yes, Imogen." He sighed. "Got to know her very well." His smile was half a leer. "Love the way she walks, all eager, full of promise, and hope." He had looked at Monk and the slow smile spread to his eyes till the light in them was as old as appetite and knowledge itself. He had tittered slightly. "I do believe you're taken with Imogen yourself.
"You clod, she'd no more touch you than carry out her own refuse.
"She's in love with Florence Nightingale and the glory of the Crimea!" His eyes met Monk's, glittering bright. "I could have had her any time, all eager and quivering." His lip curled and he had almost laughed as he looked at Monk. "I'm a soldier; IVe seen reality, blood and passion, fought for Queen and country. I've seen the Charge of the Light Brigade, lain in hospital at Scutari among the dying. What do you imagine she thinks of grubby little London policemen who spend their time sniffing about in human filth after the beggars and the degenerate? You're a scavenger, a cleaner up of other people's dirt-one of life's necessities, like the drains." He took a long gulp of his brandy and looked at Monk over the top of the glass.
"Perhaps when they've got over that old idiot getting hysterical and shooting himself, I shall go back and do just that. Can't remember when I've fancied a woman more."
It had been then, with that leer on his mouth, that Monk had taken his own glass and thrown the brandy across Grey's face. He could remember the blinding anger as if it were a dream he had only just woken from. He could still taste die heat and the gall of it on his tongue.
The liquid had hit Grey in his open eyes and bumed him, seared his pride beyond bearing. He was a gentleman, one already robbed by birth of fortune, and now this oaf of a policeman, jumped above himself, had insulted him in his own house. His features had altered into a snarl of fury and he had picked up his own heavy stick and struck Monk across the shoulders with it. He had aimed at his head, but Monk had almost felt it before it came, and moved.
They had closed in a struggle. It should have been self-defense, but it was far more than that. Monk had been glad of it-he had wanted to smash that leering face, beat it in, undo all that he had said, wipe from him the thoughts he had had of Imogen, expunge some of the wrong to her family. But above all towering in his head and burning in his soul, he wanted to beat him so hard he would never feed on the gullible and the bereaved again, telling them lies of invented debt and robbing the dead of the only heritage they had left, the truth of memory in those who had loved them.
Grey had fought back; for a man invalided out of the army he had been surprisingly strong. They had been locked together struggling for the stick, crashing into furniture, upsetting chairs. The very violence of it was a catharsis, and all the pent-up fear, the nightmare of rage and the agonizing pity poured forth and he barely felt the pain of blows, even the breaking of his ribs when Grey caught him a tremendous crack on the chest with his stick.
But Monk's weight and strength told, and perhaps his rage was even stronger than Grey's fear and all his held-in anger of years of being slighted and passed over.
Monk could remember quite clearly now the moment when he had wrested the heavy stick out of Grey's hands and struck at him with it, trying to destroy the hideous-ness, the blasphemy he saw, the obscenity the law was helpless to curb.
Then he had stopped, breathless and terrified by his own violence and the storm of his hatred. Grey was splayed out on the floor, swearing like a trooper.
Monk had turned and gone out, leaving the door swinging behind him, blundering down the stairs, turning his coat collar up and pulling his scarf up to hide the abrasion on his face where Grey had hit him. He had passed Grim-wade in the hall. He remembered a bell ringing and Grim-wade leaving his position and starting upstairs.
Outside the weather was fearful. As soon as he had opened the door the wind had blown it against him so hard it had knocked