The Silent Cry

Chapter One

John Evan stood shivering as the January wind whipped down the alley.

P.C. Shotts held his bull's-eye lantern high so they could see both the bodies at once. They lay crumpled and bloody, about seven feet apart on the icy, cobbled alleyway.

"Does anybody know what happened?" Evan asked, his teeth chattering.

"No, sir," Shotts replied bleakly. "Woman found them and oP Briggs came an' told me.”

Evan was surprised. "In this area?" He glanced around at the grimy walls, the open gutter and the few windows blacked with dirt. The doors he could see were narrow, straight onto the street, and stained with years of damp and soot. The only lamppost was twenty yards away, gleaming balefully like a lost moon. He was unpleasantly aware of movement just beyond the perimeter of light, of hunched figures watching and waiting, the myriad beggars, thieves and unfortunates who lived in this slum of St. Giles, only a stone's throw from Regent Street in the heart of London.

Shotts shrugged, looking down at the bodies. "Well, they obviously in't drunk or starved or freezin'. All that blood, I reckon as she likely screamed, then were afraid someone 'carder an' she din't wanter get blamed, so she went on screamin', an' other folk came." He shook his head. "They ain't always bad about lookin' arter their own around 'ere. I dare say as she'd 'a kept walkin' if she'd 'ad the nerve, an' thought of it quick enough.”

Evan bent down to the body nearer to him. Shotts lowered the light a little so it showed the head and upper torso more clearly. He was a man Evan guessed to be in his middle fifties. His hair was grey, thick, his skin smooth. When Evan touched it with his finger it was cold and stiff. His eyes were still open. He had been too badly beaten for Evan to gather anything but a very general impression of his features. He might well have been handsome in life. Certainly his clothes, though torn and stained, had been of excellent quality. As far as Evan could judge, he was of average height and solid build. It was not easy to tell, when someone was so doubled up, his legs splayed and half under his body.

"Who in God's name did this to him?" he asked under his breath.

"Dunno, sir," Shotts answered shakily. "I in't never seen anyone beat this bad before, even 'ere. Must 'a bin a lunatic, that's all I can say. Is 'e robbed? I s'pose 'e must 'a bin.”

Evan moved the body very slightly so he could reach into the pocket of the coat. There was nothing in the outside one. He tried the inside, and found a handkerchief, clean, folded linen, roll-hemmed, excellent quality. There was nothing else. He tried the trouser pockets and found a few coppers.

"Button 'ole's torn," Shotts observed, staring down at the waistcoat.

"Looks like they ripped orff 'is watch an' chain. Wonder wot 'e was doin' 'ere. This is a bit rough fer the likes of a gent. Plenty o' tarts an' dolly mops no more'n a mile west. "Aymarket's full of 'em, an' no danger. Take yer pick. Wy come 'ere?”

"I don't know," Evan replied unnecessarily. "Perhaps if we can find the reason, we'll know what happened to him." He stood up and moved across to the other body. This was a younger man, perhaps barely twenty, although his face also was so badly beaten only the clean line of his jaw and the fine texture of his skin gave any indication of age.

Evan was racked with pity and a terrible, blind anger when he saw the clothes on the lower part of the torso soaked in blood, which still seeped out from under him on to the cobbles.

"God in heaven," he said huskily. "What happened here, Shotts? What kind of creature does this?" He did not use the name of the deity lightly. He was the son of a country parson, brought up in a small, rural community where everyone knew each other, for better or worse, and the sound of church bells rang out over manor house, farm labourer's cottage and publican's inn alike. He knew happiness and tragedy, kindness and all the usual sins of greed and envy.

Shotts, raised near this uglier, darker slum of London, found his imagination less challenged, but he still looked down at the young man with a shiver of compassion and fear for whoever could do this.

"Dunno, sir: but I 'ope we catch the bastard, and then I trust they'll 'ang 'im. Will if I 'ave anything ter do with it. Mind, catchin' 'im won't be that easy. Don't see nothin' ter go on so far. An' we can't count on much 'elp from them round 'ere.”

Evan knelt beside the second body and felt in the pockets to see if there was anything left which might at least identify him. His fingers brushed against the man's neck. He stopped, a shiver of incredulity going through him, almost horror. It was warm! Was it conceivable he was still alive?

If he was dead, then he had not been so for as long as the older man.

He might have lain in this freezing alley bleeding for hours!

"What is it?" Shotts demanded, staring at him, his eyes wide.

Evan held his hand in front of the man's nose and lips. He felt nothing, not the faintest warmth of breath.

Shotts bent and held the lamp closer.

Evan took out his pocket watch, polished the surface clean on the inside of his sleeve, then held it to the man's lips.

"What is it?" Shotts repeated, his voice high and sharp.

"I think he's alive!" Evan whispered. He drew the watch away and looked at it under the light. There was the faintest clouding of breath on it. "He is alive!" he said jubilantly. "Look!”

Shotts was a realist. He liked Evan, but he knew he was the son of a parson and he made allowances.

"Maybe 'ejus died after the other one," he said gently. "E's 'urt pretty dreadful.”

"He's warm! And he's still breathing!" Evan insisted, bending closer.

"Have you called a doctor? Get an ambulance!”

Shotts shook his head. "You can't save 'im, Mr. Evan. "E's too far gorn. Kinder ter let 'im slip away now, without knowin' anything about it. I don't suppose 'e knows 'oo dun 'im anyway.”

Evan did not look up. "I wasn't thinking of what he could tell us," he replied, and it was the truth. "If he's alive we've got to do what we can. There's no choice to make. Find someone to fetch a doctor and an ambulance. Go now.”

Shotts hesitated, looking around the deserted alley.

"I'll be all right," Evan said abruptly. He was not sure. He did not wish to be alone in this place. He did not belong here. He was not one of these people as Shotts was. He was aware of fear, and wondered if it was audible in his voice.

Shotts obeyed reluctantly, leaving the bull's eye behind. Evan saw his solid form disappear around the corner and felt a moment's panic. He had nothing with which to defend himself if whoever had committed these murders returned.

But why should they? That idea was a fallacy. He knew better. He had been in the police long enough, in fact over five years, since 1855, halfway through the Crimean War. He remembered his first murder. That had been when he had met William Monk, the best policeman he knew, if also the most ruthless, the bravest, the most instinctively clever.

