He sat without replying for several moments. If what she said was true, then he also suspected that a little natural justice was planned.

He had no objection to that. They both knew it was unlikely the police would take much action against a man who was raping prostitutes.

Society considered that a woman who sold her body had little or no rights to withdraw the goods on offer, or to object if she were treated like a commodity, not a person. She had voluntarily removed herself from the category of decent women. She was an affront to society by her mere existence. No one was going to exert themselves to protect a virtue which in their opinion did not exist.

The coals subsided in the hearth with a shower of sparks. It was beginning to rain outside.

And there were the uglier, dark emotions. The men who used such women despised them, and despised that part of themselves which needed them.

It was a vulnerability at best, at worst a shame. Or perhaps the worst was the fact that they had a weakness which these women were aware of.

For once they had lost the control they had in ordinary, daily life, and the very people they most despised were the ones who saw it and knew it in all its intimacy. Was a man ever so open to ridicule as when he paid a woman he regarded with contempt, for the use of her body to relieve the needs of his own? She saw him not only with his body naked, but part of his soul as well.

He would hate her for that. And he would certainly not care to be reminded of her existence, except when he could condemn her immorality, and say how much he desired to be rid of her and her kind. To labour to protect her from the foreseeable ills of her chosen trade was unthinkable.

The police would never seriously try to eradicate prostitution. Apart from the fact that it would be impossible, they knew their value, and that half respectable society would be horrified if-they were to succeed. They were like sewers, not to be discussed in the withdrawing room, or at all, for that matter but vital to the health and the order of society.

Monk felt a deep swell of the same anger that Vida Hopgood felt. And when he was angry he did not forgive.

"Yes," he said, staring at her levelly. "I'll take the case. Pay me enough to live on, and I'll do what I can to find the man… or men…

. who are doing this. I'll need to see the women. They must tell me the truth. I can't do anything on lies.”

There was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. She had won her first battle.

"I'll find him for you, if I can," he added. "I can't say the police will prosecute. You know as well as I do what the chances of that are.”

She gave an explosive laugh, full of derision.

"What you do after that is your own affair," he said, knowing what it could mean. "But I can't tell you anything until I'm sure.”

She drew breath to argue, then saw his face, and knew it would be pointless.

"I'll tell you nothing," he repeated, 'until I know. That's the bargain.”

She put out her hand.

He took it and she gripped him with extraordinary strength.

She waited in the room beside the fire while Monk changed his clothes to old ones, both because he would not soil those he valued, and for the very practical purpose of passing largely unnoticed in the areas to which he was going. Then he accompanied Vida Hopgood to Seven Dials.

She took him to her home, a surprisingly well-furnished set of rooms above the sweatshop where eighty-three women sat by gaslight, heads bent over their needles, backs aching, eyes straining to see. But at least it was dry, and it was warmer than the street outside where it was beginning to snow.

Vida also changed her clothes, leaving Monk in her parlour while she did so. Her husband was in the shop below, seeing no one slacked, talked to their neighbour or pocketed anything that was not theirs.

Monk stared around the room. It was over-furnished. There was hardly a space on the heavily patterned wallpaper which was not covered by a picture or a framed sampler of embroidery. Table surfaces were decorated with dried flowers, china ornaments, stuffed birds under glass, more pictures. But in spite of the crowding, and the predominance of red, the whole effect was one of comfort and even a kind of harmony. Whoever lived here cared about it. There had been happiness, a certain pride in it, not to show off or impress others, but for its own sake. There was something in Vida Hopgood which he could like. He wished he could remember their previous association. It was a burden to him that he could not, but he knew from too many attempts to trace other memories, more important ones, that the harder he sought, the more elusive they were, the more distorted. It was a disadvantage he had learned to live with most of the time, only on occasion was he sharply brought to realise its dangers when someone hated him, and he had no idea why. It was an unusual burden that did not afflict most people, not to know who your friends or enemies were.

Vida returned in plainer, shabbier clothes, and set straight about the business in hand. She may need to use the services of a policeman, but she had no intention of social ising with him. It was a temporary truce, and for all her humour, he was still the 'enemy'. She would not forget it, even if he might.

"I'll take yer ter see Nellie first," she said, patting her skirt and straightening her shoulders. "There in't no use yer goin' alone. She won't speak toyer if I don' teller ter. Can't blame 'er." She stared at him standing still in the comfortable room. "Well, come on then! I know it's rainin' but a bit o' water won't 'urt yer!”

Biting back his retort, he followed her out into the ice-swept street, and hurried to keep pace with her. She moved surprisingly rapidly, her boots tapping sharply on the cobbles, her back straight, her eyes ahead. She had given her orders and assumed that if he wanted to be paid, he would obey them.

She turned abruptly along an alley, head down into the flurries of snow, hand up instinctively to keep her hat on. Even here she was going to maintain her superior status by wearing a hat rather than a shawl to protect her from the elements. She stopped at one of the many doors and banged on it sharply. After several moments it was opened by a plump young woman with a pretty face when she smiled, showing gapped and stained teeth.

"I wanna see Nellie," Vida said bluntly. "Teller Mrs. "Opgood's 'ere.

I got Monk. She'll know 'oo I mean.”

Monk felt a stab of fear. That his name was so well known, even to this woman of the streets he had never heard of. He could not even recall having been to Seven Dials at all, let alone the faces of individual people. His disadvantage was acute.

The girl heard the tone of command in Vida's voice, and went off obediently to fetch Nellie. She did not invite them in, but left them standing in the freezing alley. Vida took the invitation as given and pushed the door open. Monk followed.

Inside was cold also, but mercifully out of the wind and now thickening snow. The walls were damp in the corridor, and smelled of mould, and from the pervading odour of excrement; the midden was not far away, and probably overflowing. Vida pushed on the second door, and it swung open into a room with a good-sized bed in it, rumpled and obviously lately used, but relatively clean, and with several blankets and quilts on it. Monk presumed it was a place of business as well as rest.

There was a young woman standing in the farther corner, waiting for them. Her face was marred by yellowing bruises and a severely cut brow, the scar of which was still healing and would never knit evenly.

Monk needed no other evidence to tell him the woman had been badly beaten. He could not imagine an accident likely to cause such harm.

"You tell this geezer 'ere wot 'appened toyer, Nellie," Vida ordered.