'It's a place of bloody injustice, inequity and waste!' Monk said hoarsely. 'How can you possibly walk around St. Giles, as you have been doing, and even imagine a God that is fit for anything but fear, or hate? Better for your sanity to think it is random, and simply do what you can to redress the worst monstrosities.”
Evan leaned forward, all the energy of his spirit in his words, fragments half remembered returning to his tongue. 'Do you want a just world, where sin is punished immediately, and virtue rewarded?”
'Why not?' Monk challenged. 'Is there something wrong with that? Food and clothing for everyone, health, intelligence, a chance to succeed?”
'And forgiveness, and pity, and courage?' Evan pressed. 'Compassion for others, humility, and faith?”
Monk frowned, the beginning of a doubt in his mind. 'You say that as if the answer were not a certainty! Why not? I thought they were the qualities you valued most. Aren't they?”
'Do you value them?”
'Yes! I may not always behave as if I do, but yes, certainly.”
'But if the world were always just, and immediately so, then people would choose to be good, not out of compassion or pity, but because it would be idiotic to be anything else,' Evan reasoned. 'Only a fool would counsel any act he knew he would be punished for immediately and certainly.”
Monk said nothing.
'Courage against what?' Evan went on. 'Do the right thing, and there can be nothing to fear. Virtue will always be rewarded, straight away.
There will be no need for humility or forgiveness either. Justice will take care of everything. For that matter neither will there be need for pity or generosity, because no one will need it. The remedy for every ill will lie with the sufferer. We would be full of judgement for each other…”
'All right!' Monk cut across him. 'You have made your point. Perhaps I would rather accept the world as it is, than change it for the one you paint. Although there are times when I find this one almost beyond bearing, not for me, but for some of those I see.' He rose to his feet. 'Your father would be proud of you. Perhaps you are wasted on a police beat instead of a pulpit.' He was frowning. 'Do you want me to take you to these witnesses?”
Evan rose also. 'Yes, please.”
Monk fetched his overcoat and Evan put his back on again, and together they went out into the dark, cold evening, walking side by side towards Tottenham Court Road and a hansom.
Inside, rattling towards St. Giles, Monk spoke again, his voice uncertain, as if he were struggling for words, seizing the opportunity of the temporary blindness of the night to voice some troubling thought.
'Does Runcorn ever speak to you about the past… about me?”
Evan could hear the emotion in his voice and knew he was searching for something of which he was afraid.
'Now and then, but very little,' he answered as they passed the Whitefields Tabernacle and continued down towards Oxford Street.
'We used to work St. Giles together,' Monk went on, staring straight ahead of him. Evan could not see his face, but could judge from the sound of his voice. 'Back before they rebuilt any of it. When it was known as the 'Holy Land'.”
'It must have been very dangerous.' Evan spoke to fill the silence.
'Yes. We always went in with at least two at a time, usually more.”
'He hasn't spoken of it.”
'No. He wouldn't.' Monk's voice dropped at the end of the sentence, betraying a sense of loss, not for Runcorn's friendship, but for whatever it was which had destroyed it. Evan understood what it was that disturbed him, but it was too delicate to speak of between them.
Monk wanted to know what it had been, but only step by step, so he could withdraw again if it became too ugly. It was his own soul he was exploring, the one territory from which there was no escape, the one enemy which must always be faced, sooner or later, more certain than anything else in life or death.
'He never mentions family,' Evan said aloud. 'He didn't marry.”
'Didn't he…' Monk's tone was remote, as if the remark were meaningless, but the tension in his body belied that.
'I think he regrets it,' Evan added, remembering casual references made, and the momentary grief in Runcorn's face, instantly hidden.
There had been a sergeant's wedding anniversary, everyone had wished him well, spoken of their own families. For an instant Evan had seen the pain in Runcorn's eyes, the knowledge of loneliness, of exclusion.
He was not a man gifted by his nature or temperament to fill his own emptiness. He would have been happier with someone there, someone to encourage him when he failed, admire him, be grateful for his support, someone with whom he could share his successes.
Had Monk, with his greater inner strength, his natural courage, intentionally or not, robbed Runcorn of that? Monk feared he had blocked Runcorn's professional success, stood in his path, taken credit for some victory that rightly belonged to him. The inner loss was the one Evan feared, the confidence, the hope, the courage to put fate to the test, and abide the consequences, that was what nestled cold in Evan's mind. Could one man really rob another of that? Or merely fail to help?
Monk could not bear the silence.
'Did he… want to? I mean, was there someone, do you know?”
Evan recalled a fragment of conversation, a name.
'Yes, I think so. But it was several years ago, fifteen or sixteen or more. Her name was Ellen, I think.”
'What happened?”
'I don't know.”
The cab swung round into Oxford Circus, jolting and lurching as the dense traffic caused it to change course. In a few moments they would be there. After that it would be on foot, all alleys and yards, steps up and down, icy rooms while Monk retraced his questions and Evan made notes for evidence. There was no more time for conversation.
Monk drew in his breath and let out a sigh.
The next afternoon Evan had all he needed. As Monk had told him, it was inescapable. He sent up a message that he wished to see Runcorn, and at five minutes to three he knocked on the office door.
'Come in,' Runcorn called from inside.
Evan opened the door, went into the warmth that filled the room from the fire, but the chill that he carried with him did not ease.
'Yes?' Runcorn looked up from the papers he had been reading. 'This news had better be definite. I don't want any more feelings. Sometimes you are too soft for your own good, Evan. If you want to be a preacher you should have stayed at home.”
'If I had wanted to be a minister, sir, I would have!' Evan replied, meeting Runcorn's eyes boldly. He recognised in himself the same shortness of temper he saw in Monk, the same desire to win, the temptation to fight for the sake of it. Runcorn brought out the least admirable traits in him as they did in Monk.
'Come to the point,' Runcorn pursed his lips. 'What do you have? I assume we are talking about the murder of Leighton Duff? You are not off on some crusade for Monk?' His eyes were hard, as if part of him actually wanted to catch Evan in the trespass. He wanted to like Evan.
Instinctively he did. And yet his closeness to Monk so often soured it.
'Yes, sir.' Evan stood to attention, or as nearly as possible for a man of his natural ease. 'I have witnesses to Rhys Duff and his two friends using prostitutes in St. Giles. His picture had been recognised by one of the women. I have her statement. She also names him. Rhys is not a common Christian name, sir.”
Runcorn leaned forward, the other papers pushed aside.
'Go on…”
'I also have testimony from the last victim of rape, sir, on the night of the murder. She describes three men who answer the physical characteristics of Rhys Duff and his two friends, Arthur and Marmaduke Kynaston.”
Runcorn let out his breath slowly and sat back, linking his fingers across his stomach.
'Any proof that the Kynaston brothers were involved in the murder? I mean proof, not reasonable supposition. We have to be absolute.”
'I know that, sir. And no, no proof. If we can convict Rhys Duff, then the others may follow.' It infuriated him