Evan was the only one who had realised also how vulnerable he was. He had lost his entire memory in a carriage accident, but of course he dared tell no one. He had no knowledge of who he was, what his skills were, his conflicts, his enemies or even his friends. He lived from one threat to another, clue after clue unfolding, and then meaning little or nothing, just fragments.

But Monk would not have been afraid to be alone in this alley. Even the poor and the hungry and the violent of this miserable area would have thought twice before attacking him. There was something dangerous in his face with its smooth cheekbones, broad, aquiline nose and brilliant eyes. Evan's gentler features, full of humour and imagination, threatened no one.

He started as there was a sound at the farther end at the main street, but it was only a rat running along the gutter. Someone shifted weight in a doorway, but he saw nothing. A rumble of carriage wheels fifty yards away sounded like another world, where there was life and wider spaces, and the broadening daylight would give a little colour.

He was so cold he was shaking. He ought to take his coat off and put it over the boy who was still alive. In fact he should have done it straight away. He did it now, gently, tucking it around him and feeling the cold bite into his own flesh till his bones ached.

It seemed an endless wait until Shotts returned, but he brought the doctor with him, a gaunt man with bony hands and a thin, patient face.

His high hat was too large for him and slid close to the tops of his ears.

"Riley," he introduced himself briefly, then bent to look at the young man. His fingers felt expertly and Evan and Shotts stood waiting, staring down. It was now full daylight, although in the alley between the high, grimy walls it was still shadowed.

"You're right," Riley said after a moment, his voice strained, his eyes dark. "He's still alive… just." He climbed to his feet and turned towards the hearse-like outline of the ambulance as the driver backed the horses to bring it to the end of the alley. "Help me lift him," he requested as another figure leaped down from the box and opened the doors at the back.

Evan and Shotts hastened to obey, lifting the cold figure as gently as they could. Riley superintended their efforts until the youth was lying on the floor inside, wrapped in blankets and Evan had his coat back, bloodstained, filthy and damp from the wet cobbles.

Riley looked at him and pursed his lips. "You'd better get some dry clothes on and a stiff tot of whisky, and then a dish of hot gruel," he said, shaking his head. "Or you'll have pneumonia yourself, and probably for nothing. I doubt we can save the poor devil." Pity altered his face in the lantern light, making him look gaunt and vulnerable. "Nothing I can do for the other one. He's the undertaker's job, and yours, of course. Good luck to you. You'll need it, around here. God knows what happened or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the devil does." And with that he climbed in behind his patient. "Mortuary van'll come for the other one," he added as if an afterthought. "I'm taking this one to St. Thomas's. You can enquire after him there. I don't suppose you have any idea who he is?”

"Not yet," Evan answered, although he knew they might never have.

Riley closed the door and banged on the wall for the driver to proceed, and the ambulance pulled away.

The mortuary van took its place and the other body was removed, leaving Evan and Shotts alone in the alley.

"It's light enough to look," Evan said grimly. "I suppose we might find something. Then we'll start searching for witnesses. What happened to the woman who raised the alarm?”

"Daisy Mott. I know where ter finder Daytime in the match fact'ry, nights in that block o' rooms over there, number sixteen," he gestured with his left arm. "Don't suppose she can tell us much. If them what done this 'd bin 'ere when she come, they'd 'a killed 'er too, no doubt.”

"Yes, I suppose so," Evan agreed reluctantly. "Since she screamed, they'd have silenced her at least. What about old Briggs, who fetched you?”

"E don't know nothin'. I askedim.”

Evan began to widen his search, further away from where the two bodies had been, walking very slowly, eyes down on the ground. He did not know what he was looking for, anything someone might have dropped, a mark, a further bloodstain. There must be other bloodstains!

"In't rained," Shotts said grimly. "Those two fought like tigers fer their lives. Gotter be more blood. Not that I know what it'll tell us if there is! "Cept that someone else is 'urt, an' that I can work out ferme self "There's blood here," Evan answered him, seeing the dark stain over the cobbles towards the central gutter. He had to put his finger into it to be sure if it was red, and not the brown of excrement. "And here.

This must be where at least some of the struggle took place.”

"I got some 'ere too," Shotts added. "I wonder 'ow many of them there was.”

"More than two," Evan replied quietly. "If it had been anything like an equal fight there'd have been four bodies here. Whoever else was here was in good enough shape to leave… unless, of course, someone else took them away. But that isn't likely. No, I think we're looking for two or three men at the least.”

"Armed?" Shotts looked at him.

"I don't know. The doctor'll tell us how he died. I didn't see any knife wounds, or club or bludgeon wounds either. And he certainly wasn't gar rotted He shuddered as he said it. St. Giles particularly was known for the sudden and vile murders by wire around the throat. Any dirty and down-at-heel vagrant had been suspected. There was one notable occasion when two such men had suspected each other, and had almost ended up in mutual murder.

"That's funny." Shotts stood still, unconsciously pulling his coat a little tighter around him in the cold. "Thieves wot set out ter rob someone in a place like this usually carry a shiv or a wire. They in't lookin' fera fight, they wants profits and a quick getaway, wino 'urt to their selves "Exactly," Evan agreed. "A wire around the throat, or a knife in the side. Silent. Effective. No danger. Take the money and disappear into the night. So what happened here, Shorts?”

"I dunno, sir. The more I look at it, the less I know. But there in't no weapon 'ere. If there was one, they took it with them. An' wot's more, there in't no trail o' blood as I can see, so if they was 'urt their selves it weren't nothing like as bad as these two poor souls the doc and the mortuary van took away. I know they was dead, or as near as makes no difference, wot I mean is…”

"I know what you mean," Evan agreed. "It was a very one-sided affair.”

A hansom went by at the far end of the street, closely followed by a wagon piled with old furniture. Somewhere in the distance came the mournful cry of a rag and bone man. A beggar, holding half an old coat around himself, hesitated at the mouth of the alley, then thought better of it and went on his way. Behind the grimy windows there was more movement. Voices were raised. A dog barked.

"You have to hate a man very much to beat him to death," Evan said in little more than a whisper. "Unless you're completely insane.”

"They didn't belong around 'ere," Shotts shook his head. "They were clean… under the surface, well fed, an' their clothes was good.

They was both from somewhere else, up west for certain, or in from the country.”

"City," Evan corrected. "City boots. City skins. Country men would have had more colour.”

"Then up west. They wasn't from any were near 'ere, that's for certain positive. So 'oo around 'ere would know 'em to 'ate 'em that much?”

