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“Opium doesn’t make you violent like that,” Monk replied. “They usually go off into dreams of oblivion, lying on beds in rooms full of smoke, not wandering around alleys”—he stopped just before using the word raping—“attacking people. Opium eating is a very solitary pursuit, in mind if not in body. These men seemed to work together, didn’t they?”
“Yeah … yeah, they did.” Her face tightened with bitterness. “I’d ’a thought wot they did ter me were summink a man’d do by ’isself.”
“But they didn’t?”
“Nah … proud o’ theirselves, they was.” Her voice sank even lower. “One o’ them laughed. I’ll remember that till the day I die, I will. Laughed, ’e did, just afore ’e ’it me.”
Monk shivered, and it was more than the cold of the room.
“Were they old men or young men?” he asked her.
“I dunno. Mebbe young. They was smooth, no whiskers, no …” She touched her own cheek. “Nuffink rough.”
Young men out to savor first blood, Monk thought to himself, tasting violence and intoxicated with the rush of power; young men inadequate to make their mark in their own world, finding the helpless where they could control everything, inflict their will with no one to deny them, humiliate instead of being humiliated.
Was that what had happened to Evan’s young man? Had he and one or two of his friends come to St. Giles in search of excitement, some thrill of power unavailable to them in their own world, and then violence had for once met with superior resistance? Had his father followed him this time, only to meet with the same punishment?
Or had the fight been primarily between father and son?
It was possible, but he had no proof at all. If it was so, then at least one of the perpetrators had met with a terrible vengeance already, and Vida Hopgood need seek no more.
He thanked Bella Green and glanced across to see if it was worth speaking to her husband. It was impossible to tell from his eyes if
he had been listening. Monk spoke to him anyway.
“Thank you for giving us your time. Good day to you.”
The man opened his eyes with a sudden flash of clarity but he did not answer.
Bella showed them out. The child was nowhere to be seen, possibly in the other room. Bella did not speak again either. She hesitated, as if to ask for hope, but perhaps as if to thank Monk. It was in her eyes, a moment’s softness. But she remained silent, and they went out into the street and were swallowed instantly by the ever-thickening fog, now yellow and sour with smoke, catching in the throat, settling as ice on the cobbles.
“Well?” Vida demanded.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” Monk retorted. He wanted to stride out—he was too angry to walk slowly to keep pace with her, and too cold—but he did not know where he was or where he was going. He was forced against his will to wait for her.
The next house they went to was a trifle warmer. They came out of the now-freezing fog into a room where a potbellied stove smelled of stale soot but gave off quite a comforting heat. Maggie Arkwright was plump and comfortable, black-haired, ruddy skinned. It was easy to understand that she might do very well at her part-time profession. There was a good humor about her, even a look of health which was attractive. Glancing around at the room, with two soft chairs, a table with all four of its original legs, a stool, and a wooden chest with three folded blankets, Monk wondered if the things in it had been bought with the proceeds of her trade.
Then he remembered that Vida had said her husband was a petty thief, and he realized that might be the source of their relative prosperity. The man came in a moment after them. His face was genial, eyes lost in wrinkles of general goodwill, but his head was close shaved in what Monk knew was a “terrier crop,” a prison haircut. He had probably been out no more than a week or ten days. Presumably she kept the household going when he was accepting Her Majesty’s hospitality in Mill wall or the Coldbath Fields.
There was a burst of laughter from the next room, an old woman’s high cackle, and the giggling of children. It was a sound of hilarity, unguarded and carefree.
“Wot yer want?” Maggie asked civilly, but with eyes wary on Monk’s face. He had an air of authority about him she did not trust.
Vida explained, and bit by bit Monk drew from Maggie the story of the attack upon her. It was one of the earliest, and seemed to be far less vicious than more recent ones. The account was colorful, and he thought very possibly embellished a trifle for his benefit. It was of no practical value, except that it told him of yet another victim, one Vida had not known of. Maggie told Monk where to find her, but said to go the next day. She would be drunk at present and no use to him at all. Maggie laughed as she said it, a sound rich with mocking pleasure but little unkindness.
When Monk found the woman, she was at her stall selling all kinds of household goods, pots, dishes, pails, the occasional picture or ornament, candlesticks, here and there a jug or ewer. Some of them were of moderate value. She was not young, maybe in her late thirties or early forties, it was hard to tell. Her bones were good, as if she had been handsome in her youth, but her skin was clouded by too much gin, too little clean air and water, and a lifetime’s ingrained grime.
She looked at Monk as a prospective customer, mildly interested, never giving up hope. To lose interest was to lose money, and to lose money was death.
“Are you Sarah Blaine?” he asked, although she fitted Maggie’s description of her and she was in the right place. It was rarely a person allowed their place to be taken, even for a day.
“ ’Oo wants ter know?” she said carefully. Then her eyes widened and filled with unmistakable loathing, a deep and bitter remembrance. She drew in her breath and let it out in a hiss between her teeth. “Geez! ’Oped I’d never see yer again, yer bastard! Thought yer was dead. ’Eard yer was, in ’56. Went out an’ shouted the ’ole o’ the Grinnin’ Rat ter a free drink on it. Danced an’ sang songs, we did. Danced on yer grave, Monk, only yer wasn’t in it! Wot ’appened? Devil din’t want yer? Too much, even fer ’is belly, was yer?”
Monk was stunned. She knew him. It was impossible to deny. And why not? He had not changed.
Had had no idea who she was or what their relationship had been, except what was obvious, which was that she hated him, more than simply because he was police, but from some individual or personal cause.
“I was injured,” he replied with the literal truth. “Not killed.”
