The Silent Cry

by Anne Perry

  He was used to her manner. “I put all we have before Runcorn yesterday. He agrees there is plenty of proof of crime but says he won’t put police onto it because no court would prosecute, let alone convict.” He watched her face for the contempt and the hurt he expected to see.

  She looked at him equally carefully, judging his temper. There was a gleam in her eyes, a mixture of anger, humor and cunning.

  “I wondered w’en yer was gonna say that. D’yer wanna give it up then, that wot yer mean? Come ter it straight?”

  “No, if that was what I meant, I’d have said it. I thought you knew me better.”

  She smiled with a moment of real amusement.

  “Yer a bastard, Monk, but there are times w’en if yer wasn’t a rozzer, or I could ferget it … which I can’t … I could almost fancy yer.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said lightly. “You might suddenly remember, and then where would I be?”

  “In bed wi’ a shiv in yer back,” she said laconically, but there was still a warmth in her eyes, as if the whole idea had an element which pleased her. Then the ease died away. “So wot yer gonna do about these poor cows wot bin raped, then? If yer in’t givin’ up, wot’s left, eh? You gonna find them bastards fer us?”

  “I’m going to find them,” he said carefully, giving due weight to every word. “What I tell you depends upon what you are going to do about it.”

  Her face darkened. “Listen, Monk—”

  “No, you listen!” he cut across her. “I have no intention of ending up giving evidence at your trial for murder, or of being in the dock beside you as an accessory before the fact. No jury in London is going to believe I didn’t know what you would do with the knowledge once I found it for you.”

  There was confusion in her face for a moment, then contempt. “I’ll see yer in’t caught up in it,” she said witheringly. “Yer don’t need ter run scared o’ that. Jus’ tell us ’oo they are, we’ll take care o’ the rest. Won’t even tell anyone Ow we found ’em.”

  “They already know.” He ignored the sarcasm, the reasoning, and the excuses.

  “I’ll tell ’em yer failed,” she said with a grin. “We found ’em ourselves. Won’t do yer reputation no good, but it’ll keep yer from the rope … seein’ as that’s wot yer after, in’t it?”

  “Stop playing, Vida. When I know who they are, we’ll come to some agreement as to what we do about it, and we’ll do it my way, or I’ll not tell you.”

  “Got money, ’ave yer?” she said with raised eyebrows. “Can afford ter work fer no pay, all of a sudden? In’t wot I ’eard.”

  “It’s not your concern, Vida.” He saw from her face she did not believe him. “Maybe I have a rich woman who’ll see I don’t go hungry or homeless.…” It was true. Callandra Daviot would help him, as she had from the beginning, although it was far from in the sense Vida would take from his words.

  Her eyes opened wide in amazement, then she began to laugh, a rich, full-throated surge of merriment.

  “You!” She chortled. “Yer got yerself a rich woman ter keep yer. That’s priceless, that is. I never ’eard anythink so funny in all me life.” But she was watching him all the same, and there was belief in her eyes.

  “So those are my conditions, Vida,” he said with a smile. “I intend to find out who they are, then we bargain as to what we do about it, and what I tell you rests on our agreement.”

  She pursed her lips and looked at him steadily in silence, weighing up his strength of resolve, his will, his intelligence.

  He looked back at her without wavering. He did not know what she knew of him from the past, but he had felt his reputation in Seven Dials keenly enough to be sure she would not judge him lightly.

  “Or’ight,” she said at last. “I reckon as yer in’t gonna let the bastards orff, or yer wouldn’t care enough ter catch them whether I paid yer or not. Yer wants ’em fer summink near as much as I do.” She stood up and went over to a drawer in a small table and took out two guineas. “ ’Ere y’are. That’s all until yer come up wi’ summink as we can use, Monk. Get on wif it. Jus’ ’cos some woman wi’ more money ’n sense fancies yer don’ mean I want yer clutterin’ up me best room ’alf the evenin’.” But she smiled as she said it.