Evan pushed his hands into his pockets. There were more people passing the end of the alley now, men going to work in factories and warehouses, women to sweat shops and mills. The unknown numbers who worked in the streets themselves were appearing, pedlars, dealers in one thing and another, scavengers, sellers of information, petty thieves and go-betweens.

"What does a man come here for?" Evan was talking to himself.

"Something he can't buy in his own part of the city.”

"Slummin'," Shotts said succinctly. "Cheap women, money lenders, card sharps, fence a bit o' sum mink stolen, get sum mink forged.”

"Exactly," Evan agreed. "We'd better find out which of these, and with whom.”

Shotts shrugged and gave a hollow laugh. He had no need to comment on their chances of success.

"The woman, Daisy Mott," Evan began, starting towards the street. He was so cold he could hardly feel anything below his ankles. The smell of the alley made him shrink tighter and feel queasy. He had seen too much violence and pain in a short space of hours.

"The doc were right," Shotts remarked, catching up with him. "An 'of cup o' tea wi' a drop o' gin wouldn't do yer no 'arm, nor me neither.”

"Agreed," Evan did not argue. "And a pie or a sandwich. Then we'll find the woman.”

But when they did find her she would tell them nothing. She was small and fair and very thin. She could have been any age between eighteen and thirty-five. It was impossible to tell. She was tired and frightened, and only spoke to them at all because she could see no way of avoiding it.

The match factory was busy already, the hum of machinery a background to everything, the smells of sawdust, oil and phosphorus thick in the air. Everyone looked pallid. Evan saw several women with swollen, suppurating scabs, or skin eaten away by the necrosis of the bone known as 'phossie jaw', to which match workers were so susceptible. They stared at him with only minimal curiosity.

"What did you see?" Evan asked gently. "Tell me exactly what happened.”

She took a deep breath, but said nothing.

"In't nobody cares were yer was comin' from," Shotts interposed helpfully. "Or goin'.”

Evan made himself smile at her.

"I come inter the alley," she started tentatively. "It were still mostly dark. I were near on 'im well I saw 'im. First I reckoned as 'e werejus drunk an' sleepin' it orff. "Appens orften down 'ere.”

"I'm sure!" Evan nodded, aware of other eyes staring at them, and of the supervisor's grim face a dozen yards away. "What made you realise he was dead?”

"Blood!" she said with contempt, but her voice was hoarse. "All that blood. I 'ad a lantern, an' I saw 'is eyes, starin' up at me. That were well I yelled. Couldn't 'elp it.”

"Of course. Anyone would. What then?”

"I dunno. Me 'eart were goin' like the clappers an' I felt sick. I fink as I jus' stood there and yelled.”

"Who heard you?”

"Wot?”

"Who heard you?" he repeated. "Someone must have come.”

She hesitated, afraid again. She did not dare implicate someone else. He could see it in her eyes. Monk would have known what to do to make her speak. He had a sense of people's weaknesses and how to use them without breaking them. He did not lose sight of the main purpose the way Evan too often did. He was not sidetracked by irrelevant pity, imagining himself in their place, which was false. He did not know how they felt. He would have said Evan was sentimental.

Evan could hear Monk's voice in his mind even as he thought it. It was true. And people did not want pity. They would have hated him for it.

It was the ultimate indignity.

"Who came?" he said more sharply. "Do you want me to go around every door, pulling people out and asking them? Would you like to be arrested for lying to the police? Get you noticed! Get you a bad name." He meant it would make people think she was a police informer, and she knew that.

"Jimmy Elders," she said, looking at him with dislike. "An' 'is woman.

They both come. "E lives 'alfway along the alley, be' and the wood door wif the lock on it. But 'e don' know wot 'appened any more'n I do. Then ol' Briggs. "E went for the rozzer.”

"Thank you." He knew it was a waste of time asking, but he had to go through the motions. "Had you ever seen either of the two men before, when they were alive?”

"No." She answered without even thinking. It was what he had expected. He glanced around and saw the supervisor had moved a little closer. He was a large, black-haired man with a sullen face. Evan hoped she was not going to be docked pay for the time he had taken, but he thought she probably would. He would waste no more of it.

"Thank you. Goodbye.”

She said nothing, but returned silently to her work.

Evan and Shotts went back to the alley and spoke to Jimmy Elders and his common-law wife, but they had nothing to offer, beyond corroborating what Daisy Mott had told them. He denied having seen either of the men alive, or knowing what they might have been doing there. The leer in his face suggested the obvious, but he refrained from putting words to it. Briggs was the same.

They spent all day in and around the alley which was known as Water Lane, going up and down narrow and rotting stairs, into rooms where sometimes a whole family lived, others where pale-faced young prostitutes conducted their business when it was too wet or too cold outside. They went down to cellars where women of all ages sat in candlelight stitching, and children of two or three years old played in straw and tied waste bits of rag into dolls. Older children unpicked old clothes for the fabric to make new ones.

No one admitted to having seen or heard anything unusual. No one knew anything of two strangers in the area. There were always people coming and going. There were pawn shops, fencers of stolen goods, petty forgers of documents, doss houses, gin mills and well-hidden rooms where it was safe for a wanted man to lie for a while. The two men could have come to do business with any of these, or none. They may simply have been entertaining themselves by looking on at a way of life different from their own, and immeasurably inferior. They could even have been misguided preachers come to save sinners from themselves, and been attacked for their presumption and their interference.

If anyone knew anything at all, they were more afraid of the perpetrators, or of their peers, than of the police, at least in the form of Evan and P.C. Shotts.

At four o'clock as it was growing dark again, and bitterly cold, Shotts said he would make one or two more enquiries in the public house where he had a few acquaintances, and Evan took his leave to go to the hospital and see what Dr. Riley had to say. He had been dreading it because he did not want to have to think of the younger man again, the one who had been still alive in that dreadful place. The memory of it made him feel cold and sick. He was too tired to find the strength inside himself to overcome it.

He said good-day to Shotts and walked briskly in the general direction of Regent Street, where he knew he could find a hansom.

In St. Thomas's hospital he went straight to the morgue. He would look at the bodies and deduce what he could for himself, and then ask Riley to explain to him what else there was to learn. He hated morgues, but everyone he knew felt the same. His clothes always seemed to smell of vinegar and lye afterwards, and he never felt as if the damp were out of them.

