William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

Harcus, driven to discover a truth which might destroy everything that mattered to him?
    He sat hunched in the seat, rattling through the darkness towards London, shivering and icy cold, thoughts racing off the rails into tunnels—and another, different kind of crash.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The house on Coldbath Square was almost empty of women injured in the usual way of trade, because there was hardly any trade. Many of the local populace had found ways around the constant police presence and now conducted what business they could elsewhere, but the Farringdon Road was outwardly much the same as always. It required a more practiced eye to see the stiffness of street corner peddlers, the way everyone was watching over their shoulders, not for pickpockets or other small-time thieves, but for the ubiquitous constables placed, in frustrated boredom, as prevention rather than solution.
    “On our backs like a jockey floggin’ a horse what won’t run,” Constable Hart said miserably, nursing a mug of hot tea in his hands as he sat opposite Hester at the smaller of the two tables. “We won’t run ’cos we can’t!” he went on. It was mid-afternoon and raining on and off. His wet cape hung on one of the hooks by the door. “We’re just standin’ ’round lookin’ stupid, an’ gettin’ everyone angry at us,” he complained. “It’s all to make the Baltimore family an’ their friends feel like we’re cleanin’ up London.” His expression of disgust conveyed his feelings perfectly.
    “I know,” she agreed with some sympathy.
    “Nobody ever done that, nor ever will,” he added. “London don’t wanter be cleaned up. Women on the street in’t the problem. Problem is men what comes after ’em!”
    “Of course,” Hester conceded. “Would you like some toast?”
    His face lit up. It was a completely unnecessary question, as she had known it would be.
    He cleared his throat. “Got any black currant jam?” he asked hopefully.
    “Of course.” She smiled, and he colored very faintly. She stood up and spent the next few minutes cutting bread, toasting it on the fork in front of the stove, and then bringing it over, with butter and jam.
    “Thanks,” he said with his mouth already full.
    She and Margaret had spent their days trying to drum up more funding, having further conversations with Jessop which varied from placatory to confrontational and back again depending upon tempers, and pledges of help. Hester had never disliked anyone more. “Are you any closer to finding whoever killed Baltimore?” she asked Hart.
    He shrugged, an air of hopelessness filling him as he stared gloomily at the crumbs on his plate. “Not as I can see,” he admitted. “Abel Smith’s girls all swear blind they din’t do it, an’ speakin’ purely for meself, I believe ’em. Not that the higher-ups are goin’ to listen to what I say.” He looked up at her with sudden anger, his face set hard.
    “But I’m damned if I’m goin’ to see some poor little cow topped for killin’’im just to satisfy ’is family an’ their like, an’ get business back to normal. No matter whoever says, ever so soft, that they’d like it that way!”
    Hester felt a chill. “Do you think anyone would try to do that?”
    He caught the doubt in her voice. “You’re a nice lady, brought up proper. You don’t belong ’ere,” he said gently. He glanced around the long room with its iron beds, the stone sinks at the far end and the jugs and pails of water. “ ’Course they would, if it comes to it. Can’t go on like this much longer. Right and wrong gets to look different when you’ve bin ’ungry for a while, or slept in a doorway. I’ve seen ’em. It changes folk, an’ ’oo’s to say it’s their fault?”
    She wondered whether to tell him anything about Squeaky Robinson and his very different establishment, apparently somewhere near Reid’s Brewery on Portpool Lane, or close beside. She was only half listening to him as she weighed it up.
    “Of course,” she agreed absently. If she told Hart he would feel obliged in turn to tell his superiors, and they would go blundering in, and very possibly warn Robinson without learning anything about Baltimore. After all, Robinson would deny it, just as everyone else was doing. Almost certainly he already had done.
    “Not as I’m sure we want to find the truth,” Hart went on dismally. “Considering what it’ll be, like as not.”
    Now she did pay attention. “Not find it?”