by Anne Perry
“Why, for God’s sake?” Monk demanded, looking at Rathbone and avoiding Hester’s eyes. “Isn’t it plain enough what happened?”
“No, it isn’t,” Rathbone said patiently. “I have undertaken to defend him, and I cannot begin to do that until I know every whit of truth that I can—”
“You can’t anyway,” Monk said. “It is as indefensible as a human act can be. The only possible thing you can say to procure anything except the rope for him is that he is insane. Which may be true.”
“It is not true,” Rathbone replied, keeping calm with some difficulty. Hester could see it in the muscles of his jaw and the way he stood. His voice was very soft. “In any legal sense, he is perfectly rational and not apparently suffering any delusions. If you refuse to take the case on the grounds that it horrifies and appalls you, then say so. I shall be obliged to accept that.” He also did not look at Hester. There was anger in him, almost as if he would provoke the very answer he did not want.
Monk heard the sharpness. He swiveled to look at Hester.
“I suppose you put him up to this?”
“I asked him to defend Rhys,” she replied.
Rathbone’s acceptance, and Monk’s refusal, hung in the air like a sword between them.
Hester thought of a dozen things to say. She wanted to excuse Rathbone. He had undertaken an impossible case because she had prevailed upon him. She had persuaded him to see Rhys, to feel some of her own pity and protectiveness for him. She felt guilty for it, and she admired him for not placing his own reputation, and the failure he faced, before it.
She wanted Monk to feel the same compassion and accept the case, not for her but for Rhys. No … that was not wholly true. She wanted him to accept it for her also, as Rathbone had. And she would be ashamed of herself if he did.
And all that ought to matter was Rhys. It was his life.
“You were finding out about the rapes,” she said to Monk. “Now you could find out about Rhys himself, and his father. Discover if Leighton Duff did know what Rhys was doing and followed him to try to stop him.”
“That will hardly help your case,” Monk pointed out bitterly. “Not that I can think of anything that will.”
“Well, try!” Suddenly she was shouting at him, helplessness, anger and pain welling up inside her. “I don’t believe Rhys is wicked or mad. There has to be something else … some pain, some … I don’t know … just something. Look for it.”
“You’re beaten, Hester,” Monk said, surprisingly gently. “Don’t go on fighting anymore. It is not a kindness to anyone.”
“No, I’m not …” She wanted to cry. She could feel tears prickling in her eyes and throat. It was ridiculous. “Just … try. There has to be something more we can do.”
He looked at her steadily. He did not believe it, and she could see it in his face. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.
“All right, I’ll try,” he acceded with a little shake of his head. “But it won’t help.”
“Thank you,” Rathbone said quickly. “It is better than doing nothing.”
Monk let out his breath in a sigh. “Stop dripping on the floor and tell me what you know.…”
11
Monk was convinced that any attempt to find mitigating circumstances to explain Rhys Duff’s behavior was doomed to failure. Rhys was a young man whose lack of self-control—first of his appetites, then of his temper—had led him from rape to the situation of murder which he now faced. Curiously, it was the beatings for which Monk could not forgive him. They, of all the crimes, seemed a gratuitous exercise of cruelty.
Nevertheless, he would try—for Hester’s sake. He had said he would, perhaps in the emotion of the moment, and now he was bound.
Still, as he set out for St. Giles, it was more at the edge of his mind than at the center. He could not rid himself of the memory of the expression of contempt he had seen in the eyes of the people who had known him before—and liked Runcorn better, felt sorry for him in the exchange. Runcorn, as he was now, irritated Monk like a constant abrasion to the skin. He was pompous, small-minded, self-serving. But perhaps he had not always been like that. It was imaginable that whatever had happened between them had contributed to a warping of his original nature.
If anyone had offered this thought to Monk as an excuse for his own behavior, he would have rejected it as precisely that—an excuse. If he did not have the strength, the honesty or the courage to rise above it, then he should have. But he would soften the judgment towards others where he could not for himself.