"Yes, sir," the attendant said dutifully when he had identified himself. "Doc Riley said as you'd be 'ere some time, prob'ly today. I only got one body for yer. Other one in't dead yet. Doc says as 'e might pull through. Never know. Poor devil. Still, I suppose yer want ter see the one I got." It was not a question. He had been here long enough to know the answer. Young policemen like Evan never came for anything else.

"Thank you," Evan accepted, feeling a sudden surge of relief that the young man was still alive. He realised now how much he had been hoping he would be. And yet at the same time it meant he would wake up to so much pain, and a long, slow fight to recover, and Evan dreaded that, and his own necessity for being part of it.

He followed the attendant along the rows of tables, sheet covered, some with the stark outline of corpses beneath, others empty. His feet rang in the silence on the stone floor. The light was harsh, beaming back from bare walls. It was as if no one but the dead inhabited the place. There were no concessions to the living. They were intruders here.

The attendant stopped by one of the tables and pulled the sheet off slowly, uncovering the body of a middle-aged, slightly plump man of average height. Riley had cleaned him up very little, perhaps so Evan could make his own deductions. But with his clothes absent it was possible to see the terrible extent of his injuries. His entire torso was covered in contusions, black and dull purple where they had bled internally while he was still alive. On some the skin was torn. From the misshapen ribs, several of them were obviously broken.

"Poor devil," the attendant repeated between his teeth. "Put up one 'ell of a fight afore they got 'im.”

Evan looked down at the hand nearer him. The knuckles were burst open and at least two fingers were dislocated. All but one of the nails were torn.

"Other 'and's the same," the attendant offered.

Evan leaned over and picked it up gently. The attendant was correct.

That was the right hand and, if anything, it was worse.

"Will you be wanting to see his clothes?" the attendant asked after a moment.

"Yes, please." They might tell him something, possibly something he could not already guess. Most of all he wanted to know the man's name.

He must have family, perhaps a wife, wondering what had happened to him. Would they have any idea where he had gone, or why? Probably not. He would have the wretched duty not only of informing them of his death, and the dreadful manner in which it had happened, but where he had been at the time.

"Ere they are, sir." The attendant turned and walked towards a bench at the farther end of the room. "All kept for yer, but otherwise just as we took 'em orff 'im. Good quality, they are. But you'll see that for yerself." He picked up underwear, socks, then a shirt which had originally been white, but was now heavily soiled with blood and mud and effluent from the gutter in the alley. The smell of it was noticeable, even here. The jacket and trousers were worse.

Evan undid them and laid them out on the bench. He searched them carefully, taking his time. He explored pockets, folds, seams, cuffs.

The fabric was wool, not the best quality, but one he would have been happy to wear himself. It was warm, a rather loose weave, a nondescript brown, just what a gentleman might have chosen in which to conduct an expedition into an unseemly quarter of the city not, perhaps, one as dangerous as St. Giles. No doubt for his normal business he wore something better. The linen of the shirt would suggest that both his taste and his pocket allowed a greater indulgence.

All that told him was that the man was exactly what he thought, from somewhere else, seeking either pleasure, or a dishonest business in one of London's worst slums.

The suit had been damaged on the knees, presumably when he had fallen during the fight. One knee was actually torn, the threads raw; the other only pulled out of shape, a few fibres broken. There was also a badly scuffed patch on the seat and it was still wet from the gutter and deeply stained. The jacket was worse. Both elbows were torn, one almost completely gone. There was a rent in the left side and a pocket all but ripped off. However, even the most thorough search, inch by inch, revealed no damage which could have been done by a knife or a bullet. There was a considerable amount of blood, far more than was accounted for by the nature of the injuries to the dead man. Anyway, it appeared to come from someone else, being darker and wetter on the outside of the garment and having barely soaked through to the inside.

At least one of his assailants must have been pretty badly hurt.

"D'yer know wot 'appened?" the attendant asked.

"No," Evan said miserably. "No idea, so far.”

The attendant grunted. "Come in from St. Giles, didn't 'e? Reckon as yer'll never find out, then. Nobody from there says nothin' on their own. Poor devil. "Ad a few ga rotters in from there. "E must 'a crossed someone proper ter get beat like that. Don't need ter do that ter no one just ter rob 'im. Gambler maybe.”

"Maybe." The name of the tailor was on the inside of the jacket. He had made a note of that, and the address. It might be sufficient to identify him. "Where is Dr. Riley?”

"Up on the wards, I spec, if 'e in't bin called out again. Fair make use of 'im, you rozzers do.”

"Not of my choice, I promise you," Evan said wearily. "I'd much rather not have the need.”

The attendant sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He said nothing.

Evan went up the stairs and along the corridors, asking, until he found Riley coming out of one of the operating theatres, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up, his arms spattered with blood.

"Just taken out a bullet," he said cheerfully. "Damn fool accident.

Marvellous thing this new anaesthetic. Never saw anything like it in my youth. Best thing to happen in medicine since… I don't know what! Maybe it's just the best thing straight and simple. I suppose you've come about your corpse from St. Giles?" He shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked tired. There were fine lines crisscrossing his face, and a smear of blood over his brow and another on his cheek where he had rubbed his hand without realising it.

Evan nodded.

A medical student walked past them, whistling between his teeth until he recognised Riley, then he stopped and straightened his shoulders.

"Beaten to death," Riley said, pursing his lips. "No wound with any weapon… unless you count fists and boots as weapons. No knife, no gun, no cudgel as far as I can judge. Nothing to the head more than a flat concussion from falling on to the cobbles. Wouldn't have killed him, probably not even knocked him senseless. Probably just stunned and a little dizzy. Died of internal haemorrhage. Ruptured organs.

Sorry.”

"Could one man alone have done that to him?”

Riley thought for quite a long time before he replied, standing still in the middle of the passage, oblivious of blocking the way for others.

"Hard to say. Wouldn't like to commit myself. Taking that body alone, without considering the circumstances, I'd guess more than one assailant. If it was only one man, then he was a raving lunatic to do that to another man. He must have gone berserk.”

"And with considering the circumstances?" Evan pressed, stepping to one side to allow a nurse to pass with a bundle of laundry.

"Well, the boy's still alive, and if he survives tonight, he might recover," Riley answered. "Too soon to say. But to take on both of them, and do that much damage, I'd say two assailants who were both big and well used to violence, or possibly even three. Or else again, two complete lunatics.”

"Could they have fought each other?”

Riley looked surprised. "And left themselves damn near dead on the pavement? Not very likely.”

