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“That’s unfair,” Evan replied, staring back at Monk with equal anger. “We have only so much time, so many men, which you know as well as I do. And even if we find them, what good would it do? Who’s going to prosecute them? It will never get to court, and you know that too.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What are you hoping for, Monk? Private vengeance? You’d better be damned sure you are right.”
“I shall be,” Monk said between his teeth. “I shall have the proof before I act.”
“And then what—murder?” Evan demanded. “You have no right to take the law into your own hands or to put it in the hands of men you know will take it for themselves. The law belongs to all of us, or we are none of us safe.”
“Safe!” Monk exploded. “Tell that to the women in Seven Dials! You’re talking about theory … I’m dealing with fact!”
Evan stood his ground. “If you find these men and tell whoever has hired you, and they commit murder, that will be fact enough.”
“So what is your alternative?” Monk said.
“I haven’t one,” Evan admitted. “I don’t know.”
6
As he had told Evan, Monk was having peripheral success in finding the men responsible for the rapes and violence in Seven Dials. He was still not sure if there were generally three or only two. No cabby could reliably describe three men at any one time. Everything that was said was imprecise, vague, little more than an impression: hunched figures in the fog and cold of the winter night, voices in the darkness, orders given for a destination, shadows moving in and out, a sudden shift in weight in the cab. One driver was almost certain that a third person had got out at an intersection where he had been obliged to stop because of the traffic.
Another had said one of his fares had been limping badly. One had been wet as though he had rolled in a gutter or fallen in a water butt. One, caught briefly in the coachlight, had had a bloody face.
There was nothing to prove any of them were the men Monk was looking for.
On Sunday, when he knew he would find her at home, he told Vida Hopgood as much. They were seated in her red parlor in front of a very healthy fire and sipping dark brown tea with so strong a flavor he was glad of a sticky sweet bun to moderate it a little.
“Yer sayin’ yer beat?” she asked contemptuously, but he heard the note of disappointment in her and saw the shadow cross her eyes. She was angry, but her shoulders sagged beneath the burden of hope lost.
“No I’m not!” he responded sharply. “I’m telling you what I know so far. I promised I’d do that, if you remember?”
“Yeah …” she agreed grudgingly, but she was sitting up a little straighter. She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Yer do believe they was raped, don’t yer?”
“Yes I do,” he said without doubt. “Not necessarily all by the same men, but at least eight of them probably were, and three of them I think may be provable.”
“Mebbe?” she said guardedly. “Wot use’s ‘mebbe’? Wot about the others? ’Oo done them, then?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. If we prove two or three, that will be enough, won’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’ll do fine.” She stared at him, defying him to ask her what she planned to do about it.
He had not intended to ask. He was angry enough not to care.
“I’d like to speak to more women.” He took another sip of the bitter tea. The flavor was appalling, but it did have an invigorating effect.
“Wot fer?” She was suspicious.
“There are gaps in times, weeks when I know of no one attacked. Is that true?”
She sat in thought for several minutes.
“Well?” Monk asked.
“No, it in’t. Yer could try Bella Green. Din’t wanna bring ’er inter it, but if l’ave ter, then I will.”
“Why not?”
“Geez! Why the ’ell der yer care? Because ’er man’s an ol’ soljer an’ it’ll cut ’im up summink terrible ter know as she bin beat, an’ ’e couldn’t ’elp ’er, let alone that she goes aht ter earn wot ’e can’t that way. Poor sod lorst ’is leg at the Battle o’ the ’Alma. In’t good fer much now. ’Urt bad, ’e were. Never bin the same since ’e come back.”
He did not let his emotion show.
“Any others?”
