William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

man is entitled to hit his wife to chastise her, within reason.” His lip curled in a mixture of irritation and amusement. “It’s not like you to waste your time on lost causes. Never saw you as a man to tilt at windmills …” He left the sentence hanging in the air, a wealth of unspoken meaning in it. “You have changed. Had to come down a bit, have you?” He tipped his chair back a trifle. “Take on the cases of the poor and desperate …”
    “Victims of beating and rape are often desperate,” Monk said with as much control of his temper as he was able, but he heard the anger coming through his voice.
    Runcorn responded immediately. It woke memories of a score of old quarrels. They were replaying so many past scenes: Runcorn’s anxiety, stubbornness, provocation; Monk’s anger and contempt, and quicker tongue. For an instant, for Monk it was as if he were removed from himself, a spectator seeing two men imprisoned in reenacting the same pointless tragedy over and over again.
    “I told you before,” Runcorn said, sitting forward, banging the chair legs down, leaning his elbows on his desk. “You’ll never prove some men got violent with a prostitute. She’s already sold herself, Monk. You may not approve of it.” He wrinkled his long nose as if imitating Monk, although there had been no scorn in Monk’s voice or in his mind. “You may find it an immoral and contemptible way to make a living, but we’ll never get rid of it. It may offend your susceptibilities, but I assure you, a great many men you might call gentlemen, or might aspire to join, with your social airs and graces, a great many of them go to the Haymarket, and even to placeslike Seven Dials, and make use of women they pay for the privilege.”
    Monk opened his mouth to argue, but Runcorn plowed on, talking over him deliberately.
    “Maybe you would like to think differently, but it’s time you looked at some of your gentry as they really are.” He jabbed his finger at the desk. “They like to marry their wives for social nicety, to wear on their arms when they dine and dance with their equals. They like to have a cool and proper wife.” He kept on jabbing his finger, his face sneering. “A virtuous woman who doesn’t know anything about the pleasures of the flesh, to be the mother of their children, the guardian of all that’s safe and good and uplifting and morally clean. But when it comes to their appetites, they want a woman who doesn’t know them personally, doesn’t expect anything of them except payment for services rendered, and who won’t be horrified if they exhibit a few tastes that would disgust and terrify their gentle wives. They want the freedom to be any damned thing they like. And that can include a great deal you may not approve of, Monk.”
    Monk leaned over the desk towards him, his jaw tight, spitting the words through his teeth.
    “If a man wants a wife he won’t satisfy and can’t enjoy, that’s his misfortune,” he retorted. “And his hypocrisy … and hers. But it is not a crime. But if he joins with two of his friends and comes to Seven Dials and then rapes and beats the sweatshop women who practice a little prostitution on the side … that is a crime. I intend to stop it before it becomes murder as well.”
    Runcorn’s face was dark with anger and surprise, but this time it was Monk who overrode him, still leaning forward, looking down on him. Runcorn’s earlier advantage of being seated while Monk stood was now the opposite, but he refused to move back. They were less than two feet away from each other.
    “I thought you had the courage and the sense of your own duty to the law to have felt the same,” Monk went on. “I expected you to ask for my information and be glad to take it.What you think of me doesn’t matter …” He snapped his fingers in the air with a sharp sound. “Aren’t you man enough to forget it for as long as it takes to catch these men who rape and beat women, and even girls, for their ‘pleasure,’ as you put it? Or do you hate me enough to sacrifice your honor just to be able to deny me this? Have you really lost that much of yourself?”
    “Lost?” Runcorn’s face was a dull purple, and he leaned even closer. “I haven’t lost anything, Monk. I have a job. I have a home. I have men who respect me … some of them even like me … which is more than you could ever say. I haven’t lost any of that.” His eyes were brilliant, accusing and