She smiled conspiratorially, showing chipped teeth.
“In't got no name.”
“That's what I thought. Third house along?”
“Yeah.”
He turned and walked down the narrow footpath, barely wide enough to keep his feet out of the gutter, and at the third house went down the steps to the door which led off the small, rubbish-filled areaway. He knocked sharply, and had just raised his hand to repeat it when a window covered with sacking opened above him and an old woman stuck her head out. “She in't there! Come back later ifn' yer want 'er.”
Monk leaned back to look up. “How much later?”
“I dunno. Middle o' the day, mebbe.” She ducked back in again without closing the window, and Monk stepped away only just in time to avoid being drenched by a pail of bedroom slops.
He waited in the street about twenty yards along, half sheltered by an overhanging wall, but from where he could still see the steps down to Selina's rooms. He grew steadily colder, and towards noon it began to rain.
Many people passed him, perhaps taking him for a beggar or simply someone with nowhere else to be, one of the thousands who lived on scraps and slept in doorways. The workhouse provided food of a sort, a shelter, but little heat, and the rigid rules were almost as harsh as those in prison. There were some who thought it an even worse place.
No one regarded him with more than a passing observation, not even curiosity, and he avoided the challenge of meeting their eyes. Paupers, such as he was pretending to be, cast their glances down, wary, ashamed and frightened of everything.
Shortly after noon he saw a woman approaching from West Ferry Road, where Bridge Street swept around the curve of the river which formed the Isle of Dogs. She was of average height, but she strode with her head high and a kind of swing in her step. Even across the street he could see that her face was highly individual. Her cheekbones were high, giving her eyes a slanted look, her nose well formed, if a little sharp, and her mouth generous. He had no doubt that this was Selina. Her face had the courage and the originality to hold the attention of men like Caleb Stone, who might be violent and degraded now, but who had been born to better things.
He moved from his position, his legs aching, joints locked from having maintained his stillness for so long. He almost stumbled off the curb; his feet were so cold he had lost sensation in them. He made his way across the street, stepping in the filth and regaining his balance by flailing his arms. Furious with himself, he caught up with her just as she started down the steps.
She swung around when he was a yard away from her, a knife in her hand.
“You watch yerself, mister!” she warned. “Try anyfink, an' I'll cut yer gizzard out, I warn yer!”
Monk stood his ground, though she had taken him by surprise. If he backed away she would tell him nothing.
“I don't pay for women,” he said with a tight smile. “And I've never had to take one who wasn't willing. I want to talk to you.”
“Oh yeah'?” Disbelief was plain in her face, and yet she was looking at him squarely. There was no broken spirit behind her dark eyes, and her fear was only physical.
“I've come from your sister-in-law.”
“Well, that's a new one.” She arched her fine brows with amusement. “I in't got no sister-in-law, so that's a lie. Best try again.”
“I was being polite,” he said between his teeth. “The benefit of the doubt.
She is certainly married to Angus. I thought it possible you might be married to Caleb.”
Her body tightened. Her slim hands on the broken railing were grasping it till the knuckles were white. But her face barely changed.
“Did yer. So wot if I are? 'Oo are yet?”
“I told you, I represent Angus's wife.”
“No yer don't.” She looked him up and down with immeasurable scorn. “She wouldn't give yer 'ouse room! She'd call the rozzers if summink like you even spoke to 'er, less'n it were to ask her for an 'alfpenny's charity.”
Monk enunciated very carefully in his best diction.
“And if I were to come here in my usual clothes, I would be as obvious its you would be dressed like that at a presentation to the Queen. Young ladies wear white for such occasions,” he added.
“An' o' course yer invited ter such frogs, so you'd know!” she said sarcastically, but her eyes were searching his face, and the disbelief was waning.
He put out a strong, clean hand, slim-fingered, immaculate-nailed, and grasped the railing near hers, but did not touch her.
She looked at his hand a moment, then back at his face.
“Wotcher want?” she said slowly.
“Do you want to discuss it on the step? You've got nosy neighbors-upstairs, if nowhere else.”
“Fanny Bragg? Jealous of cow. Yeah, she'd love the chance ter throw a bucket o' slops over me. Come on inside.” And she took out a key and inserted it in the door, turned it and led him in.
The room was dark, being lit by only one window, and that below street level, but it was larger than he would have guessed from outside, and surprisingly clean. The black potbellied stove gave out a considerable warmth, and there was a rug of knotted rags on the floor. There were three chairs of various colors and in different states of repair, but all of them comfortable enough, and the large bed in the shadows at the farther end was made up and covered with a ragged quilt.
He closed the door behind him and looked at her with a new regard. Whatever else she was, she had done her best to make a home of this.
“Well?” she demanded. “So yer come from Angus's wife. Wot abaht it? Why?
Wot does she want wi' me?” Her lips tightened into an unreadable grimace.
Her voice altered tone. “Or is it Caleb yer wants?” There was a world of emotion behind the simple pronunciation of his name. She was afraid of it, and yet her tongue lingered over it as if it were precious and she wanted an excuse to say it again.
“Yes, Caleb too,” he agreed. She would not have believed him had he denied it.
“Why?” She did not move. “She never bothered wi' me afore. Why now? Angus comes 'ere now an' agin, but she never come.”
“But Angus does?” he said gently.
She stared at him. There was fear in the back of her eyes, but also defiance. She would not betray Caleb, whether from love of him, self-interest because in some way he provided for her, or because she knew the violence in him and what he might do to her if she let him down. Monk had no way of knowing. And he would like to have known. In spite of the contempt with which he had begun, he found himself regarding her as more than just a means to find Caleb, or a woman who had attached herself to a bestial man simply to survive.
He had assumed she was not going to answer when finally she spoke.
“'E in't got no love for Angus,” she said carefully. “'E don' understand 'im.”
There was something in her inflexion, the lack of anger in it, which made him think that she did not include herself in the feeling, but it was too subtle to press, and far too delicate.
“Does he ever go uptown to see him?” he said instead.
“Caleb?” Her eyes widened. “No, not 'im. Caleb never goes uptown. Least, never that I knows. Look, mister, Caleb don't live 'ere. 'E just comes 'ere w'en 'e feels like it. I in't 'is keeper.”
“But you are his woman…
“
Suddenly there was a softness in her face. The harsh lines of anger and defense melted, taking years away from her, leaving her, for an instant in the uncertain light, the twenty-five-year-old woman she should have been, would have been in Genevieve's place, or Drusilla's.
“Yeah,” she agreed, lifting her chin a fraction.
“So when he asks you, you go uptown to see Angus.” He made it a conclusion, not a question.
Again she was guarded. “Yeah. 'E told me ter go if he's short on the rent.
But I in't never bin ter 'is 'ouse. Wouldn't know were to look fer it.”
“But you know his place of business.”
