The Silent Cry

Chapter Three

Monk sat alone in the large chair in his rooms in Fitzroy Street. He was unaware of Evan's case, or of Hester's involvement with one of the victims. He had not seen Hester for more than two weeks, and it was high to the front of his mind that he did not wish to see her in the immediate future. His participation in Rathbone's slander case had taken him to the Continent, both to Venice and to the small German principality of Felzburg. It had given him a taste of an entirely different life of glamour, wealth and idleness, laughter and superficiality, which he had found highly seductive. There were also elements not unfamiliar to him. It had awoken memories of his distant past, before he had joined the police. He had struggled hard to catch them more firmly, and failed. Like all the rest, it was lost but for a few glimpses now and then, sudden windows opening, showing only a little, and then closing again and leaving him more confused than before.

He had fallen in love with Evelyn von Seidlitz. At least he thought it was love. It was certainly delicious, exciting, filling his mind and very definitely quickening his pulse. He had been hurt, but not as profoundly surprised as he should have been, to discover she was shallow and, under the surface charm and wit, thoroughly selfish. By the end of the matter he had longed for Hester's leaner, harder virtues, her honesty, her love of courage and truth. Even her morality and frequently self-righteous opinions had a kind of cleanness to them, like a sweet, cold wind after heat and a cloud of flies.

He leaned forward and picked up the poker to move the coals. He prodded at them viciously. He did not wish to think of Hester. She was arbitrary, arrogant and at times pompous, a fault he had hitherto thought entirely a masculine one. He could not afford to be vulnerable to such thoughts.

He had no case of interest at present, which added to his dark mood.

There were petty thefts to deal with, usually either a servant who was tragically easy to apprehend, or a housebreaker who was almost impossible, appearing out of the massed tens of thousands of the slums, and disappearing into them again within the space of an hour.

But such cases were better than no work at all. He could always go and see if there was any information Rathbone wanted, but that was a last resort, as a matter of pride. He liked Rathbone. They had shared many causes and dangers together. They had worked with every ounce of imagination, courage and intelligence for too many common purposes not to know a certain strength in each other which demanded admiration. And because they had shared both triumph and failure, they had a bond of friendship.

But there was also an irritation, a difference which rankled too often, pride and judgements which clashed rather than complemented. And there was always Hester. She both drew them together, and kept them apart.

But he preferred not to think about Hester, especially in relation to Rathbone.

He was pleased when the doorbell rang and a minute la tera woman came in. She was in early middle-age, but handsome in a full-blown, obvious way. Her mouth was too large, but sensuously shaped, her eyes were magnificent, her bones rather too well padded with flesh. Her figure was definitely buxom. Her clothes were dark and plain, of indifferent quality, but there was an air about her which at once proclaimed a confidence, even a brashness. She was neither a lady, nor one who associated with ladies.

"Are you William Monk?" she asked before he had time to speak. "Yes, I can see you are." She looked him up and down very candidly. "Yer've changed. Can't say what, exac'ly, but yer different. Point is…

are yer still any good?”

"Yes, I am extremely good!" he replied warily. It seemed she knew him, but he had no idea who she was, except what he could deduce from her appearance.

She gave a sharp laugh. "Mebbe you 'aven't changed that much! Still gives yerself airs." The amusement died out of her face and it became hard and cautious. "I want ter 'ire yer. I can pay.”

It was not likely to be work he would enjoy, but he was not in a position to refuse. He could at least listen to her. It was unlikely she would have domestic problems. That sort of thing she would be more than capable of dealing with herself.

"Me name's Vida "Opgood," she said. "In case yer don' remember.”

He did not remember, but it was plain she knew him from the past, before the accident. He was reminded jarringly of his vulnerability.

"What is your difficulty, Mrs. Hopgood?" He indicated the large chair on the far side of the fire, and when she had made herself comfortable, he sat down opposite her.

She glanced at the burning coals, then around at the very agreeable room with its landscape pictures, heavy curtains and old but good-quality furniture. It was largely supplied by Monk's patroness, Lady i Callandra Daviot, from the surplus in her country house. But Vida Hopgood did not need to know that.

"Done well fer yerself," she said ungrudgingly. "Yer din't never marry good, or yer wouldn't be grubbin' around wi' other folks' troubles.

Besides, yer wasn't the marryin' sort. Too cussed. Only ever wanted the kind o' wives as'd never 'ave yer. So I guess yer in't lorst none oyer cleverness. That's why I come. This'll take it all, and then maybe more. But we gotter know. We gotter put a stop ter it.”

"To what, Mrs. Hopgood?”

"Me us band Tom, 'e runs a fact'ry, makin' shirts and the like…”

Monk knew what the sweatshops of the East End were like, huge, airless places, suffocating in summer, bitterly cold in winter, where a hundred or more women might sit from before dawn until nearly midnight sewing shirts, gloves, handkerchiefs, petticoats, for barely enough to feed one of them, let alone the family which might depend on them. If someone had stolen from him, Monk for one was not going to look for them.

She saw his expression.

"Wear nice shirts still, do yer?”

He looked at her sharply.

"Course yer do!" she answered her own question with a surprising viciousness twisting her mouth. "And what do yer pay for 'em, eh?

Wanner pay more? Wot dyer think tailors and outfitters pay us for 'em, eh? If we put up our prices, we lose the business. An' 'oo'll that 'elp? Gents 'oo like smart shirts'll buy 'em the cheapest they can get. Can't pay more'n I can, can I?”

He was stung. "I presume you aren't looking for me to alter the tailoring economy?”

Her face registered her scorn, but it was not personal, nor was it her principal emotion, far more urgent was the reason she had come. She chose not to quarrel with him. The reason she had come to him at all, defying the natural barrier between them, was a mark of how grave the matter was to her.

Her eyes narrowed. "Ere! W'os the matter wiv yer? Yer look diff rent. Yer don' remember me, do yer?”

Would she believe a lie? And did it matter?

She was staring at him. "W'y dyer leave the rozzers, then? D'yer get caught doin' sum mink as yer shouldn't a'?”

"No. I quarrelled with my supervisor.”

She gave a sharp laugh. "So mebbe yer 'aven't changed that much arter all! But yer don't look like yer used ter… 'arder, but not so cocky. Come down a bit, 'aven't yer!" It was a statement, not a question. "In't got the power yer used ter 'ave, not well yer was slingin' yer weight around Seven Dials afore.”

He said nothing.

She looked at him even more closely, leaning a fraction forward. She was a very handsome woman. There was a vitality in her which it was impossible to ignore.

"Wy don't yer remember me? Yer should!”