  Monk thanked her and left. He walked slowly, hands pushed hard into his pockets. The deeper he looked into the case, the more it did seem as if Rhys Duff could be guilty. One thing he had noticed which he had not told Vida Hopgood was that from everything he had been able to establish, there had been no attack since the incident in which Rhys had been injured. They had begun slowly, building up from small unpleasantnesses, gradually escalating until they were assaults so violent as to threaten life. Then suddenly they had stopped altogether. The last of them had happened ten days before.

  He crossed an open square and went into the alley on the far side, passing a man selling bootlaces and an old woman with a carpetbag.

  Why the ten days? That was a larger space than between the other attacks. What had kept them away for such a length of time? Was there a victim he had missed? To fit in with the pattern there should have been at least two.

  Further afield? Rhys had been found in St. Giles. Had he and his friends moved territories, perhaps fearing Seven Dials had become too dangerous for them? That was an answer that fitted with what he knew so far. But he must put it to the test.

  He turned and began to walk west again until he came to a thoroughfare and caught a cab. It was not very far. He could have gone all the way on foot in half an hour, but suddenly he was impatient.

  He alighted just past the Church of St. Giles itself and strode towards the first lighted hostelry he saw. He went inside and sat down at one of the tables, and after several minutes was served with a mug of stout. Noise surged all around him, the press of bodies, shouts, laughter, people swaying and shoving to get past, calling out to one another greetings, friendly abuse, snippets of gossip and news, little bits of business. There were fencers of stolen goods there, pickpockets, forgers picking up a few likely customers, card sharps and gamblers, pimps.

  He watched them all with a growing feeling of familiarity, as if he had been there before, or in a score of places like it. He remembered the way the lamp hung a trifle crookedly, shedding an uneven light on the brass railing above the bar. The line of hooks where customers hung their mugs dipped a little at the far end.

  A small man with a withered arm looked at him and shook his head towards his companion, and they both pulled up their collars and went outside into the cold.

  A woman laughed overloudly and a man hiccuped.

  A fair-haired man with a Scots accent slid into the seat opposite Monk.

  “We’ve no’ got anything here for ye, Mr. Monk. Tell me what it is ye’re after an’ I’ll pass the word, but ye know I’d ’a great deal sooner ye did not sit in my house drinkin’ yer ale. Aye, we’ve the odd thief in here, but small folk, no’ worth the bother o’ a man like yourself.”

  “Murder is worth my trouble, Jamie,” Monk replied very quietly. “And so is rape and the beating of women.”

  “If ye’re talking about those two men that were found in Water Lane, none of us around here know who did that. Young policeman’s been all over asking and wasting his time, poor devil. And Constable Shotts, who was born and bred around here, should know better. But why are you here?” His broad, fair face was wary, his crooked nose, broken years ago, and wide, blue eyes gave him a comfortable look which belied his intelligence. “And what’s it to do wi’ rape?”

  “I don’t know,” Monk replied, taking another drink of his stout. “Have any women been raped around here in the last month or two? I mean ordinary women, women who work in the factories and sweatshops and maybe go on the streets now and then when things get a little tight?”

  “Why? What do you care if they have? Po-liss don’t give a toss. Though I heard as you’re not with the po-liss anymore.” A flicker of amusement crossed his face; his lips curle
d as if he would laugh, but he made no sound.

  “You heard truly,” Monk replied. He was certain he knew this man. He had spoken his name without thinking. Jamie … the rest of it escaped him, but they knew each other well, too well to pretend. It was an uneasy truce, a natural enmity held at bay by a certain common interest and a thread, very fragile, of respect, not unmixed with fear. Jamie—his last name was MacPherson, Monk suddenly recalled—was a brawler, hot-tempered; he carried a grudge and he despised cowardice or self-pity. But he was loyal to his own, and far too intelligent to strike out without a reason or to act against his own interests.

  He was smiling now, his eyes bright. “Throw you out, eh? Runcorn. Yer should o’ seen that coming, man. Waited a long time to get his own back, that one.”

  Monk felt a shiver of cold run through him. The man not only knew him, he knew Runcorn also, and he knew more than Monk did of what lay between them. The chatter and laughter washed around him like a breaking sea, leaving him islanded in his own silence, not a part of them but separate, alone. They knew, and he did not.

