The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [81]
He must forget the man slumped in the chair, waiting with desperation for the few hours’ release the gin would give him, and concentrate on the woman. Perhaps it could even be done without the man’s realizing his wife had been raped. Monk could word it so it sounded like a simple assault. There was a great difference between what one thought one knew, privately, never acknowledging directly, and what one was forced to admit, to hear spoken, known by others where it could never after be forgotten.
“How many men were there?” he asked quietly.
She knew what he was referring to; the understanding and the fear were plain in her eyes.
“Three.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. First there was two, then a third one came. I din’t see where from.”
“Where was it?”
“The yard orff Foundry Lane.”
“What time?”
“About two, near as I can remember.” Her voice was very low; never once did she look sideways at her husband. Perhaps she wanted to pretend he was not there, that he did not know.
“Do you remember anything about them? Height, build, clothes, smell, voices?”
She thought for several minutes before she replied. Monk began to feel a lift of hope. Perhaps that was foolish.
“One o’ them smelled like summink odd,” she said slowly. “Like gin, on’y it weren’t gin. Kind o’ … sharper, cleaner, like.”
“Tar? Creosote?” he guessed, as much to keep her mind on it as in hope of defining it quickly.
“Nah … cleaner ’n that. I know tar. An’ I know creosote. Weren’t paint nor nuffink. Anyway, ’e weren’t a laborer, ’cos ’is ’ands was all smooth … smoother ’n mine.”
“A gentleman …”
“Yeah.”
Vida gave an ugly snort expressive of her opinion.
“Anything else?” Monk pressed. “Fabric of clothes, height, build? Hair thick or thin, whiskers?”
“No w’iskers.” Bella’s face was white as she recalled, her eyes dark and hollow. She was speaking in little more than a whisper. “One o’ them was taller than the others. One were thin, one ’eavier. The thin one were terrible angry, like there were a rage eatin’ ’im up inside. I reckon as mebbe ’e were one o’ them lunatics from down Lime’ouse way wot eats them Chinese drugs an’ goes mad.”
“Opium doesn’t make you violent like that,” Monk replied. “They usually go off into dreams of oblivion, lying on beds in rooms full of smoke, not wandering around alleys”—he stopped just before using the word raping—“attacking people. Opium eating is a very solitary pursuit, in mind if not in body. These men seemed to work together, didn’t they?”
“Yeah … yeah, they did.” Her face tightened with bitterness. “I’d ’a thought wot they did ter me were summink a man’d do by ’isself.”
“But they didn’t?”
“Nah … proud o’ theirselves, they was.” Her voice sank even lower. “One o’ them laughed. I’ll remember that till the day I die, I will. Laughed, ’e did, just afore ’e ’it me.”
Monk shivered, and it was more than the cold of the room.
“Were they old men or young men?” he asked her.
“I dunno. Mebbe young. They was smooth, no whiskers, no …” She touched her own cheek. “Nuffink rough.”
Young men out to savor first blood, Monk thought to himself, tasting violence and intoxicated with the rush of power; young men inadequate to make their mark in their own world, finding the helpless where they could control everything, inflict their will with no one to deny them, humiliate instead of being humiliated.
Was that what had happened to Evan’s young man? Had he and one or two of his friends come to St. Giles in search of excitement, some thrill of power unavailable to them in their own world, and then violence had for once met with superior resistance? Had his father followed him this time, only to meet with the same punishment?
Or had the fight been primarily between father and son?
It was possible, but he had no proof at all. If it was so, then at least one of the perpetrators had met with a terrible vengeance already, and Vida Hopgood need seek no more.
He thanked Bella Green and glanced across to see if it was worth speaking to her husband. It was impossible to tell from his eyes if he had been listening. Monk spoke to him