triumphant, but his voice was rising higher and there was a sharpness that betrayed old wounds between them which none of this could heal. There was no ease on his face, no peace with himself.
Monk felt his own body rigid. Runcorn had struck home with his words, and they both knew it.
'Is that your answer?' he said very quietly, stepping back. 'I tell you that women are being raped and beaten in the area in which you are responsible for the law, and you reply by rehearsing old quarrels with me as a justification for looking the other way? You may have the job, the money for it, and the liking of some of your juniors… do you think you have any claim to their respect… or anyone's, if they heard you say this? I had forgotten why I despised you… but you remind me. You are a coward, and you put your personal, petty dislikes before honour.”
He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. 'I shall go back and tell Mrs. Hopgood that I told you I had evidence, and wanted to share it with you; but you were so intent on having your personal revenge on me, you would not look at it. It will get out, Runcorn. Don't imagine this is between you and me, because it isn't! Our dislike for each other is petty and dishonourable. These women are being injured, maybe the next one will be killed, and it will be our fault, because we couldn't work together to stop these men…”
Runcorn rose to his feet, his skin sweating, white around the lips.
'Don't you dare tell me how to do my job! And don't try coercing me with threats! Bring me one piece of evidence I can use in a court, and I'll arrest any man it points to! So far you've told me nothing that means a thing! And I'm not wasting men until I know there's a probable crime and some chance of prosecution. One decent woman who's been raped, Monk! One woman who will give evidence I can use…”
'Who are you trying?' Monk retaliated. 'The man or the woman, the rapist or the victim?”
'Both,' Runcorn said, suddenly lowering his voice. 'I have to deal with reality. Have you forgotten that, or are you just pretending you have, because that is easier? Gives you a high moral note, but it's hypocrisy, and you know it.”
Monk did know it. It infuriated him. He hated it with all the passion of which he was capable. There were times when he hated people, almost all people, for their willing blindness. It was injustice, burning, callous, self-righteous injustice.
'Have you got anything, Monk?' Runcorn asked, this time quietly and seriously.
Still standing, Monk told him everything he knew, and how he knew it.
He told him the victims he had spoken to, collating it all chronologically, showing how the attacks had increased in violence, each time the injuries worse, and more viciously given. He told Runcorn how he had traced the men to specific hansom drivers, times and places. He gave him the most consistent physical descriptions.
'All right,' Runcorn said at last. 'I agree crimes have been committed. I don't doubt that. I wish I could do something about it.
But set your outrage aside for long enough to let your brain think clearly, Monk. You know the law. When did you ever see a gentleman convicted of rape? Jurors are made up of property owners. You can't be a juror if you're not! They are all men… obviously. Can you imagine any jury in the land convicting one of their own of raping a series of prostitutes from Seven Dials? You would put the women through a terrible ordeal… for nothing.”
Monk did not speak.
'Find out who they are, if you can, by all means,' Runcorn went on.
'And tell your client. But if she provokes the local men into attacking those responsible, even killing them, then we will step in.
Murder's another thing. We'll have to go on with it until we find them. Is that what you want?”
Runcorn was right. It was choking to have to concede it.
'I'll find out who they are,' Monk said almost under his breath. 'And I'll prove it… not to Vida Hopgood, or to you! I'll prove it to their own bloody society! I'll see them ruined!' And with that he turned on his heel and went out of the door.
It was dark and snowing outside, but he barely noticed. His rage was blazing too hotly for mere ice in the wind to temper it.
Chapter Seven
Rhys progressed only very slowly. Dr. Wade pronounced himself satisfied with the way in which his external wounds were healing. He came out of Rhys's room looking grave but not more concerned than when Hester had shown him in. As always, he had chosen to see him alone.
Bearing in mind the site of some of the injuries, and a young man's natural modesty, it was easy to understand. Hester was not as impersonal a nurse to him as she had been to the men in the hospitals of the Crimea. There were so many of them she had had no time to become a friend to any one, except in brief moments of extremity. With Rhys she was far more than merely someone who attended to his needs.
They spent hours together, she talked to him, read to him, sometimes they laughed. She knew his family and his friends, like Arthur Kynaston, and now also his brother Duke, a young man she found less attractive.
'Satisfactory, Miss Latterly,' Wade said with a very slight smile. 'He seems to be responding well, although I do not wish to give false encouragement. He is certainly not recovered yet. You must still care for him with the greatest skill you possess.”
His brows drew together and he looked at her intensely. 'And I cannot impress upon you too strongly how important it is that he should not be disturbed or caused anxiety, fear or other turbulence of spirit that can be avoided. You must not permit that young policeman, or any other, to force him to attempt a recollection of what happened the night of his injury. I hope you understand that? I imagine you do. I feel that you are very fully aware of his pain, and would do anything, even place yourself at risk, to protect him.' He looked very slightly self- conscious, a faint colour to his cheeks. 'I have a high opinion of you, Miss Latterly.”
She felt a warmth inside her. Simple praise from a colleague for whom she had a supreme regard was sweeter than the greatest extravagance from someone who did not know precisely what it meant.
'Thank you, Dr. Wade,' she said quietly. 'I shall endeavour not to give you cause ever to think otherwise.”
He smiled suddenly, as if for an instant he forgot the care and unhappiness which had brought them together.
'I have no doubt of you,' he replied, then bowed very slightly and walked past her and down the stairs to where Sylvestra would be waiting for him in the withdrawing room.
Early in the afternoon Hester tried to spin out small domestic tasks, getting smears out of Rhys's nightshirt where one of his bandages had been pulled crooked and blood from the still-open wound had seeped through; mending a pillow case before the tiny tear became worse; sorting the books in the bedroom into some specific order. There was a knock on the door, and when she answered it the maid informed her that a gentleman had called to see her, and had been shown to the housekeeper's sitting room.
'Who is he?' Hesterasked with surprise. Her immediate thought was that it was Monk, then she realised how unlikely that was. It had come to her mind only because some thought of him was so close under the surface of her consciousness. It would be Evan, come to see if he could enlist her help in solving the mystery of Rhys's injuries, at least in learning something more about the family, and the relationship between father and son. It was absurd to feel this sudden sinking of disappointment. She would not know what to say to Monk anyway.
Nor did she know what to say to Evan. Her duty lay to the truth, but she did not know if she wanted to learn it. Her professional loyalty, and her emotions, were towards Rhys. And she was employed by Sylvestra, that required of her some kind of honesty.
She thanked the maid and finished what she was doing, then went downstairs and through the green baize door, along the passage to the housekeeper's sitting room. She went in without knocking.
She stopped abruptly. It was Monk who stood in the middle of the floor, slim and graceful in his perfectly cut coat. He looked short-tempered and impatient.
She closed the door behind her.
'How is your patient?' he asked. His expression was one of interest.
Was it politeness, or did he have a reason to care? Or was it simply something to say?