  “Yes,” Monk agreed, not knowing what else to say. He had lost control of the conversation, and it was not what he had intended or was used to. “For the time being,” he added. He must not let this man think he was no longer a force to fear or respect.

  MacPherson’s smile widened. “Aye, this is his patch. He’ll no’ be happy if you take his case from him.”

  “He isn’t interested in it,” Monk said quickly. “I’m after the rapists, not the murderer.”

  “Are they no’ the same?”

  “No … I don’t think so … at least, one is, I think.”

  “You’re talking daft, man,” MacPherson said tartly. “Ye know better than to take me for a fool. Be straight wi’ me, an’ I’ll maybe help ye.”

  Monk made up his mind on the spur.

  “A woman in Seven Dials hired me to find who was raping and beating factory women over there. I’ve followed the case for three weeks now, and the more I learn, the more I think it may be connected with your murder here.”

  “Ye just said it was no’ the same people.” MacPherson’s blue eyes narrowed, but he was still listening intently. He might dislike Monk, but he did not despise his intelligence.

  “I think the young man who was beaten, but lived, may have been one of the rapists,” Monk explained. “The man who died is his father …”

  “Aye, we all ken that much …”

  “Who followed him, having learned, or guessed, what he was doing and got caught in the fight, and he was the one who got the worst of it.”

  MacPherson pursed his lips. “What does the young man say?”

  “Nothing whatever. He can’t speak.”

  “Oh, aye? Why’s that then?” MacPherson said skeptically.

  “Shock. But it’s true. I know the nurse who is caring for him.” In spite of all he could do to prevent it, the picture of Hester was so vivid in his mind it was as though she were sitting beside him. He knew she would hate what he was doing; she would fight desperately to protect her patient. But she would also understand why he could not leave the truth concealed if there was any way he could uncover it. If it were not Rhys, she would want it known just as passionately.

  MacPherson was regarding him closely. “So what is it ye’re wanting from me?”

  “There have been no attacks or rapes in Seven Dials since the murder,” Monk explained. “Or for some short time before. I need to know if they moved to St. Giles.”

  “Not that I heard,” MacPherson said, his brow puckered. “But then that’s a thing folk don’t talk about easy. Ye’ll have to work a little harder for that than just come in here and ask for it.”

  “I know that. But a little cooperation would cut down the time. There’s not much point in going to the brothels; they weren’t professional prostitutes, just women in need of a little extra now and then.”

  MacPherson pushed out his lip, his eyes hot and angry. “No protection,” he said aloud. “Easy pickings. If we knew who it was, and they come back to St. Giles, it’ll be their last trip. They’ll not go home again, an’ that’s a promise.”

  “You’ll not be the first in the line,” Monk said dryly. “But we have to find them before we can do anything about it.”

  MacPherson looked at him with a bleak smile, showing his teeth. “I know you, Monk. Ye may be a hard bastard, but ye’re far too fly to provoke a murder that can be traced back to ye. Ye’ll no tell the likes o’ me what ye find.”

  Monk smiled back at him, although it was the last thing he felt like. Every other time he spoke, MacPherson was adding new darkness to Monk’s knowledge of himself. Had he really been a man who had led others to believe he could countenance a murder, any murder, so long as it could not be traced to him? Could it conceivably be true?

  “I have no intention of allowing you, or Vida Hopgood, to contrive your own revenge for the attacks,” he said aloud icily. “If the law won’t do it, then there are other ways. These men are not clerks or petty tradesmen with little to lose. They are men of wealth and social position. To ruin them would be far more effective. It would be slower, more painful, and it would be perfectly legal.”

  MacPherson stared at him.

  “Let their own punish them,” Monk went on dryly. “They are very good at it indeed … believe me. They have refined it to an art.”

  MacPherson pulled a face. “Ye have no’ changed, Monk. I should no’ have underestimated ye. Ye’re an evil devil. I could no’ cross ye. I tried to warn Runcorn agin ye, but he was too blind to see it. I’d tell him now to watch his back for getting rid o’ ye from the force, but it would no’ do any good. Ye’ll bide your time, and get him one way or another.”

