by Anne Perry
They continued on their fruitless quest. Everything was negative or uncertain. No one recognized Leighton Duff, they were all adamant in that, but half a dozen thought perhaps they had seen Rhys, then again perhaps not. No one mentioned the violence in Seven Dials. It could have been another world.
They also tried the regular street peddlers, beggars—the occasional pawnbroker or innkeeper. Two beggars had seen someone answering Rhys’s description on half a dozen occasions, they thought … possibly.
It was the running patterer, a thin, light-boned man with straggly black hair and wide blue eyes, who gave the answer which most surprised and disturbed Evan. When he had been shown the pictures, he was quite certain he had seen Leighton Duff once before, on the very outskirts of St. Giles, alone and apparently looking for someone, but he had not spoken to him. He had seen him talking to a woman he knew to be a prostitute. He appeared to be asking her something, and when she had denied it, he had walked away and left her. The patterer was certain of it. He answered without a moment’s hesitation and looked for no reward. He was also certain he had seen Rhys on several occasions.
“How do you know it was this man?” Evan said doubtfully, trying to keep a sense of victory at last from overtaking him. Not that it was a victory of much. It was indication, not proof of anything, and even then only what he had assumed. ‘There must be lots of young men hanging around in the shadows in an area like this.”
“I saw ’im under the lights,” the patterer responded. “Faces is me business, least it’s part of it. I ’member ’is eyes partic’lar. Not like most folks’. Big, black almost. ’E looked lorst.”
“Lost?”
“Yeah, like ’e weren’t sure wot ’e wanted nor which way ter go. Kind o’ miserable.”
“That can’t be unusual around here.”
“ ’E don’ belong around ’ere. I knows most ’oo belongs ’ere. Don’ I, Mr. Shotts?”
Shotts looked startled. “Yeah … yeah, I s’pose you would.”
“But you go Seven Dials way as well.” Evan remembered what Shotts had said about the patterer’s telling him of Monk’s case. “Have you seen him there too?” It was a remote chance, but one he should not overlook.
“Me?” The patterer looked surprised, his blue eyes staring at Evan. “I don’ go ter Seven Dials. This is me patch.”
“But you know what happens there.” He should not give up too easily, and there was an uncertainty at the back of his mind.
“Sorry, guv, no idea. Yer’d ’ave ter ask some o’ them wot works there. Try Jimmy Morrison. ’E knows Seven Dials.”
“You don’t know about violence in Seven Dials towards women?”
The patterer gave a sharp, derisive laugh. “Wot, yer mean diff’rent from always?”
“Yes.”
“Dunno. Wot is it?”
“Rape and beatings of factory women.”
The patterer’s face wrinkled in disgust. Evan could not believe he had already known. Why had Shotts lied? It was a small thing, very small, but what was the point of it? It was out of the character he knew of the man, and disturbing.
“You told me he knew,” he said as soon as they were a dozen yards away.
Shotts did not look at him. “Must ’a bin someone else,” he replied dismissively.
“Don’t you write down who tells you what?” Evan pressed. “It makes a lot of difference. Did you ever speak to him before on this case?”
Shotts turned into the wind and his answer was half lost.
“ ’Course I did. Said so, didn’t I?”
Evan let the matter rest, but he knew he had been lied to, and it troubled him. His instinct was to like Shotts and to respect his abilities. There was something he did not know. The question was, was it something important?
He saw Monk that evening. Monk had left a note for him at the police station, and he was happy to spend an hour or two over a good meal in a public house and indulge in a little conversation.
Monk was in a dour mood. His case was going badly, but he had considerable sympathy for Evan.
“You think it could be the widow?” he asked, his eyes level and curious. The slight smile on his lips expressed his understanding of Evan’s reluctance to accept such a thing. He knew Evan too well, and his affection for him did not prevent his amusement and slight derision at his friend’s optimism in human nature.
