The Silent Cry Page 15

  “No.” Shotts nimbly avoided a puddle. A vegetable cart rattled by them, its driver hunched under half a blanket, the snow beginning to settle on the brim of his high black hat. “I know when at least some o’ them weasels is lyin’. Mebbe they did come ’ere by accident—got lorst.”

  Evan did not bother to give a reply. The suggestion was not worthy of one.

  They crossed George Street. The snow was falling faster, settling white on some of the roofs, but the pavements were still wet and black, showing broken reflections of the gaslights and the carriage lamps as the horses passed by at a brisk trot, eager to get home.

  “Maybe they don’t recognize them because we are asking the wrong questions,” Evan mused, half to himself.

  “Yeah?” Shotts kept pace with him easily. “What are the right ones, then?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps Rhys went there with friends his own age. After all, one doesn’t usually go whoring with one’s father. Maybe that is what put people off, the older man.”

  “Mebbe,” Shotts said doubtfully. “Want me ter try?”

  “Yes … unless you can think of something better. I’m going to the station. It’s time I reported to Mr. Runcorn.”

  Shotts grinned. “Sooner you’n me, sir. ’E won’t be ’appy. I’ll get summink ter eat, then I’ll go an’ try again.”

  Runcorn was a tall, well-built man with a lean face and very steady blue eyes. His nose was long and his cheeks a little hollow, but in his youth he had been good-looking, and now he was an imposing figure. He could have been even more so, had he the confidence to bear himself with greater ease. He sat in his office behind his large leather-inlaid desk and surveyed Evan with wariness.

  “Well?”

  “The Leighton Duff case, sir,” Evan replied, still standing. “I am afraid we do not seem to be progressing. We can find no one in St. Giles who ever saw either of the two men before—”

  “Or will admit to it,” Runcorn agreed.

  “Shotts believes them,” Evan said defensively, aware that Runcorn thought he was too soft. It was partly his vague, unspecific anger at a young man of Evan’s background choosing to come into the police force. He could not understand it. Evan was a gentleman, something Runcorn both admired and resented. He could have chosen all sorts of occupations if he had not the brains or the inclination to go to university and follow one of the professions. If he needed to make his living, then he could quite easily have gone into a bank or a trading house of some description.

  Evan had not explained to Runcorn that a country parson with an ailing wife and several daughters to marry off could not afford expensive tuition for his only son. One did not discuss such things. Anyway, the police force interested him. He had begun idealistically. He had not a suit of armor or a white horse, he had a quick mind and good brown boots. Some of the romance had gone, but the energy and the desire had not. He had that much at least in common with Monk.

  “Does he?” Runcorn said grimly. “Then you’d better get back to the family. Widow, and the son who was there and can’t speak, that right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What’s she like, the widow?” Runcorn’s eyes opened wider. “Could it be a conspiracy of some sort? Son got in the way, perhaps? Wasn’t meant to be there and had to be silenced?”

  “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. He may have been seeing a woman in that area, perhaps a married woman, and her male relatives may have taken offense at his treatment of her.”

  Runcorn let out a sigh. “Possible,” he concluded. “What about the father? Why attack him?”

  “Because he was a witness to the scene, of course,” Evan replied with a lift of satisfaction.

  Runcorn looked at him sharply.

  “And another thing, sir,” Evan went on. “Monk has been hired to look into a series of very violent rapes across in Seven Dials.”

  Runcorn’s blue eyes narrowed. “Then he’s more of a fool than I took him for. If ever there were a profitless exercise, that is it.”

  “Have we any reports that might help?”

&nb
sp; “Help Monk?” Runcorn said with disbelief.

  “Help solve the crime, sir,” Evan answered with only a hint of sarcasm.

  “I can solve it for you now!” Runcorn stood up. He was at least three inches taller than Evan, and considerably more solid. “How many were there? Half a dozen?” He ticked off on his fingers. “One was a drunken husband. One was a pimp taking his revenge for a little liberty turned license. At least two were dissatisfied clients, probably too drunk. One was an amateur who changed her mind and wanted more money when it was too late. And probably one was drunk herself and fell over and can’t remember what happened.”