"I had an accident. I don't remember a lot of things.”

"Jeez!" She let out her breath slowly. "In't that the truth? Well I never…" She was too angry even to swear. "That's a turn up if yer like. So yer startin' over from the bottom." She gave a little laugh.

"No better'n the rest o' us, then. Well, I'll pay yer, if yer earns it.”

"I am better than the rest, Mrs. Hopgood," he said staring at her levelly. "I've forgotten a few things, a few people, but I haven't lost my brains, or my will. Why have you come to me?”

"We can get by… most of us," she replied levelly. "One way an' another. Least we could, until this started 'appinin'.”

"What started happening?”

"Rape, Mr. Monk," she answered, meeting his eyes unflinchingly and with an ice-hard anger.

He was startled. Of all the possibilities which had flickered through his mind, that had not been one of them.

"Rape?" He repeated the word with incredulity.

"Some o' our girls is getting' raped in the streets." Now there was nothing in her but hurt, a blind confusion because she did not see the enemy. For once she could not fight her own battle.

It could have been a ridiculous subject. She was not speaking of respectable women in some pleasant area, but sweatshop workers who eked out a living labouring around the clock, then going home to one room in a tenement, perhaps shared with half a dozen other people of all ages and both sexes. Crime and violence were a way of life with them. For her to have come to him, an ex-policeman, seeking to pay him to help her, she must be speaking of something quite outside the ordinary.

"Tell me about it," he said simply.

She had already broken the first barrier. This was the second. He was listening, there was no mockery and no laughter in his eyes.

"First orff I din't think no think to it," she began. "Jus' one woman lookin' a bit battered. "Appens. "Appens lots o' times. "Usband gets a bit drunker'n usual. We often gets women inter the shop wifa black eyes, or worse. Specially on a Monday. But then the whisper goes around she's been done more than that. Still I take no notice. In't nuffink ter do wif me if she's got a bad man. There's enough of 'em round.”

He did not interrupt. Her voice was tighter and there was pain in it.

"Then there were another woman, one 'oo's us band sick, too sick ter beater Then there's a third, an' by now I wanna know wot in 'ell's goin' on." She winced. "Some of 'em in't more'n children. Ter cut it short, Mr. Monk, these women is getting' raped an' beat up. I get's the 'ole story. I makes 'em come in an' sit down in me parlour, one by one, an' I get's it out of 'em. I'll tell you wot they tol' me.”

"You had better put it in order for me, Mrs. Hopgood. It will save time." "Course! Wot did you think I were gonna do? Tell it yer like they tol' me? We'd be 'ere all ruddy night. In't got all night, even if you 'as. I 'spec' yer charge by the hour. Mos' folks do.”

"I'll charge by the day. But only after I've taken the case… if I do.”

Her face hardened. "Wot yer want from me… more money?”

He saw the fear behind her defiance. For all her brashness and the show of bravado she put on to impress, she was frightened and hurt and angry. This was not one of the familiar troubles she had faced all her life, this was something she did not know how to deal with.

"No," he interrupted as she was about to go on. "I won't say I can help you if I can't. Tell me what you learned. I'm listening.”

She was partly mollified. She settled back into the chair again, rearranging her skirts slightly around her extremely handsome figure.

"Some of our respectable women's fallen on 'and times, and thinks they'd never sell their selves no matter wot!" she continued. "Thinks they'd starve before they'd go onter the streets. But it's surprisin' 'ow quick yer can change yer mind when yer kids is starvin' 'n sick.

Yer 'ears 'em cryin', cold an' 'ungry long enough, an' yer'd sell yerself ter the devil, if 'e paid yer in bread an' coal for the fire, or a blanket, or a pair o' boots. Martyrin' yerself is one thing, seein' yer kids die is diffrent.”

Monk did not argue. His knowledge of that was deeper than any individual memory, it was something of the flesh and bone.

"It began easy," she went on, her voice thick with disgust. "First just a bloke 'ere 'n there wot wouldn't pay. It 'appens. There's always cheats in life. In't much yer can do but cut yer losses.”

He nodded.

"I wouldn't 'a thought nuffink o' that," she shrugged, still watching him narrowly, judging his reactions. "Then one o' the women comes in all bruised an' bashed around, like she bin beat up proper. Like I said, at first I took it as 'er man 'ad beater Wouldn't 'a blamed 'er if she'd stuck 'im wifa shiv fer that. But she said as it'd bin two men wot'd bin customers. She'd picked 'em up in the street an' gone fera quick one in a dark alley, an' then they'd beater Took 'er by force, even though she were willin', like." She bit her full lip. "There's always them as likes ter be a bit rough, but this were real beatin'.

It in't the same, not jus' a few bruises, like, but real 'urt.”

He waited. He knew from her eyes that there was more. One rape of a prostitute was merely a misfortune. She must know as well as he did that ugly and unjust as it was, there was nothing that could be done about it.

"She weren't the only one," she went on again. "It 'appened again, not her woman, then another. It got worse each time. There's bin seven now, Mr. Monk, that I know of, an' the last one she were beat till she were senseless. "Er nose an' 'er jaw were broke an' she lorst five teeth. No one else don't care. The rozzers in't goin' ter 'elp. They reckon as women wot sells their selves deserves wot they get." Her body was clenched tight under the dark fabric. "But nobody don't deserve ter get beat like that. It in't safe fer 'em ter earn the extra bit wot they needs. We gotter find 'oo's doin' this, an' that's wot we need you fer, Mr. Monk. We'll pay yer.”

He sat without replying for several moments. If what she said was true, then he also suspected that a little natural justice was planned.

He had no objection to that. They both knew it was unlikely the police would take much action against a man who was raping prostitutes.

Society considered that a woman who sold her body had little or no rights to withdraw the goods on offer, or to object if she were treated like a commodity, not a person. She had voluntarily removed herself from the category of decent women. She was an affront to society by her mere existence. No one was going to exert themselves to protect a virtue which in their opinion did not exist.

The coals subsided in the hearth with a shower of sparks. It was beginning to rain outside.

And there were the uglier, dark emotions. The men who used such women despised them, and despised that part of themselves which needed them.

It was a vulnerability at best, at worst a shame. Or perhaps the worst was the fact that they had a weakness which these women were aware of.

For once they had lost the control they had in ordinary, daily life, and the very people they most despised were the ones who saw it and knew it in all its intimacy. Was a man ever so open to ridicule as when he paid a woman he regarded with contempt, for the use of her body to relieve the needs of his own? She saw him not only with his body naked, but part of his soul as well.