"But possible?" Evan insisted.

Riley shook his head. "Don't think you'll find the answer is that easy, Sergeant. The younger man is taller. The older one was a bit plump, he was well muscled, quite powerful. He'd have taken a lot of beating, considering he was fighting for his life. And there was no weapon to give the advantage.”

"Can you tell if the wounds were made attacking or defending?”

"Mostly defending, as well as I can judge, but it's only a deduction made from their position, on forearms, as if he were putting up his arms to protect his head. He may have begun by attacking. He certainly landed a few blows, judging from his knuckles. Someone else is going to be badly marked, whether it is anywhere that shows or not.”

"There was blood on the outside of his clothes," Evan told him.

"Someone else's blood." He watched Riley's face closely.

Riley shrugged. "Could be the younger man's, could be someone else's.

I've no way of knowing.”

"What condition is he in now, the younger man? What are his injuries?”

Riley was distressed, he looked overwhelmed by his knowledge as if it were something he would have gladly put down.

"Very bad," he said almost under his breath. "He's still senseless, but definitely alive. If he pulls through tonight he'll need a lot of careful nursing, many weeks, maybe months. He's badly injured internally, but it's hard to tell exactly what. Can't see inside a body without cutting it open. As much as I can feel, the major organs are terribly bruised, but not ruptured. If they were, he'd be dead by now. Luckier than the other man where the blows landed. Both his hands are badly broken, but that hardly matters, compared.”

"Nothing in his clothes to say who he is, I suppose?" Evan asked without any real hope.

"Yes," Riley said quickly, his eyes wide. "Apparently he had a receipt for socks with the name "R. Duff" on it. Must be his. Can't think why you'd carry a receipt for another man's socks! And he has the same tailor as the dead man. There's a very slight physical resemblance about the shape of head, way the hair grows, and particularly the ears.

Do you notice a man's ears, Sergeant Evan? Some people don't. You'd be surprised how many. Ears are very distinctive. I think you might find our two men are related.”

"Duff?" Evan could hardly believe his good fortune. "R. Duff?”

"That's right. No idea what the "R" stands for, but maybe he'll be able to tell us himself tomorrow. Anyway, you can try the tailor in the morning. A man often knows his own handiwork.”

"Yes yes. I'll take a piece of it to show him. Can I see the boy's clothes?”

"They're by his bed, over in the next ward. I'll take you." He turned and led the way along the wide, bare corridor, and into a ward lined with beds, grey blanketed, each showing the outline of a figure lying or propped up. At the farther end a pot-bellied stove gave off quite a good heat, and even as they walked up, a nurse staggered past them with a bucketful of fresh coals to keep it stoked.

Evan was reminded sharply of Hester Latterly, the young woman he had met so soon after his first encounter with Monk. She had gone out to the Crimea and nursed with Florence Nightingale. He could not even imagine the courage it must have taken to do that, to face that raging disease, the carnage of the battlefield, the constant pain and death, and to find within oneself the resources to keep on fighting to overcome, to offer help and to give some kind of comfort to those you were powerless even to ease, let alone to save.

No wonder such an anger still burned inside her at what she perceived to be incompetence in medical administration! How she and Monk had quarrelled! He smiled even as he thought of it. Monk loathed her sharp tongue at the same time as he admired her. And she despised the hardness she thought she saw in him, the arrogance and disregard for others. And yet when he had faced the worst crisis in his life it had been she who had stood beside him, she who had refused to let him give in, had fought for him when it looked as if he could not win, and worst of all, did not deserve to.

How she rebelled against rolling bandages, sweeping floors and carrying coals when she was capable of so much more, and had done it in the field surgeons' tents when all the doctors were already doing all they could. She had wanted to reform so much, and the eagerness had got in her way.

They were at the end of the ward now and Riley had stopped by a bed where a young man lay, white-faced, motionless. Only the clouding of his breath on a glass could have told if he was still alive. There was nothing for the eye to see.

Evan recognised him from the alley. The features were the same, the curve of eyelid, the almost black hair, rather long nose, sensitive mouth. The bruising did not hide that, and the blood had been cleared away. Evan found himself willing him to live, aching with the tension in his own body as if by strength of his feeling he could make it happen, and yet at the same time, terrified of the pain of it when he woke and felt his broken body, and his memory returned.

Who was he R. Duff? Was the older man related to him? And what had happened in that alley? Why had they been there? What appetite had taken them to such a place on a January night?

"Give me the trousers," Evan whispered, a wave of horror and revulsion returning to him. "I'll take them to the tailor.”

"You'd be better with the coat," Riley replied. "It's got the label on it, and there's less blood.”

"Less blood? The other man's coat was soaked in it!”

"I know." Riley shrugged his thin shoulders. "With this one it's the trousers. Maybe they all went down together in a scrum But if you want the tailor to be fit for anything, take the jacket. No need to give the poor man a turn.”

Evan took it after he had examined them both. Like the dead man's, they were torn in several places, filthy with mud and effluent from the gutter, and stained with blood on coat sleeves and tails, and the trousers were sodden.

Evan left the hospital horrified, exhausted in mind and spirit as well as body, and now so cold he could not stop shivering. He took a hansom home to his rooms. He would not get in an omnibus with that dreadful jacket and he had no wish to sit among other people, decent people at the end of their day's work, who had no idea of what he had seen and felt and of the young man who lay invisible in St. Thomas's, and who might or might not awaken again.

He found the tailor at nine o'clock. He spoke personally to Mr.

Jiggs of Jiggs & Muldrew, a rotund man who needed all his own art to disguise his ample stomach and rather short legs.

"What may I do for you, sir?" he said with some distaste as he saw the parcel under Evan's arm. He disapproved of gentlemen who bundled up clothes. It was no way to treat a highly skilled piece of workmanship.

Evan had no time or mood for catering to anyone's sensitivities.

"Do you have a client by the name of R. Duff, Mr. Jiggs?" he asked bluntly.

"My client list is a matter of confidence, sir…”

"This is a case of murder," Evan snapped, sounding more like Monk than his own usually soft-spoken manner. "The owner of this suit is lying at death's door in St. Thomas's. Another man, also wearing a suit with your label in it, is in the morgue. I do not know who they are… other than this…" He ignored Jiggs's pasty face and wide eyes.

"If you can tell me, then I demand that you do so." He spilled out the jacket on to the tailor's table.

Jiggs started backwards as if it had been alive and dangerous.

