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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 principle emotion, far more urgent was the re
ason 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 d’yer leave the rozzers, then? D’yer get caught doin’ summink as yer shouldn’t ’a?”
“No. I quarreled 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 w’en 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 was impossible to ignore.
“W’y 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 gettin’ 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 of sweatshop workers who eked out a living laboring 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 nothink 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 wif a black eye, 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 ’usband’s sick, too sick ter beat ’er. 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 gettin’ raped an’ beat up. I gets the ’ole story. I makes ’em come in an sit down in me parlor, one by one, an’ I gets 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?”
