by Anne Perry
“The gin mill,” Vida said immediately, taking no offense. “She’ll ’a gorn ter get Jimmy a bottle. Dulls the pain, poor sod.”
Monk did not bother to enquire whether the pain was physical or the bleak despair of the mind. The difference was academic; the burden of living with either was the same.
Vida’s guess was right. Inside the noise and filth of the gin shop, the sound of laughter, the shards of broken glass and the women huddled together for warmth and the comfort of living flesh rather than the cold stones, they found Bella Green. She was coming towards them cradling a bottle in her arms, holding it as if it were a child. It was a few moments’ oblivion for her husband, a man she must have seen answer his country’s call whole and full of courage and hope, and received back again broken in body and fast sinking in mind as he looked at the long, hopeless years ahead, and daily pain.
Beside her a woman wept and sank slowly to the floor in the maudlin self-pity of gin drunkenness.
Bella saw Vida Hopgood and her tired face showed surprise—and something that might have been embarrassment.
“Need ter see yer, Bella,” Vida said, ignoring the gin as if she had not seen it. “Din’ wanner. Know yer busy wi’ yer own troubles, but need yer ’elp.”
“Me ’elp!” Bella could not grasp it. “Fer wot?”
Vida turned and went out into the street, stepping over a woman fallen on the cobbles, insensible to the cold. Monk followed, knowing the uselessness of trying to pick anyone up. At least on the ground a person could fall no farther. The woman would be colder, wetter, but less bruised.
They walked quickly back to the door where Monk and Vida had knocked. Bella went straight in. It was cold and the damp had seeped through the walls. The air inside smelled sour, but there were two rooms, which was more than some people had. The second had a small black stove in it, and it gave off a faint warmth. Sitting beside it was a man with one leg. His empty trouser hung flat over the edge of his chair, fastened up with a pin. He was clean shaven, his hair combed, but his skin was so pale it seemed gray, and there were dark shadows around his blue eyes.
Monk was reminded of Hester with a jolt so sharp it caught his breath. How many men like this must she have known, have nursed, have seen when they were carried in from the battlefield, still stunned with horror and disbelief, not yet understanding what had happened to them, what lay ahead, only wondering if they would survive, hanging on to life with the grim, brave desperation that had brought them so far.
She had helped them during the worst days and nights. She had dressed the appalling wounds, encouraged them, bullied them into fighting back, into hanging on when there seemed no point, no hope. As she had done to Monk at the end of the Grey case. He had wanted to give up then. Why waste energy and hope and pain on a battle you could not win? It was exhausting, futile. It had not even dignity.
But she had refused to give up on him, on the struggle. Perhaps she was used to going on, enduring, keeping up the work, the sense of purpose, the outward calm, even when it seemed utterly useless. How could exhausted men fight against absurd odds, survive the pain and the loss, support their fellows, except if the women who nursed them showed the same courage and blind pointless faith?
Or perhaps faith was never pointless. Maybe faith itself was the point? Or courage?
But he had not meant to think of Hester. He had promised himself he would not. It left an emptiness inside him, a sense of loss which pervaded everything else, spoiling his concentration, darkening his mood. He needed his energy to think of details he was storing in his mind about the violence in Seven Dials. These women had no help but that which Vida Hopgood could wring from him. They deserved his best.
He must forget the man slumped in the chair, waiting with desperation for the few hours’ release the gin would give him, and concentrate on the woman. Perhaps it could even be done without the man’s realizing his wife had been raped. Monk could word it so it sounded like a simple assault. There was a great difference between what one thought one knew, privately, never acknowledging directly, and what one was forced to admit, to hear spoken, known by others where it could never after be forgotten.
“How many men were there?” he asked quietly.
She knew what he was referring to; the understanding and the fear were plain in her eyes.
“Three.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. First there was two, then a third one came. I din’t see where from.”
“Where was it?”
“The yard orff Foundry Lane.”
“What time?”
“About two, near as I can remember.” Her voice was very low; never once did she look sideways at her husband. Perhaps she wanted to pretend he was not there, that he did not know.
“Do you remember anything about them? Height, build, clothes, smell, voices?”
She thought for several minutes before she replied. Monk began to feel a lift of hope. Perhaps that was foolish.
“One o’ them smelled like summink odd,” she said slowly. “Like gin, on’y it weren’t gin. Kind o’ … sharper, cleaner, like.”
“Tar? Creosote?” he guessed, as much to keep her mind on it as in hope of defining it quickly.
“Nah … cleaner ’n that. I know tar. An’ I know creosote. Weren’t paint nor nuffink. Anyway, ’e weren’t a laborer, ’cos ’is ’ands was all smooth … smoother ’n mine.”