“I think it was probably just what it looked like,” Evan replied gloomily. “Rhys was a young man who had been indulged by his mother and whose father had great expectations of him which he possibly could not live up to—and did not want to. He indulged a selfish and possibly cruel streak in his character. His father went after him to try to stop him, perhaps to warn of the dangers, and somehow they became involved in a fight with others. The father died. The son was severely injured physically, and so horrified by what he saw that now he cannot even speak.”
Monk cut into the thick, light suet crust of his steak-and-kidney pudding.
“The question is,” he said with his mouth full, “were they both attacked by the denizens of St. Giles, or did Rhys kill his own father in a quarrel?”
“Or did Sylvestra Duff have a lover, and did he either do it himself or have someone else do it?” Evan asked.
“Who is he? Samson?” Monk raised his eyebrows.
“What?”
“He took on two men at once, killed one and left the other senseless, and walked away from the scene himself,” Monk pointed out.
“Then there was more than one,” Evan argued. “He hired somebody, two people, and it was coincidence Rhys was there. He was following Leighton Duff, and happened to come on him when he had found Rhys.”
“Or else Rhys was in it with his mother.” Monk swallowed and took a mouthful of his stout. “Have you any way of looking into that?” He ignored Evan’s expression of distaste.
“Hester’s there. She’s nursing Rhys,” Evan replied. He saw the emotion cross Monk’s face, the momentary flicker, the light and then the shadow. He knew something of what Monk felt for her, even though he did not understand the reasons for its complexity. He had seen the trust between them. Hester had fought for Monk when no one else would. She had also quarreled with Monk when, at least to Evan, it made no sense at all. But he knew the dark areas of Monk’s heart prevented him from committing himself as Evan would have. Half memories and fears of what he did not know made it impossible for him. What Evan did not know was whether it was fear for Hester and the hurt he might cause her in that part of himself which lay secret, or simply fear for himself and his own vulnerability if he allowed her to know him so well, to become even more important to him, and to understand it himself.
Nothing in Monk’s behavior let him know. He thought perhaps Hester did not know either.
Monk was halfway through his meal.
“She won’t tell you,” he said, looking at his plate.
“I know that,” Evan replied. “I’m not placing her in the position of asking.”
Monk looked up at him quickly, then down again.
“Made any advance in your case?” Evan asked.
Monk’s expression darkened, the skin on his face tight with the anger inside him.
“Two or three men came into Seven Dials quite regularly, usually a Tuesday or Thursday, about ten in the evening up until two or three in the morning. As far as I can tell they were not drunk, nor did they go into any public houses or brothels. No one seems to have seen their faces clearly. One was of above average height, the other two ordinary, one a little heavier than the other. I’ve found cabbies who have taken them back to Portman Square, Eaton Square …”
“They’re miles apart!” Evan exclaimed. “Well, a good distance.”
“I know,” Monk said. “They’ve also been taken to Cardigan Place, Belgrave Square and Wimpole Street. I am perfectly aware that they may live in three different areas, or more likely very simply have changed cabs. I don’t need you to tell me the obvious. What I need is
for the police to care that over a dozen women have been beaten, some of them badly injured, and could have been dead, for all these animals cared. What I need is a little sense of outrage for the poor as well as the inhabitants of Ebury Street, a little blind justice, instead of justice that looks so damned carefully at the size and shape of your pockets and the cut of your coat before it decides whether to bother with you or not.”
“That’s unfair,” Evan replied, staring back at Monk with equal anger. “We have only so much time, so many men, which you know as well as I do. And even if we find them, what good would it do? Who’s going to prosecute them? It will never get to court, and you know that too.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What are you hoping for, Monk? Private vengeance? You’d better be damned sure you are right.”
“I shall be,” Monk said between his teeth. “I shall have the proof before I act.”
“And then what—murder?” Evan demanded. “You have no right to take the law into your own hands or to put it in the hands of men you know will take it for themselves. The law belongs to all of us, or we are none of us safe.”
“Safe!” Monk exploded. “Tell that to the women in Seven Dials! You’re talking about theory … I’m dealing with fact!”
