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Evan knew that Monk had crossed into St. Giles, although, of course, they were on different cases.
“Wot does ’e want?” Shotts said suspiciously as they were walking back towards the station.
“To find out who raped the women in Seven Dials,” Evan replied. “It’s a problem we can’t help.”
Shotts swore under his breath and then apologized. “Sorry, guv.”
“You don’t need to be,” Evan said sincerely. His father might have been offended, but that case angered him so profoundly the release of shouting and using language otherwise forbidden seemed very natural. “If anyone can deal with it, it will be Monk,” he added.
Shotts gave a snort of derision edged with something which could have been fear. “If ’e catches the bastards I’ll lay they’ll wish they were never born. I wouldn’t want Monk on my back, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Evan looked at him curiously. “If you hadn’t done anything wrong, would he be on your back?”
Shotts looked at him, hesitated a moment on the edge of confiding, then changed his mind.
“ ’Course not,” he denied.
It was a lie, at least in intent, and Evan knew it, but it was pointless to pursue. Nor was it the only time Shotts had told him something which he had later learned to be false. There was time unaccounted for, small errors of fact. He glanced sideways at Shotts’s stolid face as they crossed the street, avoiding the gutter and the horse droppings awash in the rain, ducked past a coal cart and onto the farther footpath. What else was there that he had not yet learned? Why should Shotts lie to him about anything?
He had a sudden acutely unpleasant feeling of loneliness, as if the ground had given way beneath him and old certainties had vanished without anything to replace them. All around him was gray poverty, people whose lives were bounded by hunger, cold and danger. They were so used to it they could eat and sleep in its midst, laugh and beget children, bury their dead, steal from each other, and practice their trades and their crafts, legal or otherwise. Illegality was probably the least of their problems, except insomuch as it trespassed certain safeguards. The cardinal principle was to survive. If he had spoken to them of his father’s notion of a just God, one who loved them, he would have been greeted with utter incomprehension. Even good fairy stories had some relevance to fact, some meaning that a person could understand.
They entered an alley too narrow to walk abreast, and Shotts went first, Evan behind him. It was a shortcut back to the main thoroughfare. They crossed a tanner’s yard stinking of hides and went through a gate that was loosely chained and into the footpath.
Evan increased his stride and caught up with Shotts.
“Why did you lie to me?” he said bluntly.
Shotts tripped on the curbstone, then regained his balance and stood still.
“Sir?”
Evan stopped also. “Why did you lie to me?” he repeated, his voice mild, no accusation in it, simply puzzlement and curiosity.
Shotts swallowed. “About what, sir?”
“Lots of things: Where you were last Friday when you told me you were questioning Hattie Burrows. You weren’t, because I learned afterwards where she was, and it was not with you. About Seven Dials and the running patterer, and hearing from him the case Monk was on.”
“That …” Shotts began. “That was a … mistake …” He did not look at Evan as he was speaking.
“Have you a bad memory?” Evan enquired politely, in the same tone as he would have asked if Shotts liked sausages.
Shotts was caught. To say he had would make him an unsuitable policeman. Above all, a policeman needed keen observation and an excellent memory. He had already demonstrated these qualities very effectively.
“Well … pretty good … most of the time … sir,” he said, compromising rather well.
“You need to have a perfect memory to be a good liar.” Evan resumed walking at a level pace, and Shotts kept up, but not looking at him. “Better than yours. Why, Shotts? Do you know something about this murder that you don’t want to tell me? Or is it something else altogether that you are hiding?”
Shotts blushed scarlet. He must have felt the heat flush up his face, because he surrendered.
“It’s nothing agin the law, sir, I swear it! I would never do nothing agin the law!”
“I’m listening.” Evan kept his eyes straight ahead.
“It’s a girl, sir, a woman. I were seein’ ’er w’en I shouldn’t ’ave. It’s me only chance, yer see, wi’ all the extra duty I been pullin’, wi’ the murder. I was … I was tryin’ ter keep ’er fam’ly out o’ it. Not that they’re in it …”
Evan attempted to hide his smile, and only partially succeeded.
“Oh. Why the secrecy?”