"Will you look at it, please," Evan commanded.

"Oh my God!" Mr. Jiggs put a clammy hand to his brow. "Whatever happened?”

"I don't know yet," Evan answered a trifle more gently. "Will you please look at that jacket and tell me if you know for whom you made it?”

"Yes. Yes, of course. I always know my gentlemen, sir." Gingerly Mr.

Jiggs unfolded the coat only sufficiently to see his own label. He glanced at it, touched the cloth with his forefinger, then looked at Evan. "I made that suit for young Mr. Rhys Duff, of Ebury Street, sir." He looked extremely pale. "I am very sorry indeed that he seems to have met with a disaster. It truly grieves me, sir.”

Evan bit his lip. "I'm sure. Did you also make a suit in a brown wool for another gentleman, possibly related to him? This man would be in his middle-fifties, average height, quite solidly built. He had grey hair, rather fairer than Rhys Duffs I should think.”

"Yes, sir." Jiggs took a shaky breath. "I made several suits for Mr.

Leighton Duff, he's Master Rhys's father. I fear it may be he you are describing. Was he injured also?”

"I am afraid he is dead, Mr. Jiggs. Can you tell me the number in Ebury Street. I am obliged to inform his family.”

"Oh why, of course. How very terrible. I wish there were some way I could assist." He stepped back as he said it, but there was a look of acute distress in his face, and Evan was disposed to believe him, at least in part.

"The number in Ebury Street?" he repeated.

"Yes… yes. I think it is thirty-four, if my memory serves, but I'll look in my books. Yes, of course I will.”

However, Evan did not go straight to Ebury Street. Rather he returned first to St. Thomas's. There was a sense in which it would be kinder to the family if he could tell them at least that Rhys Duff was still alive, perhaps conscious. And if he could speak, maybe he could tell what had happened, and Evan would have to ask fewer questions.

And there was part of him which was simply not ready yet to go and tell some woman that her husband was dead, and her son may or may not survive, and no one knew yet in what degree of injury, pain or disability.

He found Riley straight away, looking as if he had been there all night. Certainly he seemed to be wearing the same clothes with precisely the same wrinkles and bloodstains on them.

"He's still alive," he said as soon as he saw Evan, and before Evan could ask. "He stirred a bit about an hour ago. Let's go and see if he's come around." And he set off with a long-legged stride as if he too were eager to know.

The ward was busy. Two young doctors were changing bandages and examining wounds. A nurse who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen was carrying buckets of slops, her shoulders bent as she strove to keep them off the floor. An elderly woman struggled with a bucket of coals and Evan offered to take them from her, but she refused, looking nervously at Riley. Another nurse gathered up soiled laundry and brushed past them with her face averted. Riley seemed hardly to notice, his attention was solely upon the patients.

Evan followed him to the end of the ward where he saw with a rush of relief, overtaken instantly by anxiety, that Rhys Duff lay motionless on his back, but his eyes were open, large, dark eyes which stared up at the ceiling and seemed to see only horror.

Riley stopped by the bed and looked at him with some concern.

"Good morning, Mr. Duff," he said gently. "You are in St. Thomas's hospital. My name is Riley. How are you feeling?”

Rhys Duff rolled his head very slightly until his eyes were focusing on Riley.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Duff?" Riley repeated.

Rhys opened his mouth, his lips moved, but there was no sound whatever.

"Does your throat hurt?" Riley asked with a frown. It was obviously not something he had expected.

Rhys stared at him.

"Does your throat hurt?" Riley asked again. "Nod if it does.”

Very slowly Rhys shook his head. He looked faintly surprised.

Riley put his hand on Rhys's slender wrist above the bandaging of his broken hand. The other, similarly splinted and bound, lay on the cover.

"Can you speak, Mr. Duff?" Riley asked very softly.

Rhys opened his mouth again, and again no sound came.

Riley waited.

Rhys's eyes were filled with terrible memory, fear and pain held him transfixed. Momentarily his head moved from side to side in denial. He could not speak.

Riley turned to Evan. "I'm sorry, you'll get nothing from him yet. He may be well enough for "yes" and "no" tomorrow, but he may not. At the moment he's too shocked for you to bother him at all. For certain he can't talk to you, or describe anyone. And it will be weeks before he can hold a pen if his hands mend well enough ever.”

Evan hesitated. He needed desperately to know what had happened, but he was torn with pity for this unbearably injured boy. He wished he had his father's faith to help him understand how such things could happen. Why was there not some justice to prevent it? He did not have a blind belief to soothe either his anger or his pity.

Nor did he have Hester's capacity to provide practical help which would have eased the aching helplessness inside him.

Perhaps the nearest he could strive for was Monk's dedication to pursuing truth.

"Do you know who did this to you, Mr. Duff?" he asked, speaking over Riley.

Rhys shut his eyes, and again shook his head. If he had any memory, he was choosing to close it out as too monstrous to bear.

"I think you should leave now, Sergeant," Riley said with an edge to his voice. "He can't tell you anything.”

Evan acknowledged the truth of it, and with one last look at the ashen face of the young man lying in the bed, he turned and went about the only duty he dreaded more.

Ebury Street was quiet and elegant in the cold morning air. There was a slick of ice on the pavements and housemaids were indisposed to linger in gossip. The two or three people Evan saw were all keeping moving, whisking dusters and mop heads out of windows and in again as quickly as possible. An errand boy scampered up steps and rang a bell with fingers clumsy with cold.

Evan found number thirty-four and unconsciously copying Monk, he went to the front door. Anyway, news such as he had should not go through the kitchens first.

The bell was answered by a parlour maid in a smart uniform. Her starched linen and lace immediately proclaimed a household of better financial standing than the clothes worn by the dead man suggested.

"Yes, sir?”

"Good morning. I am Police Sergeant Evans. Does a Mr. Leighton Duff live here?”

"Yes, sir, but he isn't home at the moment." She said it with some anxiety. It was not a piece of information she would normally have offered to a caller, even though she knew it to be true. She looked at his face, and perhaps read the weariness and sadness in it. "Is everything all right, sir?”

"No, I'm afraid it isn't. Is there a Mrs. Duff?”

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filled with alarm, but she did not scream.

"You had better warn her lady's maid, and perhaps the butler. I am afraid I have very bad news.”

Silently she opened the door wider and let him in.

A butler with thin, greying hair came from the back of the hallway, frowning.

