The Silent Cry by Anne Perry

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