The Silent Cry

"Mrs. Hopgood, have you suffered a shortage of workers lately?”

"Yeah. Lot o' sickness," she replied. She knew what he wished. She was an intelligent woman, and articulate in her own fashion. "Or more like injury. Took me a fair bit o' argy-bargy, but I got it aht of 'em wot 'ad 'appened." She looked questioningly at Rathbone, and then, seeing his expression, continued with feeling. "They do a bit o' dolly mop stuff on the side… beggin' yer pardon, sir, I mean takes the odd gent 'ere an' there teradd a bit extra… well their children is 'ungry, or the like.”

"We understand," Rathbone assured her, then explained for the jury.

"You mean they practise a little amateur prostitution, when times are particularly hard.”

"In't that wot I said? Yeah. Can't blame 'em, poor cows. "Oo's go

In't 'uman." She drew breath. "Like I said, some of 'em was doin' a bit on the side, like. Well, first orff they got cheated outa pay. Got no pimps ter look arter 'em, yer see." Her handsome face darkened with anger. "Then it got worse. These geezers don't on'y cheat, they started roughin' 'em up, knockin' 'em around, like. First it were just a bit, then it got worse." Her expression twisted till the anger and pain in it were stark to see. "Some of 'em got beat pretty bad, bones broke, teef an' noses broke, kicked some of 'em were. Some of 'em was on'y bits o' children their selves So I got a bit o' money tergether an' 'ired me self someone ter find out 'oo wos doin' it." She stopped abruptly, staring at Rathbone. "D'yer want meter say 'oo I got, an' wot 'e found?”

"No, thank you, Mrs. Hopgood," Rathbone replied. "You have laid an excellent foundation for us to discern from these poor women themselves what occurred. Just one more thing…”

"Yeah?”

"How many women do you know of who were beaten in this way?”

"In Seven Dials? Abaht twen'y-odd, as I knows of. They went on ter St. Giles "Thank you, Mrs. Hopgood," Rathbone interrupted. "Please tell us only your own experience.”

Goode rose again. "All we have heard so far is hearsay, my lord. Mrs.

Hopgood has not been a victim herself, and she has not mentioned Mr.

Rhys Duff. I have been extraordinarily patient, as was your lordship.

All this is tragic, and abhorrent, but completely irrelevant.”

"It is not irrelevant, my lord," Rathbone argued. "The prosecution's case is that Rhys Duff went to the area of St. Giles to use prostitutes there, and that his father followed him, chastised him for his behaviour, and in the resulting quarrel, Rhys killed his father, and was severely injured himself. Therefore what happened to these women is fundamental to the case.”

"I have not claimed that these unfortunate women were raped, my lord,”

Goode contradicted. "But if they were, then that only adds to the brutality of the accused's conduct, and the validity of the motive. No wonder his father charged him with grievous sin, and would have chastened him severely, possibly even threatened to turn him over to the law.”

Rathbone swung around to face him. "You have proved only that Rhys used a prostitute in the area of St. Giles. You have not proved violence of any sort against any women, in St. Giles, or in Seven Dials!”

"Gentlemen!" the judge said sharply. "Sir Oliver, if you are determined to prove this issue, then you had better be absolutely certain you are aiding your client's cause, and not further condemning him, but if you are satisfied, then prove your point. Proceed with dispatch.”

"Thank you, my lord." He dismissed Vida Hopgood, and one by one called half a dozen of the women of St. Giles whom Monk had found. He began with the earliest and least severely injured. The court sat in uncomfortable near-silence and listened to their pathetic tales of poverty, illness, desperation, journeys out on to the streets to pick up a few pence by selling their bodies, and the cheating, then the violence which had followed.

Rathbone loathed doing it. The women were grey-faced, almost inarticulate with fear, and in some cases also shame. They despised themselves for what they did, but need drove them. They hated standing in this handsome courtroom facing exquisitely gowned and wigged lawyers, the judge in his scarlet robes, and having to tell of their need, their humiliation and their pain.

Rathbone glanced at the jurors' faces and read a sense of different emotions in them. He watched how much their imaginations conceived of the lives that were being described. How many of them, if any, had used such women themselves? What did they feel now? Shame, anger, pity or revulsion? More than half of them looked up to the dock at Rhys whose face was twisted with emotion, but what aroused his anger it was impossible to say, or the revulsion which was so plain in his features.

Rathbone looked also at Sylvestra Duff and saw her lips puckered with horror as a world opened up in front of her beyond anything she had imagined, women whose lives were so utterly unlike her own they could have belonged to a different species. And yet they lived only a few miles away, in the same city. And her son had used them, could even, for all she knew, have begotten a child upon them.

Beside her Fidelis Kynaston looked pale, but less shocked. There was in her already a knowledge of pain, of the darker side of the world and those who lived in it. This was only a restatement of things she already knew.

On her other side, Eglantyne Wade was motionless as wave after wave of misery passed over her, things she had never imagined were rehearsed before her in sickening detail.

The following day the stories became more violent. The witnesses still carried the marks of beatings on their blackened and swollen faces, showed their broken teeth.

Ebenezer Goode hesitated before questioning each one. None of them recognised their assailants. Every brutal act only added to his case.

Why should he challenge any of it? To demonstrate that the women were prostitutes anyway was u

A particular wave of revulsion and anger swelled when the thirteen-year-old Lily Barker testified, still nursing her dislocated shoulder. Haltingly she told Rathbone how both she and her sister had been beaten and kicked. She repeated the grunted words of abuse she had heard, and how she had tried to crawl away and hide in the dark.

Fidelis Kynaston looked so ashen Rathbone thought she suffered more in hearing it than Sylvestra beside her.

The judge leaned forward, his own face tight with distress.

"Have you not established all you need, Sir Oliver? Surely no more can be necessary. This is a horrifying matter of escalating violence and brutality. What more do you require to show us? Make your point!”

"I have one more victim of rape, my lord. This one was in St.

Giles.”

"Very well. I realise you need to establish that your assailants have moved into the relevant area. But make it brief.”

"My lord." Rathbone called the woman who had been raped and beaten on the night before Christmas Eve. Her face was bruised purple and swollen. She had difficulty speaking through her broken teeth. Slowly, her eyes closed as she refused to look at the people who were watching her as she rehearsed her terror and pain and humiliation. She began to describe being accosted by three men, how one of them had taken hold of her, how all three had laughed, then one had thrown her to the ground.

In the dock Rhys was grey-ski