William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

sixteen-year-old Clarrie Drover and broke her younger sister’s arm?”
    He had achieved his effect. She looked hurt and surprised. The pain in her was real. For a moment her anger against him was forgotten and it was aimed against these men, the world of injustice which allowed such a thing, the whole monstrosity of the fear and the misery she saw closing in on her and her kind, and the certainty that there was no redress and no vengeance.
    He was the only living thing within her immediate reach, the only one to share the hurt.
    “So wadda you care, yer bloody jackal. Filth, that’s all you are.” Her voice was hoarse with bitterness and the knowledge of her own helplessness, even to hurt him beyond a mere scratch to the skin, nothing like the jagged wound which was killing her. She hated him for it with all the passion of futility. “Filth! Livin’ orff other folk’s sins … if we don’t sin, you in’t worth nothin’ at all. Shovel the gutters, you do—clean out other folk’s middens—that’s all you are. Can’t tell yer from the muck.” There was a gleam of satisfaction in her face at the simile.
    It was not worth retaliating.
    “There is no need to be frightened of me; I’m not after stolen candlesticks or teapots—”
    “I in’t afraid o’ yer!” she said, fear sharp in her eyes, hating him the more because she knew he saw it as certainly as he had before.
    “I’m not with the police,” he went on, ignoring her interruptions. “I’m working privately, for Vida Hopgood. She’s paying me, and she doesn’t give a damn where your goods come from or go to. She wants the rapes stopped, and the beatings.”
    She stared at him, trying to read truth in his face.
    “Who beat you, Sarah?”
    “I dunno, yer eejut!” she said furiously. “If’n I knew, don’t yer think I’d ’a got somebody ter cut ’is throat fer ’im, the bastard?”
    “It was only one man?” he said with surprise.
    “No, it were two. Least I think so. It were black as a witch’s ’eart an’ I couldn’t see nuffink. Ha! Should say black as a rozzer’s ’eart, shou’n’t I? ’Ceptin’ ’oo knows if a rozzer’s got an ’eart? Mebbe we should get one an’ cut ’im open, jus ter see, like?”
    “What if he does, and it’s just as red as yours?” he asked.
    She spat.
    “Tell me what happened,” he persisted. “Maybe it will help me to find these men.”
    “An’ wot if yer do? ’Oo cares? ’Oo’ll do anyfin’ abaht it?” she said derisively.
    “Wouldn’t you, if you knew who they were?” he asked.
    It was enough. She told him all she could remember, drawn from her a piece at a time and, he thought, largely honest. It was of little use, except that she also remembered the strange smell, sharp, alcoholic, and yet unlike anything she could name.
    He left, walking into the wind, turning over in his mind what she had said, but against his will more and more preoccupied, wondering what he had done in the past to earn the intensity of her hatred.
    In the evening, on impulse, he decided to go and see Hester. He did not give himself a reason. There was not any. He had already decided to keep her from his mind while he was on this case. There was nothing to say to her, nothing to pursue or to discuss. He knew where she was because Evan had told him. He had mentioned the name Duff and Ebury Street. It was not very difficult, therefore, to find himself on the front step of the correct house.
    He explained to the maid who answered the door that he was acquainted with Miss Latterly and would be obliged if he might visit with her if she could be spared for a few minutes. The answer from Mrs. Sylvestra Duff was most gracious. She was to be at home herself, and if Miss Latterly cared to, shemight spend the entire evening away from Ebury Street. She had worked extremely hard lately and would be most welcome to a complete respite and change of scene, if she so desired.
    Monk thanked her with the feeling of something close to alarm. It seemed Mrs. Duff had assumed more about the relationship than was founded in fact. He did not want to spend all evening with her. He had nothing to say. In fact, now that he was there, he was not sure he wanted to see her at all. But to say so now would make him look absurd, a complete coward. It could be interpreted all sorts of ways, none of them to his advantage.
    Hester seemed ages in coming. Perhaps she had no desire to see him either. Why? Had she taken offense at