Evan stood his ground. “If you find these men and tell whoever has hired you, and they commit murder, that will be fact enough.”
“So what is your alternative?” Monk said.
“I haven’t one,” Evan admitted. “I don’t know.”
6
As he had told Evan, Monk was having peripheral success in finding the men responsible for the rapes and violence in Seven Dials. He was still not sure if there were generally three or only two. No cabby could reliably describe three men at any one time. Everything that was said was imprecise, vague, little more than an impression: hunched figures in the fog and cold of the winter night, voices in the darkness, orders given for a destination, shadows moving in and out, a sudden shift in weight in the cab. One driver was almost certain that a third person had got out at an intersection where he had been obliged to stop because of the traffic.
Another had said one of his fares had been limping badly. One had been wet as though he had rolled in a gutter or fallen in a water butt. One, caught briefly in the coachlight, had had a bloody face.
There was nothing to prove any of them were the men Monk was looking for.
On Sunday, when he knew he would find her at home, he told Vida Hopgood as much. They were seated in her red parlor in front of a very healthy fire and sipping dark brown tea with so strong a flavor he was glad of a sticky sweet bun to moderate it a little.
“Yer sayin’ yer beat?” she asked contemptuously, but he heard the note of disappointment in her and saw the shadow cross her eyes. She was angry, but her shoulders sagged beneath the burden of hope lost.
“No I’m not!” he responded sharply. “I’m telling you what I know so far. I promised I’d do that, if you remember?”
“Yeah …” she agreed grudgingly, but she was sitting up a little straighter. She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Yer do believe they was raped, don’t yer?”
“Yes I do,” he said without doubt. “Not necessarily all by the same men, but at least eight of them probably were, and three of them I think may be provable.”
“Mebbe?” she said guardedly. “Wot use’s ‘mebbe’? Wot about the others? ’Oo done them, then?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. If we prove two or three, that will be enough, won’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’ll do fine.” She stared at him, defying him to ask her what she planned to do about it.
He had not intended to ask. He was angry enough not to care.
“I’d like to speak to more women.” He took another sip of the bitter tea. The flavor was appalling, but it did have an invigorating effect.
“Wot fer?” She was suspicious.
“There are gaps in times, weeks when I know of no one attacked. Is that true?”
She sat in thought for several minutes.
“Well?” Monk asked.
“No, it in’t. Yer could try Bella Green. Din’t wanna bring ’er inter it, but if l’ave ter, then I will.”
“Why not?”
“Geez! Why the ’ell der yer care? Because ’er man’s an ol’ soljer an’ it’ll cut ’im up summink terrible ter know as she bin beat, an’ ’e couldn’t ’elp ’er, let alone that she goes aht ter earn wot ’e can’t that way. Poor sod lorst ’is leg at the Battle o’ the ’Alma. In’t good fer much now. ’Urt bad, ’e were. Never bin the same since ’e come back.”
He did not let his emotion show.
“Any others?”
She offered him more tea, and he declined.
“Any others?” he repeated.
“Yer could try Maggie Arkwright. Yer prob’ly won’t believe a word wot she says, but that don’ mean it in’t true … sometimes, anyway.”
“Why would she lie to me about that?”
“ ’Cos ’er geezer’s a thief, professional like, an’ she’ll never tell a rozzer the truth, on principle.” She looked at him with wry humor. “An’ if yer thinks as yer can kid ’er yer in’t, yer dafter ’n I took yer fer.”
“Take me to them.”
“I in’t got time nor money ter waste. Yer doin’ anythin’ ’cept keepin’ bread in yer belly, an’ yer pride?” Her voice rose. “Yer any damn use at all? Or yer gonna tell me in a monf’s time that yer dunno ’oo done it, any more ’n yer do now, eh?”
“I’m going to find who did it,” he said without even a shadow of humor or agreeability. “If you won’t pay, then I’ll do it myself. The information will be mine.” He looked at her with cold clarity, so she could not possibly mistake him.