  Monk felt cold. Hard as he was, MacPherson thought Monk harder, more ruthless. He felt Runcorn the victim. He did not have the whole story. He did not know Runcorn’s social ambitions, his moral vacillation when a decision jeopardized his own career, or how he trimmed and evaded in order to please those in power … of any sort. He did not know his small-mindedness, the poverty of his imagination, his sheer cowardice, his meanness of spirit!

  But then Monk himself did not know the whole story either.

  And the coldest thought of all, which penetrated even into his bones, was whether Monk was responsible for what Runcorn had become. Was it something Monk had done in the past which had warped Runcorn’s soul and made him what he was now?

  He did not want to know, but perhaps he had to. Imagination would torment him until he did. For now, perhaps it would be useful to allow MacPherson to retain his image of Monk as ruthless, never forgetting a grudge.

  “Who do I go to?” he said aloud. “Who knows what’s going on in St. Giles?”

  MacPherson thought for a moment or two.

  “Willie Snaith, for one,” he said finally. “And old Bertha for another. But they’ll no’ speak to ye unless someone takes ye and vouches for ye.”

  “So I assumed,” Monk replied. “Come with me.”

  “Me?” MacPherson looked indignant. “Walk out on my business? And who’s to care for this place if I go attendin’ to your affairs for ye?”

  Monk took one of Vida’s guineas out of his pocket and put it on the table.

  MacPherson grunted. “Ye are desperate,” he said dryly. “Why? What’s it to you if a few miserable women are raped or beaten? Don’t tell me any of them mean something to you.” He watched Monk’s face closely. “There must be more. These bastards cross you somehow? Is that it? Or is it still to do with Runcorn and the po-liss? Trying to show them up, are ye?”

  “I’ve already told you,” Monk said waspishly. “It’s not a police case.”

  “Ye’re right,” MacPherson conceded. “It couldn’t be. Not one for putting himself out on a limb, Runcorn. Always safe, always careful. Not like you.” He laughed abruptly, then rose to his feet. “All right, then. Come on, and I’ll take you to see Willie.”

  Monk followed immediate
ly.

  Outside, both dressed again in heavy overcoats, MacPherson led the way deeper into St. Giles and the old area that had earlier in the century been known as the Holy Land. He did not go by streets and alleys as Evan had done, but through passages sometimes no more than a yard wide. The darkness was sometimes impenetrable. It was wet underfoot. There was a constant sound of dripping water from eaves and gutterings, the rattle and scratch of rodent feet, the creak of rotting timbers. Several times MacPherson stopped and Monk, who could not see him, continued moving and bumped into him.

  Eventually they emerged into a yard with a single yellow gas lamp and the light seemed brilliant by comparison. The outlines of timber frames stood sharp and black, brick and plaster work reflecting the glow. The wet cobbles shone.

  MacPherson glanced behind him once to make sure Monk was still there, then went across and down a flight of stone steps into a cellar where one tallow candle smoked on a holder made of half an old bottle, but it showed the entrance to a tunnel and MacPherson went in without hesitation.

  Monk followed. He had a sharp memory of stomach-knotting, skin-prickling danger, of sudden pain and then oblivion. He knew what it was. It came from the past he dreaded, when he and Runcorn had followed wanted men into areas just like this. Then there had been comradeship between them. There had never been the slightest resentment on his part, he knew that clearly. And he had gone in headfirst without a second’s doubt that Runcorn would be there to guard his back. It had been the kind of trust that had been built on experience, time and time again, of never being found wanting.

  Now he was following Jamie MacPherson. He could not see him, but he could re-create in his mind exactly his broad shoulders and slight swagger as he walked, a little roll, as if in his youth he had been at sea. He had a pugilist’s agility and his fists were always ready. He looked in his middle fifties, his reddish fair hair receding.

  How long ago had it been that Monk and Runcorn had worked together there? Twenty years? That would make Monk in his twenties then, young and keen, perhaps too angry still from the injustice to the man who had been his friend and mentor, too ambitious to gain the power for himself which would allow him to right the wrongs.