William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

and no use to him at all.Maggie laughed as she said it, a sound rich with mocking pleasure but little unkindness.
    When Monk found the woman, she was at her stall selling all kinds of household goods, pots, dishes, pails, the occasional picture or ornament, candlesticks, here and there a jug or ewer. Some of them were of moderate value. She was not young, maybe in her late thirties or early forties, it was hard to tell. Her bones were good, as if she had been handsome in her youth, but her skin was clouded by too much gin, too little clean air and water, and a lifetime’s ingrained grime.
    She looked at Monk as a prospective customer, mildly interested, never giving up hope. To lose interest was to lose money, and to lose money was death.
    “Are you Sarah Blaine?” he asked, although she fitted Maggie’s description of her and she was in the right place. It was rarely a person allowed their place to be taken, even for a day.
    “ ’Oo wants ter know?” she said carefully. Then her eyes widened and filled with unmistakable loathing, a deep and bitter remembrance. She drew in her breath and let it out in a hiss between her teeth. “Geez! ’Oped I’d never see yer again, yer bastard! Thought yer was dead. ’Eard yer was, in ’56. Went out an’ shouted the ’ole o’ the Grinnin’ Rat ter a free drink on it. Danced an’ sang songs, we did. Danced on yer grave, Monk, only yer wasn’t in it! Wot ’appened? Devil din’t want yer? Too much, even fer ’is belly, was yer?”
    Monk was stunned. She knew him. It was impossible to deny. And why not? He had not changed.
    Had had no idea who she was or what their relationship had been, except what was obvious, which was that she hated him, more than simply because he was police, but from some individual or personal cause.
    “I was injured,” he replied with the literal truth. “Not killed.”
    “Yeah? Wot a shame,” she said laconically. “Never mind, better luck next time.” The brilliance of her eyes and the curl of her lip made her meaning obvious. “Well, none o’ this lot’s ’ot,so naff orff! I’nt nuffink ’ere for yer. An’ I i’nt tellin’ yer nuffink abaht nobody.”
    He debated whether or not to tell her he was no longer with the police, or if it would be useful for her to believe he was. It lent him power, a certain authority, the loss of which still hurt him.
    “The only people I want to know about are the men who raped and beat you in Steven’s Alley a couple of weeks ago.” He watched her face and was gratified to see the total amazement in it, making it blank of all other expression for a moment.
    “I dunno wot yer talkin’ abaht,” she said at length, her jaw set hard, her eyes flat and still filled with hatred. “Nobody never raped me. Yer wrong again. Damn sure o’ yerself, y’are. Come down ’ere in yer fancy kit like yer was Lord Muck, flingin’ yer weight arahnd, an’ yer knows nuffink!”
    He knew she was lying. It was nothing he could define, not a matter of intelligence but an instinct. He was met with disbelief and contempt.
    “I overestimated you,” he said witheringly. “Thought you had more loyalty to your own.” It was the one quality he was certain she would value.
    He was right; she flinched as if he had struck her.
    “Yer not one o’ me own, any more ’n them rats in that pile o’ dirt over there. Mebbe you should go an’ try one o’ them, eh? Yer want loyalty ter yer own … they might speak to yer, if yer ask ’em pretty, like.” She laughed loudly at her own joke, but there was a brittle edge to it. She was afraid of something, and as he looked at her, sitting huddled in her gray-black shawl, shoulders hunched, hair blowing across her face in the icy air, the more the conviction hardened in him that it was him she feared.
    Why? He posed no possible threat to her.
    The answer had to lie in the past, whatever it was that had brought them together before and which had made her rejoice when she had believed him dead.
    He raised his eyebrows sarcastically.
    “You think so? Would they be able to describe the men whobeat you … and all the other women, the poor devils that work in the sweatshop all day and then go out in the streets a few hours in the night to try to get a little extra to feed their children? Would they tell me how many there were, if they were old or young, what their voices were like, which way they came from and which way they went … after they beat