He would hate her for that. And he would certainly not care to be reminded of her existence, except when he could condemn her immorality, and say how much he desired to be rid of her and her kind. To labour to protect her from the foreseeable ills of her chosen trade was unthinkable.

The police would never seriously try to eradicate prostitution. Apart from the fact that it would be impossible, they knew their value, and that half respectable society would be horrified if-they were to succeed. They were like sewers, not to be discussed in the withdrawing room, or at all, for that matter but vital to the health and the order of society.

Monk felt a deep swell of the same anger that Vida Hopgood felt. And when he was angry he did not forgive.

"Yes," he said, staring at her levelly. "I'll take the case. Pay me enough to live on, and I'll do what I can to find the man… or men…

. who are doing this. I'll need to see the women. They must tell me the truth. I can't do anything on lies.”

There was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. She had won her first battle.

"I'll find him for you, if I can," he added. "I can't say the police will prosecute. You know as well as I do what the chances of that are.”

She gave an explosive laugh, full of derision.

"What you do after that is your own affair," he said, knowing what it could mean. "But I can't tell you anything until I'm sure.”

She drew breath to argue, then saw his face, and knew it would be pointless.

"I'll tell you nothing," he repeated, 'until I know. That's the bargain.”

She put out her hand.

He took it and she gripped him with extraordinary strength.

She waited in the room beside the fire while Monk changed his clothes to old ones, both because he would not soil those he valued, and for the very practical purpose of passing largely unnoticed in the areas to which he was going. Then he accompanied Vida Hopgood to Seven Dials.

She took him to her home, a surprisingly well-furnished set of rooms above the sweatshop where eighty-three women sat by gaslight, heads bent over their needles, backs aching, eyes straining to see. But at least it was dry, and it was warmer than the street outside where it was beginning to snow.

Vida also changed her clothes, leaving Monk in her parlour while she did so. Her husband was in the shop below, seeing no one slacked, talked to their neighbour or pocketed anything that was not theirs.

Monk stared around the room. It was over-furnished. There was hardly a space on the heavily patterned wallpaper which was not covered by a picture or a framed sampler of embroidery. Table surfaces were decorated with dried flowers, china ornaments, stuffed birds under glass, more pictures. But in spite of the crowding, and the predominance of red, the whole effect was one of comfort and even a kind of harmony. Whoever lived here cared about it. There had been happiness, a certain pride in it, not to show off or impress others, but for its own sake. There was something in Vida Hopgood which he could like. He wished he could remember their previous association. It was a burden to him that he could not, but he knew from too many attempts to trace other memories, more important ones, that the harder he sought, the more elusive they were, the more distorted. It was a disadvantage he had learned to live with most of the time, only on occasion was he sharply brought to realise its dangers when someone hated him, and he had no idea why. It was an unusual burden that did not afflict most people, not to know who your friends or enemies were.

Vida returned in plainer, shabbier clothes, and set straight about the business in hand. She may need to use the services of a policeman, but she had no intention of social ising with him. It was a temporary truce, and for all her humour, he was still the 'enemy'. She would not forget it, even if he might.

"I'll take yer ter see Nellie first," she said, patting her skirt and straightening her shoulders. "There in't no use yer goin' alone. She won't speak toyer if I don' teller ter. Can't blame 'er." She stared at him standing still in the comfortable room. "Well, come on then! I know it's rainin' but a bit o' water won't 'urt yer!”

Biting back his retort, he followed her out into the ice-swept street, and hurried to keep pace with her. She moved surprisingly rapidly, her boots tapping sharply on the cobbles, her back straight, her eyes ahead. She had given her orders and assumed that if he wanted to be paid, he would obey them.

She turned abruptly along an alley, head down into the flurries of snow, hand up instinctively to keep her hat on. Even here she was going to maintain her superior status by wearing a hat rather than a shawl to protect her from the elements. She stopped at one of the many doors and banged on it sharply. After several moments it was opened by a plump young woman with a pretty face when she smiled, showing gapped and stained teeth.

"I wanna see Nellie," Vida said bluntly. "Teller Mrs. "Opgood's 'ere.

I got Monk. She'll know 'oo I mean.”

Monk felt a stab of fear. That his name was so well known, even to this woman of the streets he had never heard of. He could not even recall having been to Seven Dials at all, let alone the faces of individual people. His disadvantage was acute.

The girl heard the tone of command in Vida's voice, and went off obediently to fetch Nellie. She did not invite them in, but left them standing in the freezing alley. Vida took the invitation as given and pushed the door open. Monk followed.

Inside was cold also, but mercifully out of the wind and now thickening snow. The walls were damp in the corridor, and smelled of mould, and from the pervading odour of excrement; the midden was not far away, and probably overflowing. Vida pushed on the second door, and it swung open into a room with a good-sized bed in it, rumpled and obviously lately used, but relatively clean, and with several blankets and quilts on it. Monk presumed it was a place of business as well as rest.

There was a young woman standing in the farther corner, waiting for them. Her face was marred by yellowing bruises and a severely cut brow, the scar of which was still healing and would never knit evenly.

Monk needed no other evidence to tell him the woman had been badly beaten. He could not imagine an accident likely to cause such harm.

"You tell this geezer 'ere wot 'appened toyer, Nellie," Vida ordered.

"E's a rozzer," Nellie said incredulously, looking at Monk with intense dislike.

"No 'e in't," Vida contradicted. "E used ter be. They threw 'im out.

Now 'e works fer 'ooever pays him. An' terday, we do. "E's goin' ter find 'oo's beatin the 'ell out o' the girls round 'ere, so we can put an end ter it.”

"Oh yeah?" Nellie said derisively. "An' owe gonna do that, eh? Wy should 'e care?”

"E probably don't care," Vida said sharply, impatient with Nellie's stupidity. "But 'e 'aster eat, same as the rest of us. "E'll do wot 'e's paid ter do. Wot we do with the bastard after 'e's foundim in't 'is business.”

Nellie still hesitated.

"Look, Nellie." Vida was fast losing her temper. "You may be one o' them daft bitches wot likes bein' beaten ter 'ell and back, Gawd knows!" She put her hands on her ample hips. "But do yer like bein' too scared to go out in the streets ter earn yerself a little extra, eh? Yer wanna live on wot yer get stitchin' shirts, do yer? That's enough for yer, is it?”

Grudgingly, Nellie saw the point. She turned to Monk, her face puckered with dislike.

"Tell me what happened, and where," Monk instructed her. "Start by telling me where you were, and what time it was, or as near as you know.”