“A gentleman …”
“Yeah.”
Vida gave an ugly snort expressive of her opinion.
“Anything else?” Monk pressed. “Fabric of clothes, height, build? Hair thick or thin, whiskers?”
“No w’iskers.” Bella’s face was white as she recalled, her eyes dark and hollow. She was speaking in little more than a whisper. “One o’ them was taller than the others. One were thin, one ’eavier. The thin one were terrible angry, like there were a rage eatin’ ’im up inside. I reckon as mebbe ’e were one o’ them lunatics from down Lime’ouse way wot eats them Chinese drugs an’ goes mad.”
“Opium doesn’t make you violent like that,” Monk replied. “They usually go off into dreams of oblivion, lying on beds in rooms full of smoke, not wandering around alleys”—he stopped just before using the word raping—“attacking people. Opium eating is a very solitary pursuit, in mind if not in body. These men seemed to work together, didn’t they?”
“Yeah … yeah, they did.” Her face tightened with bitterness. “I’d ’a thought wot they did ter me were summink a man’d do by ’isself.”
“But they didn’t?”
“Nah … proud o’ theirselves, they was.” Her voice sank even lower. “One o’ them laughed. I’ll remember that till the day I die, I will. Laughed, ’e did, just afore ’e ’it me.”
Monk shivered, and it was more than the cold of the room.
“Were they old men or young men?” he asked her.
“I dunno. Mebbe young. They was smooth, no whiskers, no …” She touched her own cheek. “Nuffink rough.”
Young men out to savor first blood, Monk thought to himself, tasting violence and intoxicated with the rush of power; young men inadequate to make their mark in their own world, finding the helpless where they could control everything, inflict their will with no one to deny them, humiliate instead of being humiliated.
Was that what had happened to Evan’s young man? Had he and one or two of his friends come to St. Giles in search of excitement, some thrill of power unavailable to them in their own world, and then violence had for once met with superior resistance? Had his father followed him this time, only to meet with the same punishment?
Or had the fight been primarily between father and son?
It was possible, but he had no proof at all. If it was so, then at least one of the perpetrators had met with a terrible vengeance already, and Vida Hopgood need seek no more.
He thanked Bella Green and glanced across to see if it was worth speaking to her husband. It was impossible to tell from his eyes if
he had been listening. Monk spoke to him anyway.
“Thank you for giving us your time. Good day to you.”
The man opened his eyes with a sudden flash of clarity but he did not answer.
Bella showed them out. The child was nowhere to be seen, possibly in the other room. Bella did not speak again either. She hesitated, as if to ask for hope, but perhaps as if to thank Monk. It was in her eyes, a moment’s softness. But she remained silent, and they went out into the street and were swallowed instantly by the ever-thickening fog, now yellow and sour with smoke, catching in the throat, settling as ice on the cobbles.
“Well?” Vida demanded.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” Monk retorted. He wanted to stride out—he was too angry to walk slowly to keep pace with her, and too cold—but he did not know where he was or where he was going. He was forced against his will to wait for her.
The next house they went to was a trifle warmer. They came out of the now-freezing fog into a room where a potbellied stove smelled of stale soot but gave off quite a comforting heat. Maggie Arkwright was plump and comfortable, black-haired, ruddy skinned. It was easy to understand that she might do very well at her part-time profession. There was a good humor about her, even a look of health which was attractive. Glancing around at the room, with two soft chairs, a table with all four of its original legs, a stool, and a wooden chest with three folded blankets, Monk wondered if the things in it had been bought with the proceeds of her trade.
Then he remembered that Vida had said her husband was a petty thief, and he realized that might be the source of their relative prosperity. The man came in a moment after them. His face was genial, eyes lost in wrinkles of general goodwill, but his head was close shaved in what Monk knew was a “terrier crop,” a prison haircut. He had probably been out no more than a week or ten days. Presumably she kept the household going when he was accepting Her Majesty’s hospitality in Mill wall or the Coldbath Fields.
There was a burst of laughter from the next room, an old woman’s high cackle, and the giggling of children. It was a sound of hilarity, unguarded and carefree.
“Wot yer want?” Maggie asked civilly, but with eyes wary on Monk’s face. He had an air of authority about him she did not trust.
Vida explained, and bit by bit Monk drew from Maggie the story of the attack upon her. It was one of the earliest, and seemed to be far less vicious than more recent ones. The account was colorful, and he thought very possibly embellished a trifle for his benefit. It was of no practical value, except that it told him of yet another victim, one Vida had not known of. Maggie told Monk where to find her, but said to go the next day. She would be drunk at present 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 who beat 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 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 satis
faction 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.