He was in Oxford Street and going south. In a moment or two the hansom would stop and let him down. He would walk the rest of the way; he was not yet sure precisely to what goal. The traffic around him was dense, people shouting in all directions, the squeal of horses, rattle of harness and hiss of wheels in the rain.
He should turn his attention to Rhys Duff. What could he look for? What might a mitigating circumstance be? Accident was impossible. It had to have been a deliberate and sustained battle fought until both men were incapable even of moving. Provocation? That was conceivable for Leighton Duff, in the rage and horror of discovering what his son had done. It was not believable the other way around.
Unless there was something else, some other quarrel which happened to have reached a climax in Water Lane. Would that excuse anything? Were there any circumstances in which such violence ending in murder could be understood? He could imagine none. Leighton Duff had not died of a blow to the head which could have been one dreadful loss of control. He had been beaten to death, blow after blow after blow.
The hansom stopped and Monk alighted and paid the driver, then turned and walked in the rain towards the first alley opening. The smell of dirt was becoming familiar, the narrow grayness of the buildings, the sloping, leaning walls, the sense of imminent collapse as wood creaked, wind flapped in loose canvas or whistled thinly in broken glass.
The Holy Land had been like this twenty years before, only more dangerous. He turned his collar up, then pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. It was useless trying to avoid stepping in puddles; everywhere the gutters overflowed. The only answer was to keep old boots specifically for this purpose.
What had made Leighton Duff follow Rhys on that particular evening? Had he discerned something which, with a horrifying shock, made him realize what his son was doing? What could that be, and why had Evan not found it? Had Leighton Duff destroyed it, or taken it with him in order to confront Rhys? If so, then why had it not been found on his body? Rhys had not left. Then had Arthur or Duke Kynaston taken it with them, and presumably destroyed it?
Or did it not exist, and Leighton Duff had known before, or at least suspected? What had decided him that night to follow Rhys?
Was it possible he had followed him before?
Monk crossed a narrow yard with a smithy in the building on the far side. He could feel the warmth from the furnace yards away, and smell the fire, the burning metal and the damp hide and flesh of horses.
A new idea occurred to him as he hurried past before the warmth could ensnare him. Might Leighton Duff also have used prostitutes, and that was how he had learned of Rhys’s behavior? And to reason on the subject, how had he learned? Had Rhys returned injured and been obliged to explain to his father the blood on him, or scratches, or bruises? Surely not. He would have sufficient privacy for that not to be necessary—or for another simple explanation to be given. He could pass it off as a bout of boxing taken a little too far, a riding mishap, a scuffle in the street, a fall, a dozen things. Monk should check with Sylvestra Duff and see if any such thing had happened.
But what if Leighton had been there himself, perhaps with one particular prostitute? That could at one stroke explain his knowledge of both Rhys’s presence in St. Giles and the series of rapes and beatings; and also perhaps explain something of Rhys’s rage at being chastised by his father. The sheer hypocrisy of it, in his eyes, might infuriate him.
And on a darker no
te, if he knew of his father’s association with such women, might it explain his own violence towards prostitutes, a sense of the violation of his family, especially his mother? That would be the beginning of some kind of mitigation … if it were true … and provable.
The answer was to see if anyone in St. Giles recognized Leighton Duff from any night except that of his death. Was he known in any of the brothels? It would be by sight. A man as sophisticated in the ways of the world was hardly likely to use his own name. While society knew perfectly well that a great many gentlemen took their pleasures in such places, it was still another matter to be caught at it. One’s reputation would suffer, perhaps a great deal.
He stopped abruptly, almost tripping over the edge of the curb. He all but overbalanced, memory came to him so sharply. Of course, a man could be ruined, become the butt of social jokes, not so much from his carnal weakness as the absurdity of being caught in a ridiculous position. The man’s dignity was shattered forever. His inferiors laughed, respect vanished. He could no longer exert authority.
Why had he thought of authority?
A man with a brazier of roasting chestnuts was staring at him curiously. A coster girl giggled and disappeared around the end of the alley into the thoroughfare, carrying a bag in front of her.
