Anne Perry - Execution Dock

Monk kept his temper, knowing that Rathbone was trying to bait him. “Of course. But desperate as the state of many children is, there are not a thousand boys of that age missing at one time along the bank of the river, and unreported.”

“So you fitted this tragic corpse to the face of one boy that a mudlark said was missing, and you identified the body as that of Walter Figgis?” Rathbone's eyes were wide, a very slight smile on his lips.

Monk swallowed his sarcasm. He knew he was playing to an audience who was watching the shadows on his face, hearing the slightest inflection of his voice. “No, Sir Oliver, Commander Durban thought it very likely that the corpse was that of Figgis. When we found obscene photographs of Figgis, taken when he was alive, they were identified by those who knew him, and Commander Durban then matched them to the corpse. He had unusual ears, and one of them had not been destroyed by the water, and the creatures in it who feed on the dead.”

Rathbone was forced to accept it.

Tremayne smiled, his body relaxing a little in relief.

Sullivan sat forward a little at his high bench, turning first to Rathbone, then to Tremayne, then back again.

Rathbone moved on. “Did you see these-obscene-photo graphs?”

“Yes. They were in Durban 's papers.” Monk could not prevent the violence of his disgust from showing. He tried to; he knew he should keep control. This was evidence. Only facts should matter, but still his body was shaking, and he felt sweat break out on his skin. “The faces were perfectly clear, even three of the burns. We found two of them on the same places.”

“And the third?” Rathbone asked very gently.

“That part of him had been eaten away.” Monk's voice trembled, thick with the horror and misery of Durban 's words on the page in jagged writing, creating a picture of disintegration and loss.

“The vision of tragedy, of bestiality, that you call up, is almost beyond bearing,” Rathbone acknowledged. “I do not wonder that you find it hard to speak of, or that Mr. Durban put in endless hours of his own time, and indeed also his own money, to bring to justice whoever did this. Would it be true to say that you felt just as deeply as he did?” He shrugged very slightly. “Or perhaps you did not?”

There was only one answer possible. Rathbone had chosen his words with an artist's precision. Every eye in the court was on Monk.

“Of course I felt as deeply,” he said.

“Commander Durban had given his life to save others,” Rathbone went on with some reverence. “And he had recommended you to take over his position. That is perhaps the highest mark of trust one man can offer another. Would it be true to say that you owe him a debt of both honor and gratitude?”

Again, there was only one possible reply.

“Yes, I do.”

There was a sigh and a rustle of agreement around the room.

“And you will do everything you can to honor it, and bring pride to the men of the River Police who are now in your command, and earn their loyalty, as Durban did?” Rathbone asked, although it was barely a question. The answer spoke for itself.

“Of course.”

“Especially completing this task of Durban 's, in the way he would have wished. Perhaps you would even give him the credit for its solution?”

“Yes,” Monk said without hesitation.

Rathbone was satisfied. He thanked Monk and returned to his seat with a gesture of invitation to Tremayne.

Tremayne hesitated, only too clearly seeking any way to regain the balance. Then he declined. Perhaps he thought that anything Monk might add would only raise the emotion still higher, which would make it even worse. Monk was excused.

In the early afternoon Tremayne gave the prosecution's summary. His movements were graceful, his voice smooth and confident, but Monk knew it was a superb piece of acting. The man should have been on the stage. He even had the striking looks for it. But he was laboring against the tide, and he had to know it.

He mentioned Durban 's original deductions only in passing, concentrating on Monk's taking up of the trail again. He avoided the horror of it whenever he could, telling instead the detail of Monk's piecing together the proof of Fig's identity, and the links that connected him to Jericho Phillips and the trade in exploitation and pornography. He could not mention the photographs because they had not been produced, only referred to by Monk. As evidence they did not exist, as Rathbone would have instantly pointed out.

He also spoke of Hester's part in connecting Phillips to the trade that satisfies the sexual appetites of those with money to pay for whatever they wanted, using the poor, willing or unwilling, who had no other way to survive. When he finally sat down, the jury was wrung with emotions of anger and pity, and would clearly have been willing themselves to tie a noose around Phillips's neck.

Rathbone stood up. He looked very somber, as if he too were shaken by what he had heard.

“What happened to this boy is appalling,” he began. There was absolute silence in the room, and he had no need to raise his voice. “It should shock all of us, and I believe it has.” He stood very still, awed by the horror of it. “The fact that he was a child of poverty and ignorance is completely irrelevant. The fact that he may have made his living at first by begging or stealing, then was very probably forced into acts of the utmost degradation by men in the grip of deviant appetites is also irrelevant. Every human being deserves justice, at the very least. If possible, they deserve mercy and honor as well.”

There was a low rumble of assent. The jurors’ faces were filled with emotion. They sat huddled forward, bodies tight and uncomfortable.

On the bench Sullivan seemed frozen, his cheeks dark with color.

“What we have heard is sufficient to stir the passions, the rage, the pity of every decent person, man or woman,” Rathbone continued. “What would you think of a woman like Hester Monk, who spends her time and her means laboring to help the sick, the destitute, the forgotten, and the outcast of our society, if she had no pity for this misused child? If she does not fight for him, then who will? If she is not moved to fury and to weeping on his behalf, what manner of woman is she? I am bold enough to say that she would not be a woman that I wish to know.”

There were strong murmurs of agreement.

Rathbone was speaking to them intimately now. Not a soul moved or made the slightest rustle.

“And Commander Durban, who saw the boy's dead body pulled from where it was tangled in the ropes of the lighter, mangled and unrecognizable, who saw the marks of torture on the dead flesh?” He gestured delicately with his hands. “What sort of a guardian of our law would he be, had he not sworn to spend his professional life seeking the creature who brought this about? In his case, he spent his personal time as well, and his own money, to seek justice, and it seems to me, to put an end to such things happening to other boys as well. Do we want policemen who are not moved by such horror?”

Up in the dock, for the first time, Jericho Phillips stirred anxiously. His eyes flickered with panic, and his body was hunched forward as far as his manacles would allow.

“And Mr. Monk is a worthy successor to Durban,” Rathbone continued. “He has the same passion, the same dedication, the driving will that compels him to spend night and day searching for clues, answers, proof, anywhere he can. He will not rest, indeed he cannot rest, until he has captured the man responsible, and taken him to the very foot of the gallows.”

Several jurors were nodding now.

Lord Justice Sullivan looked concerned, on the brink of going so far as to interrupt him. Could Rathbone conceivably have forgotten which side he was on?