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“I wondered w’en yer was gonna say that. D’yer wanna give it up then, that wot yer mean? Come ter it straight?”
“No, if that was what I meant, I’d have said it. I thought you knew me better.”
She smiled with a moment of real amusement.
“Yer a bastard, Monk, but there are times w’en if yer wasn’t a rozzer, or I could ferget it … which I can’t … I could almost fancy yer.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said lightly. “You might suddenly remember, and then where would I be?”
“In bed wi’ a shiv in yer back,” she said laconically, but there was still a warmth in her eyes, as if the whole idea had an element which pleased her. Then the ease died away. “So wot yer gonna do about these poor cows wot bin raped, then? If yer in’t givin’ up, wot’s left, eh? You gonna find them bastards fer us?”
“I’m going to find them,” he said carefully, giving due weight to every word. “What I tell you depends upon what you are going to do about it.”
Her face darkened. “Listen, Monk—”
“No, you listen!” he cut across her. “I have no intention of ending up giving evidence at your trial for murder, or of being in the dock beside you as an accessory before the fact. No jury in London is going to believe I didn’t know what you would do with the knowledge once I found it for you.”
There was confusion in her face for a moment, then contempt. “I’ll see yer in’t caught up in it,” she said witheringly. “Yer don’t need ter run scared o’ that. Jus’ tell us ’oo they are, we’ll take care o’ the rest. Won’t even tell anyone Ow we found ’em.”
“They already know.” He ignored the sarcasm, the reasoning, and the excuses.
“I’ll tell ’em yer failed,” she said with a grin. “We found ’em ourselves. Won’t do yer reputation no good, but it’ll keep yer from the rope … seein’ as that’s wot yer after, in’t it?”
“Stop playing, Vida. When I know who they are, we’ll come to some agreement as to what we do about it, and we’ll do it my way, or I’ll not tell you.”
“Got money, ’ave yer?” she said with raised eyebrows. “Can afford ter work fer no pay, all of a sudden? In’t wot I ’eard.”
“It’s not your concern, Vida.” He saw from her face she did not believe him. “Maybe I have a rich woman who’ll see I don’t go hungry or homeless.…” It was true. Callandra Daviot would help him, as she had from the beginning, although it was far from in the sense Vida would take from his words.
Her eyes opened wide in amazement, then she began to laugh, a rich, full-throated surge of merriment.
“You!” She chortled. “Yer got yerself a rich woman ter keep yer. That’s priceless, that is. I never ’eard anythink so funny in all me life.” But she was watching him all the same, and there was belief in her eyes.
“So those are my conditions, Vida,” he said with a smile. “I intend to find out who they are, then we bargain as to what we do about it, and what I tell you rests on our agreement.”
She pursed her lips and looked at him steadily in silence, weighing up his strength of resolve, his will, his intelligence.
He looked back at her without wavering. He did not know what she knew of him from the past, but he had felt his reputation in Seven Dials keenly enough to be sure she would not judge him lightly.
“Or’ight,” she said at last. “I reckon as yer in’t gonna let the bastards orff, or yer wouldn’t care enough ter catch them whether I paid yer or not. Yer wants ’em fer summink near as much as I do.” She stood up and went over to a drawer in a small table and took out two guineas. “ ’Ere y’are. That’s all until yer come up wi’ summink as we can use, Monk. Get on wif it. Jus’ ’cos some woman wi’ more money ’n sense fancies yer don’ mean I want yer clutterin’ up me best room ’alf the evenin’.” But she smiled as she said it.
Monk thanked her and left. He walked slowly, hands pushed hard into his pockets. The deeper he looked into the case, the more it did seem as if Rhys Duff could be guilty. One thing he had noticed which he had not told Vida Hopgood was that from everything he had been able to establish, there had been no attack since the incident in which Rhys had been injured. They had begun slowly, building up from small unpleasantnesses, gradually escalating until they were assaults so violent as to threaten life. Then suddenly they had stopped altogether. The last of them had happened ten days before.
He crossed an open square and went into the alley on the far side, passing a man selling bootlaces and an old woman with a carpetbag.
Why the ten days? That was a larger space than between the other attacks. What had kept them away for such a length of time? Was there a victim he had missed? To fit in with the pattern there should have been at least two.
Further afield? Rhys had been found in St. Giles. Had he and his friends moved territories, perhaps fearing Seven Dials had become too dangerous for them? That was an answer that fitted with what he knew so far. But he must put it to the test.
He turned and began to walk west again until he came to a thoroughfare and caught a cab. It was not very far. He could have gone all the way on foot in half an hour, but suddenly he was impatient.
He alighted just past the Church of St. Giles itself and strode towards the first lighted hostelry he saw. He went inside and sat down at one of the tables, and after several minutes was served with a mug of stout. Noise surged all around him, the press of bodies, shouts, laughter, people swaying and shoving to get past, calling out to one another greetings, friendly abuse, snippets of gossip and news, little bits of business. There were fencers of stolen goods there, pickpockets, forgers picking up a few likely customers, card sharps and gamblers, pimps.
He watched them all with a growing feeling of familiarity, as if he had been there before, or in a score of places like it. He remembered the way the lamp hung a trifle crookedly, shedding an uneven light on the brass railing above the bar. The line of hooks where customers hung their mugs dipped a little at the far end.
A small man with a withered arm looked at him and shook his head towards his companion, and they both pulled up their collars and went outside into the cold.
A woman laughed overloudly and a man hiccuped.
