Would it help? Would it tell him something he would rather not have known, ugly, incomplete, and without explanation?
Probably. But perhaps imagination alone was worse.
"What do you mean, "not even my own"?" The instant he had said it, he wished he had not.
The man gave a grunt of disgust.
A woman in a black shawl came past and bought two pies.
"I seen yer shaft yer own," the pedlar answered when she had gone.
"Left 'im 'angin' out ter dry, like a proper fool, yer did.”
Monk's stomach turned cold and a little fluttery. It was what he had feared.
"How do you know?" he argued.
"Saw 'is face, an' seen yours." The pedlar sold another pie and fished for change for a threepenny piece. "E weren't spec ting it. Caught improper, poor sod.”
"How? What did I do?”
"Wot's the matter wiv' yer?" the man looked at him incredulously.
"Want the pleasure of it twice, do yer? I dunno. Jus' know yer came 'ere tergether, an' yer done 'im some'ow. "E trusted yer, an' finished up in the muck. I guess it's 'is own fault. "E should 'a knowed better. It were writ in yer face. I wouldn't 'a trusted yer far as I can spit!”
It was ugly and direct, and it was probably the truth. He would like to think the man lied, find some way out of it, but he knew there was no hope. He felt cold inside in his stomach, in his chest.
"What about these men you've seen?" he asked, his voice sounding hollow. "Don't you want them stopped?”
The man's face darkened. "Course I do… an' we'll do it… without your 'elp!”
"Haven't done a very good job so far," Monk pointed out. "I'm not with the police any more. I'm working for Vida Hopgood… in this.
Anything I find out, I tell her.”
The man's disbelief was plain.
"Why? P'lice threw yer out, did they? Good! Guess that fella got the best oyer in the end!" He smiled, showing yellow teeth. "So there's some justice arterall.”
"You don't know what happened between us!" Monk said defensively. "You don't know what he did to me first!" It sounded childish, even as he said it, but it could not be taken back. Very little ever could.
The man smiled. "Agin you? I reckon as yer a first-class swine, but I'd back yer ter win agin anyone!”
Monk felt a shiver of apprehension, and perhaps pride as well, perverse, hurting pride, a salvage from the wreck of other things.
"Then help me to find these men. You know what they've done. Let Vida Hopgood learn who they are, and stop them.”
"Yeah… right." The man's face eased, the anger melting. "I s'pose if anyone can find them, it's you. I dunno much, or I'd 'a done 'em myself.”
"Have you seen them, or anyone who could be them?" "Ow do I know? I seen lots o' geezers wot don't belong 'ere, but usual yer knows wot they're 'ere for. Reg'lar brothels, or gamblin', or ter 'ock sum mink as they daren'tock closer ter 'ome.”
"Describe them!" Monk demanded. "I don't care about the others. Tell me all you saw of these men, where and when, how many, how dressed, anything else you know…”
The man thought carefully for a few moments before giving his answer.
His description established what Monk had already heard regarding build, and that there were three men on several occasions, on others only two. The one new fact he added was that he had seen them meet, on the outskirts of Seven Dials, as if they had arrived from different directions, but he had only ever seen them leave together.
He could no longer avoid putting his theory to the test. He would much rather not have, because he was afraid it was true, and he did not wish it to be. Hester was being foolish about it, of course, but he did not wish her to be hurt, and she would be, when she was forced to accept that Rhys Duff had been one of the rapists.
It took him all day, moving from one grey and bitter street to another, asking, cajoling, threatening, but by dusk he had found not only others who had seen the men immediately after one of the attacks, and only a mere fifty yards from the place. They had been dishevelled, staggering a little, and one of them had been marked with blood, as his face was caught for a moment in the glare of a passing hansom's carriage lights.
It was not what he wanted. It was bringing him inevitably closer to a tragedy he was now almost certain would involve Rhys Duff, but he still felt a kind of elation, a surge inside him of the knowledge of power, the taste of victory. He was turning a corner into a wider street, stepping off the narrow pavement, avoiding the gutter, when he remembered doing exactly the same before, with the same surge of knowledge that he had won.
Then it had been Runcorn. He did not know what about, but there had been men who had told him something he needed to know, and they had been afraid of him, as they were now. It was an unpleasant knowledge to look back on, the guarded eyes, the hatred in them and the defeat because he was stronger, cleverer and they knew it. But he could not remember it hurting them. It was only now, in retrospect, that he doubted he had been wholly right.
He shivered and increased his pace. There was no going back.
He had enough now to go to Runcorn. It should be a police matter. That would protect Vida Hopgood, forestall the mob justice Hester was afraid of. This way there would be a trial, and proof.
He found a cab and gave the address of the police station. Runcorn would have to listen. There was too much to ignore.
"Beatings?" Runcorn said sceptic ally sitting back in his chair and staring up at Monk. "Sounds domestic. You know better than to bring that to us. Most women withdraw the complaints. Anyway, a man is entitled to hit his wife to chastise her, within reason." His lip curled in a mixture of irritation and amusement. "It's not like you to waste your time on lost causes. Never saw you as a man to tilt at windmills…" He left the sentence hanging in the air, a wealth of unspoken meaning in it. "You have changed! Had to come down a bit, have you?" He tipped his chair back a trifle. "Take on the cases of the poor and desperate…”
"Victims of beating and rape are often desperate," Monk said with as much control of his temper as he was able, but he heard the anger coming through his voice.
Runcorn responded immediately. It woke memories of a score of old quarrels. They were replaying so many past scenes, Runcorn's anxiety, stubbornness, provocation, Monk's anger and contempt, and quicker tongue. For an instant for Monk it was as if he were removed from himself, a spectator seeing two men imprisoned in re-enacting the same pointless tragedy over and over again.
"I told you before," Runcorn said, sitting forward, banging the chair legs down, leaning his elbows on his desk. "You'll never prove some men got violent with a prostitute. She's already sold herself, Monk!
You may not approve of it!" He wrinkled his long nose as if imitating Monk, although there had been no scorn in Monk's voice, or in his mind.
"You may find it an immoral and contemptible way to make a living, but we'll never get rid of it. It may offend your sensibilities, but I assure you, a great many men you might call gentlemen, or might aspire to join, with your social airs and graces, a great many of them come to the Haymarket, and even to places like Seven Dials, and make use of women they pay for the privilege.”
Monk opened his mouth to argue, but Runcorn ploughed on, talking over him deliberately.
"Maybe you would like to think differently, but it's time you looked at some of your gentry as they really are." He jabbed his finger at the desk. "They like to marry their wives for social nicety, to wear on their arms when they dine and dance with their equals. They like to have a cool and proper wife." He kept on jabbing his finger, his face sneering. "A virtuous woman who doesn't know anything about the pleasures of the flesh, to be the mother of their children, the guardian of all that's safe and good and uplifting and morally clean.