William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

then bent to look at the young man. His fingers felt expertly and Evan and Shotts stood waiting, staring down. It was now full daylight, although in the alley between the high, grimy walls it was still shadowed.
    “You’re right,” Riley said after a moment, his voice strained, his eyes dark. “He’s still alive … just.” He climbed to his feet and turned towards the hearselike outline of the ambulance as the driver backed the horses to bring it to the end of the alley. “Help me lift him,” he requested as another figure leaped down from the box and opened the doors at the back.
    Evan and Shotts hastened to obey, lifting the cold figure as gently as they could. Riley superintended their efforts until the youth was lying on the floor inside, wrapped in blankets, and Evan had his coat back, bloodstained, filthy and damp from the wet cobbles.
    Riley looked at Evan and pursed his lips. “You’d better get some dry clothes on and a stiff tot of whiskey, and then a dish of hot gruel,” he said, shaking his head. “Or you’ll have pneumonia yourself, and probably for nothing. I doubt we can save the poor devil.” Pity altered his face in the lantern light, makinghim look vulnerable. “Nothing I can do for the other one. He’s the undertaker’s job, and yours, of course. Good luck to you. You’ll need it, around here. God knows what happened—or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the devil does.” And with that he climbed in behind his patient. “Mortuary van’ll come for the other one,” he added as if an afterthought. “I’m taking this one to St. Thomas’s. You can enquire after him there. I don’t suppose you have any idea who he is?”
    “Not yet,” Evan answered, although he knew they might never have.
    Riley closed the door and banged on the wall for the driver to proceed, and the ambulance pulled away.
    The mortuary van took its place and the other body was removed, leaving Evan and Shotts alone in the alley.
    “It’s light enough to look,” Evan said grimly. “I suppose we might find something. Then we’ll start searching for witnesses. What happened to the woman who raised the alarm?”
    “Daisy Mott. I know where ter find ’er. Daytime in the match fact’ry, nights in that block o’ rooms over there, number sixteen.” He gestured with his left arm. “Don’t suppose she can tell us much. If them what done this’d bin ’ere when she come, they’d ’a killed ’er too, no doubt.”
    “Yes, I suppose so,” Evan agreed reluctantly. “Since she screamed, they’d have silenced her at least. What about old Briggs, who fetched you?”
    “ ’E don’t know nothin’. I asked ’im.”
    Evan began to widen his search, going farther away from where the two bodies had been, walking very slowly, eyes looking down on the ground. He did not know what he was looking for, anything someone might have dropped, a mark, a further bloodstain. There must be other bloodstains.
    “In’t rained,” Shotts said grimly. “Those two fought like tigers fer their lives. Gotter be more blood. Not that I know what it’ll tell us if there is. ’Cept that someone else is ’urt, an’ that I can work out fer meself.”
    “There’s blood here,” Evan answered him, seeing the dark stain over the cobbles towards the central gutter. He had to put his finger into it to be sure if it was red, and not the brown ofexcrement. “And here. This must be where at least some of the struggle took place.”
    “I got some ’ere too,” Shotts added. “I wonder ’ow many of them there was.”
    “More than two,” Evan replied quietly. “If it had been anything like an equal fight there’d have been four bodies here. Whoever else was here was in good enough shape to leave … unless, of course, someone else took them away. But that isn’t likely. No, I think we’re looking for two or three men at the least.”
    “Armed?” Shotts looked at him.
    “I don’t know. The doctor’ll tell us how they were injured. I didn’t see any knife wounds, or club or bludgeon wounds either. And they certainly weren’t garroted.” He shuddered as he said it. St. Giles particularly was known for the sudden and vile murders by wire around the throat. Any dirty and down-at-heel vagrant could be suspected. There was one notable occasion when two such men had suspected each other and had almost ended up in mutual murder.
    “That’s funny.” Shotts stood still, unconsciously pulling his coat a