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“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’ight. Or’ight,” the cabby said. “I un’erstand 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 di’n think nothin’ of it then. They don’t even ’ave ter live near Portman Square. Could’ve got another ’ansom from there ter w’erever they lives. Could be anyplace.”
“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 plannin’ 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 quarreled 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, unraveling it step by step, 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. Beyond 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. That 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. 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.
