The Silent Cry (42 page)

"Monk!" Rathbone grasped at the very name, as if it had been a raft for a drowning man. "Monk! Bring him in… immediately!”

Monk looked tired and pale. His hair dripped and his face was shining wet.

"Well?" Rathbone demanded, finding himself gulping air, his hands stiff, a tingling in his arms. "What have you?”

"I don't know," Monk answered bleakly. "I have no idea whether it makes things better, or even worse. Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in Seven Dials, and then later in St. Giles.”

Rathbone was stunned. "What?" he said, his voice high with disbelief. It was preposterous, totally absurd. He must have misunderstood. "What did you say?”

"Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in both areas," Monk repeated. "I have several people who will identify him, in particular a cabby who saw him in St. Giles on the night before Christmas Eve, with blood on his hands and face, just after one of the worst rapes. And Rhys was in Lowndes Square at a quiet evening with Mrs. Kynaston, Arthur Kynaston and Lady Sandon and her son.”

Rathbone felt a sense of shock so great the room seemed to sway around him.

"You are sure?" he said, and the instant the words were off his tongue he knew how foolish they were. It was plain in Monk's face. Anyway, he would not have come with such news were he not certain beyond any doubt at all.

Monk did not bother to answer. He sat down uninvited, close to the fire. He was still shivering and he looked exhausted.

"I don't know what it means," he continued, staring past Rathbone at the empty chair opposite him, but mostly at something he could see within his own mind. "Perhaps Rhys was not involved in that rape, but he was in some or all of the others," he said. "Perhaps not. Certainly Leighton Duff did not follow his son in any sense of outrage or horror at what he had done, and then in righteous indignation confront him with it." He turned to Rathbone who was still standing on the same spot. "I'm sorry. All it means is that we have misunderstood the motive. It doesn't prove anything else. I don't know what you want to make of it. How is the trial going?”

"Appallingly," Rathbone replied, at last moving to the other chair and sitting down stiffly. "I have nothing to fight with. I suppose this will at least provide ammunition with which to open up the whole issue as to what happened. It will raise doubts. It will certainly prolong the trial…" He smiled bitterly. "It will shake Ebenezer Goode!" A well of horror opened up inside him. "It will shatter Mrs. Duff.”

"Yes, I know that," Monk replied very quietly. "But it is the truth, and if you allow Rhys to be hanged for something of which he is not guilty, none of us can then undo that, or call him back from the gallows and the grave. There is a certain kind of freedom in the truth, whatever it is. At least your decisions are founded on reality.

You can learn to live with them.”

Rathbone looked at him closely. There was at once a pain and the beginning of a kind of peace in his face which he had not seen before.

His weariness held within it the possibility of rest.

"Yes," he agreed. "Thank you, Monk. You had better give me the names of these people, and all the details… and of course your account. You have done very well." Deliberately he blocked from his mind the thought of having to tell Hester what he now knew. It was sufficient for the night that he should work out his strategy for Rhys.

Rathbone worked until six in the morning, and after two hours' sleep, a hot bath and breakfast, he faced the courtroom again. There was no air of expectation. There were even some empty seats in the spectators' gallery. It had degenerated from high drama into simple tragedy. It was not interesting any more.

Rathbone had had messengers out all night. Monk was in court.

In the dock Rhys looked white and ill. He was obviously in physical pain as well as mental turmoil, although there was now an air of despair about him which made Rathbone believe he no longer hoped for anything except an end to his ordeal.

Sylvestra sat like a woman in a nightmare, unable to move or speak.

Beside her on one side was Fidelis Kynaston, on the other Eglantyne Wade. Rathbone was pleased she would not be alone, and yet possibly to have to hear the things she was going to in the company of friends would be harder. One might wish to absorb such shock in the privacy of solitude, where one could weep unobserved.

Yet everyone would know. It was not as if she could cover it, as one can some family secrets. Perhaps better they heard it in court than whispered, distorted by telling and re-telling. Either way, Rathbone had no choice in the matter. He had not told Sylvestra what he expected to uncover today. She was not his client, Rhys was. Anyway, he had had no time, no opportunity to explain to her what it was he knew, and he could not foresee what his witnesses would testify, he simply had nothing to lose on Rhys's behalf.

