William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

was more. One rape of a prostitute was merely a misfortune. She must know as well as he did that, ugly and unjust as it was, there was nothing that could be done about it.
    “She weren’t the only one,” she went on again. “It ’appened again, ’nother woman, then another. It got worse each time. There’s bin seven now, Mr. Monk, that I know of, an’ the last one she were beat till she were senseless. ’Er nose an’ ’er jaw were broke an’ she lorst five teeth. No one else don’t care. The rozzers in’t goin’ ter ’elp. They reckon as women wot sells theirselves deserves wot they get.” Her body was clenched tight under the dark fabric. “But nobody don’t deserve ter get beat like that. It in’t safe fer ’em ter earn the extra bit wot theyneeds. We gotter find ’oo’s doin’ this, an’ that’s wot we need you fer, Mr. Monk. We’ll pay yer.”
    He sat without replying for several moments. If what she said was true, then he also suspected that a little natural justice was planned. He had no objection to that. They both knew it was unlikely the police would take much action against a man who was raping prostitutes. Society considered that a woman who sold her body had little or no rights to withdraw the goods on offer or to object if she were treated like a commodity, not a person. She had voluntarily removed herself from the category of decent women. She was an affront to society by her mere existence. The authorities weren’t going to exert themselves to protect a virtue which in their opinion did not exist.
    The coals subsided in the hearth with a shower of sparks. It was beginning to rain outside.
    And there were the uglier, dark emotions. The men who used such women despised them and despised that part of themselves which needed them. It was a vulnerability at best, at worst a shame. Or perhaps the worst was the fact that they had a weakness which these women were aware of. For once they had lost the control they had in ordinary, daily life, and the very people they most despised were the ones who saw it and knew it in all its intimacy. Was a man ever so open to ridicule as when he paid a woman he regarded with contempt for the use of her body to relieve the needs of his own? She saw him not only with his body naked, but part of his soul as well.
    He would hate her for that. And he would certainly not care to be reminded of her existence, except when he could condemn her immorality and say how much he desired to be rid of her and her kind. To labor to protect her from the foreseeable ills of her chosen trade was unthinkable.
    The police would never seriously try to eradicate prostitution. Apart from the fact that it would be impossible, they knew its value, and that half of respectable society would be horrified if they were to succeed. Prostitutes were like sewers, not to be discussed in the withdrawing room—or at all, for that matter—but vital to the health and order of society.
    Monk felt a deep swell of the same anger that Vida Hopgood felt. And when he was angry he did not forgive.
    “Yes,” he said, staring at her levelly. “I’ll take the case. Pay me enough to live on and I’ll do what I can to find the man … or men … who are doing this. I’ll need to see the women. They must tell me the truth. I can’t do anything on lies.”
    There was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. She had won her first battle.
    “I’ll find him for you, if I can,” he added. “I can’t say the police will prosecute. You know as well as I do what the chances of that are.”
    She gave an explosive laugh, full of derision.
    “What you do after that is your own affair,” he said, knowing what it could mean. “But I can’t tell you anything until I’m sure.”
    She drew breath to argue, then saw his face and knew it would be pointless.
    “I’ll tell you nothing,” he repeated, “until I know. That’s the bargain.”
    She put out her hand.
    He took it and she gripped him with extraordinary strength.
    She waited in the room beside the fire while Monk changed his clothes to old ones, both because he would not soil those he valued and for the very practical purpose of passing largely unnoticed in the areas to which he was going. Then he accompanied Vida Hopgood to Seven Dials.
    She took him to her home, a surprisingly well furnished set of rooms above the sweatshop where eighty-three women sat by gaslight, heads bent over their needles, backs aching, eyes straining to