mesh, unbendable, inescapable.
Her mind tried every direction, and he watched her do it, and fail each time. There was no real hope in her, and gradually even the determination died.
'I'm sorry,' he said softly. He thought of adding how much he wished it had not been so, how hard he had looked for other answers, but she knew it already. There was no need for such explanations between them.
They understood pain and reality far too well, the dull ache of knowledge that must be faced, the familiarity of pity.
'Have you told Evan yet?' she asked when she had mastered the tension in her voice, or almost.
'No. I shall tell him tomorrow.”
'I see.”
He did not move. He did not know what to say, there was nothing, and yet he wanted to say something. He wanted to remain with her, at least to share the hurt, even though he could not ease it. Sometimes sharing was all there was left.
'Thank you… for telling me first.' She smiled a little crookedly.
'I think…”
'Perhaps I-shouldn't have,' he said with sudden doubt. 'Maybe it would have been easier for you if you had not known? Then your response would have been honest. You would not have had to wait tonight, knowing, when they didn't. I…”
She started to shake her head.
'I thought honesty was best,' he went on. 'Perhaps it wasn't. I thought I knew that, now I don't.”
'It would have been hard either way,' she answered him, meeting his eyes with the same candour as in the past, in their best moments. 'If I know, tonight will be hard, and tomorrow. But when Evan does come, then I shall have prepared myself, and I shall have the strength to help, instead of being stunned with my own shock. I shan't be busy trying to deny it, to find arguments or ways to escape. This is best.
Please don't doubt it.”
He hesitated for an instant, wondering if she were being brave, taking the responsibility upon herself to spare his feelings. Then he looked at her again, and knew it was not so. There was a kind of understanding in her which bridged the singleness of this incident and was part of all the triumphs and disasters they had ever shared.
He walked over to her and very gently bent forward and kissed her temple above the brow, then laid his cheek against hers, his breath stirring the loose tendrils of her hair.
Then he turned and walked away without looking back. If he did, he might make an error he could never redeem, and he was not yet ready for that.
Chapter Nine
Evan knew that Monk had crossed into St. Giles, although of course they were on different cases.
'Wot does 'e want?' Shotts said suspiciously, as they were walking back towards the station.
'To find out who raped the women in Seven Dials,' Evan replied. 'It's a problem we can't help.”
Shotts swore under his breath, and then apologised. 'Sorry, guy.”
'You don't need to be,' Evan said sincerely. His father might have been offended, but that case angered him so profoundly the release of shouting and using language otherwise forbidden seemed very natural.
'If anyone can deal with it, it will be Monk,' he added.
Shotts gave a snort of derision, edged with something which could have been fear. 'If 'e catches the bastards I'll lay they'll wish they were never born. I wouldn't want Monk on my back, even if I hadn't done anything wrong!”
Evan looked at him curiously. 'If you hadn't done anything wrong, would he be on your back?”
Shotts looked at him, hesitated a moment on the edge of confiding, then changed his mind.
'Course not,' he denied.
It was a lie, at least in intent, and Evan knew it, but it was pointless to pursue. Nor was it the only time Shotts had told him something which he had later learned to be false. There was time unaccounted for, small errors of fact. He glanced sideways at Shotts' stolid face as they crossed the street, avoiding the gutter and the horse dropping awash in the rain, ducked past a coal cart and on to the farther footpath. What else was there that he had not yet learned? Why should Shotts lie to him about anything?
He had a sudden acutely unpleasant feeling of loneliness, as if the ground had given way beneath him and old certainties had vanished without anything to replace them. All around him was grey poverty, people whose lives were bounded by hunger, cold and danger. They were so used to it they could eat and sleep in its midst, laugh and beget children, bury their dead, steal from each other, and practise their trades and their crafts, legal or otherwise. Illegality was probably the least of their problems, except in so much as it trespassed certain safeguards. The cardinal principle was to survive. If he had spoken to them of his father's notion of a just God, one who loved them, he would have been greeted with utter incomprehension. Even good fairy stories had some relevance to fact, some meaning that a person could understand.
They entered an alley too narrow to walk abreast, and Shotts went first, Evan behind him. It was a short cut back to the main thoroughfare. They crossed a tanner's yard stinking of hides, and went through a gate that was loosely chained, and into the footpath.
Evan increased his stride and caught up with Shotts.
'Why did you lie to me?' he said bluntly.
Shotts tripped on the kerb stone then regained his balance and stood still.
'Sir?”
Evan stopped also. 'Why did you lie to me?' he repeated, his voice mild, no accusation in it, simply puzzlement and curiosity.
Shotts swallowed. 'About what, sir?”
'Lots of things: where you were last Friday when you told me you were questioning Hattie Burrows. You weren't, because I learned afterwards where she was, and it was not with you. About Seven Dials and the running patterer, and hearing from him the case Monk was on.”
'That…' Shotts began. 'That was a… mistake…' He did not look at Evan as he was speaking.
'Have you a bad memory?' Evan enquired politely, in the same tone as he would have asked if Shotts liked sausages.
Shotts was caught. To say he had would make him an unsuitable policeman. Above all a policeman needed keen observation and an excellent memory. He had already demonstrated these qualities very effectively.
'Well… pretty good… most of the time… sir,' he compromised rather well.
'You need to have a perfect memory to be a good liar,' Evan resumed walking at a level pace, and Shotts kept up, but not looking at him.
'Better than yours. Why, Shotts? Do you know something about this murder that you don't want to tell me? Or is it something else altogether that you are hiding?”
Shotts blushed scarlet. He must have felt the heat flush up his face, because he surrendered.
'It's nothing agin' the law, sir, I swear it! I would never do nothing agin' the law!”
'I'm listening,' Evan kept his eyes straight ahead.
'It's a girl, sir, a woman. I were seein' 'er well I shouldn't 'ave.
It's me only chance, yer see, wi' all the extra duty I been pullin', withe murder. I was… I was tryin' ter keeper fam'ly out o' it. Not that they're in it…”
Evan attempted to hide his smile, and only partially succeeded.
'Oh! Why the secrecy?”
'Mr. Runcorn wouldn't approve, sir. I mean ter marry 'er, but I 'aven't saved enough money yet, an' I can't afford ter lose me job.”
'Then be a little more efficient with your lying, and Mr. Runcorn won't need to find out. At least be wholehearted in your inventions!”
Shotts stared at him.