“Or’ight,” she said at length, her voice very low, very quiet. “I’ll take yer ter Bella an’ ter Maggie. Get up then. Don’ sit all day usin’ up me fire.”
He did not bother to reply, but rose and followed her out, putting his coat back on as they went through the door into the street, where it was nearly dark and the fog was thicker. It caught in his throat, damp, cold and sour with the taste of soot and old smoke.
They walked in silence, their footsteps without echo, sound swallowed instantly. It was a little after five o’clock. There were many other people on the streets, some idling in doorways, having lost heart in begging or seeing no prospects. Others still waited hopefully, peddling matches, bootlaces and similar odds and ends. Some went briskly about business, legal or illegal. Pickpockets and cutpurses loitered in the shadows and disappeared again, soft-footed. Monk knew better than to carry anything of value.
As he followed Vida Hopgood along the narrow alleys, staying close to the walls, memory hovered at the edge of his mind, fleeting impressions of having been somewhere worse than this, of urgent danger and violence. He passed a window, half filled with straw and paper, ridiculous as a barrier against the cold. He turned as if thinking he knew what he would see, but it was only a blur of yellow faces in the candlelight, a bearded man, a fat woman, and others equally meaningless to him.
Who had he expected? His only feeling was of danger, and that he must hurry. Others were depending upon him. He thought of narrow passages, crawling on hands and knees through tunnels, and the knowledge all the time that he could fall headfirst into the abyss of the sewers below and drown. It was a favorite trick of the thieves and forgers who hid in the great festering tenements of the Holy Land, seven or eight acres between St. Giles and St. Georges. They would lead a pursuer along a deliberate track through alleys and up and down stairs. There were trapdoors to cellars leading one to another for hundreds of yards. A man might emerge half a mile away, or he might wait and stick a knife into his pursuer’s throat, or open up a trap to a cesspool. The police went there only armed, and in numbers, and even then rarely. If a man disappeared into the rookeries he might not be seen again for a year. It hid its own, and trespassers went there at their peril.
/> How long ago had that been? Stunning Joe’s public house had gone. He knew that much. He had passed the corner where it used to be. At least he thought he knew it. The Holy Land itself had certainly opened up. The worst of the creaking tenements were gone, collapsed and rebuilt. The criminal strongholds had crumbled, their power dissipated.
Where had the memory come from, and how far back was it? Ten years, fifteen? When he and Runcorn had both been new and inexperienced, they had fought there side by side, guarding each other’s backs. It had been a comradeship. There had been trust.
When had it gone? Gradually, a dozen, a score of small issues, a parting of the paths of choice, or one sudden ugly incident?
He could not remember.
He followed Vida Hopgood across a small yard with a well in it, under an archway and then across a surprisingly busy street and into another alley. It was bone-achingly cold, the fog an icy shroud. He racked his brain, and there was nothing there at all, only the present, his anger with Runcorn now, his contempt for him, and the knowledge that Runcorn hated him, that the hate was deep and bitter and that it governed him. Even when it was against his own interest, his dignity and all that he wanted to be, the hate was so passionate in him he could not control it. It consumed his judgment.
“ ’Ere! Wot’s the matter wiv yer?” Vida’s voice cut across his thoughts, dragging him back to Seven Dials and the rape of the sweatshop women.
“Nothing!” he said sharply. “Is this Bella Green’s?”
“ ’Course it is. Wot the ’ell d’yer think we’re ’ere fer?” She banged on the rickety door and shouted Bella’s name.
It was several minutes before the door was answered by a girl somewhere between twelve and fifteen. Her long hair was curling and knotted, but her face was clean and she had nice teeth.
Vida asked for Bella Green.
“Me ma’s busy,” the girl replied. “She’ll be back in a w’ile. You wanna wait?”
“Yeah.” Vida was not going to be put off, even had Monk allowed it.
But they were not permitted in. The child had obviously been warned about strangers. She slammed the fragile door and Monk and Vida were left on the step in the cold.