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Evan did not bother to give a reply. The suggestion was not worthy of one.
They crossed George Street. The snow was falling faster, settling white on some of the roofs, but the pavements were still wet and black, showing broken reflections of the gaslights and the carriage lamps as the horses passed by at a brisk trot, eager to get home.
“Maybe they don’t recognize them because we are asking the wrong questions,” Evan mused, half to himself.
“Yeah?” Shotts kept pace with him easily. “What are the right ones, then?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps Rhys went there with friends his own age. After all, one doesn’t usually go whoring with one’s father. Maybe that is what put people off, the older man.”
“Mebbe,” Shotts said doubtfully. “Want me ter try?”
“Yes … unless you can think of something better. I’m going to the station. It’s time I reported to Mr. Runcorn.”
Shotts grinned. “Sooner you’n me, sir. ’E won’t be ’appy. I’ll get summink ter eat, then I’ll go an’ try again.”
Runcorn was a tall, well-built man with a lean face and very steady blue eyes. His nose was long and his cheeks a little hollow, but in his youth he had been good-looking, and now he was an imposing figure. He could have been even more so, had he the confidence to bear himself with greater ease. He sat in his office behind his large leather-inlaid desk and surveyed Evan with wariness.
“Well?”
“The Leighton Duff case, sir,” Evan replied, still standing. “I am afraid we do not seem to be progressing. We can find no one in St. Giles who ever saw either of the two men before—”
“Or will admit to it,” Runcorn agreed.
“Shotts believes them,” Evan said defensively, aware that Runcorn thought he was too soft. It was partly his vague, unspecific anger at a young man of Evan’s background choosing to come into the police force. He could not understand it. Evan was a gentleman, something Runcorn both admired and resented. He could have chosen all sorts of occupations if he had not the brains or the inclination to go to university and follow one of the professions. If he needed to make his living, then he could quite easily have gone into a bank or a trading house of some description.
Evan had not explained to Runcorn that a country parson with an ailing wife and several daughters to marry off could not afford expensive tuition for his only son. One did not discuss such things. Anyway, the police force interested him. He had begun idealistically. He had not a suit of armor or a white horse, he had a quick mind and good brown boots. Some of the romance had gone, but the energy and the desire had not. He had that much at least in common with Monk.
“Does he?” Runcorn said grimly. “Then you’d better get back to the family. Widow, and the son who was there and can’t speak, that right?”
“Yes sir.”
“What’s she like, the widow?” Runcorn’s eyes opened wider. “Could it be a conspiracy of some sort? Son got in the way, perhaps? Wasn’t meant to be there and had to be silenced?”
“Conspiracy?” Evan was astonished. “Between whom?”
“That’s for you to find out,” Runcorn said testily. “Use your imagination. Is she handsome?”
“Yes … very, in an unusual sort of way …”
“What do you mean, unusual? What’s wrong with her? How old is she? How old was he?”
Evan found himself resenting the implications.
“She’s very dark, sort of Spanish looking. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s just … unusual.”
“How old?” Runcorn repeated.
“About forty, I should think.” The thought had never occurred to him until Runcorn had mentioned it, but it should have. It was obvious enough, now that it was there. The whole crime might have nothing to do with St. Giles, which might have been no more than a suitable place. It could as easily have been any other slum, any alley or yard in a dozen such areas, just somewhere to leave a body where it would be believed to be an attack by ruffians. It was sickening. Of course, Rhys was never meant to have been there; his presence was mischance. Leighton Duff had followed him and been caught up with … but that did not need to be true either. He had only Sylvestra’s word for that. The two men could have gone out at any time, separately or together, for any reason. He must consider it independently before he accepted it to be the truth. Now he was angry with himself. Monk would never have made such an elementary mistake.
Runcorn let out his breath in a sigh. “You should have thought of that, Evan,” he said. “You think everybody who speaks well belongs in your country vicarage.”
Evan opened his mouth and then closed it again. Runcorn’s remark was unfair, but it sprang not from fact, or not primarily, but from his own complex feelings about gentlemen and about Evan himself. At least some of it stemmed from Runcorn’s long relationship with Monk and the rivalry between them, the years of unease, of accumulated offenses which Monk could not remember and Runcorn never forgot. Evan did not know the origin of it, but he had seen the clash of ideals and natures when he first came, after Monk’s accident, and he had been there when the final and blazing quarrel had severed the tie and Monk had found himself out of the police force. Like every other man in the station, he was aware of the emotions. He had been Monk’s friend, therefore he could never truly be trusted by Runcorn, and never liked without there always being a reservation.
“So what have you got?” Runcorn asked abruptly. Evan’s silence bothered him. He did not understand him; he did not know what he was thinking.
“Very little,” Evan answered ruefully. “Leighton Duff died somewhere about three in the morning, according to Dr. Riley. Could have been earlier or later. He was beaten and kicked to death, no weapon used except fists and boots. Young Rhys Duff was almost as badly beaten, but he survived.”
“I know that! Evidence, man!” Runcorn said impatiently, curling his fist on the desktop. “What evidence have you? Facts, objects, statements, witnesses who can be believed.”