"Sir Oliver?" the judge prompted.

"My lord," Rathbone acknowledged. "The defence calls Mrs. Vida Hopgood.”

The judge looked surprised, but he made no remark. There was a slight stir of movement in the crowd.

Vida took the stand looking nervous, her chin high, her shoulders squared, her magnificent hair half hidden under her hat.

Rathbone began immediately. He was hideously unsure of her, but he had had no time to prepare. He was fighting for survival and there was nothing else.

"Mrs. Hopgood, what is your husband's occupation?”

"E 'as a fact'ry," she replied carefully. "Wot makes shirts an' the like.”

"And he employs women to sew these shirts… and the like?" Rathbone asked.

In the gallery someone tittered. It was nervousness. They could not be any more highly strung than he was.

"Yeah," Vida agreed.

Ebenezer Goode rose to his feet.

"Yes, Mr. Goode," the judge forestalled him. "Sir Oliver, has Mr.

Hopgood's occupation got anything to do with Mr. Duffs guilt or innocence in this case?”

"Yes, my lord," Rathbone replied without hesitation. "The women he employs are profoundly pertinent to the issue, indeed they are the true victims in this tragedy.”

There was a ripple of amazement around the room. Several of the jurors looked confused and annoyed.

In the dock Rhys moved position and a spasm of pain twisted his face.

The judge also seemed unhappy. "If you are going to demonstrate to the court that they were abused in some way, Sir Oliver, that will not help your client's cause. The fact that they can or cannot identify their assailants will distress them, and give you nothing. In fact it will only damage your client's sympathies still further. If it is your intention to plead insanity, then practical evidence is required, and of a very specific nature, as I am sure you know very well. You have pleaded "not guilty". Are you now wishing to change that plea?”

"No, my lord." Rathbone heard his words drop into a well of silence, and wondered if he had just made an appalling mistake. What was Rhys himself thinking of him? "No, my lord. I have no cause to believe that my client is not of sane mind.”

"Then proceed with questioning Mrs. Hopgood," the judge directed. "But come to your point as rapidly as you are able. I shall not allow you to waste the court's time and patience with delaying tactics.”

Rathbone knew how very close to the truth that charge was.

"Thank you, my lord," he said graciously, and turned back to Vida.

"Mrs. Hopgood, have you suffered a shortage of workers lately?”

"Yeah. Lot o' sickness," she replied. She knew what he wished. She was an intelligent woman, and articulate in her own fashion. "Or more like injury. Took me a fair bit o' argy-bargy, but I got it aht of 'em wot 'ad 'appened." She looked questioningly at Rathbone, and then, seeing his expression, continued with feeling. "They do a bit o' dolly mop stuff on the side… beggin' yer pardon, sir, I mean takes the odd gent 'ere an' there teradd a bit extra… well their children is 'ungry, or the like.”

"We understand," Rathbone assured her, then explained for the jury.

"You mean they practise a little amateur prostitution, when times are particularly hard.”

"In't that wot I said? Yeah. Can't blame 'em, poor cows. "Oo's gonna watch their children starvin', and not do sum mink abaht it?

In't 'uman." She drew breath. "Like I said, some of 'em was doin' a bit on the side, like. Well, first orff they got cheated outa pay. Got no pimps ter look arter 'em, yer see." Her handsome face darkened with anger. "Then it got worse. These geezers don't on'y cheat, they started roughin' 'em up, knockin' 'em around, like. First it were just a bit, then it got worse." Her expression twisted till the anger and pain in it were stark to see. "Some of 'em got beat pretty bad, bones broke, teef an' noses broke, kicked some of 'em were. Some of 'em was on'y bits o' children their selves So I got a bit o' money tergether an' 'ired me self someone ter find out 'oo wos doin' it." She stopped abruptly, staring at Rathbone. "D'yer want meter say 'oo I got, an' wot 'e found?”

"No, thank you, Mrs. Hopgood," Rathbone replied. "You have laid an excellent foundation for us to discern from these poor women themselves what occurred. Just one more thing…”

"Yeah?”

"How many women do you know of who were beaten in this way?”