"It were three weeks ago, but a day," she answered, sucking her broken tooth. "A Tuesday night. I were in Fetter Lane. I'd just said goodbye tera gentoo walked north again. I turned back ter come 'ome, an' I saw another gent, dressed in a good coat, 'cavy, an' wifa tall 'at on. "E looked like money, an' 'e were 'angin' around like 'e wanted someone. So I went up ter 'im an' spoke nice. Thinkin' like 'e might fancy me." She stopped, waiting for Monk's reaction.

"And did he?" he asked.

"Yeah. "E said 'e did. Only well 'e started, although I were willin', e' gets real rough an' starts knockin' me around. Afore I can let out a yell, there's another geezer there an' all. An' 'e lights in terme She touched her eye gingerly. "It me, 'e did. "It me real 'and. Bloody near knocked me out. Then 'e an' the first geezer 'olds me an' took me, one after the other. Then one o' them, by now I dunno which one, me 'ead's fair singin' an' I'm 'alf senseless wi' pain, 'e 'its me again an' knocks me teef aht. Laughin', they is, like madmen.

I tell yer, I were scared sick.”

Looking at her face it was only too easy to believe. She was white at the memory.

"Can you tell me anything about them?" Monk asked. "Anything at all, a smell, a voice, a feel of cloth?”

"Wot?”

"Smell," he repeated. "Can you remember any smell? They were close to you.”

"Like wot?" She looked puzzled.

"Anything. Think!" He tried not to sound sharp with her. Was she being intentionally stupid? "Men work in different places," he prompted. "Some with horses, some with leather, some with fish or wool or bales of hemp. Did you smell salt? Sweat? Whisky?”

She was silent.

"Well?" Vida snapped. "Think back! Wot's the matter with yer? Don't yer want these bastards found?”

"Yeah! I'm thinkin'," Nellie protested. "They didn't neither o' them smell o' none o' them things. One o' them smelled o' some drink, real strong, but it in't one I ever drunk. "Orrible, it were.”

"Cloth," Monk went on. "Did you feel the cloth of their clothes? Was it quality, or reworked? Thick or thin?”

"Warm," she said without hesitation, thinking of the only thing which would have mattered to her. "Wouldn't mind a coat like that me self Cost more'n I make in a month, an' then some.”

"Clean shaven, or bearded?”

"I didn't look!”

"Feel! You must have felt their faces. Think!”

"No beard. Clean shaven… I s'pose. Mebbe side whiskers." She gave a grunt of scorn. "Could o' bin any o' thousands!" Her voice was harsh with disillusion, as if for a moment she had hoped. "Yer in't never goin' ter find 'em. Yer a liar takin' 'er money, an' she's a fool fer givin' it yer!”

"You watch yer tongue, Nellie West!" Vida said sharply. "You in't so smart yer can get along on yer own, an' don't yer ferget it! Keep civil, if yer knows wot's good for yer.”

"What time of night was it?" Monk asked the last thing he thought would be any use from her.

"Why?" she sneered. "Narrers it down, does it? Know 'oo it is then, do yer?”

"It may help. But if you'd prefer to protect them, we'll ask elsewhere. I understand you are not the only woman to be beaten." He turned for the door, leaving Vida to come after him. He heard her swear at Nellie carefully and viciously, without repeating herself.

The second woman to whom Vida led him was very different. They met her trudging home aft era long day in the sweatshop. It was still snowing although the cobbles were too wet for it to lie. The woman was perhaps thirty-five, although from the stoop of her shoulders she could have been fifty. Her face was puffy and her skin pale, but she had pretty eyes and her hair had a thick, natural curl. With a little spirit, a little laughter, she would still be attractive. She stopped when she recognised Vida. Her expression was not fearful or unfriendly. It said much of Vida's character that as the wife of the sweatshop owner she could still command a certain friendship in such a woman.

"Ello, Betty," she said briskly. "This 'ere's Monk. "E's gonner 'elp us with them bastards wot've bin beatin' up women round 'ere.”

There was a flicker of hope in Betty's eyes so brief it could have been no more than imagined.

"Yeah?" she said without interest. "Then wot? The rozzers is gonna arrest 'em, an' the judge is gonna bang 'em up in the Coldbath Fields?

Or maybe they're goin' ter Newgate, an' the rope, eh?" She gave a dry, almost soundless laugh.

Vida fell into step beside her, leaving Monk to walk a couple of paces behind. They turned the corner, passing a gin mill with drunken women on the doorstep, insensible of the cold.

"Ow's Bert?" Vida asked.

"Drunk," Betty answered. "Ow else?”

"An' yer kids?”

"Billy 'as the croup, Maisie coughs sum mink terrible. Others is aright." They had reached her door and she went to push it open just as two small boys came running around the corner of the alley from the opposite direction, shouting and laughing. They both had sticks which they slashed around as if they were swords. One of them lunged and the other one yelled out, then crumpled up and pretended to be dying in agony, rolling around on the wet cobbles, his face alight with glee.

The other one hopped up and down, crowing his victory. Seemingly it was his turn, and he was going to savour every ounce of it.

Betty smiled patiently. The rags they wore, a mixture of hand-me-downs and clothes unpicked and re-stitched from others, could hardly get any filthier.

Monk found his shoulders relaxing a little at the sound of children's laughter. It was a touch of humanity in the grey drudgery around him.

Betty led the way into a tenement very like the one in which Nellie West lived. She apparently occupied two rooms at the back. A middle-aged man lay in a stupor half in a chair, half on the floor. She ignored him. The room was cluttered with the furniture of living, a lop-sided table, the stuffed chair in which the man lay, two wooden chairs, one with a patched seat, a whisk broom and half a dozen assorted rags. The sound of children's voices came through the thin walls from the other room, and someone coughing. The two boys were still fighting in the corridor.

Vida ignored them all, and concentrated on Betty.

"Tell 'im wot 'appened toyer." She jerked her head at Monk to indicate who she meant. The other man was apparently too deep in his stupor to be aware of them.

"In't nuffink much ter tell," Betty said resignedly. "I got beat. It still 'urts, but nobody can't do nothing about it. Thought o' carryin' a shiv me self but in't worth it. If I stick the bastards, I'll only get topped fer murder. Anyway, don't s'pose they'll come 'ere again.”

"Yeah?" Vida said, her voice thick with derision. "Count on that, would yer? Don' mind goin' out in the streets again, takin' yer chances? "Appy about that, are yer? Yer din't 'ear wot 'appened ter Nellie West, nor Carrie Barker, nor Dot Mac Rae Nor them others wot got raped or beat? Some o' them's only kids. They damn near killed "Etty Drover, poor little cow.”

Bettie looked shaken. "I thought that were 'er man wot done that? "E drinks rotten, an' 'e don' know wot 'e does, 'alf the time." She glanced towards the recumbent figure in the corner, and Monk guessed she was only too familiar with the predicament.

