instinctively clever.
Evan was the only one who had realised also how vulnerable he was. He had lost his entire memory in a carriage accident, but of course he dared tell no one. He had no knowledge of who he was, what his skills were, his conflicts, his enemies or even his friends. He lived from one threat to another, clue after clue unfolding, and then meaning little or nothing, just fragments.
But Monk would not have been afraid to be alone in this alley. Even the poor and the hungry and the violent of this miserable area would have thought twice before attacking him. There was something dangerous in his face with its smooth cheekbones, broad, aquiline nose and brilliant eyes. Evan's gentler features, full of humour and imagination, threatened no one.
He started as there was a sound at the farther end at the main street, but it was only a rat running along the gutter. Someone shifted weight in a doorway, but he saw nothing. A rumble of carriage wheels fifty yards away sounded like another world, where there was life and wider spaces, and the broadening daylight would give a little colour.
He was so cold he was shaking. He ought to take his coat off and put it over the boy who was still alive. In fact he should have done it straight away. He did it now, gently, tucking it around him and feeling the cold bite into his own flesh till his bones ached.
It seemed an endless wait until Shotts returned, but he brought the doctor with him, a gaunt man with bony hands and a thin, patient face.
His high hat was too large for him and slid close to the tops of his ears.
'Riley,' he introduced himself briefly, then bent to look at the young man. His fingers felt expertly and Evan and Shotts stood waiting, staring down. It was now full daylight, although in the alley between the high, grimy walls it was still shadowed.
'You're right,' Riley said after a moment, his voice strained, his eyes dark. 'He's still alive… just.' He climbed to his feet and turned towards the hearse-like outline of the ambulance as the driver backed the horses to bring it to the end of the alley. 'Help me lift him,' he requested as another figure leaped down from the box and opened the doors at the back.
Evan and Shotts hastened to obey, lifting the cold figure as gently as they could. Riley superintended their efforts until the youth was lying on the floor inside, wrapped in blankets and Evan had his coat back, bloodstained, filthy and damp from the wet cobbles.
Riley looked at him and pursed his lips. 'You'd better get some dry clothes on and a stiff tot of whisky, and then a dish of hot gruel,' he said, shaking his head. 'Or you'll have pneumonia yourself, and probably for nothing. I doubt we can save the poor devil.' Pity altered his face in the lantern light, making him look gaunt and vulnerable. 'Nothing I can do for the other one. He's the undertaker's job, and yours, of course. Good luck to you. You'll need it, around here. God knows what happened or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the devil does.' And with that he climbed in behind his patient. 'Mortuary van'll come for the other one,' he added as if an afterthought. 'I'm taking this one to St. Thomas's. You can enquire after him there. I don't suppose you have any idea who he is?”
'Not yet,' Evan answered, although he knew they might never have.
Riley closed the door and banged on the wall for the driver to proceed, and the ambulance pulled away.
The mortuary van took its place and the other body was removed, leaving Evan and Shotts alone in the alley.
'It's light enough to look,' Evan said grimly. 'I suppose we might find something. Then we'll start searching for witnesses. What happened to the woman who raised the alarm?”
'Daisy Mott. I know where ter finder Daytime in the match fact'ry, nights in that block o' rooms over there, number sixteen,' he gestured with his left arm. 'Don't suppose she can tell us much. If them what done this 'd bin 'ere when she come, they'd 'a killed 'er too, no doubt.”
'Yes, I suppose so,' Evan agreed reluctantly. 'Since she screamed, they'd have silenced her at least. What about old Briggs, who fetched you?”
'E don't know nothin'. I askedim.”
Evan began to widen his search, further away from where the two bodies had been, walking very slowly, eyes down on the ground. He did not know what he was looking for, anything someone might have dropped, a mark, a further bloodstain. There must be other bloodstains!
'In't rained,' Shotts said grimly. 'Those two fought like tigers fer their lives. Gotter be more blood. Not that I know what it'll tell us if there is! 'Cept that someone else is 'urt, an' that I can work out ferme self 'There's blood here,' Evan answered him, seeing the dark stain over the cobbles towards the central gutter. He had to put his finger into it to be sure if it was red, and not the brown of excrement. 'And here.
This must be where at least some of the struggle took place.”
'I got some 'ere too,' Shotts added. 'I wonder 'ow many of them there was.”
'More than two,' Evan replied quietly. 'If it had been anything like an equal fight there'd have been four bodies here. Whoever else was here was in good enough shape to leave… unless, of course, someone else took them away. But that isn't likely. No, I think we're looking for two or three men at the least.”
'Armed?' Shotts looked at him.
'I don't know. The doctor'll tell us how he died. I didn't see any knife wounds, or club or bludgeon wounds either. And he certainly wasn't gar rotted He shuddered as he said it. St. Giles particularly was known for the sudden and vile murders by wire around the throat. Any dirty and down-at-heel vagrant had been suspected. There was one notable occasion when two such men had suspected each other, and had almost ended up in mutual murder.
'That's funny.' Shotts stood still, unconsciously pulling his coat a little tighter around him in the cold. 'Thieves wot set out ter rob someone in a place like this usually carry a shiv or a wire. They in't lookin' fera fight, they wants profits and a quick getaway, wino 'urt to their selves 'Exactly,' Evan agreed. 'A wire around the throat, or a knife in the side. Silent. Effective. No danger. Take the money and disappear into the night. So what happened here, Shorts?”
'I dunno, sir. The more I look at it, the less I know. But there in't no weapon 'ere. If there was one, they took it with them. An' wot's more, there in't no trail o' blood as I can see, so if they was 'urt their selves it weren't nothing like as bad as these two poor souls the doc and the mortuary van took away. I know they was dead, or as near as makes no difference, wot I mean is…”
'I know what you mean,' Evan agreed. 'It was a very one-sided affair.”
A hansom went by at the far end of the street, closely followed by a wagon piled with old furniture. Somewhere in the distance came the mournful cry of a rag and bone man. A beggar, holding half an old coat around himself, hesitated at the mouth of the alley, then thought better of it and went on his way. Behind the grimy windows there was more movement. Voices were raised. A dog barked.
'You have to hate a man very much to beat him to death,' Evan said in little more than a whisper. 'Unless you're completely insane.”
'They didn't belong around 'ere,' Shotts shook his head. 'They were clean… under the surface, well fed, an' their clothes was good.
They was both from somewhere else, up west for certain, or in from the country.”
'City,' Evan corrected. 'City boots. City skins. Country men would have had more colour.”
'Then up west. They wasn't from any were near 'ere, that's for certain positive. So 'oo around 'ere would know 'em to 'ate 'em that much?”
Evan pushed his hands into his pockets. There were more people passing the end of the alley now, men going to work in factories and warehouses, women to sweat shops and mills. The unknown numbers who worked in the streets themselves were appearing, pedlars, dealers in one thing and another, scavengers, sellers of information, petty thieves and go-betweens.
'What does a man come here for?' Evan was talking to himself.
'Something he can't buy in his own part of the city.”
'Slummin',' Shotts said succinctly. 'Cheap women, money lenders, card sharps, fence a bit o' sum mink stolen, get sum mink forged.”
'Exactly,' Evan agreed. 'We'd better find out which of these, and with whom.”
Shotts shrugged and gave a hollow laugh. He had no need to comment on their chances of success.
