The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [114]
It did not take long to find someone who identified Rhys.
“Yeah,” he said, scratching his finger at the side of his head and knocking his cap askew. “Yeah, I seen ’im ’angin’ around once or twice, mebbe more. Tall, eh? Nice-lookin’ gent. Spoke proper, like them up west. Dressed rough, though. Down in ’is luck, I reckon.”
“Dressed rough?” Monk said quickly. “What do you mean, exactly?” Had it been Rhys, or only someone who looked a little like him?
“Well, not like a gent,” the man replied, looking at Monk earnestly as if he doubted Monk’s intelligence. “I know wot gents look like. Overcoat, ’e ’ad, but nuffink special, no fur on the collar, no ’igh ’at, no stick. In fact, no ’at at all, come ter think on it.”
“But it was this man? You are sure?”
“ ’Course I’m sure! Yer fink I dunno wot I sees, or yer fink I’m a liar, eh?”
“I think it’s important you are sure,” Monk said carefully. “Someone’s life might hang on it.”
The man laughed uproariously, his breath coming in gasps between rich, rolling gurgles of merriment.
“Yer a caution, you are! I never ’eard yer was a wit afore. On’y ’eard yer was clever, an’ never ter cross yer. Mean bastard, but fair, most o’ the time, but one ter give a bloke enough rope ter ’ang ’isself, an’ then watch w’ile ’e does it. Pull the trap fer ’im, if e’d done yer wrong.”
Monk felt the cold close in on him, penetrating his skin. “I wasn’t being funny,” he said in a voice that caught in his throat. “I meant depend on it, not hang with a rope.”
“Well, if you ain’t gonna ’ang them bastards wot raped those women over in Seven Dials, wot yer want ’em for? Ye gonna get ’em orff ’cos they’re gents? That in’t like yer. I never ’eard from nobody, even yer worst enemy, as yer feared nor favored no one, not for nuffink at all.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose. I’m not going to hang them because I can’t. I’d be perfectly happy to.” He was not sure that that was true. Happy might not be the right word, but he could certainly accede to it. He knew Hester would not, but that was irrelevant … well, almost.
“It were ’im,” the man said, shivering a little as he grew colder standing still on the street corner. “I seen ’im ’ere three, mebbe four times. Always at night.”
“Alone, or with others?”
“Wif others, twice. Once by ’isself.”
“Who were the others? Describe them. Did you ever see him with women, and what were they like?”
“ ’Ang on! ’Ang on! Once ’e were wif an older man, ’eavy-set, dressed very smart, like a gent. ’E were real angry, shouting at ’im—”
“Who was shouting at whom?” Monk interrupted.
“They was shouting at each other, o’ course.”
Monk produced the picture of Leighton Duff. “Was this him, or could it have been?”
The man studied it for several moments, then shook his head. “I dunno. I don’ fink so. W’y? ’Oo is ’e?”
“That doesn’t matter. Have you ever seen him, the older man?”
“Not as I knows of. Looks like a few as I seen.”
“And the other time? Who was the young man with then?”
“Woman: Young, mebbe sixteen or so. They went together inter an alley. Dunno after that, but I can guess.”
“Thank you. I don’t suppose you know the name of the woman, or where I can find her?”
“Looked like Fanny Waterman ter me, but that don’t mean it were.”
Monk could scarcely believe his good fortune. He tried not to let his sense of victory show too much in his voice.
“Where can I find her?”
“Black ’Orse Yard.”
Monk knew better than to try for a number. He would have to go there and simply start asking. He paid the man half a crown, a magnificent reward he feared he would regret later, and then set out for Black Horse Yard.
It took him two hours to find Fanny Waterman, and her answers left him totally puzzled. She recognized Rhys without hesitation.
“Yeah. So wot?”
“When?”
“I dunno. Mebbe free or four times. Wot’s it to yer?” She was a slight, skinny girl, hardly handsome, but she had a face which reflected intelligence and some humor behind the belligerence, and in different circumstances she could well have had a kind of charm. She was certainly fluent enough with words, and