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She offered him more tea, and he declined.
“Any others?” he repeated.
“Yer could try Maggie Arkwright. Yer prob’ly won’t believe a word wot she says, but that don’ mean it in’t true … sometimes, anyway.”
“Why would she lie to me about that?”
“ ’Cos ’er geezer’s a thief, professional like, an’ she’ll never tell a rozzer the truth, on principle.” She looked at him with wry humor. “An’ if yer thinks as yer can kid ’er yer in’t, yer dafter ’n I took yer fer.”
“Take me to them.”
“I in’t got time nor money ter waste. Yer doin’ anythin’ ’cept keepin’ bread in yer belly, an’ yer pride?” Her voice rose. “Yer any damn use at all? Or yer gonna tell me in a monf’s time that yer dunno ’oo done it, any more ’n yer do now, eh?”
“I’m going to find who did it,” he said without even a shadow of humor or agreeability. “If you won’t pay, then I’ll do it myself. The information will be mine.” He looked at her with cold clarity, so she could not possibly mistake him.
“Or’ight,” she said at length, her voice very low, very quiet. “I’ll take yer ter Bella an’ ter Maggie. Get up then. Don’ sit all day usin’ up me fire.”
He did not bother to reply, but rose and followed her out, putting his coat back on as they went through the door into the street, where it was nearly dark and the fog was thicker. It caught in his throat, damp, cold and sour with the taste of soot and old smoke.
They walked in silence, their footsteps without echo, sound swallowed instantly. It was a little after five o’clock. There were many other people on the streets, some idling in doorways, having lost heart in begging or seeing no prospects. Others still waited hopefully, peddling matches, bootlaces and similar odds and ends. Some went briskly about business, legal or illegal. Pickpockets and cutpurses loitered in the shadows and disappeared again, soft-footed. Monk knew better than to carry anything of value.
As he followed Vida Hopgood along the narrow alleys, staying close to the walls, memory hovered at the edge of his mind, fleeting impressions of having been somewhere worse than this, of urgent danger and violence. He passed a window, half filled with straw and paper, ridiculous as a barrier against the cold. He turned as if thinking he knew what he would see, but it was only a blur of yellow faces in the candlelight, a bearded man, a fat woman, and others equally meaningless to him.
Who had he expected? His only feeling was of danger, and that he must hurry. Others were depending upon him. He thought of narrow passages, crawling on hands and knees through tunnels, and the knowledge all the time that he could fall headfirst into the abyss of the sewers below and drown. It was a favorite trick of the thieves and forgers who hid in the great festering tenements of the Holy Land, seven or eight acres between St. Giles and St. Georges. They would lead a pursuer along a deliberate track through alleys and up and down stairs. There were trapdoors to cellars leading one to another for hundreds of yards. A man might emerge half a mile away, or he might wait and stick a knife into his pursuer’s throat, or open up a trap to a cesspool. The police went there only armed, and in numbers, and even then rarely. If a man disappeared into the rookeries he might not be seen again for a year. It hid its own, and trespassers went there at their peril.
/> How long ago had that been? Stunning Joe’s public house had gone. He knew that much. He had passed the corner where it used to be. At least he thought he knew it. The Holy Land itself had certainly opened up. The worst of the creaking tenements were gone, collapsed and rebuilt. The criminal strongholds had crumbled, their power dissipated.
Where had the memory come from, and how far back was it? Ten years, fifteen? When he and Runcorn had both been new and inexperienced, they had fought there side by side, guarding each other’s backs. It had been a comradeship. There had been trust.
When had it gone? Gradually, a dozen, a score of small issues, a parting of the paths of choice, or one sudden ugly incident?
He could not remember.
He followed Vida Hopgood across a small yard with a well in it, under an archway and then across a surprisingly busy street and into another alley. It was bone-achingly cold, the fog an icy shroud. He racked his brain, and there was nothing there at all, only the present, his anger with Runcorn now, his contempt for him, and the knowledge that Runcorn hated him, that the hate was deep and bitter and that it governed him. Even when it was against his own interest, his dignity and all that he wanted to be, the hate was so passionate in him he could not control it. It consumed his judgment.
“ ’Ere! Wot’s the matter wiv yer?” Vida’s voice cut across his thoughts, dragging him back to Seven Dials and the rape of the sweatshop women.
“Nothing!” he said sharply. “Is this Bella Green’s?”
“ ’Course it is. Wot the ’ell d’yer think we’re ’ere fer?” She banged on the rickety door and shouted Bella’s name.
It was several minutes before the door was answered by a girl somewhere between twelve and fifteen. Her long hair was curling and knotted, but her face was clean and she had nice teeth.
Vida asked for Bella Green.
“Me ma’s busy,” the girl replied. “She’ll be back in a w’ile. You wanna wait?”
“Yeah.” Vida was not going to be put off, even had Monk allowed it.
But they were not permitted in. The child had obviously been warned about strangers. She slammed the fragile door and Monk and Vida were left on the step in the cold.
“The gin mill,” Vida said immediately, taking no offense. “She’ll ’a gorn ter get Jimmy a bottle. Dulls the pain, poor sod.”
Monk did not bother to enquire whether the pain was physical or the bleak despair of the mind. The difference was academic; the burden of living with either was the same.
Vida’s guess was right. Inside the noise and filth of the gin shop, the sound of laughter, the shards of broken glass and the women huddled together for warmth and the comfort of living flesh rather than the cold stones, they found Bella Green. She was coming towards them cradling a bottle in her arms, holding it as if it were a child. It was a few moments’ oblivion for her husband, a man she must have seen answer his country’s call whole and full of courage and hope, and received back again broken in body and fast sinking in mind as he looked at the long, hopeless years ahead, and daily pain.
Beside her a woman wept and sank slowly to the floor in the maudlin self-pity of gin drunkenness.
