William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

Jimmy Morrison. ’E knows Seven Dials.”
    “You don’t know about violence in Seven Dials towards women?”
    The patterer gave a sharp, derisive laugh. “Wot, yer mean diff’rent from always?”
    “Yes.”
    “Dunno. Wot is it?”
    “Rape and beatings of factory women.”
    The patterer’s face wrinkled in disgust. Evan could not believe he had already known. Why had Shotts lied? It was a small thing, very small, but what was the point of it? It was out of the character he knew of the man, and disturbing.
    “You told me he knew,” he said as soon as they were a dozen yards away.
    Shotts did not look at him. “Must ’a bin someone else,” he replied dismissively.
    “Don’t you write down who tells you what?” Evan pressed. “It makes a lot of difference. Did you ever speak to him before on this case?”
    Shotts turned into the wind and his answer was half lost.
    “ ’Course I did. Said so, didn’t I?”
    Evan let the matter rest, but he knew he had been lied to, and it troubled him. His instinct was to like Shotts and to respect his abilities. There was something he did not know. The question was, was it something important?
    He saw Monk that evening. Monk had left a note for him at the police station, and he was happy to spend an hour or two over a good meal in a public house and indulge in a little conversation.
    Monk was in a dour mood. His case was going badly, but he had considerable sympathy for Evan.
    “You think it could be the widow?” he asked, his eyes level and curious. The slight smile on his lips expressed his understanding of Evan’s reluctance to accept such a thing. He knew Evan too well, and his affection for him did not prevent his amusement and slight derision at his friend’s optimism in human nature.
    “I think it was probably just what it looked like,” Evan replied gloomily. “Rhys was a young man who had been indulged by his mother and whose father had great expectations of him which he possibly could not live up to—and did not want to. He indulged a selfish and possibly cruel streak in his character. His father went after him to try to stop him, perhaps to warn of the dangers, and somehow they became involved in a fight with others. The father died. The son was severely injured physically, and so horrified by what he saw that now he cannot even speak.”
    Monk cut into the thick, light suet crust of his steak-and-kidney pudding.
    “The question is,” he said with his mouth full, “were they both attacked by the denizens of St. Giles, or did Rhys kill his own father in a quarrel?”
    “Or did Sylvestra Duff have a lover, and did he either do it himself or have someone else do it?” Evan asked.
    “Who is he? Samson?” Monk raised his eyebrows.
    “What?”
    “He took on two men at once, killed one and left the other senseless, and walked away from the scene himself,” Monk pointed out.
    “Then there was more than one,” Evan argued. “He hired somebody, two people, and it was coincidence Rhys was there. He was following Leighton Duff, and happened to come on him when he had found Rhys.”
    “Or else Rhys was in it with his mother.” Monk swallowed and took a mouthful of his stout. “Have you any way of looking into that?” He ignored Evan’s expression of distaste.
    “Hester’s there. She’s nursing Rhys,” Evan replied. He sawthe emotion cross Monk’s face, the momentary flicker, the light and then the shadow. He knew something of what Monk felt for her, even though he did not understand the reasons for its complexity. He had seen the trust between them. Hester had fought for Monk when no one else would. She had also quarreled with Monk when, at least to Evan, it made no sense at all. But he knew the dark areas of Monk’s heart prevented him from committing himself as Evan would have. Half memories and fears of what he did not know made it impossible for him. What Evan did not know was whether it was fear for Hester and the hurt he might cause her in that part of himself which lay secret, or simply fear for himself and his own vulnerability if he allowed her to know him so well, to become even more important to him, and to understand it himself.
    Nothing in Monk’s behavior let him know. He thought perhaps Hester did not know either.
    Monk was halfway through his meal.
    “She won’t tell you,” he said, looking at his plate.
    “I know that,” Evan replied. “I’m not placing her in the position of asking.”
    Monk looked up at him