  “I disagree, sir,” Evan said coldly. “I think Monk can tell the difference between a woman who was raped and beaten and one who fell over because she was drunk.”

  Runcorn glared at Evan. He was standing beside the bookshelf of morocco-bound volumes in a variety of profound subjects, including philosophy.

  Evan had used Monk’s name and the memory of his skill, quicker, sharper than Runcorn’s, on purpose. He was angry and it was the easiest weapon. But even as he did it, he wondered what had started the enmity between the two. Had it really been no more than a difference of character or beliefs?

  “If Monk thinks he can prove rape of half a dozen part-time prostitutes in Seven Dials, he’s lost the wits he used to have,” Runcorn said with a flush of satisfaction under his anger. “I knew he’d come to nothing after he left here. Private agent of enquiry, indeed! He’s no good for anything but a policeman, and now he’s no good even for that.” His eyes were bright with satisfaction and there was a half smile on his lips. “He’s come right down in the world, hasn’t he, our Monk, if he’s reduced to running after prostitutes in Seven Dials. Who’s going to pay him?”

  Evan felt a tight, hard knot of rage inside him.

  “Presumably someone who cares just as much about poor women as rich ones,” he said with his teeth clenched. “And who doesn’t believe it will do them any good appealing to the police.”

  “Someone who’s got more money than brains, Sergeant Evan,” Runcorn retorted, a flush of anger blotching his cheeks. “And if Monk were an honest man, and not a desperate one trying to scrape any living he can, no matter at whose expense, then he’d have told them there’s nothing he can do.” He jerked one hand dismissively. “He’ll never find who did it, if anything was done. And if he did find them, who’s to prove it was rape and not a willing one that got a bit rough? And even supposing all of that, what’s a court going to do? When was a man ever hanged or jailed for taking a woman who sells her body anyway? And at the end of it all, what difference would it make to Seven Dials?”

  “What difference is one death more or less to London?” Evan demanded, leaning towards him, his voice thick. “Not much—unless it’s yours—then it makes all the difference in the world.”

  “Stay with what you can do something about, Sergeant,” Runcorn said wearily. “Let Monk worry about rape and Seven Dials if he wants to. Perhaps he has nothing else, poor devil. You have. You’re a policeman, with a duty. Go and find out who murdered Leighton Duff, and why. Then bring me proof of it. There’d be some point in that.”

  “Yes sir.” Evan replied so sharply it was almost one word, then swiveled on his heel and went out of the room, the anger burning inside him.

  The following morning when he set out for Ebury Street he was still turning over in his mind his conversation with Runcorn. Of course Runcorn was right to consider the possibility that Sylvestra was at the heart of it. She was a woman of more than beauty; there was a gravity, a mystery about her, an air of something different and undiscovered which was far more intriguing than mere perfection of form or coloring. It was something which might fascinate for a lifetime and last even when the years had laid their mark on physical loveliness.

  Evan should have thought of it himself, and it had never crossed his mind.

  He walked part of the way. It was not an unpleasant morning, and his mind worked more clearly if he exerted some effort of body. He strode along the pavement in the crisp air, frost sharpened. There were rims of white along the roofs where the snow had remained, and curls of smoke rose from chimneys almost straight up. At the edge of Hyde Park the bare trees were black against a white sky, the flat winter light seeming almost shadowless.

  He must learn a great deal more about Leighton Duff: What manner of man had he been? Could this, after all, be a crime of passion or jealousy, and not a random robbery at all? Had Rhys’s presence there simply been the most appalling mischance?

  And how much of what Sylvestra said was the truth? Were her grief and confusion for her son, and not for her husband at all? Evan must learn very much more of her life, her friends, especially those who were men, and who might possibly now court a fascinating and quite comfortably situated widow. Dr. Wade was the first and most apparent place to begin.

  It was a thought which repelled him, and he shivered as he crossed Buckingham Palace Road, running the last few steps to get out of the way of a carriage turning from the mews off Stafford Place. It went past him at a smart clip, harness jingling, horses' hooves loud on the stones, their breath steaming in the icy air.

