The Silent Cry by Anne Perry Page A

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.”
    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