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MacPherson’s voice came out of the darkness ahead of him, warning him of the step, and an instant later he nearly fell over it. They were climbing again, and emerged into another cellar, this time with a lighted door at the far side which led into a room, and another. MacPherson banged sharply, once, then four times, and the door was opened by a man whose hair stood up in spikes on his head. His face was full of humor and the hand he held up was missing the third finger.
“Well, bless me if it in’t Monk agin,” he said cheerfully. “Thought yer was dead. Wot yer doin’ ’ere, then?”
“Looking into the rapes over in Seven Dials,” MacPherson said, replying before Monk could speak.
Jimmy Snaith’s hazel eyes opened wide, still looking at MacPherson. “Yer never tellin’ me the rozzers give a toss about that? I don’ believe ya. Ya gorn’ sorft in the ’ead, Mac? Ya forgot Oo this is, ’ave ya?”
“He’s no’ with the po-liss anymore,” MacPherson explained, going farther into the room and closing the door to the cellar behind them. “Runcorn got his revenge, it seems, and had him drummed out. He’s on his own. And I’d like to know for myself who’s been doing this, because it’s no’ one of us who live here, it’s some fancy fellar from up west way, so it is.”
“Well, if that don’t beat the devil! ’E wot lives longest sees most, as they say. So Monk’s workin’ fer us, in a fashion. That I’d live ter see the day.” He gave a rich chortle of delight. “So wot you want from me, then? I dunno ’oo dun it, or I’d ’a fixed ’im meself.”
“I want to know if there were any beatings or rapes of factory women in the last three weeks,” Monk replied immediately. “Or in the two weeks before that either.”
“No …” Snaith said slowly. “Not as I ’eard. ’Ow does that ’elp yer?”
“It doesn’t,” Monk answered him. “It was not what I was hoping you would say.” Then he realized that was not true. It would have indicated a solution, but not the one he wanted. He did not care about Rhys Duff himself, but he knew how it would hurt Hester. That should not matter. The truth was what counted. If Rhys Duff was guilty, then he was one of the most callous and brutal men Monk had ever known of. He was twisted to a depravity from which it would be unimaginable to redeem him. And more immediate than that, although he might recover, in time, there were his companions. He was not guilty alone. Whoever had been with him was still at large, presumably still bent on violence and cruelty. Even if the attack on Rhys had temporarily frightened them, it would not last. Such ingrained sadism did not vanish from the nature in one act, however harsh. The need to hurt would rise again, and be satisfied again.
Snaith was regarding him with growing interest.
“Yer’ve changed,” he observed, nodding his head. “Dunno as I like it. Mebbe I do. Edges ’a gorn. Yer in’t so ’ungry no more. Bloody nuisance, yer was. More ’n Runcorn, poor sod. Never ’ad yer nose fer a lie, ’e din’t. ’E’d believe yer w’en you’d smell the truth. Looks like yer lorst that, though, eh?”
“Difficult truths take longer,” Monk said tensely. “And we all change. You shouldn’t discount Runcorn. He’s persistent too, just weighs his priorities, that’s all.”
Snaith grinned. “Eye ter the main chance, that one, I know that, whereas you … yer like a dog wi’ a bone. Never let go. Cut orff yer ’ead an’ yer teeth’d still be fast shut. Bleedin’ bastard, y’are! Still, nobody crossed yer twice, not even yer own.”
“You said that before.” Monk was stung by his helplessness. “Did I do anything to Runcorn he didn’t have coming?” He framed the question aggressively, as if he knew the answer, but his stomach knotted as he looked at Snaith’s face in the gaslight and waited for the answer. It seemed an age in coming. He could feel the seconds slip by and hear his own heart beating.
MacPherson cleared his throat.
Snaith stared back, his round, hazel eyes shadowed, his face a trifle puckered. Monk knew before he spoke that his reply was the one he feared.
“Yeah, I reckon so. Enemy in front of yer’s one thing, be’ind yer’s another. I don’ know wot yer dun ter ’im, but it fair broke ’im, an’ ’e weren’t ’spectin’ it from yer. Learned me summink abaht yer. Never took yer light arter that. Yer an ’ard bastard, an’ that’s the truth.” He took a breath. “But if yer want the swine wot done them women in Seven Dials, I’ll ’elp yer ter that. I in’t fussy ’oo I use. Go an’ ask Wee Minnie. Ol’ Bertha dunno nuthink. Find Wee Minnie an’ tell ’er I sent yer.”
“She won’t believe me,” Monk said reasonably.
“Yeah, she will, ’cos less’n I tell yer w’er ter find ’er, yer’ll be wand’rin’ around the rookeries for the rest o’ yer life.”
“That’s the truth, so it is,” MacPherson agreed.
“So tell me,” Monk said.
Snaith shook his head. “In’t yer never scared, Monk? In’t it never entered yer ’ead as we’d cut yer throat an’ drop yer in the midden, jus’ for ol’ times’ sake?”
Monk grinned. “Several times, and if you do there is nothing I can do now to stop you. I’m too far into St. Giles to yell for help, even supposing anyone would come. But you’re a businessman, at least MacPherson is. You want what I want. You’ll wait until I’ve got it before you do anything to me.”
“There are times when I could almost like yer,” Snaith said, surprised at himself. “One thing I’ll say for yer, yer in’t never an ’ypocrite. Got that much on Runcorn, poor sod.”
“Thank you,” Monk said sarcastically. “Wee Minnie?”
It was a tortuous hour, and Monk got lost three times before he finally slipped through an alley gateway, across a brick yard and up the back steps into a series of rooms which finally ended in the airlessly hot parlor where Wee Minnie sat on a pile of cushions, her wrinkled face in a toothless smile, her gnarled hands clicking knitting needles of bone as she worked on what appeared to be a sock without looking at it.
“So yer got ’ere,” she observed with a dry chuckle. “Thought as yer’d got lorst. Yer wanter know about rape, do yer?”
He should have known word would reach her before he did.
“Yes.”
“There was two. Bad, they was, so bad no one never said nothing.”