"No, it weren' tim Vida said bleakly. "George in't that bad. "E's all wind an' water. "E don' really doer that bad. Shejus likes ter mouth orff. It were a geezer she picked up, an' 'e punched 'er sum mink rotten, an' then kicked 'er, after 'e took 'er. She's all tore, an' still bleedin'. Yer sure yer 'appy ter go out there lookin', are yer?”

Betty stared at her. "Then I'll stay 'ome," she said between clenched teeth. "Or I'll go up the "Aymarket!”

"Don't be a bloody fool!" Vida spat back contemptuously. "You in't "Aymarket quality, an yer knows it. Nor'd they let yer jus' wander up there an' butt in, an' yer knows that too.”

"Then I'll 'ave ter stay 'ome an' make do, won't I?" Betty retaliated, her cheeks a dull pink.

Vida stared at the sleeping man in the corner, unutterable scorn in her face. "An' 'e's gonna feed yer kids, is 'e? Grow up, Betty. Yer'll be out there again, rape or no rape, an' yer knows it as well as I do. Answer Monk's questions. We're gonna get these sods. Work together an' we can!”

Betty was too tired to argue. Just this moment, Vida was a worse threat than hunger or violence. She turned to Monk resignedly.

He asked her the same questions he had asked Nellie West, and received roughly the same answers. She had been out in the street to earn a little extra money. It had been a thin week for her husband, she referred to him loosely by that term. He had tried hard, but because of the weather there was nothing. Winters were always hard, especially at the fish market where he often picked up a little work. They had had a fight, over nothing in particular. He had hit her, blackening her eye and pulling out a handful of her hair. She had hit him over the head with an empty gin bottle, knocking him out. It had broken, and she had cut her hand picking up the pieces before the children could tread on them and cut their feet.

It was after that that she had gone to look for a spot of trade to make up the money. She had earned seventeen and sixpence, quite a tidy sum, and was looking to improve on it, when three men had approached her, two from in front, one from behind, and after no more than a few moments' verbal abuse, one of them had held her while the other two had raped her, one after the other. She left badly bruised, one shoulder wrenched and her knees and elbows grazed and bleeding. She had been too frightened to go out again for three weeks after that, or even to allow George anywhere near her. In fact the thought of going out again made her nearly sick with fear although hunger drove her past the door eventually.

Monk questioned her closely for anything she could remember of them.

They had abused her verbally. What were their voices like?

"They spoke proper… like gents. Weren't from around 'ere!" There was no doubt in her at all.

"Old or young?”

"Dunno. Din't see. Can't tell from a voice.”

"Clean shaven or bearded?”

"Clean… I think! Don' remember no whiskers. Least… I don' think so.”

"What kind of clothes?”

"Dunno.”

"Do you remember anything else? A smell, words, a name, anything at all?”

"Dunno." Her eyes clouded. "Smell? Wot yer mean? They din't smell o' nuffink!”

"No drink?”

"Not as I can think of. No… din't smell o' nuffink at all.”

"Not soap?" Then instantly he wished he had not said it. He was putting the suggestion into her mind.

"Soap? Yeah, I s'pose so. Funny, like… diff rent.”

Did she know what cleanliness smelled like? Perhaps it would be odd to her, an absence rather than a presence. It did not tell him anything more than Nellie West had, but it reinforced the same picture: two or three men coming into the area from somewhere else, and becoming increasingly violent in their appetites. They apparently knew enough to pick on the women alone, not the professional prostitutes who might have pimps to protect them, but the amateurs, the women who only took to the streets occasionally, in times of need.

It was dark when they left, and the snow was beginning to lie. The few unbroken streetlamps reflected glittering shards of light on the running gutters. But Vida had no intention of stopping. This was when they would find the women at home, and apart from the fact that they might not speak in the company of their colleagues, she was not going to lose good work time by asking the questions when they should be un picking or cutting or stitching. The practicalities must be observed. Also it crossed Monk's mind that perhaps Mr. Hopgood was not aware of her campaign, and that indirectly he was paying for it. He might very well not feel as personally about the issue as she did.

Monk caught up with her as she strode purposefully around the corner into another one of the multitudinous alleyways of Seven Dials, crossed a courtyard with a well and pump in it. A drunk lounged in one doorway, a couple kissed in another, the girl giggling happily, the youth whispering something inaudible to her. Monk wondered at their absorption in each other that they seemed oblivious of the wind and the snow.

Behind a lighted window someone raised a jug of ale, and candlelight fell on a woman's bright hair. The sound of laughter was quick and clear. Past them and across a main thoroughfare an old woman was selling sandwiches and a running patterer finished up his tale of lust and mayhem and began to jog along the pavement to another, warmer spot to entertain a new crowd with stories, news and general invention.

The next victim of violence was Carrie Barker. She was almost sixteen, the eldest of a family whose parents were both missing or dead. She looked after six younger brothers and sisters, earning what she could one way or another. Monk did not enquire. They sat in one large room all together while she told Vida what had happened to her in a breathless voice which whistled through a broken front tooth. One sister, about a year and a half younger, nursed her left arm in front of her, as if her chest and stomach hurt her, and she listened to all Carrie said, nodding her head now and then.

In the dim light of one candle, Vida's face was a mask of fury and compassion, her wide mouth set, her eyes brilliant.

It was very much the same story. The two eldest girls had been out, earning a little extra money. It was obviously the way the next girl, now almost ten, would also feed and clothe herself, and her younger siblings, in a year or less. Now she was busy nursing a child of about two or three, rocking him back and forwards absently as she listened.

These two children were not visibly hurt as badly as the older women Monk had seen, but their fear was deeper, and perhaps their need of the money greater. There were seven to feed, and no one else to care. Monk found the anger so deep in his soul, that whether Vida Hopgood paid him or not, he had every intention of finding the men who had done this, and seeing them dealt with as harshly as the law allowed. And if the law did not care, then there would be others who would.

He questioned them carefully and gently, but on every detail. What could they remember? Where did it happen? What time? Was anything said? What about voices? What were they wearing? Feel of fabric, feel of skin, bearded or shaven? What did they smell like, drunken or sober, salt, tar, fish, rope, soot? She looked blank. All her answers confirmed the previous stories, but added nothing. All either of them clearly recalled now was the pain and the overriding terror, the smell of the wet street, the open gutter down the middle, the feel of cobbles hard in their backs, the red-hot pain, first inside their bodies, then outside, bruising, pummelling. Then afterwards they had lain in the dark as the cold ate into them, and at last there had been voices, they had been lifted, and there had been the slow return of sensation and more pain.