A magistrate. It had been a magistrate caught in a police raid in a brothel. He had been in bed with a fat, saucy girl of about fourteen. When the police had gone in, he had come running out of the room in his shirt tails, his hair flying, his spectacles left behind, and he had tripped and fallen downstairs, landing at the police officer’s feet with his shirt over his head, very little left to the imagination. Monk had not been there. He had heard about it afterwards, and laughed till he was blind with tears and his ribs were aching.
Why did he remember that now? It was still funny, but there was a certain injustice to it, a pain.
Why? Why should Monk feel any guilt? The man was a hypocrite, sentencing women for a crime in which he himself was the abettor, for selling goods which he only too obviously bought.
And yet the sense of regret remained with Monk as he turned left and crossed the road again. He was unconsciously heading towards one of the bigger brothels he knew of. Was it to ask about Leighton Duff? Or was this where the old raid had happened? Why would the police raid a brothel in St. Giles—or the Holy Land? It was riddled with them, and no one cared. There must have been some other reason—theft, forgery, perhaps something more serious, kidnapping or even murder. That would justify storming into the place without warning.
He passed a man with a bundle of walking sticks, threading his way through the alleys to a main street where he would begin to sell them. A beggar moved into a doorway to shelter himself from the rain. For no particular reason Monk gave him a threepence.
It would be more intelligent to go to the police station and get a picture of Leighton Duff from Evan. Thousands of men matched his description. It would be an extremely tedious job to comb St. Giles for someone who had seen Leighton Duff and could recognize him, but he had nowhere else to start. And there was only a day or two before the trial began.
But while he was still in St. Giles he must see if he could trace his own history there with Runcorn. It was what he needed to know. Vida Hopgood was satisfied. He thought, with a smile, of her face when he had told her about Rhys Duff and his friends. It was less than perfect that Arthur and Duke Kynaston should escape, but it was not necessarily a permanent state of affairs. They would be unlikely to return to Seven Dials, and if they did, they would find a most unpleasant reception awaiting them. Perhaps Monk should go and warn them of that? It might save their lives, which did not concern him overmuch, but it would also free his own conscience from the stain of accessory to murder if they should be foolish enough to ignore him.
He reached the station and found Evan, now engaged in a new case.
“May I borrow your pictures of Rhys and Leighton Duff?” he asked when they were in Evan’s tiny room.
Evan was surprised. “What for? Isn’t Vida Hopgood satisfied?”
“Yes. This isn’t for her.” He would prefer not to have to tell Evan that he was trying to save Rhys Duff, that he was, in a sense, working against the case Evan had built with Monk’s own help.
“Then who?” Evan watched him closely, his hazel eyes bright.
Evan would find out sooner or later that Rathbone had taken up the defense. Evan would testify at the trial; he would know then, if not before.
“Rathbone,” Monk answered tersely. “He would like to know more about what happened before that night.”
Evan stared at him. There was no anger in his face, no sense of betrayal. In fact, if anything he looked relieved.
“You mean Hester persuaded Rathbone to defend Rhys, and you are working to that end,” Evan said with something that sounded like satisfaction.
Monk was stung that Evan imagined he was working for Hester, and in a hopeless cause like this one. Worse than that, it was true. He was tilting at windmills, like a complete fool. It was totally out of character, contrary to everything he knew of himself, and it was to try to ease the pain for Hester when she had to watch Rhys Duff convicted of a crime for which they would hang him, and this time she would be helpless to offer him even the remotest comfort. The knowledge of her pain then twisted inside Monk like a cramp. And for that alone he could hate Rhys Duff and his selfish, obsessive appetites, his cruelty, his stupidity and his mindless violence.
“I’m working for Rathbone,” he snapped at Evan. “It is a total waste of time, but if I don’t do it he’ll find someone else, and waste poor Mrs. Duff’s money, not to mention her grief. If ever a woman did not need a further burden to carry, it is she.”
