Anne Perry - Execution Dock

“ Durban?” he said thoughtfully. “Can't say I know anything about his family, or where he came from, but I heard he was a good man. But Corporal Miller, d'you remember him? Little man, with red hair, and we called him Dusty, but then we call all Millers ‘Dusty.’ “He smiled at the recollection. In spite of his lost leg, his memories of the companionship in army life were still good. “I can give you the names of two or three others, if you like?”

“Yes, please,” she accepted quickly. “And where I can find them, if you know that.”

He swung around on his crutch and moved rapidly back to the bench where he worked. He wrote on a sheet of paper, dipping his quill in the inkwell and concentrating on his penmanship. He returned several moments later and handed her the sheet covered with beautiful script letters. He was watching her, pride in his face, anxious to see if she observed his achievement.

She said the names and addresses, and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I know now if I ever want a job as a clerk not to come here. This standard is something I couldn't achieve. Seeing you has lightened a dark day for me. I'll go and look for these men. Thank you.”

He blinked a little, uncertain what to say, and ended by simply smiling back.

It took her the rest of the day and half the next one, but she gained bits and pieces from all the men whose names Fenneman had given her, and gathered a picture of Durban 's own account of his youth. Apparently he had been born in Essex. His father, John Durban, had been headmaster of a boys’ school there, and his mother a happy and contented woman about the home and the schoolhouse. It had been a large family: several sisters and at least one brother, who had been a captain in the merchant navy, travelling the South Seas, and the coast of Africa. There was no hint of darkness at all, and Durban 's own official police record was exemplary.

The village of his birth was only a few miles away along the Thames Estuary. It was still barely past noon. She could be there by two o'clock, find the schoolhouse and the parish church, look at the records, and be home before dark. She felt a twinge of guilt at the whisper of caution that drove her to do it. This was Durban 's own account. She would never have doubted him before the trial, and the questions Rathbone had awoken in her.

But the lean, intelligent face of Oliver Rathbone kept coming back into her mind, and the necessity to check, to prove, to be able to answer every question with absolute certainty.

She spent the money and traveled in a crowded carriage out to the stop nearest the village, and then walked the last couple of miles in the wind and sun, the water of the Estuary glinting bright to the south. She went to the schoolhouse, and to the church. There was no record whatsoever of anyone named Durban -no births, no deaths, no marriages. The schoolhouse had every headmaster's name on its board, from 1823 to the present date. There was no Durban.

She felt sick, confused, and very afraid for Monk. As she walked back towards the railway station and the journey home, the road was suddenly hard, her feet hot and sore. The light on the water was no longer beautiful, and she did not notice the sails of the barges coming and going. The ache inside herself for the lies and the disillusion ahead outweighed such peripheral, physical things. And the question beat in her mind, over and over-Why? What did the lies conceal?

In the morning, feet still aching, she was at the clinic on Portpool Lane, intensely relieved that Margaret was not present, who perhaps just now found their meetings as unhappy as Hester did.

She had visited all the patients they currently had, and attended to a little stitching of wounds and the repair of a dislocated shoulder, when Claudine came into the room and closed the door behind her. Her eyes were bright, and she was slightly flushed. She did not wait for Hester to speak.

“I've got a woman in one of the bedrooms,” she said urgently. “She came in last night. She has a knife wound and bled rather badly…”

Hester was alarmed. “You didn't tell me! Why didn't you have me see her?” She rose to her feet. “Is she…?”

“She's all right,” Claudine said quickly, motioning for Hester to sit down again. “She's not nearly as bad as I let her think she is. I spread the blood on to a lot of clothes so it would look dreadful, and she would be afraid to leave.”

“Claudine! What on earth…?” Now Hester was frightened not only for the woman, but for Claudine's sanity.

Claudine interrupted her, her face even more flushed. “I needed to speak to you privately before you go to her. She might be able to tell you something important, if you go about it the right way.” She barely paused for breath. “She knows Jericho Phillips-has for a long time, since he was a child. Knew Durban a bit also.”

“Really?” Now she had Hester's entire attention. “Where is she?” She had started towards the door by the time Claudine replied, and had her hand on the knob before she turned back to thank her, her own voice now also filled with urgency.

Claudine smiled. It was a start, but she knew it could still prove fruitless. She needed to help.

Hester walked quickly along the corridor, up a flight of stairs, and along another, even narrower hall until she came to the last, quite good-sized room at the end. It was out of the way of the normal traffic within the clinic. Sometimes they used it for people who had infectious illnesses, or for those they feared were terminally ill. It was large enough for a second cot where a nurse could catch short naps, so as not to leave anyone alone in their last hours.

The woman inside was far from dying. Claudine had indeed made it look dramatic. There were still bloodstained clothes and bandages lying in a basin and padding sitting on the small table, needles and silk for stitching wounds, and a carafe of water.

The woman looked frightened, lying in the bed with her head propped on pillows and her injured arm lying swathed in bandages beside her, although she had good color in her cheeks, and none of the hollow-eyed stare of the desperately injured.

“Hello,” Hester said softly, closing the door behind her. “My name is Mrs. Monk. I've come to look at your wound, and see what I can do for you. What's your name?”

“Mina,” the woman said hoarsely, fear choking her voice.

Hester felt a strong twinge of guilt, but did not allow it to alter her intent. She pulled up the hard-backed chair until she was close enough to the bed to work comfortably, then began as gently as she could to unwind the bandages and examine the wound, without taking off the final gauze, which would certainly start it bleeding again. Claudine had done a very good job of cleaning it and stitching the raw edges together. The jagged knife slash was not as deep or as dangerous as Mina had been allowed to believe.

Hester began to talk casually, as if merely to take Mina's mind from what she was doing. It was a rule of the clinic never to ask patients for details they were unwilling to give, unless it was necessary for the treatment of whatever was wrong with them. Sometimes the conditions of where they lived mattered very much, especially if it was mainly on the streets with no bed, no shelter, no water, and only such food as they could beg. Then they would keep them in until they were considerably better. One or two had even remained here as permanent help, paid with lodging and food. Often the sudden new and respectable occupation was a benefit beyond price.

After the usual account of her circumstances, in answer to a question from Hester, Mina went on to describe certain aspects of her daily life, including some dangerous clients past and present.