The Silent Cry Page 0,36

smelled o' some drink, real strong, but it in't one I ever drunk. "Orrible, it were."

"Cloth," Monk went on. "Did you feel the cloth of their clothes? Was it quality, or reworked? Thick or thin?"

"Warm," she said without hesitation, thinking of the only thing which would have mattered to her. "Wouldn't mind a coat like that me self Cost more'n I make in a month, an' then some."

"Clean shaven, or bearded?"

"I didn't look!"

"Feel! You must have felt their faces. Think!"

"No beard. Clean shaven... I s'pose. Mebbe side whiskers." She gave a grunt of scorn. "Could o' bin any o' thousands!" Her voice was harsh with disillusion, as if for a moment she had hoped. "Yer in't never goin' ter find 'em. Yer a liar takin' 'er money, an' she's a fool fer givin' it yer!"

"You watch yer tongue, Nellie West!" Vida said sharply. "You in't so smart yer can get along on yer own, an' don't yer ferget it! Keep civil, if yer knows wot's good for yer."

"What time of night was it?" Monk asked the last thing he thought would be any use from her.

"Why?" she sneered. "Narrers it down, does it? Know 'oo it is then, do yer?"

"It may help. But if you'd prefer to protect them, we'll ask elsewhere. I understand you are not the only woman to be beaten." He turned for the door, leaving Vida to come after him. He heard her swear at Nellie carefully and viciously, without repeating herself.

The second woman to whom Vida led him was very different. They met her trudging home aft era long day in the sweatshop. It was still snowing although the cobbles were too wet for it to lie. The woman was perhaps thirty-five, although from the stoop of her shoulders she could have been fifty. Her face was puffy and her skin pale, but she had pretty eyes and her hair had a thick, natural curl. With a little spirit, a little laughter, she would still be attractive. She stopped when she recognised Vida. Her expression was not fearful or unfriendly. It said much of Vida's character that as the wife of the sweatshop owner she could still command a certain friendship in such a woman.

"Ello, Betty," she said briskly. "This 'ere's Monk. "E's gonner 'elp us with them bastards wot've bin beatin' up women round 'ere."

There was a flicker of hope in Betty's eyes so brief it could have been no more than imagined.

"Yeah?" she said without interest. "Then wot? The rozzers is gonna arrest 'em, an' the judge is gonna bang 'em up in the Coldbath Fields?

Or maybe they're goin' ter Newgate, an' the rope, eh?" She gave a dry, almost soundless laugh.

Vida fell into step beside her, leaving Monk to walk a couple of paces behind. They turned the corner, passing a gin mill with drunken women on the doorstep, insensible of the cold.

"Ow's Bert?" Vida asked.

"Drunk," Betty answered. "Ow else?"

"An' yer kids?"

"Billy 'as the croup, Maisie coughs sum mink terrible. Others is aright." They had reached her door and she went to push it open just as two small boys came running around the corner of the alley from the opposite direction, shouting and laughing. They both had sticks which they slashed around as if they were swords. One of them lunged and the other one yelled out, then crumpled up and pretended to be dying in agony, rolling around on the wet cobbles, his face alight with glee.

The other one hopped up and down, crowing his victory. Seemingly it was his turn, and he was going to savour every ounce of it.

Betty smiled patiently. The rags they wore, a mixture of hand-me-downs and clothes unpicked and re-stitched from others, could hardly get any filthier.

Monk found his shoulders relaxing a little at the sound of children's laughter. It was a touch of humanity in the grey drudgery around him.

Betty led the way into a tenement very like the one in which Nellie West lived. She apparently occupied two rooms at the back. A middle-aged man lay in a stupor half in a chair, half on the floor. She ignored him. The room was cluttered with the furniture of living, a lop-sided table, the stuffed chair in which the man lay, two wooden chairs, one with a patched seat, a whisk broom and half a dozen assorted rags. The sound of children's voices came through the thin walls from the other room, and someone coughing. The two boys were still fighting in the