Evan did not argue. Monk would have preferred it if he had. It was an evasion, and Monk knew that Evan knew it. Instead he simply turned away to his desk drawer with a slight smile and a lift of his shoulders, and pulled out the two pictures. He gave them to Monk.
“I had better have them back when you are finished with them, in case they are required for evidence.”
“Thank you,” Monk said rather less courteously than Evan deserved. He folded them up carefully in a piece of paper and put them in his pocket. He bade Evan good-bye and went out of the police station quickly. He would prefer it if Runcorn did not know he had been there. The last thing he wanted was to run into him by chance … or mischance.
It would be a long and cold day, and evening was when he would have the best chance to find the people who would have been around at the time to see either Rhys or Leighton Duff, or, for that matter, either of the Kynastons. Feeling angry at the helplessness, his feet wet and almost numb with cold, he went back towards St. Giles, stopping at a public house for a hot meat pie, potatoes and onions, and a steamed pudding with a plain sauce.
He spent several hours in the area searching and questioning, walking slowly along the alleys and through the passages, up and down stairways, deeper into the older part, unchanged in generations. Water dripped off rotting eaves, the stones were slimy, wood creaked, doors hung crooked but fast closed. People moved ahead of him and behind like shadows. One moment it would be strange, frightening and bitterly infectious, the next he thought he recognized something. He would turn a corner and see exactly what he expected, a skyline or a crooked wall exactly as he had known it would be, a door with huge iron studs whose pattern he could have traced with his eyes closed.
He learned nothing, except that he had been there before, and that he already knew. The police station he had worked from made that much obvious to anyone.
He began with the larger and more prosperous brothels. If Leighton Duff had used prostitutes in St. Giles, they were the most likely places to find them.
He worked until after midnight, asking, threatening, cajoling, coercing, and learning nothing whatever. If Leighton Duff had been to any of these places, either the madams did not remember him or they were lying to protect their reputation for discretion
. Monk believed it was the former. Duff was dead, and they had little to fear from answering Monk. He had not lost so much of his old character that he could not wring information from people who made their living on the edge of crime. He knew the balance too well not to use it.
He was walking along a short alley up towards Regent Street when he saw a cabby standing on the pavement talking to a sandwich seller, shivering as the wind whipped around the corner and caught him in its icy blast.
Monk offered a penny and bought a huge sandwich. He bit into it with pleasure. Actually, it was very good, fresh bread with a sharp crust to it, and a thick slice of ham, liberally laced with a rhubarb chutney.
“Good,” he said with his mouth full.
“Find yer rapists yet?” the cabby asked, raising his eyebrows. He had very sad, rather protuberant eyes of pale blue.
“Yes, thank you,” Monk replied, smiling. “You been on this patch long?”
“Baht eight years. Why?”
“Just wondered.” He turned to the sandwich seller. “And you?”
“Twenty-five,” he answered. “More or less.”
“Do you know me?”
The man blinked. “ ’Course I knows yer. Wot kinda question is that?”
Monk steeled himself. “Do you remember a raid in a brothel, a long time ago, where a magistrate was caught? He fell downstairs and hurt himself quite badly.” He had not finished before he saw from the man’s face that he did. It creased with laughter and a rich chortle of pure joy escaped his lips.
“Yeah!” he said happily. “Yeah, ’course I ’members it. Rotten bastard, ’e were, ol’ Gutteridge. Put Polly Thorp away for three years jus’ ’cos some feller wot she were doin’ a service fer said as she’d took ’is money—w’en ’is trousers was orff!” He laughed again, his cheeks puffing out and shining in the lamplight from across the street. “Got caught proper, ’e did … trousers down an’ all. Leff the bench arter that. No more ’andin’ down four years ’ere an’ five years there, an’ the boat all over the place. Yer could ’ear ’em laughin’ all over the ’Oly Land, yer could. I heard Runcorn got the credit for that one, but I always wondered if that was really down ter you, Mr. Monk. There was a lot o’ us as reckoned it were. Yer just wasn’t there at the time, so ter speak.”
