AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Monk’s stomach turned cold and a little fluttery. It was what he had feared.
“How do you know?” he argued.
“Saw ’is face, an’ seen yours.” The peddler sold another pie and fished for change for a threepenny piece.
“ ’E weren’t ’spectin’ it. Caught ’im proper, poor sod.”
“How? What did I do?”
“Wot’s the matter wiv yer?” The man looked at him incredulously. “Want the pleasure of it twice, do yer? I dunno. Jus’ know yer came ’ere tergether, an’ yer done ’im some’ow. ’E trusted yer, an’ finished up in the muck. I guess it’s ’is own fault. ’E should ’a knowed better. It were writ in yer face. I wouldn’t ’a trusted yer far as I can spit!”
It was ugly and direct, and it was probably the truth. He would like to think the man lied, find some way out of it, but he knew there was no hope. He felt cold inside in his stomach, in his chest.
“What about these men you’ve seen?” he asked, his voice sounding hollow. “Don’t you want them stopped?”
The man’s face darkened. “ ’Course I do … an’ we’ll do it … without your ’elp.”
“Haven’t done a very good job so far,” Monk pointed out. “I’m not with the police anymore. I’m working for Vida Hopgood … in this. Anything I find out, I tell her.”
The man’s disbelief was plain.
“Why? P’lice threw yer out, did they? Good. Guess that fella got the best o’ yer in the end.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth. “So there’s some justice arter all.”
“You don’t know what happened between us,” Monk said defensively. “You don’t know what he did to me first.” It sounded childish even as he said it, but it could not be taken back. Very little ever could.
The man smiled. “Agin you? I reckon as yer a first-class swine, but I’d back yer ter win agin anyone.”
Monk felt a shiver of apprehension, and perhaps pride as well, perverse, hurting pride, a salvage from the wreck of other things.
“Then help me to find these men. You know what they’ve done. Let Vida Hopgood learn who they are and stop them.”
“Yeah … right.” The man’s face eased, the anger melting. “I s’pose if anyone can find them it’s you. I dunno much, or I’d ’a done ’em myself.”
“Have you seen them, or anyone who could be them?”
“ ’Ow do I know? I seen lots o’ geezers wot don’t belong ’ere, but usual yer knows wot they’re ’ere for. Reg’lar brothels, or gamblin’, or ter ’ock summink as they daren’t ’ock closer ter ’ome.”
“Describe them,” Monk demanded. “I don’t care about the others. Tell me all you saw of these men, where and when, how many, how dressed, anything else you know …”
The man thought carefully for a few moments before giving his answer. His description established what Monk had already heard regarding build, and that there were three men on several occasions, on others only two. The one new fact the peddler added was that he had seen them meet on the outskirts of Seven Dials, as if they had arrived from different directions, but he had only ever seen them leave together.
Monk could no longer avoid putting his theory to the test. He would much rather not have, because he was afraid it was true and he did not wish it to be. Hester was being foolish about it, of course, but he did not wish her to be hurt, and she would be when she was forced to accept that Rhys Duff had been one of the rapists.
It took him all day, moving from one gray and bitter street to another, asking, cajoling, threatening, but by dusk he had found others who had seen the men immediately after one of the attacks, and only a mere fifty yards from the place. They had been disheveled, staggering a little, and one of them had been marked with blood, as his face was caught for a moment in the glare of a passing hansom’s carriage lights.
It was not what he wanted. It was bringing him inevitably closer to a tragedy he was now almost certain would involve Rhys Duff, but he still felt a kind of elation, a surge inside him of the knowledge of power, the taste of victory. He was turning a corner into a wider street, stepping off the narrow pavement, avoiding the gutter, when he remembered doing exactly the same before, with the same surge of knowledge that he had won.
Then it had been Runcorn. He did not know what about, but there had been men who had told him something he needed to know, and they had been afraid of him, as they were now. It was an unpleasant knowledge to look back on, the guarded eyes, the hatred in them and the defeat because he was stronger, cleverer, and they knew it. But he could not remember it hurting them. It was only now, in retrospect, that he doubted he had been wholly right.
He shivered and increased his pace. There was no going back.
He had enough now to go to Runcorn. It should be a police matter. That would protect Vida Hopgood, forestall the mob justice Hester was afraid of. This way there would be a trial, and proof.
He found a cab and gave the address of the police station. Runcorn would have to listen. There was too much to ignore.
“Beatings?” Runcorn said skeptically, sitting back in his chair and staring up at Monk. “Sounds domestic. You know better than to bring that to us. Most women withdraw the complaints. Anyway, a man is entitled to hit his wife to chastise her, within reason.” His lip curled in a mixture of irritation and amusement. “It’s not like you to waste your time on lost causes. Never saw you as a man to tilt at windmills …” He left the sentence hanging in the air, a wealth of unspoken meaning in it. “You have changed. Had to come down a bit, have you?” He tipped his chair back a trifle. “Take on the cases of the poor and desperate …”
“Victims of beating and rape are often desperate,” Monk said with as much control of his temper as he was able, but he heard the anger coming through his voice.
