some description.
Evan had not explained to him that a country parson, with an ailing wife and several daughters to marry, could not afford expensive tuition for their only son. One did not discuss such things. Anyway, the police force interested him. He had begun idealistically. He had not a suit of armour 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?' His 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, that may 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 reprovingly. '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 the long relationship with Monk, and the rivalry between them, the years of unease, of accumulated of fences 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 here 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 desk top. 'What evidence have you? Facts, objects, statements, witnesses that 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. '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 offence 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?”
'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 licence. 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 him. 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 matt erat 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 gaoled for taking a woman who sells her body anyway? And at the end of it all, what difference would it make to Seven Dials?”
