William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

lips. “What does the young man say?”
    “Nothing whatever. He can’t speak.”
    “Oh, aye? Why’s that then?” MacPherson said skeptically.
    “Shock. But it’s true. I know the nurse who is caring for him.” In spite of all he could do to prevent it, the picture of Hester was so vivid in his mind it was as though she were sitting beside him. He knew she would hate what he was doing; she would fight desperately to protect her patient. But she would also understand why he could not leave the truth concealed if there was any way he could uncover it. If it were not Rhys, she would want it known just as passionately.
    MacPherson was regarding him closely. “So what is it ye’re wanting from me?”
    “There have been no attacks or rapes in Seven Dials since the murder,” Monk explained. “Or for some short time before. I need to know if they moved to St. Giles.”
    “Not that I heard,” MacPherson said, his brow puckered. “But then that’s a thing folk don’t talk about easy. Ye’ll have to work a little harder for that than just come in here and ask for it.”
    “I know that. But a little cooperation would cut down the time. There’s not much point in going to the brothels; they weren’t professional prostitutes, just women in need of a little extra now and then.”
    MacPherson pushed out his lip, his eyes hot and angry. “No protection,” he said aloud. “Easy pickings. If we knew who it was, and they come back to St. Giles, it’ll be their last trip. They’ll not go home again, an’ that’s a promise.”
    “You’ll not be the first in the line,” Monk said dryly. “But we have to find them before we can do anything about it.”
    MacPherson looked at him with a bleak smile, showing his teeth. “I know you, Monk. Ye may be a hard bastard, but ye’re far too fly to provoke a murder that can be traced back to ye. Ye’ll no tell the likes o’ me what ye find.”
    Monk smiled back at him, although it was the last thing he felt like. Every other time he spoke, MacPherson was adding new darkness to Monk’s knowledge of himself. Had he really been a man who had led others to believe he could countenance a murder, any murder, so long as it could not be traced to him? Could it conceivably be true?
    “I have no intention of allowing you, or Vida Hopgood, to contrive your own revenge for the attacks,” he said aloud icily. “If the law won’t do it, then there are other ways. These men are not clerks or petty tradesmen with little to lose. They are men of wealth and social position. To ruin them would be far more effective. It would be slower, more painful, and it would be perfectly legal.”
    MacPherson stared at him.
    “Let their own punish them,” Monk went on dryly. “They are very good at it indeed … believe me. They have refined it to an art.”
    MacPherson pulled a face. “Ye have no’ changed, Monk. I should no’ have underestimated ye. Ye’re an evil devil. I could no’ cross ye. I tried to warn Runcorn agin ye, but he was too blind to see it. I’d tell him now to watch his back for getting rid o’ ye from the force, but it would no’ do any good. Ye’ll bide your time, and get him one way or another.”
    Monk felt cold. Hard as he was, MacPherson thought Monk harder, more ruthless. He felt Runcorn the victim. He did not have the whole story. He did not know Runcorn’s social ambitions, his moral vacillation when a decision jeopardized his own career, or how he trimmed and evaded in order to please those in power … of any sort. He did not know his small-mindedness, the poverty of his imagination, his sheer cowardice, his meanness of spirit!
    But then Monk himself did not know the whole story either.
    And the coldest thought of all, which penetrated even into his bones, was whether Monk was responsible for what Runcorn had become. Was it something Monk had done in the past which had warped Runcorn’s soul and made him what he was now?
    He did not want to know, but perhaps he had to. Imagination would torment him until he did. For now, perhaps it would be useful to allow MacPherson to retain his image of Monk as ruthless, never forgetting a grudge.
    “Who do I go to?” he said aloud. “Who knows what’s going on in St. Giles?”
    MacPherson thought for a moment or two.
    “Willie Snaith, for one,” he said finally. “And old Bertha for another. But they’ll no’ speak to ye unless someone takes ye and vouches for ye.”
    “So I assumed,” Monk