Anne Perry - Execution Dock

There was a distinct rustle in the gallery now. The people on either side of Hester quite blatantly turned to look at her. One even smiled and nodded.

Simmons blushed furiously.

Tremayne wisely hid his victory. He inclined his head towards the judge, as if to thank him, and then returned to his seat.

Rathbone sounded a little less certain as he called his next witness, a dockmaster named Trenton from the Pool of London. He testified to Durban 's friendship over several years with the mudlarks, beggars, and petty thieves who spent most of their lives at the river's edge. This time Rathbone was more careful to allow his witness to express his own opinions. Tremayne had scored an emotional victory, but he was going to find it a great deal more difficult to score another.

“Spent time with them,” Trenton said with a slight shrug. He was a small, squarely built man with a heavy nose and mild manner, but under the respect for authority there was considerable strength, and more than fifty years of ever-hardening opinion. “Talked to ‘em, gave ‘em advice, sometimes even shared ‘is food, or gave ‘em the odd sixpence or the like.”

“Was he looking for information?” Rathbone asked.

“If ‘e was, ‘e was a fool,” Trenton answered. “You get a reputation for being a soft touch like that, an’ you'll ‘ave a line o’ folks from Tower Bridge to the Isle o’ Dogs, all ready to tell you anything you want to ‘ear, for a penny or two.”

“I see. Then what could he have been doing? Do you know?”

Trenton was well prepared. Tremayne leaned forward, ready to object to speculation, but he did not have the opportunity.

“Don't know what ‘e was doing,” he said, pushing his lower lip out in an expression of puzzlement. “Never seen another River Police, nor land neither, who spent time with beggars and drifters like ‘e did, not with boys, like. They don't know much an’ won't tell you anything that matters even if they do.”

“How do you know that, Mr. Trenton?”

“I run a dock, Sir Oliver. I ‘ave to know what people are doing on my patch, ‘specially if there's a chance it's something as they shouldn't. I kept an eye on ‘im, over the years. There aren't that many bent River Police, but it's not impossible. Not that I'm saying ‘e was, mind you!” he added hastily. “But I watched. Thought at first ‘e might be a kidsman.”

“A kidsman?” Rathbone inquired, although of course he knew the word. He asked for the benefit of the jury.

Trenton understood. “A man who gets kids to do ‘is stealing for ‘im,” he replied simply. “Mostly it's silk handkerchiefs, bits o’ money, things like that. A good leather purse, maybe. But ‘e weren't, of course.” He shrugged again. “Just River Police with more interest in kids than anyone else.”

“I see. Did he ask you about Jericho Phillips?”

Trenton rolled his eyes. “Over and over, till I was sick of telling ‘im that as far as I know ‘e's just a petty thief, a chancer. Maybe does a bit of smuggling, although we've never caught ‘im at it. Per'aps a bit of informing, but that's all.”

“Did Mr. Durban accept that answer?”

Trenton 's face darkened. “No, ‘e didn't. Obsession ‘e ‘ad, and got worse towards the time ‘e died. Which was a shame,” he added quickly.

“Thank you.” Rathbone released him.

Tremayne looked indecisive from the moment he stood up. His face and his voice reflected exactly the fears that were beginning to touch Hester. Could they have been mistaken about Durban? Had he been a man who committed one marvelous act of nobility in an effort to redeem a life otherwise deeply flawed? Had they come in at the end, and thought all the rest was the same, when in fact it was not at all?

Tremayne was floundering, and he was acutely aware of it. It had been a decade since he had last been so subtly set off balance. There was nothing in Trenton 's evidence to contest, nothing he could grasp firmly enough to turn or twist to any other meaning.

Hester wondered if he was beginning to have doubts as well. Did he wonder if Monk had been naive, driven by loyalty to a man he had known only a short time, a matter of weeks, and whose real character he had only guessed at?

For the first time Hester actually entertained the thought, for an instant, that Rathbone could be right. Yes, Phillips was an evil man, one who preyed on the weaknesses and appetites of others, but he might not be guilty of torture or murder as Durban had believed, or as Monk had accepted from him. She pushed the thought away, refusing to entertain it. It was ugly, and it was disloyal.

Rathbone resumed the presentation of the defense. He called a lighterman who had known Durban well and admired him. He asked questions gently, drawing out pieces of information as if he were aware that the process would sooner or later become painful. He was right. At the start it was easy: merely a pattern of dates and questions asked and answered. Durban had asked the lighterman about comings and goings on the water, mostly of Jericho Phillips and his boat, occasionally of other men who patronized whatever its facilities were. They professed that it offered ale and entertainment, a simple matter of an evening on the river with refreshment and a little music, performed to the taste of whatever audience presented itself.

Lord Justice Sullivan leaned forward, listening intently, his face grave.

Did the lighterman, Hurst, know for certain what that entertainment was? Rathbone continued. No, he had no personal knowledge at all. Durban had asked him that, many times. The answer was always the same. He did not know, or wish to. As far as he was aware, the boys could have been there to serve ale, wait on tables, clear up, anything at all.

It seemed very routine, even tedious, until Hester saw something alter in Rathbone's stance, and a new, suppressed energy enter him. Was Durban 's interest in Phillips consistent from the time it began?

Hurst looked puzzled, as if he remembered something odd. No, it wasn't. For several months Durban had shown no interest at all, as if he had forgotten about him. Then equally without explanation, his interest had resumed again, even more fiercely than before. His pursuit had become almost savage, exceeding his duty. He had been seen on the river in all weather, even in the small hours of the night when all sane men were in their beds.

Could Hurst explain any of this? In fact, had Durban offered any reason for his extraordinary obsession and the erratic manner of his occupation with it?

No. Hurst was disillusioned. He had no idea.

Tremayne must have known that in questioning him further he would gain nothing, and might even lose. He declined.

To end the day Rathbone added another member of the River Police who had been serving at the Wapping Station during Durban 's latter years. The man made it quite apparent that he was there against his will. His loyalty was to the police in general, and to his immediate colleagues in particular. He was openly hostile to Rathbone, and to anyone else who questioned Durban 's integrity, and by implication, that of all the police.

However, he was obliged to admit that he knew beyond any doubt at all that towards the end of his life Durban had spent the little spare time he had, and much of his own money, in his endless, fruitless pursuit of Jericho Phillips. In spite of his careful wording, or perhaps because of it, it made Durban sound obsessed to the point of madness. Suddenly Phillips, as unpleasant as he was, appeared to be the victim.

Hester saw several confused faces in the gallery around her, even glances towards the figure of Phillips as he was escorted from the dock back down to the cells for the night. Now they were curious, and not as certain of his guilt as they had been even a few hours ago.