Anne Perry - The Silent Cry

"I take it you think it unlikely Mr. Duff would have gone to St. Giles in search of a prostitute?”

"About as likely as Her Majesty appearing on the stage of the music halls, I should think," Duke replied bitterly. "Whatever gave you that notion? You must be very out of touch with the case. You really have not the least idea, have you!”

Monk took the picture of Leighton Duff out of his pocket.

"Is that a good likeness of him?”

Duke considered it for a moment. "Yes, it is, actually. It is extremely good. He had just that rather patronising air of self-righteousness.”

"You did not like him," Monk observed.

"A crashing remark of the obvious." Duke raised his eyebrows. "Do you really make a living at this, Mr. Monk?”

"You would be surprised how people betray themselves when they imagine themselves safe, Mr. Kynaston," Monk said with a smile. "But thank you for your concern on my behalf. It is not necessary. What I came for was to warn you, and your brother, that the people of St. Giles, and of Seven Dials as well, are aware of who committed the recent rapes in their areas, and if either of you should return there, it is very probable you will meet with most unpleasant ends. You have been there.

You know or can imagine how easily that could be accomplished, and your bodies never found… at least not recognisable ones.”

Duke stared at him with a mixture of shock and incomprehension, but there was markedly fear in it as well.

"Why do you care if I get murdered in St. Giles?" he said truculently, then passed his tongue over dry lips.

"I don't," Monk replied with a smile, but even as he said it, it was not entirely true. He disliked Marmaduke Kynaston less than when he had come in, for no reason that he would have been prepared to explain.

"I don't want the people of St. Giles to be pursued by a murder enquiry.”

Duke took a deep breath. "I should have known. Are you from St.

Giles?”

Monk laughed outright. It was the first time he had felt like it for days.

"No. I come from Northumberland.”

"I suppose I should thank you for the warning," Duke said casually, but his eyes still held the shock, and there was a reluctant sincerity in his voice.

Monk shrugged and smiled.

He left the house even further confused.

Time was desperately short.

He took Leighton Duffs picture to Seven Dials and showed it to cabbies, street pedlars, a running patterer, sellers of flowers, bootlaces, matches, glassware, and to a rat catcher and several prostitutes. It was recognised by at least a dozen people, and some without any hesitation at all. Not one of them was prepared to identify Rhys.

By the second night Monk had only one more question in his mind. He returned to St. Giles to pursue the answer, and walked the alleys and courtyards, the dripping passages and up and down the rotting stairs until dawn came grey and bleak at about seven o'clock, and he was exhausted, and so cold his feet were numb and he could not control the shaking of his body. But he knew two things. Rhys Duff and his father had come to St. Giles on the night of the murder from different directions, and there was no proof they had met until the fatal encounter in Water Lane.

The other thing he learned by chance. He was talking to a woman who had been a prostitute in her youth, and had saved sufficient money to purchase a boarding house, but still knew a remarkable amount of gossip. He went to her partly to confirm certain dates and places, but mainly from his compulsion to probe the darkness in his own mind, the fear that gathered every time Runcorn's face came to his thoughts, which it did so often in these dark, slippery paths. It was not Runcorn as he was now, greying at the temples, a little broader at the waist, but a younger, keener Runcorn, shoulders straight, eyes clearer and braver.

"Do you remember the raid in the brothel when the magistrate, Gutteridge, was caught with his trousers down?" He was not sure why he asked, or what he expected the answer to be, only that it lay at the back of his mind, and would not leave.

She gurgled with delight. "Course I do. Why?”

"Runcorn led it?”

"You know that! Can't tell me you've forgot!" She looked at him narrowly, her head on one side.

"Did he set it up?" he asked.

"Wot's this, a game or sum mink You set it up, an' Runcorn took it from yer. Yer let 'im, cos yer know'd poor of Gutt'ridge was gonna be there. Runcorn walked right inter it, daft sod.”

"Why? It was Gutteridge's own fault. Did he expect the police to hold off, just because he was indulging himself?”

Her eyes widened. "Yeah! Course 'e did! Or at least warn 'im! Upset a lot o' people, that did… important people, like. None o' us, mind! Laughed till we creased ourselves, we did!”

"What people?" Monk paused, knowing something eluded him, something that mattered.

"Ere, wot's this abaht?" she said with a frown. "It's all dead an' buried nah! "Oo cares any more? It don't 'ave nuffink ter do wi' them rapes 'ere.”

"I know it doesn't. I just want to know. Tell me," he pressed.

"Well, there was a few gents wot felt their selves a bit exposed like, arter that." She laughed hugely at her own joke. "They'd always trusted you rozzers to keep yer distance from certain 'ouses o' pleasure." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Arter that they din't trust no one. Couldn't! It kind o' soured relations at ween the rozzers and certain people o' influence. On'y time I ever thought as I could like Mr. Runcorn. Bleedin' pain 'e is, most o' the time. Worse'n you! Yer a mean bastard, but yer was straight, and yer weren't full o' cant. I never knowed yer preach one thing an' do another. Not like 'em." She looked at him more closely. "Wot is it, Monk? W'y dyer give a toss abaht a twenty-year-old raid in a bawdy 'ouse?”

"I'm not sure," he said honestly.

"After yer, is 'e?" she asked with a note of something which could even have been sympathy. He was not sure whether it was for him, or for Runcorn.

"Afterme?" he repeated. "Why?" It sounded foolish, but she knew something about it, or she would not have leaped to such a conclusion.

He had to know. He was too close now not to grasp it, whatever it was.

"Well, yer droppedim right in it, din't yer?" she said incredulously. "Yer knew all them folk was there, an' yer never toP 'im. Let 'im charge in an' make a right fool of is self Don't suppose nuffink was said, but they don' never fergive that kind o' thing. Lorst 'is promotion then, an' lorst 'is girl too, cos 'er father were one of 'em, weren't 'e?" She shrugged. "I'd watch me back, if I was you, even arterall this time. "E don' fergive, yer know? Carries a grudge 'and, does Runcorn.”

Monk was barely listening. He could not remember doing it, even after her description. But he could remember the feeling of victory, the deep, hot satisfaction of knowing he had beaten Runcorn. Now it was only shame. It was a shabby trick and too deep a revenge for anything Runcorn could have done to him. Not that he knew of anything.

He thanked her quietly and walked out, leaving her puzzled, muttering to herself about how times had changed.

Why? He walked with his head down into the rain, hands deep in his pockets, ignoring the gutters and his wet feet. It was fully light now. Why had he done such a thing? Had it been as deliberate and as calculatedly cruel as everyone else thought? If it had, then no wonder Runcorn still hated him. To lose the promotion was fair enough. That was the fortune of war. But to lose the woman he loved was a bitter blow, and one Monk would not now have dealt to any man.

The trial of Rhys Duff had already begun. The information he had was highly pertinent, even if it offered little real help. He should go and tell Rathbone. Hester would be hurt. How Sylvestra Duff would take the news that her husband was also a rapist, he could not even imagine.