The Silent Cry (24 page)

"Seen or heard anything about two or three strangers roaming around at night?" he said casually. "Gentlemen from up west?”

"Yeah," the pedlar replied without surprise. "They bin beatin' the 'ell out o' some o' our women, poor cows. Wy dyer wanna know, eh? In't rozzers' bus' ness He looked at Monk with steady dislike. "Want 'em for sum mink else, do yer?”

"No, I want them for that. Isn't that enough for you?”

The man's scorn was open. "Yeah? An' yer gonna 'ave 'em up for it, are yer? Don' give me that muck. Since well did your sort give a toss wot 'appened ter the likes o' us? I know you, yer evil bastard. Yer don't even care fer yer own, never mind us poor sods.”

Monk looked at his eyes and could not deny the recognition in them. He was not speaking of police in general, this was personal. Should he ask, capture some tangible fact of the past? Would it be the truth?

Would it help? Would it tell him something he would rather not have known, ugly, incomplete, and without explanation?

Probably. But perhaps imagination alone was worse.

"What do you mean, "not even my own"?" The instant he had said it, he wished he had not.

The man gave a grunt of disgust.

A woman in a black shawl came past and bought two pies.

"I seen yer shaft yer own," the pedlar answered when she had gone.

"Left 'im 'angin' out ter dry, like a proper fool, yer did.”

Monk's stomach turned cold and a little fluttery. It was what he had feared.

"How do you know?" he argued.

"Saw 'is face, an' seen yours." The pedlar sold another pie and fished for change for a threepenny piece. "E weren't spec ting it. Caught improper, poor sod.”

"How? What did I do?”

"Wot's the matter wiv' yer?" the man looked at him incredulously.

"Want the pleasure of it twice, do yer? I dunno. Jus' know yer came 'ere tergether, an' yer done 'im some'ow. "E trusted yer, an' finished up in the muck. I guess it's 'is own fault. "E should 'a knowed better. It were writ in yer face. I wouldn't 'a trusted yer far as I can spit!”

It was ugly and direct, and it was probably the truth. He would like to think the man lied, find some way out of it, but he knew there was no hope. He felt cold inside in his stomach, in his chest.

"What about these men you've seen?" he asked, his voice sounding hollow. "Don't you want them stopped?”

The man's face darkened. "Course I do… an' we'll do it… without your 'elp!”

"Haven't done a very good job so far," Monk pointed out. "I'm not with the police any more. I'm working for Vida Hopgood… in this.

Anything I find out, I tell her.”

The man's disbelief was plain.

"Why? P'lice threw yer out, did they? Good! Guess that fella got the best oyer in the end!" He smiled, showing yellow teeth. "So there's some justice arterall.”

"You don't know what happened between us!" Monk said defensively. "You don't know what he did to me first!" It sounded childish, even as he said it, but it could not be taken back. Very little ever could.

The man smiled. "Agin you? I reckon as yer a first-class swine, but I'd back yer ter win agin anyone!”

Monk felt a shiver of apprehension, and perhaps pride as well, perverse, hurting pride, a salvage from the wreck of other things.

"Then help me to find these men. You know what they've done. Let Vida Hopgood learn who they are, and stop them.”

"Yeah… right." The man's face eased, the anger melting. "I s'pose if anyone can find them, it's you. I dunno much, or I'd 'a done 'em myself.”

"Have you seen them, or anyone who could be them?" "Ow do I know? I seen lots o' geezers wot don't belong 'ere, but usual yer knows wot they're 'ere for. Reg'lar brothels, or gamblin', or ter 'ock sum mink as they daren'tock closer ter 'ome.”

"Describe them!" Monk demanded. "I don't care about the others. Tell me all you saw of these men, where and when, how many, how dressed, anything else you know…”

The man thought carefully for a few moments before giving his answer.

His description established what Monk had already heard regarding build, and that there were three men on several occasions, on others only two. The one new fact he added was that he had seen them meet, on the outskirts of Seven Dials, as if they had arrived from different directions, but he had only ever seen them leave together.

