William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

know?” he asked.
    “Separately, sir. We have cabdrivers’ testimony to that.”
    “Good. So apparently on this occasion Leighton Duff followed his son. Presumably he had cause to suspect what his son was doing. It would be excellent if you could know what that was. The wife may know, but I imagine it will take some skill to elicit it from her.” His face did not betray the imagination to conceive of her suffering. Evan hardly dared think of what such knowledge would do to her. He hoped profoundly that she did have some relationship of tenderness with Dr. Wade. She would surely need all his support now.
    “But you had better try,” Runcorn went on. “Be very careful how you question her, Evan. She will be a vital witness when it comes to trial. You will search the house, of course. You may find clothes with bloodstains from his earlier attacks. You must establish that he was out on every occasion you intend to specify. Don’t get caught on details! I imagine if he does not confess to it, and there is a major case, then his mother will employ the best Queen’s Counsel she can find in his defense.” He compressed his lips. “Although why anyone would wish to take on such a battle, I don’t know. If you do your job properly, he cannot win.”
    Evan said nothing. As far as he was concerned, nobody won.
    “What finally led you to it?” Runcorn asked curiously. “Was it just persistence? The right question, eventually?”
    “No sir.” Evan did not really know why he took such pleasure in being perverse. It was something to do with the air of satisfaction in Runcorn. “Monk found it, actually. He was following his rape cases, and they led him to Rhys Duff.”
    Runcorn’s head jerked up and his face darkened. He seemed on the edge of interrupting, then changed his mind.
    “He called me yesterday late afternoon and simply gave me the information,” Evan continued. “I checked it myself and spoke to the people, and took their testimony.” He looked at Runcorn innocently, as if he had no idea it would annoy him.“As well for us he was so stubborn about it,” he added for good measure. “Otherwise I might still have been pressing Mrs. Duff and looking for a lover.”
    Runcorn glared at him, a dull pink rising up his cheeks.
    “Monk follows his cases for money, Evan,” he said between his teeth. “Don’t you forget that. You follow yours because you are the servant of justice, without fear or favor, with loyalties to no one but Her Majesty, whose law you represent.” He leaned forward over the desk, his elbows on its polished surface. “You think Monk is a hell of a clever fellow, and to a certain level, so he is. But you don’t know everything. You don’t know everything about him, by a long way. Watch him and learn, by all means, but I warn you, don’t make a friend of him. You’ll regret it!” Runcorn said that last with a frown, not viciously but as a warning, as though he was afraid of something for Evan, not for himself. A shadow of old sadness crossed his face.
    Evan was taken by surprise. Runcorn was speaking against Monk, and he should have been angry with him. Instead, he was aware of something lost, a loneliness, and he felt only sorrow, and perhaps a touch of guilt.
    “Don’t trust him—” Runcorn added, then stopped abruptly. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe me.” There was anger in his voice, with himself for having spoken so openly, revealing more of his feelings than he intended to, and a thread of self-pity because he did not expect to be believed.
    Against his will, Evan did believe him, not because Runcorn said so but because Monk himself feared it. But it was what Monk had been, not necessarily what he was now. And what he was in the future lay within his own grasp.
    “I don’t disbelieve you, sir,” he said aloud. “You haven’t told me anything, only to be careful. I imagine you are speaking from some experience of your own, or you would not feel as you do, but I have no idea what it is. Monk has never spoken of it.”
    Runcorn let out a burst of laughter, hard and almost choking in his throat. It was filled with helplessness and rage and unhappiness which time had never healed.
    “He wouldn’t. He likes you. He needs you. He may notknow how to be ashamed, but he’s sense enough to understand what you would think of him.”
    Evan did not want to know, he would much rather have kept his ignorance, but he knew Monk himself needed to know.
    “For what,