"Who is the gentleman, Janet?" He turned to Evan. "Good morning, sir.

May I be of assistance to you? I am afraid Mr. Duff is not at home at present, and Mrs. Duff is not receiving." He was less sensitive to Evan's expression than the maid had been.

"I am from the police," Evan repeated. "I have extremely bad news to tell Mrs. Duff. I'm very sorry. Perhaps you should remain in case she needs some assistance. Possibly you might send a messenger for your family doctor.”

"What… what has happened?" Now he looked thoroughly horrified.

"I am afraid that Mr. Leighton Duff and Mr. Rhys Duff have met with violence. Mr. Rhys is in St. Thomas's hospital in a very serious condition.”

The butler gulped. "And… and Mr… Mr. Leighton Duff?”

"I am afraid he is dead.”

"Oh dear… I…" He swayed a little where he stood in the magnificent hallway with its curved staircase, aspidistras in stone urns and brass umbrella stand with silver-topped canes in it.

"You'd better sit down a minute, Mr. Wharmby," Janet said with sympathy.

Wharmby straightened himself up, but he looked very pallid. "Certainly not! Whatever next? It is my duty to look after poor Mrs. Duff in every way possible, as it is yours. Go and get Alfred to fetch Dr.

Wade. I shall inform Madam that there is someone to see her. You might return with a decanter of brandy… just in case some restorative is needed.”

But it was not. Sylvestra Duff sat motionless in the large chair in the morning room, her face bloodlessly white under her dark hair with its pronounced widow's peak. She was not immediately beautiful her face was too long, too aquiline, her nose delicately flared, her eyes almost black but she had a distinction which became more marked the longer one was with her. Her voice was low and very measured. In other circumstances it would have been lovely. Now she was too shattered by horror and grief to speak in anything but broken fractions of sentences.

"How…" she started. "Where? Where did you say?”

"In one of the back streets of an area known as St. Giles," Evan answered gently, moderating the truth a little. He wished there were some way she would never have to know the full facts.

"St. Giles?" It seemed to mean very little to her. He studied her face, the smooth, high-boned cheeks and curved brow. He thought he saw a slight tightening, but it could have been no more than a change in the light as she turned towards him.

"It is a few hundred yards off Regent Street, towards Aldgate.”

"Aldgate?" she said with a frown.

"Where did he say he was going, Mrs. Duff?" he asked.

"He didn't say.”

"Perhaps you would tell me all you can recall of yesterday.”

She shook her head very slowly. "No… no, that can wait. First I must go to my son. I must… I must be with him. You said he is very badly hurt?”

"I am afraid so. But he is in the best hands possible." He leaned a little towards her. "You can do no more for him at present," he said earnestly. "It is best he rests. He is not fully sensible most of the time. No doubt the doctor will give him herbs and sedatives to ease his pain and help him to heal.”

"Are you trying to spare my feelings, Sergeant? I assure you, it is not necessary. I must be where I can do the most good, that is the only thing which will be of any comfort to me." She looked at him very directly. She had amazing eyes; their darkness almost concealed her emotions and made her a peculiarly private woman. He imagined the great Spanish aristocrats might have looked something like that: proud, secretive, hiding their vulnerability.

"No, Mrs. Duff," he denied. "I was trying to find out as much as I can from you about what occurred yesterday while it is fresh in your mind, before you are fully occupied with your son. At the moment it is Dr. Riley's help he needs. I need yours.”

"You are very direct, Sergeant.”

He did not know if it was a criticism or simply an observation. Her voice was without expression. She was too profoundly shocked from the reality of what he had told her, to touch anything but the surface of her mind. She sat upright, her back rigid, shoulders stiff, her hands unmoving in her lap. He imagined if he touched them he would find them locked together, unbending.

"I am sorry. It seems not the time for niceties. This matters far too much. Did your husband and son leave the house together?”

"No. No… Rhys left first. I did not see him go.”

"And your husband?”

"Yes… yes, I saw him leave. Of course.”

"Did he say where he was going?”

"No… no. He quite often went out in the evening… to his club.

It is a very usual thing for a gentleman to do. Business, as well as pleasure, depends upon social acquaintances. He did not say…

specifically.”

He was not sure why, but he did not entirely believe her. Was it possible she was aware that he frequented certain dubious places, perhaps even that he used prostitutes? It was tacitly accepted by many, even though they would have been shocked if anyone had been vulgar and insensitive enough to speak it. Everyone was aware of bodily functions. No one referred to them; it was both indelicate and unnecessary.

"How was he dressed, ma'am?”

Her arched eyebrows rose. "Dressed? Presumably as you found him, Sergeant? What do you mean?”

"Did he have a watch, Mrs. Duff?”

"A watch? Yes. Oh, I see. He was… robbed. Yes, he had a very fine gold watch. It was not on him?”

"No. Was he in the habit of carrying much money with him?”

"I don't know. I can ask Bridlaw, his valet. He could probably tell you. Does it matter?”

"It might." Evan was puzzled. "Do you know if he was wearing his gold watch yesterday when he left?" It seemed a strange and rather perverse thing to go into St. Giles, for whatever reason, wearing a conspicuously expensive article like a gold watch, so easily visible.

It almost invited robbery. Was he lost? Was he even taken there against his will? "Did he mention meeting anyone?”

"No." She was quite certain.

"And the watch?" he prompted.

"Yes. I believe he was wearing it." She stared at him intently. "He almost always did. He was very fond of it. I think I would have noticed were he without it. I remember now he wore a brown suit. Not his best at all, in fact rather an inferior one. He had it made for the most casual wear, weekends and so forth.”

"And yet the night he went out was a Wednesday," Evan reminded her.

"Then he must have been planning a casual evening," she replied bluntly. "Why do you ask, Sergeant? What difference does it make now?

He was not… murdered… because of what he wore!”

"I was trying to deduce where he intended to go, Mrs. Duff. St.

Giles is not an area where we would expect to find a gentleman of Mr.

Duffs means and social standing. If I knew why he was there, or with whom, I would be a great deal closer to knowing what happened to him.”

"I see. I suppose it was foolish of me not to have understood." She looked away from him. The room was comfortable, beautifully proportioned. There was no sound but the crackle of flames in the fireplace and the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantel.

Everything about it was gracious, serene, different in every conceivable way from the alley in which its owner had perished. Quite probably St. Giles was beyond the knowledge or even the imagination of his widow.