He could no longer avoid putting his theory to the test. He would much rather not have, because he was afraid it was true, and he did not wish it to be. Hester was being foolish about it, of course, but he did not wish her to be hurt, and she would be, when she was forced to accept that Rhys Duff had been one of the rapists.

It took him all day, moving from one grey and bitter street to another, asking, cajoling, threatening, but by dusk he had found not only others who had seen the men immediately after one of the attacks, and only a mere fifty yards from the place. They had been dishevelled, staggering a little, and one of them had been marked with blood, as his face was caught for a moment in the glare of a passing hansom's carriage lights.

It was not what he wanted. It was bringing him inevitably closer to a tragedy he was now almost certain would involve Rhys Duff, but he still felt a kind of elation, a surge inside him of the knowledge of power, the taste of victory. He was turning a corner into a wider street, stepping off the narrow pavement, avoiding the gutter, when he remembered doing exactly the same before, with the same surge of knowledge that he had won.

Then it had been Runcorn. He did not know what about, but there had been men who had told him something he needed to know, and they had been afraid of him, as they were now. It was an unpleasant knowledge to look back on, the guarded eyes, the hatred in them and the defeat because he was stronger, cleverer and they knew it. But he could not remember it hurting them. It was only now, in retrospect, that he doubted he had been wholly right.

He shivered and increased his pace. There was no going back.

He had enough now to go to Runcorn. It should be a police matter. That would protect Vida Hopgood, forestall the mob justice Hester was afraid of. This way there would be a trial, and proof.

He found a cab and gave the address of the police station. Runcorn would have to listen. There was too much to ignore.

"Beatings?" Runcorn said sceptic ally sitting back in his chair and staring up at Monk. "Sounds domestic. You know better than to bring that to us. Most women withdraw the complaints. Anyway, a man is entitled to hit his wife to chastise her, within reason." His lip curled in a mixture of irritation and amusement. "It's not like you to waste your time on lost causes. Never saw you as a man to tilt at windmills…" He left the sentence hanging in the air, a wealth of unspoken meaning in it. "You have changed! Had to come down a bit, have you?" He tipped his chair back a trifle. "Take on the cases of the poor and desperate…”

"Victims of beating and rape are often desperate," Monk said with as much control of his temper as he was able, but he heard the anger coming through his voice.

Runcorn responded immediately. It woke memories of a score of old quarrels. They were replaying so many past scenes, Runcorn's anxiety, stubbornness, provocation, Monk's anger and contempt, and quicker tongue. For an instant for Monk it was as if he were removed from himself, a spectator seeing two men imprisoned in re-enacting the same pointless tragedy over and over again.

"I told you before," Runcorn said, sitting forward, banging the chair legs down, leaning his elbows on his desk. "You'll never prove some men got violent with a prostitute. She's already sold herself, Monk!

You may not approve of it!" He wrinkled his long nose as if imitating Monk, although there had been no scorn in Monk's voice, or in his mind.

"You may find it an immoral and contemptible way to make a living, but we'll never get rid of it. It may offend your sensibilities, but I assure you, a great many men you might call gentlemen, or might aspire to join, with your social airs and graces, a great many of them come to the Haymarket, and even to places like Seven Dials, and make use of women they pay for the privilege.”

Monk opened his mouth to argue, but Runcorn ploughed on, talking over him deliberately.

"Maybe you would like to think differently, but it's time you looked at some of your gentry as they really are." He jabbed his finger at the desk. "They like to marry their wives for social nicety, to wear on their arms when they dine and dance with their equals. They like to have a cool and proper wife." He kept on jabbing his finger, his face sneering. "A virtuous woman who doesn't know anything about the pleasures of the flesh, to be the mother of their children, the guardian of all that's safe and good and uplifting and morally clean.

But when it comes to their appetites, they want a woman who doesn't know them personally, doesn't expect anything of them except payment for services rendered, and who won't be horrified if they exhibit a few tastes that would disgust and terrify their gentle wives. They want the freedom to be any damned thing they like! And that can include a great deal you may not approve of, Monk!”

Monk leaned over the desk towards him, his jaw tight, spitting the words through his teeth.

