The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [63]
“Conspiracy?” Evan was astonished. “Between whom?”
“That’s for you to find out,” Runcorn said testily. “Use your imagination. Is she handsome?”
“Yes … very, in an unusual sort of way …”
“What do you mean, unusual? What’s wrong with her? How old is she? How old was he?”
Evan found himself resenting the implications.
“She’s very dark, sort of Spanish looking. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s just … unusual.”
“How old?” Runcorn repeated.
“About forty, I should think.” The thought had never occurred to him until Runcorn had mentioned it, but it should have. It was obvious enough, now that it was there. The whole crime might have nothing to do with St. Giles, which might have been no more than a suitable place. It could as easily have been any other slum, any alley or yard in a dozen such areas, just somewhere to leave a body where it would be believed to be an attack by ruffians. It was sickening. Of course, Rhys was never meant to have been there; his presence was mischance. Leighton Duff had followed him and been caught up with … but that did not need to be true either. He had only Sylvestra’s word for that. The two men could have gone out at any time, separately or together, for any reason. He must consider it independently before he accepted it to be the truth. Now he was angry with himself. Monk would never have made such an elementary mistake.
Runcorn let out his breath in a sigh. “You should have thought of that, Evan,” he said. “You think everybody who speaks well belongs in your country vicarage.”
Evan opened his mouth and then closed it again. Runcorn’s remark was unfair, but it sprang not from fact, or not primarily, but from his own complex feelings about gentlemen and about Evan himself. At least some of it stemmed from Runcorn’s long relationship with Monk and the rivalry between them, the years of unease, of accumulated offenses which Monk could not remember and Runcorn never forgot. Evan did not know the origin of it, but he had seen the clash of ideals and natures when he first came, after Monk’s accident, and he had been there when the final and blazing quarrel had severed the tie and Monk had found himself out of the police force. Like every other man in the station, he was aware of the emotions. He had been Monk’s friend, therefore he could never truly be trusted by Runcorn, and never liked without there always being a reservation.
“So what have you got?” Runcorn asked abruptly. Evan’s silence bothered him. He did not understand him; he did not know what he was thinking.
“Very little,” Evan answered ruefully. “Leighton Duff died somewhere about three in the morning, according to Dr. Riley. Could have been earlier or later. He was beaten and kicked to death, no weapon used except fists and boots. Young Rhys Duff was almost as badly beaten, but he survived.”
“I know that! Evidence, man!” Runcorn said impatiently, curling his fist on the desktop. “What evidence have you? Facts, objects, statements, witnesses who can be believed.”
“No witnesses to anything, except finding the bodies,” Evan replied stiffly. There were moments when he wished he had Monk’s speed of mind to retaliate, but he did not want the ordinary man on the beat to fear him, only respect him. “No one admits to having seen either man, separately or together, in St. Giles.”
“Cabbies,” Runcorn said, his eyebrows raised. “They didn’t walk there.”
“We’re trying. Nothing so far.”
“You haven’t got very much.” Runcorn’s face was plainly marked with contempt. “You’d better have another look at the family. Look at the widow. Don’t let elegance blind you. Maybe the son knows his mother’s nature, and that’s why he’s so horrified that he cannot speak.”
Evan thought of Rhys’s expression as he had looked at Sylvestra, of his flinching from her when she moved to touch him. It was a repellent thought.
“I’m going to do that,” he said reluctantly. “I’m going to look into his friends and associates more closely.