William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

about the others? ’Oo done them, then?”
    “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. If we prove two or three, that will be enough, won’t it?”
    “Yeah. Yeah, it’ll do fine.” She stared at him, defying him to ask her what she planned to do about it.
    He had not intended to ask. He was angry enough not to care.
    “I’d like to speak to more women.” He took another sip of the bitter tea. The flavor was appalling, but it did have an invigorating effect.
    “Wot fer?” She was suspicious.
    “There are gaps in times, weeks when I know of no one attacked. Is that true?”
    She sat in thought for several minutes.
    “Well?” Monk asked.
    “No, it in’t. Yer could try Bella Green. Din’t wanna bring ’er inter it, but if l’ave ter, then I will.”
    “Why not?”
    “Geez! Why the ’ell der yer care? Because ’er man’s an ol’ soljer an’ it’ll cut ’im up summink terrible ter know as she bin beat, an’ ’e couldn’t ’elp ’er, let alone that she goes aht ter earn wot ’e can’t that way. Poor sod lorst ’is leg at the Battle o’ the ’Alma. In’t good fer much now. ’Urt bad, ’e were. Never bin the same since ’e come back.”
    He did not let his emotion show.
    “Any others?”
    She offered him more tea, and he declined.
    “Any others?” he repeated.
    “Yer could try Maggie Arkwright. Yer prob’ly won’t believea word wot she says, but that don’ mean it in’t true … sometimes, anyway.”
    “Why would she lie to me about that?”
    “ ’Cos ’er geezer’s a thief, professional like, an’ she’ll never tell a rozzer the truth, on principle.” She looked at him with wry humor. “An’ if yer thinks as yer can kid ’er yer in’t, yer dafter ’n I took yer fer.”
    “Take me to them.”
    “I in’t got time nor money ter waste. Yer doin’ anythin’ ’cept keepin’ bread in yer belly, an’ yer pride?” Her voice rose. “Yer any damn use at all? Or yer gonna tell me in a monf’s time that yer dunno ’oo done it, any more ’n yer do now, eh?”
    “I’m going to find who did it,” he said without even a shadow of humor or agreeability. “If you won’t pay, then I’ll do it myself. The information will be mine.” He looked at her with cold clarity, so she could not possibly mistake him.
    “Or’ight,” she said at length, her voice very low, very quiet. “I’ll take yer ter Bella an’ ter Maggie. Get up then. Don’ sit all day usin’ up me fire.”
    He did not bother to reply, but rose and followed her out, putting his coat back on as they went through the door into the street, where it was nearly dark and the fog was thicker. It caught in his throat, damp, cold and sour with the taste of soot and old smoke.
    They walked in silence, their footsteps without echo, sound swallowed instantly. It was a little after five o’clock. There were many other people on the streets, some idling in doorways, having lost heart in begging or seeing no prospects. Others still waited hopefully, peddling matches, bootlaces and similar odds and ends. Some went briskly about business, legal or illegal. Pickpockets and cutpurses loitered in the shadows and disappeared again, soft-footed. Monk knew better than to carry anything of value.
    As he followed Vida Hopgood along the narrow alleys, staying close to the walls, memory hovered at the edge of his mind, fleeting impressions of having been somewhere worse than this, of urgent danger and violence. He passed a window, half filled with straw and paper, ridiculous as a barrier againstthe cold. He turned as if thinking he knew what he would see, but it was only a blur of yellow faces in the candlelight, a bearded man, a fat woman, and others equally meaningless to him.
    Who had he expected? His only feeling was of danger, and that he must hurry. Others were depending upon him. He thought of narrow passages, crawling on hands and knees through tunnels, and the knowledge all the time that he could fall headfirst into the abyss of the sewers below and drown. It was a favorite trick of the thieves and forgers who hid in the great festering tenements of the Holy Land, seven or eight acres between St. Giles and St. Georges. They would lead a pursuer along a deliberate track through alleys and up and down stairs. There were trapdoors to cellars leading one to another for hundreds of yards. A man might emerge half a mile away, or he might wait and stick a knife into his pursuer’s throat, or open up a trap to a