"I didn't look!”
"Feel! You must have felt their faces. Think!”
"No beard. Clean shaven… I s'pose. Mebbe side whiskers." She gave a grunt of scorn. "Could o' bin any o' thousands!" Her voice was harsh with disillusion, as if for a moment she had hoped. "Yer in't never goin' ter find 'em. Yer a liar takin' 'er money, an' she's a fool fer givin' it yer!”
"You watch yer tongue, Nellie West!" Vida said sharply. "You in't so smart yer can get along on yer own, an' don't yer ferget it! Keep civil, if yer knows wot's good for yer.”
"What time of night was it?" Monk asked the last thing he thought would be any use from her.
"Why?" she sneered. "Narrers it down, does it? Know 'oo it is then, do yer?”
"It may help. But if you'd prefer to protect them, we'll ask elsewhere. I understand you are not the only woman to be beaten." He turned for the door, leaving Vida to come after him. He heard her swear at Nellie carefully and viciously, without repeating herself.
The second woman to whom Vida led him was very different. They met her trudging home aft era long day in the sweatshop. It was still snowing although the cobbles were too wet for it to lie. The woman was perhaps thirty-five, although from the stoop of her shoulders she could have been fifty. Her face was puffy and her skin pale, but she had pretty eyes and her hair had a thick, natural curl. With a little spirit, a little laughter, she would still be attractive. She stopped when she recognised Vida. Her expression was not fearful or unfriendly. It said much of Vida's character that as the wife of the sweatshop owner she could still command a certain friendship in such a woman.
"Ello, Betty," she said briskly. "This 'ere's Monk. "E's gonner 'elp us with them bastards wot've bin beatin' up women round 'ere.”
There was a flicker of hope in Betty's eyes so brief it could have been no more than imagined.
"Yeah?" she said without interest. "Then wot? The rozzers is gonna arrest 'em, an' the judge is gonna bang 'em up in the Coldbath Fields?
Or maybe they're goin' ter Newgate, an' the rope, eh?" She gave a dry, almost soundless laugh.
Vida fell into step beside her, leaving Monk to walk a couple of paces behind. They turned the corner, passing a gin mill with drunken women on the doorstep, insensible of the cold.
"Ow's Bert?" Vida asked.
"Drunk," Betty answered. "Ow else?”
"An' yer kids?”
"Billy 'as the croup, Maisie coughs sum mink terrible. Others is aright." They had reached her door and she went to push it open just as two small boys came running around the corner of the alley from the opposite direction, shouting and laughing. They both had sticks which they slashed around as if they were swords. One of them lunged and the other one yelled out, then crumpled up and pretended to be dying in agony, rolling around on the wet cobbles, his face alight with glee.
The other one hopped up and down, crowing his victory. Seemingly it was his turn, and he was going to savour every ounce of it.
Betty smiled patiently. The rags they wore, a mixture of hand-me-downs and clothes unpicked and re-stitched from others, could hardly get any filthier.
Monk found his shoulders relaxing a little at the sound of children's laughter. It was a touch of humanity in the grey drudgery around him.
Betty led the way into a tenement very like the one in which Nellie West lived. She apparently occupied two rooms at the back. A middle-aged man lay in a stupor half in a chair, half on the floor. She ignored him. The room was cluttered with the furniture of living, a lop-sided table, the stuffed chair in which the man lay, two wooden chairs, one with a patched seat, a whisk broom and half a dozen assorted rags. The sound of children's voices came through the thin walls from the other room, and someone coughing. The two boys were still fighting in the corridor.
Vida ignored them all, and concentrated on Betty.
"Tell 'im wot 'appened toyer." She jerked her head at Monk to indicate who she meant. The other man was apparently too deep in his stupor to be aware of them.
"In't nuffink much ter tell," Betty said resignedly. "I got beat. It still 'urts, but nobody can't do nothing about it. Thought o' carryin' a shiv me self but in't worth it. If I stick the bastards, I'll only get topped fer murder. Anyway, don't s'pose they'll come 'ere again.”
"Yeah?" Vida said, her voice thick with derision. "Count on that, would yer? Don' mind goin' out in the streets again, takin' yer chances? "Appy about that, are yer? Yer din't 'ear wot 'appened ter Nellie West, nor Carrie Barker, nor Dot Mac Rae Nor them others wot got raped or beat? Some o' them's only kids. They damn near killed "Etty Drover, poor little cow.”
Bettie looked shaken. "I thought that were 'er man wot done that? "E drinks rotten, an' 'e don' know wot 'e does, 'alf the time." She glanced towards the recumbent figure in the corner, and Monk guessed she was only too familiar with the predicament.
"No, it weren' tim Vida said bleakly. "George in't that bad. "E's all wind an' water. "E don' really doer that bad. Shejus likes ter mouth orff. It were a geezer she picked up, an' 'e punched 'er sum mink rotten, an' then kicked 'er, after 'e took 'er. She's all tore, an' still bleedin'. Yer sure yer 'appy ter go out there lookin', are yer?”
Betty stared at her. "Then I'll stay 'ome," she said between clenched teeth. "Or I'll go up the "Aymarket!”
"Don't be a bloody fool!" Vida spat back contemptuously. "You in't "Aymarket quality, an yer knows it. Nor'd they let yer jus' wander up there an' butt in, an' yer knows that too.”
"Then I'll 'ave ter stay 'ome an' make do, won't I?" Betty retaliated, her cheeks a dull pink.
Vida stared at the sleeping man in the corner, unutterable scorn in her face. "An' 'e's gonna feed yer kids, is 'e? Grow up, Betty. Yer'll be out there again, rape or no rape, an' yer knows it as well as I do. Answer Monk's questions. We're gonna get these sods. Work together an' we can!”
Betty was too tired to argue. Just this moment, Vida was a worse threat than hunger or violence. She turned to Monk resignedly.
He asked her the same questions he had asked Nellie West, and received roughly the same answers. She had been out in the street to earn a little extra money. It had been a thin week for her husband, she referred to him loosely by that term. He had tried hard, but because of the weather there was nothing. Winters were always hard, especially at the fish market where he often picked up a little work. They had had a fight, over nothing in particular. He had hit her, blackening her eye and pulling out a handful of her hair. She had hit him over the head with an empty gin bottle, knocking him out. It had broken, and she had cut her hand picking up the pieces before the children could tread on them and cut their feet.
It was after that that she had gone to look for a spot of trade to make up the money. She had earned seventeen and sixpence, quite a tidy sum, and was looking to improve on it, when three men had approached her, two from in front, one from behind, and after no more than a few moments' verbal abuse, one of them had held her while the other two had raped her, one after the other. She left badly bruised, one shoulder wrenched and her knees and elbows grazed and bleeding. She had been too frightened to go out again for three weeks after that, or even to allow George anywhere near her. In fact the thought of going out again made her nearly sick with fear although hunger drove her past the door eventually.
Monk questioned her closely for anything she could remember of them.
They had abused her verbally. What were their voices like?
"They spoke proper… like gents. Weren't from around 'ere!" There was no doubt in her at all.
"Old or young?”
"Dunno. Din't see. Can't tell from a voice.”
"Clean shaven or bearded?”
"Clean… I think! Don' remember no whiskers. Least… I don' think so.”
"What kind of clothes?”
"Dunno.”
"Do you remember anything else? A smell, words, a name, anything at all?”