AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vida returned in plainer, shabbier clothes and set straight about the business in hand. She had no intention of socializing with him. It was a temporary truce, and for all her humor, as a former policeman 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 to yer if I don’ tell ’er ter. Can’t blame ’er.” She stared at him standing still in the comfortable room. “Well, come on then! I know it’s snowin’ 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 there 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. “Tell ’er 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 mold, and from the pervading odor 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 to yer, 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 ’ow’s ’e gonna do that, eh? W’y should ’e care?”
“ ’E probably don’t care,” Vida said sharply, impatient with Nellie’s stupidity. “But ’e ’as ter eat, same as the rest of us. ’E’ll do wot ’e’s paid ter do. Wot we do with the bastard after ’e finds ’im 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 good-bye ter a gent ’oo’d walked north again. I turned back ter come ’ome, an’ I saw another gent, dressed in a good coat, ’eavy, an’ wif a 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 w’en ’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 inter me.” She touched her eye gingerly. “ ’It me, ’e did. ’It me real ’ard. Bloody near knocked me out. Then ’e an’ the first geezer ’olds me an’ takes 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 s
he 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? Whiskey?”
She was silent.
“Well?” Vida snapped. “Think back! Wot’s the matter with yer? Don’t yer want these bastards found?”