"If a man wants a wife he won't satisfy and can't enjoy, that's his misfortune," he retorted. "And his hypocrisy… and hers. But it is not a crime. But if he joins with two of his friends and comes to Seven Dials and then rapes and beats the sweatshop women who practise a little prostitution on the side… that is a crime. I intend to stop it before it becomes murder as well.”

Runcorn's face was dark with anger and surprise, but this time it was Monk who overrode him, still leaning forward, looking down on him.

Runcorn's earlier advantage of being seated while Monk stood was now the opposite, but he refused to move back. They were less than two feet away from each other.

"I thought you had the courage and the sense of your own duty to the law to have felt the same!" Monk went on. "I expected you to ask for my information, and be glad to take it. What you think of me doesn't matter…" He snapped his fingers in the air with a sharp sound.

"Aren't you man enough to forget it, for as long as it takes to catch these men who rape and beat women, and even girls, for their "pleasure” as you put it? Or do you hate me enough to sacrifice your honour just to be able to deny me this? Have you really lost that much of yourself?”

"Lost?" Runcorn's face was a dull purple, and he leaned even closer.

"I haven't lost anything, Monk. I have a job. I have a home. I have men who respect me… some of them even like me… which is more than you could ever say! I haven't lost any of that!" His eyes were brilliant, accusing and triumphant, but his voice was rising higher and there was a sharpness that betrayed old wounds between them which none of this could heal. There was no ease on his face, no peace with himself.

Monk felt his own body rigid. Runcorn had struck home with his words, and they both knew it.

"Is that your answer?" he said very quietly, stepping back. "I tell you that women are being raped and beaten in the area in which you are responsible for the law, and you reply by rehearsing old quarrels with me as a justification for looking the other way? You may have the job, the money for it, and the liking of some of your juniors… do you think you have any claim to their respect… or anyone's, if they heard you say this? I had forgotten why I despised you… but you remind me. You are a coward, and you put your personal, petty dislikes before honour.”

He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. "I shall go back and tell Mrs. Hopgood that I told you I had evidence, and wanted to share it with you; but you were so intent on having your personal revenge on me, you would not look at it. It will get out, Runcorn. Don't imagine this is between you and me, because it isn't! Our dislike for each other is petty and dishonourable. These women are being injured, maybe the next one will be killed, and it will be our fault, because we couldn't work together to stop these men…”

Runcorn rose to his feet, his skin sweating, white around the lips.

"Don't you dare tell me how to do my job! And don't try coercing me with threats! Bring me one piece of evidence I can use in a court, and I'll arrest any man it points to! So far you've told me nothing that means a thing! And I'm not wasting men until I know there's a probable crime and some chance of prosecution. One decent woman who's been raped, Monk! One woman who will give evidence I can use…”

"Who are you trying?" Monk retaliated. "The man or the woman, the rapist or the victim?”

"Both," Runcorn said, suddenly lowering his voice. "I have to deal with reality. Have you forgotten that, or are you just pretending you have, because that is easier? Gives you a high moral note, but it's hypocrisy, and you know it.”

Monk did know it. It infuriated him. He hated it with all the passion of which he was capable. There were times when he hated people, almost all people, for their willing blindness. It was injustice, burning, callous, self-righteous injustice.

"Have you got anything, Monk?" Runcorn asked, this time quietly and seriously.

Still standing, Monk told him everything he knew, and how he knew it.

He told him the victims he had spoken to, collating it all chronologically, showing how the attacks had increased in violence, each time the injuries worse, and more viciously given. He told Runcorn how he had traced the men to specific hansom drivers, times and places. He gave him the most consistent physical descriptions.

"All right," Runcorn said at last. "I agree crimes have been committed. I don't doubt that. I wish I could do something about it.

But set your outrage aside for long enough to let your brain think clearly, Monk. You know the law. When did you ever see a gentleman convicted of rape? Jurors are made up of property owners. You can't be a juror if you're not! They are all men… obviously. Can you imagine any jury in the land convicting one of their own of raping a series of prostitutes from Seven Dials? You would put the women through a terrible ordeal… for nothing.”

Monk did not speak.