blue dress vaguely reminiscent of her nursing days. But she was ready now to fight anyone and everyone to defend Scuff. With a thrill of surprise, Monk suddenly understood what beauty was really about.
    “I’ll find whoever killed Mickey Parfitt and put an end to the pornography boats, whoever is behind them. No matter who gets hurt by it,” he promised.
    “Even if it’s Oliver?” she asked.
    He hesitated only a moment. “Yes.”
    She smiled, and there was an intense