Now they were hungry, there was hardly any food left, no coal or even wood, and they were too frightened to go out, but the time was coming when they would have to, or starve inside. Monk fished in his pocket and left two coins on the table, saying nothing, but seeing their eyes go to them.

"Well?" Vida demanded when they were out on the street again, facing into the wind, heads down. There was a thin rime of ice on the stones and the snow was lying over it. It looked eerie in the gloom, reflecting back the distant streetlamps with a pale blur against the black of the roofs and walls and the dense, lightless sky. It was slippery and dangerous underfoot.

Monk shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and hunched his coat around him. His body was rigid with anger, and it was making him even colder.

"Two or three men are beating and raping working women," he answered bitterly. "They're not local men, but they could be from anywhere else. They're not labourers, but they could be clerks, shopkeepers, traders or gentlemen. They could be soldiers on leave or sailors ashore. They didn't even have to be the same men each time, although they probably are.”

"Fat lot o' use that is!" she spat at him. "We bloody know that much!

I in't paying yer ter tell me wot me own sense can see! I thought you were supposed to be the best rozzer in the force! Leastways you always acted like you was!" Her voice was high and sharp with not only disgust, but fear. The emotion had torn through her. She had trusted him, and he had let her down. She had nowhere else to turn.

"Did you expect me to solve it tonight?" he asked sarcastically. "One evening, and I'm supposed to come up with names or proof? You don't want a detective, you want a magician.”

She stopped and faced him. For a moment she was about to come back with something equally vicious. It was instinct to fight back. Then reality asserted itself. Her body sagged. He could only see the outline of it in the dim light and the falling snow. They were twenty yards from the nearest lamp.

"Can yer 'elp or not, Monk? I in't got no timeter play games with yer.”

An old man shuffled past them carrying a sack, muttering to himself.

"I think so," Monk answered her. "They didn't materialise out of the ground. They came here somehow, probably a hansom. They hung around before they attacked these women. They may have had a drink or two.

Somebody saw them. Somebody drove them here, and drove them away again. There were either two or three of them. Men looking for women don't usually go around in twos and threes. Someone will remember.”

"An yer'll make 'em talk," she said with a downwards fall in her voice, as if memory was bitter, and there was pain and regret in it.

How did she know so much about him? Was it all repute, and if so, of what? They were in the borders of his area, when he had been on the force. Or had they known each other well before, better than she had implied? Another case, another time. What was it she knew of him, and he did not know of himself? She knew he was clever, and ruthless…

and she did not like him, but she respected his ability. In a perverse way she trusted him. And she believed he could work in Seven Dials.

Far more than if she had been some decent, wealthy woman, he wanted to succeed for her. It was mainly because of the rage in him against the brutality of these men, the injustice of it all, their lives, and the lives of these women; but it was also pride. He would show her he was still the man he had been in the past. He had lost none of his skills… only memory! Everything else was the same, even better! Runcorn might not know that…

The thought of Runcorn brought him up sharply. Runcorn had been his superior, but never felt it. He was always aware of Monk treading on his heels, Monk being better dressed, quick witted, sharper tongued, Monk always waiting to catch him out!

Was that memory speaking to him, or only what he had deduced from Runcorn's attitude after the accident?

This was Runcorn's area. When he had the evidence it would be Runcorn he would have to take it to.

"Yes… he said aloud. "It might be hard to find where they come from… but easier to find where they went. They'd be dirty, after rolling on the cobbles with the women, fighting. One or two of them might have been marked. Those women fought… enough at least to scratch or bite." His mind was picturing shadowy figures only, but some things he knew. "They'd be elated, touched with both victory and fear. They'd done a monstrous thing. Some echo of that would be there in their manner. Some cabby, somewhere, will have noticed. He would know where he took them, because it would be out of the area.”

"Said you was a clever sod," she let out her breath in a sigh of relief. "Nah there's one more fer yer ter see. Dot Mac Rae She's married legal, but 'er us band useless. Consumptive, poor devil. Can't do nothin'. Coughin' 'is lungs up. She gotta work, an' shirt stitchin' don't do it.”

Monk did not argue, nor did he need it explaining to him. Somewhere in his memory was burned such knowledge. He walked beside her in the thickening snow. Other people were hurrying by, heads down, occasionally calling out a greeting or even a joke. Two men staggered out of a public house, supporting each other as far as the gutter, then collapsed, cursing, but without anger. A beggar wrapped his coat tighter around himself and settled down in a doorway. Within moments another joined him. Together they would be warmer than separately.

Dot Mac Rae told them essentially what they had already heard. She was older than the others, maybe forty, but still handsome. Her face had character and there was courage in her eyes. There was also a helpless anger. She was trapped and she knew it. She did not expect either help or pity. She told Monk quite simply what had happened some two and a half weeks ago when she had been attacked by two men approaching her from opposite sides of a courtyard. Yes, she had been quite certain it had been only two men. One of them had held her down while the other had raped her, then when she had fought back, they had both beaten and kicked her, leaving her almost senseless on the ground.

She had been found and helped home by Percy, a beggar who frequently slept in a doorway in the area. He had seen there was something badly wrong, and done all he could to assist her. He had wanted to report it to someone, but who was there? Who cared about a woman who sold her body being beaten a little, or taken by force?

Vida did not comment, but again her feeling was evident in her face.

Monk asked questions about time and place, anything Dot could remember which would differentiate these men from any others.

She had not seen them clearly, they had been no more than shapes, weight, pain in the darkness. She had been aware of an overwhelming sense of rage in them, and then afterwards excitement, even elation.

Monk walked away through the snow so blind with anger he was almost oblivious of being cold. He had left Vida Hopgood at the corner of her street, and then turned to leave Seven Dials and head back towards the open thoroughfares, the lights and the traffic of the main areas of the city. Later he would find a hansom and ride the rest of the way to his rooms in Grafton Street. Now he needed to think, and to feel the quick exercise of muscles, pour his energy into movement, and smart under the sting of ice on his face.

This helpless rage at injustice was familiar. It was an old pain, dating far back before the accident, into the times he only caught glimpses of when some emotion, or some half-caught sight or smell, carried him back. He knew the real source of it. The man who had been his guide and mentor when he had newly come south from Northumberland, bound to make his fortune in London, the man who had taken him in, taught him so much not only about merchant banking and the uses of money, but about cultured life, about society and how to be a gentleman, he had been ruined by injustice. Monk had done everything he could to help him, and it had not been enough. He had suffered that same feeling of frustration then, of pacing the streets racking his brain for ideas, of believing the answer was beyond his reach, but only just.