"In Seven Dials? Abaht twen'y-odd, as I knows of. They went on ter St. Giles "Thank you, Mrs. Hopgood," Rathbone interrupted. "Please tell us only your own experience.”

Goode rose again. "All we have heard so far is hearsay, my lord. Mrs.

Hopgood has not been a victim herself, and she has not mentioned Mr.

Rhys Duff. I have been extraordinarily patient, as was your lordship.

All this is tragic, and abhorrent, but completely irrelevant.”

"It is not irrelevant, my lord," Rathbone argued. "The prosecution's case is that Rhys Duff went to the area of St. Giles to use prostitutes there, and that his father followed him, chastised him for his behaviour, and in the resulting quarrel, Rhys killed his father, and was severely injured himself. Therefore what happened to these women is fundamental to the case.”

"I have not claimed that these unfortunate women were raped, my lord,”

Goode contradicted. "But if they were, then that only adds to the brutality of the accused's conduct, and the validity of the motive. No wonder his father charged him with grievous sin, and would have chastened him severely, possibly even threatened to turn him over to the law.”

Rathbone swung around to face him. "You have proved only that Rhys used a prostitute in the area of St. Giles. You have not proved violence of any sort against any women, in St. Giles, or in Seven Dials!”

"Gentlemen!" the judge said sharply. "Sir Oliver, if you are determined to prove this issue, then you had better be absolutely certain you are aiding your client's cause, and not further condemning him, but if you are satisfied, then prove your point. Proceed with dispatch.”

"Thank you, my lord." He dismissed Vida Hopgood, and one by one called half a dozen of the women of St. Giles whom Monk had found. He began with the earliest and least severely injured. The court sat in uncomfortable near-silence and listened to their pathetic tales of poverty, illness, desperation, journeys out on to the streets to pick up a few pence by selling their bodies, and the cheating, then the violence which had followed.

Rathbone loathed doing it. The women were grey-faced, almost inarticulate with fear, and in some cases also shame. They despised themselves for what they did, but need drove them. They hated standing in this handsome courtroom facing exquisitely gowned and wigged lawyers, the judge in his scarlet robes, and having to tell of their need, their humiliation and their pain.

Rathbone glanced at the jurors' faces and read a sense of different emotions in them. He watched how much their imaginations conceived of the lives that were being described. How many of them, if any, had used such women themselves? What did they feel now? Shame, anger, pity or revulsion? More than half of them looked up to the dock at Rhys whose face was twisted with emotion, but what aroused his anger it was impossible to say, or the revulsion which was so plain in his features.

Rathbone looked also at Sylvestra Duff and saw her lips puckered with horror as a world opened up in front of her beyond anything she had imagined, women whose lives were so utterly unlike her own they could have belonged to a different species. And yet they lived only a few miles away, in the same city. And her son had used them, could even, for all she knew, have begotten a child upon them.

Beside her Fidelis Kynaston looked pale, but less shocked. There was in her already a knowledge of pain, of the darker side of the world and those who lived in it. This was only a restatement of things she already knew.

On her other side, Eglantyne Wade was motionless as wave after wave of misery passed over her, things she had never imagined were rehearsed before her in sickening detail.

The following day the stories became more violent. The witnesses still carried the marks of beatings on their blackened and swollen faces, showed their broken teeth.

Ebenezer Goode hesitated before questioning each one. None of them recognised their assailants. Every brutal act only added to his case.

Why should he challenge any of it? To demonstrate that the women were prostitutes anyway was unnecessary. There was not a man or woman in the room who did not know it, and feel their own emotions regarding their trade and its place in society, or in their own personal lives. It was a subject of emotion rather than reason anyway. Words were only a froth on the surface of the deep tide of feeling.

A particular wave of revulsion and anger swelled when the thirteen-year-old Lily Barker testified, still nursing her dislocated shoulder. Haltingly she told Rathbone how both she and her sister had been beaten and kicked. She repeated the grunted words of abuse she had heard, and how she had tried to crawl away and hide in the dark.

Fidelis Kynaston looked so ashen Rathbone thought she suffered more in hearing it than Sylvestra beside her.

The judge leaned forward, his own face tight with distress.