William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

and took the ferry across to Wapping, past the police station that Monk commanded. Then they turned west along the High Street, at Scuff’s direction, toward the Pool of London and the biggest docks.
    They did not talk. Scuff seemed to be watching and listening. His jacket was buttoned right up to his chin, and his cap was jammed hard onto his head. He had on new boots, his first that were actually a pair. Hester was sunk in her own contemplation of what she needed to learn and how much she could ask without endangering both of them. Pornography and prostitution were vast trades, and there was a great deal of money to be made in either of them. And of course there was a corresponding danger from the law. Not only profit but survivaldepended on knowing what not to say, and particularly who not to say it to.
    It took them most of the morning amid the noise and traffic, the wagons and cranes and piles of cargo and timber, before they eventually found Crow in a tenement building on Jacob Street. It was just inland from St. Saviour’s Wharf, on the south side of the river.
    Crow was a lanky man in his midthirties, with coal-black hair, which he wore thick, swept back off his high forehead, and long enough for it to sit on his collar at the back. He had a lugubrious face until he smiled—a broad, flashing grin showing excellent teeth.
    They had only just caught him. He was coming down the steps with his black gladstone bag in his hands. He was dressed in a shabby frock coat and black trousers barely adequate to cover his long legs. He was clearly delighted to see Scuff, and his eyes went to him first, before he greeted Hester.
    “Hello, Mrs. Monk! What are you doing in these parts? Trouble?”
    “Of course,” she replied, holding out her hand.
    He spread his own lean fingers and looked at them in distaste. “I’m filthy,” he said, shaking his head. His glance went to Scuff again, as if to reassure himself as to his well-being. Crow had dropped every other business to help search for Scuff when the boy had been kidnapped by Jericho Phillips.
    Hester dropped her hand, smiling back at him. “You heard about the murder of Mickey Parfitt?” she asked, falling in step beside him as they walked back along the narrow street toward the river, stepping carefully to avoid the gutter.
    “Of course,” Crow acknowledged. “No ill will, Mrs. Monk, but I hope you don’t find the poor sod that did for him. If you’ve come to ask me to help you, sorry but I’m too busy. You’d be surprised the number of sick people there are around here.” He looked up at the dense tenement buildings to the left and right of them, grimed with smoke and constantly dripping water from the eaves.
    She glanced at him. His face was set in hard lines, the easy smile vanished. She had known him off and on since Monk’s first case on the river, nearly a year ago now, but she realized she had seen only thethinnest surface of his character. He was a man who never spoke of his background, but he had had a good deal of medical training and used it to help those on the edge of the law—animal or human—or in the iron grip of poverty. He took his payment in whatever form was offered—a debt in hand, if necessary, and kindness in return when it was needed.
    She had no idea what had happened to prevent him from gaining his qualifications and practicing as a full doctor. His speech was not from the dockland area, but she could not place it. He cared for Scuff, and that was all that mattered. One knew far less about most people than one imagined. Parents, place and date of birth, education, all told less of the heart than a few actions under pressure when the cost was high.
    “I’m afraid we already have a very good idea who it was.” She answered his challenge while watching her step as she picked her way over broken cobbles. “I’m trying to find a reason to cast doubt on his guilt, or if not that, then at least to show that he doesn’t deserve the rope.”
    Crow was surprised. “You want him to get off?”
    Hester would not have put it quite so bluntly, and she drew in her breath to deny it. Then she saw Scuff looking at her and realized that perhaps Crow was right, that that was what she wanted. It was difficult to answer the question honestly with Scuff between them, grasping every word.
    “I want the trade finished, wiped out,” she said. “To do that I need to break the man behind it—the one with the money. I’d rather not