The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [109]
MacPherson’s smile widened. “Aye, this is his patch. He’ll no’ be happy if you take his case from him.”
“He isn’t interested in it,” Monk said quickly. “I’m after the rapists, not the murderer.”
“Are they no’ the same?”
“No … I don’t think so … at least, one is, I think.”
“You’re talking daft, man,” MacPherson said tartly. “Ye know better than to take me for a fool. Be straight wi’ me, an’ I’ll maybe help ye.”
Monk made up his mind on the spur.
“A woman in Seven Dials hired me to find who was raping and beating factory women over there. I’ve followed the case for three weeks now, and the more I learn, the more I think it may be connected with your murder here.”
“Ye just said it was no’ the same people.” MacPherson’s blue eyes narrowed, but he was still listening intently. He might dislike Monk, but he did not despise his intelligence.
“I think the young man who was beaten, but lived, may have been one of the rapists,” Monk explained. “The man who died is his father …”
“Aye, we all ken that much …”
“Who followed him, having learned, or guessed, what he was doing and got caught in the fight, and he was the one who got the worst of it.”
MacPherson pursed his lips. “What does the young man say?”
“Nothing whatever. He can’t speak.”
“Oh, aye? Why’s that then?” MacPherson said skeptically.
“Shock. But it’s true. I know the nurse who is caring for him.” In spite of all he could do to prevent it, the picture of Hester was so vivid in his mind it was as though she were sitting beside him. He knew she would hate what he was doing; she would fight desperately to protect her patient. But she would also understand why he could not leave the truth concealed if there was any way he could uncover it. If it were not Rhys, she would want it known just as passionately.
MacPherson was regarding him closely. “So what is it ye’re wanting from me?”
“There have been no attacks or rapes in Seven Dials since the murder,” Monk explained. “Or for some short time before. I need to know if they moved to St. Giles.”
“Not that I heard,” MacPherson said, his brow puckered. “But then that’s a thing folk don’t talk about easy. Ye’ll have to work a little harder for that than just come in here and ask for it.”
“I know that. But a little cooperation would cut down the time. There’s not much point in going to the brothels; they weren’t professional prostitutes, just women in need of a little extra now and then.”
MacPherson pushed out his lip, his eyes hot and angry. “No protection,” he said aloud. “Easy pickings. If we knew who it was, and they come back to St. Giles, it’ll be their last trip. They’ll not go home again, an’ that’s a promise.”
“You’ll not be the first in the line,” Monk said dryly. “But we have to find them before we can do anything about it.”
MacPherson looked at him with a bleak smile, showing his teeth. “I know you, Monk. Ye may be a hard bastard, but ye’re far too fly to provoke a murder that can be traced back to ye. Ye’ll no tell the likes o’ me what ye find.”
Monk smiled back at him, although it was the last thing he felt like. Every other time he spoke, MacPherson was adding new darkness to Monk’s knowledge of himself. Had he really been a man who had led others to believe he could countenance a murder, any murder, so long as it could not be traced to him? Could it conceivably be true?
“I have no intention of allowing you, or Vida Hopgood, to contrive your own revenge for the attacks,” he said aloud icily. “If the law won’t do it, then there are other ways. These men are not clerks or petty tradesmen with little to lose. They are men of wealth and social position. To ruin them would be far more effective. It would be slower, more painful, and it would be perfectly legal.”
MacPherson stared at him.
“Let their own punish them,” Monk went on dryly. “They are very good at it indeed … believe me. They have refined it to an art.