"Your husband left shortly after your son, Mrs. Duff?" He leaned a little forward as he spoke, as if to attract her attention.

She turned towards him slowly. "I suppose you want to know how my son was dressed also?”

"Yes, please.”

"I cannot remember. In something very ordinary, grey or navy I think.

No… a black coat and grey trousers.”

It was what he had been wearing when he was found. Evan said nothing.

"He said he was going out to enjoy himself," she said, her voice suddenly dropping and catching with emotion. "He was… angry.”

"With whom?" He tried to picture the scene. Rhys Duff was probably no more than eighteen or nineteen, still immature, rebellious.

She lifted her shoulder very slightly. It was a gesture of denial, as if the question were incapable of answer.

"Was there a quarrel, ma'am, a difference of opinion?”

She sat silent for so long he was afraid she was not going to reply. Of course it was bitterly painful. It was their last meeting. They could never now be reconciled. The fact that she did not deny it instantly was answer enough.

"It was trivial," she said at last. "It doesn't matter now. My husband was dubious about some of the company Rhys chose to keep. Oh… not anyone who would hurt him, Sergeant. I am speaking of female company. My husband wished Rhys to make the acquaintance of reputable young ladies. He was in a position to make a settlement upon him if he chose to marry, not a good fortune many young men can count upon.”

"Indeed not," Evan agreed with feeling. He knew dozens of young men, and indeed older ones, who would dearly like to marry, but could not afford it. To keep an establishment suitable for a wife cost more than three or four times the amount necessary to live a single life. And then the almost inevitable children added to that greatly.

Rhys Duff was an unusually fortunate young man. Why had he not been grateful for that?

As if answering his thought she spoke very softly.

"Perhaps he was… too young. He might have done it willingly, if… if it had not been his father's wish for him. The young can be so… so… wilful… even against their own interests." She seemed barely to be able to control the grief which welled up inside her. Evan hated having to press any questions at all, but he knew that now she was more likely to tell him an unguarded truth. Tomorrow she could be more careful, more watchful to conceal anything which damaged, or revealed.

He struggled for anything to say which could be of comfort, and there was nothing. In his mind he saw so clearly the pale, bruised face of the young man lying first in the alley, crumpled and bleeding, and then in St. Thomas's, his eyes filled with horror which was quite literally unspeakable. He saw again his mouth open as he struggled, and failed even to ut tera word. What could anyone say to comfort his mother?

He made a resolve that however long it took him, however hard it was, he would find out what had happened in that alley, and make whoever was responsible answer for it.

"He said nothing of where he might go?" he resumed. "Had he any usual haunts?”

"He left in some… heat," she replied. She seemed to have steadied herself again. "I believe his father had an idea as to where he frequented. Perhaps it is known to men in general? There are…

places. It was only an impression. I cannot help you, Sergeant.”

"But both men were in some temper when they left?”

"Yes.”

"How long apart in time was that?”

"I am not sure, because Rhys left the room, and it was not until about half an hour after that when we realised he had also left the house. My husband then went out immediately.”

"I see.”

"They were found together?" Again her voice wavered and she had to make a visible effort to control herself.

"Yes. It looks as if perhaps your husband caught up with your son, and some time after that they were set upon.”

"Maybe they were lost?" she looked at him anxiously.

"Quite possibly," he agreed, hoping it was true. Of all the explanations it would be the kindest, the easiest for her to bear. "It would not be hard to become lost in such a warren of alleys and passages. Merely a few yards in the wrong direction… he left the rest unsaid. He wanted to believe it almost as much as she did, because he knew so much more of the alternatives.

There was a knock on the door, an unusual thing for a servant to do.

It was normal for a butler simply to come in and then await a convenient moment either to serve whatever was required, or to deliver a message.

"Come in?" Sylvestra said with a lift of surprise.

The man who entered was lean and dark with a handsome face, deep-set eyes and a nose perhaps a trifle small. Now his expression was one of acute concern and distress. He all but ignored Evan and went immediately to Sylvestra, but his manner was professional as well as personal. Presumably he was the doctor Wharmby had sent for.

"My dear, I cannot begin to express my sorrow. Naturally anything I can do, you have but to name. I shall remain with you as long as you wish. Certainly I shall prescribe something to help you sleep, and to calm and assist you through these first dreadful days. Eglantyne says if you wish to leave here and stay with us, we shall see that you have all the peace and privacy you could wish. Our house will be yours.”

"Thank you… you are very kind. I…" She gave a little shiver.

"I don't even know what I want yet… what there is to be done." She rose to her feet, swayed a moment and grasped for his arm which he gave instantly. "First I must go to St. Thomas's hospital, and see Rhys.”

"Do you think that is wise?" the doctor cautioned. "You are in a state of extreme shock, my dear. Allow me to go for you. I can at least see that he is given the very best professional help and care. I will see that he is brought home as soon as it is medically advisable.

In the meantime I shall care for him myself, I promise you.”

She hesitated, torn between love and good sense.

"Let me at least see him!" she pleaded. "Take me. I promise I shall not be a burden. I am in command of myself!”

He hesitated only a moment. "Of course. Take a little brandy, just to revive yourself, then I shall accompany you." He glanced at Evan. "I am sure you are finished here, Sergeant. Anything else you need to know can wait until a more opportune time.”

It was dismissal, and Evan accepted it with a kind of relief. There was little more he could learn here now. Perhaps later he would speak to the valet and other servants. The coachman might know where his master was in the habit of going. In the meantime there were people he knew in St. Giles, informers, men and women upon whom pressure could be placed, judicious questions asked, and a great deal might be learned.

"Of course," he conceded, rising to his feet. "I shall try to bother you as little as possible, ma'am." He took his leave as the doctor was taking the decanter of brandy from the butler and pouring a little into a glass.

Outside in the street, where it was beginning to snow, he turned up his coat collar and walked briskly. He wondered what Monk would have done. Would he have thought of some brilliant and probing questions whose answers would have revealed a new line of truth to follow and unravel? Would he have felt any less crippled by pity and horror than Evan did? Had there been something obvious which his emotion had prevented him from seeing?

Surely the obvious thing was that father and son had gone whoring in St. Giles, and been careless, perhaps paid less than the asking price, perhaps been too high-handed or arrogant showing off their money and their gold watches, and some ruffian, afire with drink, had attacked them and then, like a dog at the smell of blood, run amok?

Either way, what could the widow know of it? He was right not to harry her now.

He put his head down against the east wind and increased his pace.