  The other questions which lay unresolved at the back of his mind concerned his relationship with Runcorn. There were many occasions when he saw a side of him he almost liked, at least a side he could understand and feel for. Runcorn’s aspirations to better himself were such as any man might have, most particularly one from a very ordinary background, a good-looking man whose education was unremarkable, but where intelligence and ability were greater than his opportunities would allow. He had chosen the police as a career where avenues were open for him to exercise his natural gifts, and he had done so with great success. He was not a gentleman born, nor had he the daring and the confidence to bluff his way, as Monk had. He lacked the grace, the quick-wittedness, or the model from whom to learn. Evan thought that very possibly he had received little encouragement from whatever family he possessed. They might see him as being ashamed of his roots, and resent him accordingly.

  And he had never married. There must be a story to that. Evan wondered if it were financial. Many men felt they could not afford a home fit for a wife and the almost certain family which would follow. Or had it been emotional, a woman who had refused him, or perhaps who had died young, and he had not loved again? Probably Evan would never know, but the possibilities lent a greater humanity to a man whose temper and whose weakness he saw, as well as his competence and his strengths.

  He stood on the curb waiting for the traffic to ease so he could cross the corner at Grosvenor Street. A newspaper seller was calling out headlines about the controversial book published last year by Charles Darwin. A leading bishop had expressed horror and condemnation. Liberal and progressive thinkers disagreed with him and labeled him reactionary and diehard. The murder in St. Giles was forgotten. There was a brazier on the corner and a man selling roasted chestnuts and warming his hands at the fire.

  There was congestion at the junction of Eccleston Street and Belgrave Road. Two draymen were in a heated discussion. Evan could hear their raised voices from where he stood. The traffic all ground to a halt, and he went across the street, dodging fresh horse droppings, pungent in the cold air. He was a short block from Ebury Street.

  The worst of Runcorn, the times he descended into spite, were when Monk’s name—or, by implication, his achievements—were mentioned. There was a shadow between them far deeper than the few clashes Evan had witnessed or the final quarrel when Monk had left, simultaneously with Runcorn’s dismissing him.

  Monk no longer understood it. It was gone with all the rest of his past, returning only in glimpses and unconnected fragments, leaving him to guess, and fear the rest. Evan would almost certainly never know, but it was there in his mind when he saw the weakness and the vulnerability in Runcorn.

  He reached Ebury Street and knocked on the door of number thirty-four. He was met by the maid, Janet, who sm
iled at him a slight uncertainly, as if she liked him but knew his errand only too painfully. She showed him into the morning room and asked him to wait while she discovered if Mrs. Duff would see him.

  However, when the door opened it was Hester who came in quickly, closing it behind her. She was wearing blue, her hair was dressed a little less severely than usual, and she looked flushed, but with vitality rather than fever or any embarrassment. He had always liked her, but now he thought perhaps she was also prettier than he had realized before, softer, more openly feminine. That was another thing he wondered about, why Monk quarreled with her so much. He would be the last man on earth to admit it, but perhaps that was exactly why he could not afford, he did not dare, to see her as she really was.

  “Good morning, Hester,” he said informally, echoing his thoughts rather than his usual manners.

  “Good morning, John,” she answered with a smile, a touch of amusement in it as well as friendship.

  “How is Mr. Duff?”

  The laughter vanished from her eyes, and even the light in her face seemed to fade.

  “He is very poorly still. He has the most dreadful nightmares. He had another again last night. I don’t even know how to help him.”

  “There is no question he saw what happened to his father,” he said regretfully. “If only he could tell us.”

  “He can’t,” she said instantly.

  “I know he can’t speak, but—”

  “No! You can’t ask him,” she interrupted. “In fact, it would be better if you did not even see him. Really—I am not being obstructive. I would like to know who murdered Leighton Duff, and also did this to Rhys, as much as you would. But his recovery has to be my chief concern.” She looked at him earnestly. “It has to be, John, regardless of anything else. I could not conceal a crime, or knowingly tell you anything that was not true, but I cannot allow you to cause him the distress—and the real damage it may do—if you try in any way at all to bring back to his mind what he saw and felt. And if you had witnessed his nightmares as I have, you would not argue with me.” Her eyes were dark with her own distress, her face pinched with it, and he knew her well enough to read in her expression far more than she said.