"To what, Mrs. Hopgood?”

"Me us band Tom, 'e runs a fact'ry, makin' shirts and the like…”

Monk knew what the sweatshops of the East End were like, huge, airless places, suffocating in summer, bitterly cold in winter, where a hundred or more women might sit from before dawn until nearly midnight sewing shirts, gloves, handkerchiefs, petticoats, for barely enough to feed one of them, let alone the family which might depend on them. If someone had stolen from him, Monk for one was not going to look for them.

She saw his expression.

"Wear nice shirts still, do yer?”

He looked at her sharply.

"Course yer do!" she answered her own question with a surprising viciousness twisting her mouth. "And what do yer pay for 'em, eh?

Wanner pay more? Wot dyer think tailors and outfitters pay us for 'em, eh? If we put up our prices, we lose the business. An' 'oo'll that 'elp? Gents 'oo like smart shirts'll buy 'em the cheapest they can get. Can't pay more'n I can, can I?”

He was stung. "I presume you aren't looking for me to alter the tailoring economy?”

Her face registered her scorn, but it was not personal, nor was it her principal emotion, far more urgent was the reason she had come. She chose not to quarrel with him. The reason she had come to him at all, defying the natural barrier between them, was a mark of how grave the matter was to her.

Her eyes narrowed. "Ere! W'os the matter wiv yer? Yer look diff rent. Yer don' remember me, do yer?”

Would she believe a lie? And did it matter?

She was staring at him. "W'y dyer leave the rozzers, then? D'yer get caught doin' sum mink as yer shouldn't a'?”

"No. I quarrelled with my supervisor.”

She gave a sharp laugh. "So mebbe yer 'aven't changed that much arter all! But yer don't look like yer used ter… 'arder, but not so cocky. Come down a bit, 'aven't yer!" It was a statement, not a question. "In't got the power yer used ter 'ave, not well yer was slingin' yer weight around Seven Dials afore.”

He said nothing.

She looked at him even more closely, leaning a fraction forward. She was a very handsome woman. There was a vitality in her which it was impossible to ignore.

"Wy don't yer remember me? Yer should!”

"I had an accident. I don't remember a lot of things.”

"Jeez!" She let out her breath slowly. "In't that the truth? Well I never…" She was too angry even to swear. "That's a turn up if yer like. So yer startin' over from the bottom." She gave a little laugh.

"No better'n the rest o' us, then. Well, I'll pay yer, if yer earns it.”

"I am better than the rest, Mrs. Hopgood," he said staring at her levelly. "I've forgotten a few things, a few people, but I haven't lost my brains, or my will. Why have you come to me?”

"We can get by… most of us," she replied levelly. "One way an' another. Least we could, until this started 'appinin'.”

"What started happening?”

"Rape, Mr. Monk," she answered, meeting his eyes unflinchingly and with an ice-hard anger.

He was startled. Of all the possibilities which had flickered through his mind, that had not been one of them.

"Rape?" He repeated the word with incredulity.

"Some o' our girls is getting' raped in the streets." Now there was nothing in her but hurt, a blind confusion because she did not see the enemy. For once she could not fight her own battle.

It could have been a ridiculous subject. She was not speaking of respectable women in some pleasant area, but sweatshop workers who eked out a living labouring around the clock, then going home to one room in a tenement, perhaps shared with half a dozen other people of all ages and both sexes. Crime and violence were a way of life with them. For her to have come to him, an ex-policeman, seeking to pay him to help her, she must be speaking of something quite outside the ordinary.

"Tell me about it," he said simply.

She had already broken the first barrier. This was the second. He was listening, there was no mockery and no laughter in his eyes.

"First orff I din't think no think to it," she began. "Jus' one woman lookin' a bit battered. "Appens. "Appens lots o' times. "Usband gets a bit drunker'n usual. We often gets women inter the shop wifa black eyes, or worse. Specially on a Monday. But then the whisper goes around she's been done more than that. Still I take no notice. In't nuffink ter do wif me if she's got a bad man. There's enough of 'em round.”

He did not interrupt. Her voice was tighter and there was pain in it.

"Then there were another woman, one 'oo's us band sick, too sick ter beater Then there's a third, an' by now I wanna know wot in 'ell's goin' on." She winced. "Some of 'em in't more'n children. Ter cut it short, Mr. Monk, these women is getting' raped an' beat up. I get's the 'ole story. I makes 'em come in an' sit down in me parlour, one by one, an' I get's it out of 'em. I'll tell you wot they tol' me.”

"You had better put it in order for me, Mrs. Hopgood. It will save time." "Course! Wot did you think I were gonna do? Tell it yer like they tol' me? We'd be 'ere all ruddy night. In't got all night, even if you 'as. I 'spec' yer charge by the hour. Mos' folks do.”

"I'll charge by the day. But only after I've taken the case… if I do.”

Her face hardened. "Wot yer want from me… more money?”

He saw the fear behind her defiance. For all her brashness and the show of bravado she put on to impress, she was frightened and hurt and angry. This was not one of the familiar troubles she had faced all her life, this was something she did not know how to deal with.

"No," he interrupted as she was about to go on. "I won't say I can help you if I can't. Tell me what you learned. I'm listening.”

She was partly mollified. She settled back into the chair again, rearranging her skirts slightly around her extremely handsome figure.

"Some of our respectable women's fallen on 'and times, and thinks they'd never sell their selves no matter wot!" she continued. "Thinks they'd starve before they'd go onter the streets. But it's surprisin' 'ow quick yer can change yer mind when yer kids is starvin' 'n sick.

Yer 'ears 'em cryin', cold an' 'ungry long enough, an' yer'd sell yerself ter the devil, if 'e paid yer in bread an' coal for the fire, or a blanket, or a pair o' boots. Martyrin' yerself is one thing, seein' yer kids die is diffrent.”

Monk did not argue. His knowledge of that was deeper than any individual memory, it was something of the flesh and bone.

"It began easy," she went on, her voice thick with disgust. "First just a bloke 'ere 'n there wot wouldn't pay. It 'appens. There's always cheats in life. In't much yer can do but cut yer losses.”

He nodded.

"I wouldn't 'a thought nuffink o' that," she shrugged, still watching him narrowly, judging his reactions. "Then one o' the women comes in all bruised an' bashed around, like she bin beat up proper. Like I said, at first I took it as 'er man 'ad beater Wouldn't 'a blamed 'er if she'd stuck 'im wifa shiv fer that. But she said as it'd bin two men wot'd bin customers. She'd picked 'em up in the street an' gone fera quick one in a dark alley, an' then they'd beater Took 'er by force, even though she were willin', like." She bit her full lip. "There's always them as likes ter be a bit rough, but this were real beatin'.

It in't the same, not jus' a few bruises, like, but real 'urt.”

He waited. He knew from her eyes that there was more. One rape of a prostitute was merely a misfortune. She must know as well as he did that ugly and unjust as it was, there was nothing that could be done about it.

"She weren't the only one," she went on again. "It 'appened again, not her woman, then another. It got worse each time. There's bin seven now, Mr. Monk, that I know of, an' the last one she were beat till she were senseless. "Er nose an' 'er jaw were broke an' she lorst five teeth. No one else don't care. The rozzers in't goin' ter 'elp. They reckon as women wot sells their selves deserves wot they get." Her body was clenched tight under the dark fabric. "But nobody don't deserve ter get beat like that. It in't safe fer 'em ter earn the extra bit wot they needs. We gotter find 'oo's doin' this, an' that's wot we need you fer, Mr. Monk. We'll pay yer.”