William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

was relatively free—until Ballinger needed their help in some favor or other.
    Only after some years had it degenerated into payment with money rather than action. And then—when possession of the riverboat on which it had all taken place had satisfied Ballinger’s own power for gain—finally to murder.
    Rathbone did not know beyond doubt of Ballinger’s guilt in, or even his knowledge of, the murders of the boys grown too old to please the tastes of such patrons, or too unwilling to be coerced anymore. He preferred to think that of those additional crimes, perhaps Ballinger was innocent.
    None of this Margaret believed, and she had never seen or even imagined the pictures. Rathbone would fight with everything he had in order that she never did. Such things seared themselves into the mind and could not be erased. Rathbone himself still woke in the night soaked with sweat when he dreamed of them, of going into the boats themselves and feeling the pain and the fear drown him, like filthy water closing over his head.
    “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I suppose you have to leave them here?”
    “Yes,” Brundish replied, his brows lifted slightly in surprise. “I assumefrom that remark that you do not wish for … whatever it is?” He pulled a small sheet of paper from his inside pocket. “However, I need you to sign this to confirm that I have delivered it to you.”
    “Of course you do.” Wordlessly Rathbone took the paper over to the writing table in the corner, picked up a pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and signed. He blotted the signature lightly and handed the paper back.
    After Brundish had gone, Rathbone sent Ardmore to fetch brandy, then he dismissed him for the night and sat in the armchair thinking.
    Should he destroy them, now, without even opening them? He looked down at the box and realized it was metal, and locked. The key was tied to it on a ribbon, presumably by Brundish. He would have to open it and take them out before he could destroy them. Inside that box they were invulnerable, probably even to fire.
    What else would destroy pictures? Acid? But why bother? Fire was easy enough. There was a fire in the grate now. All he needed to do was pile more coal on it, get it really hot, and he had the perfect method. By morning there would be nothing left.
    He bent down and took the key, put it in the lock, and turned it. It moved easily, as if it were well cared for and often used.
    The contents were not only paper as he had expected, but photographic plates, with paper prints beside, presumably duplicates used to prove their existence. He should have foreseen that. These were the originals from which Ballinger had printed the copies he had used to blackmail people. He had nearly said “the victims” in his own mind, but these men were not the victims. The true victims were the children, the mudlarks, orphans, street urchins taken and kept prisoner on the boats.
    He looked at the pictures one by one. They were horrific, but obscenely fascinating. He barely looked at the children—he could not bear it—but the faces of the men held him totally, however much against his will. They were men whose features he knew, men of power in government, in law, in the Church, in life. That the sickness ran through them with such power that they would stoop to this shook him till his stomach clenched and his hand holding the plates trembled.
    If they had paid prostitutes, or even done such things with adultmen, or other men’s wives, it would have been a private matter that he could perhaps shut out of his mind. But this was entirely different. This was the rape and torture of children, and—even to the most tolerant—it was a bestial crime. To the society in which they moved, which respected them and over which they had power, it was a sin beyond forgiveness.
    The plates were glass. They would not burn. The fire in the hearth, however hot, would not be enough.
    Acid? A hammer and blows violent enough to smash them to rubble? But should he? If he destroyed this evidence, then he was complicit in the crimes they had committed.
    Should he take them to the police?
    But some of those men
were
police. Some were judges, some advocates in the courts. He would overturn half of society. And if word of his possession got out, perhaps he would not even survive. Men had killed for infinitely less.
    He was too tired to make any irrevocable decisions tonight.
    He closed the box and locked it again. He