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.Giles?”MacPherson thought for a moment or two.“Willie Snaith, for one,” he said finally.“And old Bertha for another.But they’ll no’ speak to ye unless someone takes ye and vouches for ye.”“So I assumed,” Monk replied.“Come with me.”“Me?” MacPherson looked indignant.“Walk out on my business? And who’s to care for this place if I go attendin’ to your affairs for ye?”Monk took one of Vida’s guineas out of his pocket and put it on the table.MacPherson grunted.“Ye are desperate,” he said dryly.“Why? What’s it to you if a few miserable women are raped or beaten? Don’t tell me any of them mean something to you.” He watched Monk’s face closely.“There must be more.These bastards cross you somehow? Is that it? Or is it still to do with Runcorn and the po-liss? Trying to show them up, are ye?”“I’ve already told you,” Monk said waspishly.“It’s not a police case.”“Ye’re right,” MacPherson conceded.“It couldn’t be.Not one for putting himself out on a limb, Runcorn.Always safe, always careful.Not like you.” He laughed abruptly, then rose to his feet.“All right, then.Come on, and I’ll take you to see Willie.”Monk followed immediately.Outside, both dressed again in heavy overcoats, MacPherson led the way deeper into St.Giles and the old area that had earlier in the century been known as the Holy Land.He did not go by streets and alleys as Evan had done, but through passages sometimes no more than a yard wide.The darkness was sometimes impenetrable.It was wet underfoot.There was a constant sound of dripping water from eaves and gutterings, the rattle and scratch of rodent feet, the creak of rotting timbers.Several times MacPherson stopped and Monk, who could not see him, continued moving and bumped into him.Eventually they emerged into a yard with a single yellow gas lamp and the light seemed brilliant by comparison.The outlines of timber frames stood sharp and black, brick and plaster work reflecting the glow.The wet cobbles shone.MacPherson glanced behind him once to make sure Monk was still there, then went across and down a flight of stone steps into a cellar where one tallow candle smoked on a holder made of half an old bottle, but it showed the entrance to a tunnel and MacPherson went in without hesitation.Monk followed.He had a sharp memory of stomach-knotting, skin-prickling danger, of sudden pain and then oblivion.He knew what it was.It came from the past he dreaded, when he and Runcorn had followed wanted men into areas just like this.Then there had been comradeship between them.There had never been the slightest resentment on his part, he knew that clearly.And he had gone in headfirst without a second’s doubt that Runcorn would be there to guard his back.It had been the kind of trust that had been built on experience, time and time again, of never being found wanting.Now he was following Jamie MacPherson.He could not see him, but he could re-create in his mind exactly his broad shoulders and slight swagger as he walked, a little roll, as if in his youth he had been at sea.He had a pugilist’s agility and his fists were always ready.He looked in his middle fifties, his reddish fair hair receding.How long ago had it been that Monk and Runcorn had worked together there? Twenty years? That would make Monk in his twenties then, young and keen, perhaps too angry still from the injustice to the man who had been his friend and mentor, too ambitious to gain the power for himself which would allow him to right the wrongs.Hester would have told him he was arrogant, claiming for himself a position in judgment to which he had no right and no qualification.He would never admit it to her, but he winced now for the truth of it.MacPherson’s voice came out of the darkness ahead of him, warning him of the step, and an instant later he nearly fell over it.They were climbing again, and emerged into another cellar, this time with a lighted door at the far side which led into a room, and another.MacPherson banged sharply, once, then four times, and the door was opened by a man whose hair stood up in spikes on his head.His face was full of humor and the hand he held up was missing the third finger.“Well, bless me if it in’t Monk agin,” he said cheerfully.“Thought yer was dead.Wot yer doin’ ’ere, then?”“Looking into the rapes over in Seven Dials,” MacPherson said, replying before Monk could speak.Jimmy Snaith’s hazel eyes opened wide, still looking at MacPherson.“Yer never tellin’ me the rozzers give a toss about that? I don’ believe ya.Ya gorn’ sorft in the ’ead, Mac? Ya forgot Oo this is, ’ave ya?”“He’s no’ with the po-liss anymore,” MacPherson explained, going farther into the room and closing the door to the cellar behind them.“Runcorn got his revenge, it seems, and had him drummed out.He’s on his own.And I’d like to know for myself who’s been doing this, because it’s no’ one of us who live here, it’s some fancy fellar from up west way, so it is.”“Well, if that don’t beat the devil! ’E wot lives longest sees most, as they say.So Monk’s workin’ fer us, in a fashion.That I’d live ter see the day.” He gave a rich chortle of delight.“So wot you want from me, then? I dunno ’oo dun it, or I’d ’a fixed ’im meself.”“I want to know if there were any beatings or rapes of factory women in the last three weeks,” Monk replied immediately.“Or in the two weeks before that either.”“No …” Snaith said slowly.“Not as I ’eard.’Ow does that ’elp yer?”“It doesn’t,” Monk answered him.“It was not what I was hoping you would say [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]