He had learned a lot since then. His character had become harder, his mind faster, more agile, more patient to wait his chance, less tolerant of stupidity, less afraid of either success or failure.

The snow was settling on his collar and seeping down his neck. He was shuddering with cold. Other people were dim forms in the gloom. In the streets the gutters were running over. He could smell the stench of middens and sour drains.

There was a pattern in these rapes. The violence was the same… and always unnecessary. They were not seeking unwilling women.

God help them, they were only too willing. These were not professional prostitutes. They were desperate women who worked honestly when they could, and went to do the streets only when hunger drove them.

Why not the professional prostitutes? Because they had men who looked after them. They were merchandise, too valuable to risk. If anyone was going to beat them, disfigure them, reduce their value, it would be the pimps, the 'owners', and it would be for a specific reason, probably punishment for thieving, for individual enterprise instead of returning their takings to their masters.

He had already ruled out a rival trying to take over a territory. These women did not share their takings with anyone. They certainly did not threaten any regular prostitute's living. Anyway, a pimp would beat, but he would not rape. This had none of the marks of an underworld crime. There was no profit in it. People who lived on the edge of survival did not waste energy and resources on pointless violence time after time.

He turned a corner and the wind was bitter and stung his skin, making his eyes water. He wanted to go home, weigh what he had heard and plan a strategy. But these crimes had happened at night. Night was the time when he should look for other witnesses, cab drivers who had picked up fares and taken them from the edge of Seven Dials back westwards. It was less than honest to go to his own warm rooms, hot food and clean bed, and tell himself he was trying to find the man who had done these senseless and bestial things.

He stopped off at a public house and had a hot pie and a glass of stout and felt at least fortified, if not comforted. He thought of scraping a conversation with some of the other patrons, or with the landlord, and decided against it. He did not yet want to be known as an agent of enquiry. Word would spread rapidly enough. Let Vida do the more obvious asking. She belonged here and would be respected, probably even told the truth.

He worked until long after midnight, trudging the streets on the edges of Seven Dials, generally to the west and north, towards Oxford Street and Regent Street, speaking to cabby after cabby, always asking the same questions. The very last was typical of them all.

"Where to, guy?”

"Home… Fitzroy Street," Monk replied, still standing on the pavement.

"Right.”

"Often work this patch?”

"Yeah, why?”

"Sorry to take you so far out of your way." He put his foot on the step, taking his time.

The cabby gave a sharp laugh. "That's wot I'm 'ere fer. Jus' round the corner in't no good terme.”

"Take a few trips north and west, do you?”

"Some. Are yer getting' in or not?”

"Yes," Monk answered, without doing so. "Do you remember taking a couple of gentlemen from this area, probably about this time of night, or later, who were a bit roughed up, maybe wet, maybe scratched or bruised, back up west?”

"Why? Wot's it toyer if I did? I take lots o' gents ter lots o' places. "Ere, 'oo are yer, an' wy dyer wanna know fer?”

"Some of the local women around here have been beaten, pretty badly,”

Monk replied. "And I think it was by men from somewhere else, probably west, well-dressed men, who came down here for a little sport, and took it too far. I'd like to find them.”

"Would yer!" The cabby was hesitating, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of co-operation. "W'y? Them women belong toyer, do they?”

"I'm bein' paid for it," Monk said honestly. "It's worth it to someone to have it stopped.”

"Oo? Some pimp? Look, I in't standin' 'ere all night answering damn silly questions for yer, less you pays, right?”

Monk fished in his pocket and brought out half a crown. He held it where the cabby could see it, but did not yet offer it.

"For Vida Hopgood, whose husband owns the shop where they work. She doesn't approve of rape. I take it you don't care?”

The cabby swore, his voice angry. "Oo the 'ell are you ter tell me I don' care, yer bleedin' toff from up west yerself? Them bastards come down 'ere an' took a woman, an' used 'er like dirt, then go ridin' back 'ome like they'd bin on a day's outin' in the city!" He spat with terse contempt.

Monk handed him the half-crown and he bit it automatically.

"So where did you pick them up, and where did you take them?" Monk asked.

"Pick 'em up Brick Lane," the cabby replied. "An' took 'em up ter Portman Square. "Nother time took 'em ter Eaton Square. Don't mean ter say that's where they lives. You in't got a cat in 'ell's chance o' finding 'em. And wot if yer do? "Oo dyer thinks gonna believe some poor bitch from Seven Dials agin' a toff from up west? They'll say she's sellin' 'erself, so wot's wrong if 'e's a bit rough? "E's bought and paid for it, in't 'e? They don't give decent women much of a chance wot's bin raped. Wot chance 'as an 'ore got?”

"Not much," Monk said miserably. "But there are other ways, if the law will do nothing.”

"Yeah?" The cabby's voice lifted in a moment's hope. "Like wot? Top the bastard yerself? Yer'd only get strung up for it, in the end.

Rozzers'll never let murder of a gent go. They won't upset their selves too much over it if some 'ore from down 'ere gets bashed over the 'ead, an' dies of it. "Appens all the time. But let some gent get a shiv in 'is gut an' all 'ell'll get loose. There'll be rozzers up an' dahn every street. I tell yer, it in't worth it. We'll all pay, mark my words.”

"I was thinking of something a little subtler," Monk replied with a tight, wolfish smile.

"Yeah? Like wot?" But the cabby was listening now, leaning sideways over his box, peering at Monk in the lamplight through the snow.

"Like making sure everyone knows about it," Monk replied. "Making it a news item, with details.”

"They don't care!" The cabby's disappointment was palpable. "Is friends'll all think it's clever. Wot's one 'ore ter them?”

"His friends might not care," Monk replied savagely. "But his wife will! His parents-in-law will, especially his mother-in-law!”

The cabby blasphemed under his breath.

"And maybe his investors, or his society friends' wives, the mothers of the girls his sons hope to marry, or of the men his daughters do," Monk continued.

"Or'right! Or'right!" the cabby snapped. "I un' understand yer. Wot yer wanna know? I don' know 'oo they was. I wouldn't know 'em now if yer marched 'em in front o' me. But then I don' s'pose I'd know you temorrer, an' these geezers kep' their faces away. I jus' thought it were cos they fancied they were too good ter talk ter the likes o' me.

Jus' give orders…”

"What orders?" Monk said quickly.

"Drive 'em north an' drop 'em in Portman Square. They said they'd walk 'ome from there. Careful sods, eh? I din' think nothin' of it then.

They don't even 'ave ter live near Portman Square. Could've got another 'ansom from there ter were ver they lives. Could be any place.”

