The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [79]
They walked in silence, their footsteps without echo, sound swallowed instantly. It was a little after five o’clock. There were many other people on the streets, some idling in doorways, having lost heart in begging or seeing no prospects. Others still waited hopefully, peddling matches, bootlaces and similar odds and ends. Some went briskly about business, legal or illegal. Pickpockets and cutpurses loitered in the shadows and disappeared again, soft-footed. Monk knew better than to carry anything of value.
As he followed Vida Hopgood along the narrow alleys, staying close to the walls, memory hovered at the edge of his mind, fleeting impressions of having been somewhere worse than this, of urgent danger and violence. He passed a window, half filled with straw and paper, ridiculous as a barrier against the cold. He turned as if thinking he knew what he would see, but it was only a blur of yellow faces in the candlelight, a bearded man, a fat woman, and others equally meaningless to him.
Who had he expected? His only feeling was of danger, and that he must hurry. Others were depending upon him. He thought of narrow passages, crawling on hands and knees through tunnels, and the knowledge all the time that he could fall headfirst into the abyss of the sewers below and drown. It was a favorite trick of the thieves and forgers who hid in the great festering tenements of the Holy Land, seven or eight acres between St. Giles and St. Georges. They would lead a pursuer along a deliberate track through alleys and up and down stairs. There were trapdoors to cellars leading one to another for hundreds of yards. A man might emerge half a mile away, or he might wait and stick a knife into his pursuer’s throat, or open up a trap to a cesspool. The police went there only armed, and in numbers, and even then rarely. If a man disappeared into the rookeries he might not be seen again for a year. It hid its own, and trespassers went there at their peril.
How long ago had that been? Stunning Joe’s public house had gone. He knew that much. He had passed the corner where it used to be. At least he thought he knew it. The Holy Land itself had certainly opened up. The worst of the creaking tenements were gone, collapsed and rebuilt. The criminal strongholds had crumbled, their power dissipated.
Where had the memory come from, and how far back was it? Ten years, fifteen? When he and Runcorn had both been new and inexperienced, they had fought there side by side, guarding each other’s backs. It had been a comradeship. There had been trust.
When had it gone? Gradually, a dozen, a score of small issues, a parting of the paths of choice, or one sudden ugly incident?
He could not remember.
He followed Vida Hopgood across a small yard with a well in it, under an archway and then across a surprisingly busy street and into another alley. It was bone-achingly cold, the fog an icy shroud. He racked his brain, and there was nothing there at all, only the present, his anger with Runcorn now, his contempt for him, and the knowledge that Runcorn hated him, that the hate was deep and bitter and that it governed him. Even when it was against his own interest, his dignity and all that he wanted to be, the hate was so passionate in him he could not control it. It consumed his judgment.
“ ’Ere! Wot’s the matter wiv yer?” Vida’s voice cut across his thoughts, dragging him back to Seven Dials and the rape of the sweatshop women.
“Nothing!” he said sharply. “Is this Bella Green’s?”
“ ’Course it is. Wot the ’ell d’yer think we’re ’ere fer?” She banged on the rickety door and shouted Bella’s name.
It was several minutes before the door was answered by a girl somewhere between twelve and fifteen. Her long hair was curling and knotted, but her face was clean and she had nice teeth.
Vida asked for Bella Green.
“Me ma’s busy,” the girl replied. “She’ll be back in a w’ile. You wanna