"It's a start.”

"Go on! Even the bleedin' rozzers couldn't find 'em from that!”

"Maybe, but they've been here a dozen times or more. There'll be a common factor somewhere, and if there is, I'll find it," Monk said in a low, bitter voice. "I'll ask all the other cabbies, people on the street, and there are plenty of those. Someone saw them, someone will know. They'll make a mistake. They will already have made one, maybe several.”

The cabby shivered, and it was only partly the snow. He looked at Monk's face.

"Like a bleedin' wolf, you are. I'm ruddy glad you in't after me Now if you wanna go 'ome, get in me cab and get on with it. If yer plan on standin' 'ere all night, yer'll do it wivout me, or me 'orse, poor critter!”

Monk climbed in and sat down, too cold to relax, and was jolted steadily towards Fitzroy Street, and a warm bed.

The following morning he woke aching, his head throbbing. He was in a foul mood, and he had no right to be. He had a home, food, clothing and a kind of safety. He hurt only because he had slept with his body still knotted with the anger he felt over what he had heard.

He shaved and dressed, ate breakfast, and went to the police station where he used to work, before he had finally and irrevocably quarrelled with Runcorn, and been obliged to leave. It had not been so long ago, roughly two years. He was still remembered with clarity, and very mixed emotions. There were those who were afraid of him, still half expecting some criticism or jibe at the quality of their work, their dedication or their intelligence. Sometimes it had been just, too often it had not.

He wanted to catch John Evan before he went out on whatever case concerned him now. Evan was the one friend Monk could count on. He had come to the station after the accident. They had worked together on the Grey case, unravelling it step by step, and at the same time exposing Monk's own fears, and his terrible vulnerability, and in the end the truth which could now be thought of only with a shudder, and a dark shadow of guilt. Evan knew him as well as anyone, except Hester.

That thought surprised him by its sharpness. He had not intended to allow Hester into his mind. That relationship was entirely different.

Most of it had been brought about by circumstances rather than inclination. She was supremely irritating at times. As well as her skill, her intelligence and undoubtedly her courage, there was so much that he found intensely annoying. Anyway, she was not involved in this case. He had no need to think about her now. He should find Evan.

This was important and most urgent. It could happen again. Another woman could be beaten and raped, perhaps murdered this time. There was a pattern in the crimes. They had become steadily more violent.

Perhaps they would not end until one of the women was dead, or more than one.

Evan saw him immediately, sitting in his small office, little more than a large cupboard, big enough for a stack of drawers and two hard-backed chairs and a tiny table for writing on. Evan himself looked tired.

There were shadows under his hazel eyes and his hair was longer than usual, flopping forward in a heavy, fair brown wave.

Monk came straight to the point. He knew better than to waste a policeman's time.

"I've got a case in Seven Dials," he began. "The edge of that's your area. You might know something about it, and I might be able to help.”

"Seven Dials?" Evan's eyebrows rose. "What is it? Who in Seven Dials calls in a private agent? For that matter who has anything to steal?”

There was no unkindness in his face, just a weary knowledge of how things were.

"Not theft," Monk replied. "Rape, and then unnecessary violence, beatings.”

Evan winced. "Domestic? Don't suppose we can touch that. How could anybody prove it? It's hard enough to prove rape in a decent suburban area. You know as well as I do, society tends to think that if a woman gets raped, then she must somehow have deserved it. People don't want to think it happens to the innocent… that way it won't happen to them.”

"Yes, of course I know that!" Monk's temper was short and his head still throbbed. "But whether a woman deserves to be raped or not, she doesn't deserve to be beaten, to have her teeth knocked out or her ribs broken. She doesn't deserve to be knocked to the ground by two men at once, then punched and kicked.”

Evan flinched as if he had seen it as Monk described. "No, of course she doesn't," he agreed, looking at Monk steadily. "But violence, theft, hunger and cold are part of life in a score of areas across London, along with filth and disease. You know that as well as I do.

St. Giles, Aldgate, Seven Dials, Bermondsey, Friar's Mount, Bluegate Fields, the Devil's Acre, and a dozen others. You didn't answer my question… was it domestic?”

"No. It was men from outside the area, well-bred, well-off men, coming into Seven Dials for a little sport." He heard the anger in his voice as he said it, and saw it mirrored in Evan's face.

"What evidence have you?" Evan asked, watching him carefully. "Any chance at all of ever finding them, let alone proving it was them, and that it was a crime, not simply the indulgence of a particularly disgusting appetite?”

Monk drew breath to say that of course he had, and then let it out in a sigh. All he had was word of mouth from women no court would believe, even if they could be persuaded to testify, and that in itself was dubious.

"I'm sorry," Evan said quietly, his face tight and bleak with regret.

"It isn't worth pressing. Even if we found them, there'd be nothing we could do. It's sickening, but you know it as well as I do.”

Monk wanted to shout, to swear over and over until he ran out of words, but it would achieve nothing, and only make his own weakness the more apparent.

Evan looked at him with understanding.

"I've got a miserable case myself.”

Monk was not interested, but friendship compelled him to pretend he was. Evan deserved at least that much of him, probably more.

"Have you? What is it?”

"Murder and assault in St. Giles. Poor devil might have been better if he'd been murdered too, instead of left beaten to within an inch of his life, and now so badly shocked or terrified he can't speak… at all.”

"St. Giles?" Monk was surprised. It was another area no better than Seven Dials, and only a few thousand yards away, if that. "Why are you bothering with it?" he asked wryly. "What chance have you of solving that either?”

Evan shrugged. "I don't know… probably not much. But I have to try, because the dead man was from Ebury Street, considerable money and social standing.”

Monk raised his eyebrows. "What the devil was he doing in St.

Giles?”

"They," Evan corrected. "So far I have very little idea. The widow doesn't know… and probably doesn't want to, poor woman. I have nothing to follow, except the obvious. He went to satisfy some appetite, either for women, or other excitement, which he couldn't at home.”

"And the one still alive?" Monk asked.

"His son. It appeared they had something of a quarrel, or at least a heated disagreement, before the son left, and then the father went after him.”

"Ugly," Monk said succinctly. He stood up. "If I get any ideas, I'll tell you. But I doubt I will.”

Evan smiled resignedly, and picked up the pen again to resume what he had been writing when Monk came in.

Monk left without looking to right or left. He did not want to bump into Runcorn. He was feeling angry and frustrated enough. The last thing he desired was a past superior with a grudge, and now all the advantages. He must return to Seven Dials, and Vida Hopgood and her women. There was going to be no help from outside. Whatever was done, it rested with him alone.