Funeral in Blue (11 page)

It was like a disease of the mind—a madness! Elissa was a woman he had once loved, perhaps still did, but there was a part of her he could not reach, and it was destroying both of them.

She did not want to think of it, still less to face it. But it was blazingly, luminously clear even to her, with all her friendship for Kristian and her love for Callandra, that he had a supreme motive for killing Elissa. It was so powerful, so totally understandable, that she did not deny to herself the possibility that in a moment of engulfing panic, as ruin faced him, he could have done it. She felt grieved and guilty and frightened, but above all she felt wrenchingly sorry.

“Did Pendreigh know?” she asked.

“No. She always managed to keep it from him. She only called on him when she was winning, and she managed to find excuses never to invite him here. I think that was easy enough. She used my work as excuse.” He shivered and pushed his hand over his brow, hard back, as if the pressure of it eased some pain inside. “She wouldn’t have to explain,” he went on, his voice husky. “She didn’t know much about it; I never really shared it with her. I brought her here from the passion and excitement of Vienna, and expected her to be happy in a domestic life amid people she did not know, and with no cause to fight, no admiration, no danger, no loyalties . . .”

“There are plenty of battles to fight here,” she said softly. “Not at the barricades, not with plain enemies, and not always with any glory, but they are real.”

He pressed his hands over his eyes. “Not for her. I did nothing to help her find them. I was too drawn into my own work. I expected her to change. You should never expect that . . . people don’t.”

She struggled for something to say, a way of denying it to offer some comfort. But there was an element of truth in it, and that was all he could see. All the ways in which Elissa could have found causes worth all her efforts, he would see only as excuses for his own failure to make her happy.

“Perhaps we all have something of that hunger in us,” she said at last. “But when we love someone we do learn to change its direction. I went to the Crimea to nurse, but I also went for the adventure. It’s wonderful to be so very alive, even if some of it is horror and rage, and grief. Not to have lived is the worst death of all.” She smiled briefly. “I was going to say that we have the right to make those dreams only for ourselves, not for others, but there’s hardly anything we do that doesn’t take others along with us, in some way. If I’d stayed at home my family’s lives would have been different, and their deaths.” It hurt to say that. She had never allowed herself even to think it before. Perhaps life would be different for Charles if she had been there to share the burden instead of leaving him alone with the loss of a brother, then a father. Only now, sitting quietly in this room with Kristian Beck, did she try to imagine how Charles had coped with all that grief, trying to think of anything to say or do to ease his mother’s sorrow.

Did he blame himself that he had failed and she had died, too? Did Imogen ever even think of that? Hester was furious with her, and then with herself. She had not been there either. Love, loyalty, the bonds of family should mean more than simply writing good letters now and again.

She lifted her hand and touched Kristian’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I can’t say that I know how you feel. Of course I don’t, no one does who has not been where you are. But I know what pain is, and the knowledge afterwards that you might have added to it, and I am truly sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He bit his full lower lip, bringing blood to it. “I’m not sure I can say I am glad you came, but I am certainly glad you care.” His eyes were soft, a profound honesty in them, and a depth of emotion she preferred not to name.

It was pointless offering to do anything for him. All anyone could do was find the truth and pray it did not hurt him any more profoundly. No one could lift the darkness yet, or share it.

She stood up and excused herself, and he collected his hat and coat and walked through the fog with her along Haverstock Hill towards the City until he found a hansom for her, but they did not speak again.

All the way home through the fog-choked streets her mind whirled around the new knowledge she had stumbled on so insensitively. She blamed herself for the pain she had caused, and yet it was woven into every part of the life of the dead woman. Elissa Beck was nothing like the person any of them had imagined. Monk had said she was beautiful, not just attractive but hauntingly, unforgettably beautiful. Kristian himself had said she was brave. Now it seemed she was also driven by a compulsion which devoured not only her own happiness but Kristian’s as well. He was taken to the brink of ruin, and had she lived, surely it would soon have been beyond it into an abyss.

How would Callandra feel when she knew—and there would be no way of protecting her from it—that Kristian had had an urgent, compelling motive to kill his wife?

When she arrived home Monk was in the sitting room, pacing the floor.

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “It’s after ten o’clock! Hester . . .” He stopped abruptly, staring at her face. “What’s happened? What is it? You look awful!”

“Thank you!” she said, deciding in that instant that she could not tell him what she had learned. It was too difficult, too vulnerable. “It has not been a pleasant day.”

“Of course it hasn’t been pleasant,” he responded. “But you looked a lot better at the funeral. What’s happened since then? You’re as white as paper!”

“I’m tired.” She started to walk past him.

He put out his hand and grasped her arm, not hard, but firmly enough to stop her and swing her slightly around. “Hester! Where have you been?” His voice was not rough, but there was no yielding in it, no acceptance of denial.

“I went to see Kristian,” she replied, intending to tell him only that much.

His eyes narrowed. “Why? You’ve already seen him.”

She hesitated. How little could she tell him and be believed? “I was concerned for him.”

“So you went to his house, after the funeral of his wife?” he said with open disbelief. “Didn’t it occur to you that he might wish to be alone?”

She was stung by his belief in her insensitivity, partly because she had been intrusive exactly as he accused. “Yes, of course it did! I didn’t go imagining I could comfort him. I went because I needed to know . . .” Then she stopped. She did not want to tell him yet what she had seen. He would know that Kristian could be guilty, then sooner or later he would have to tell Runcorn.

“What?” he said sharply. “What did you need to know?”

She was angry at being caught, having either to tell him the truth or to think of a convincing lie that would not stand between them forever. Or she could simply refuse to answer. “I would prefer to speak about it at another time,” she said a little primly.

“You would what?” he said incredulously, his grasp tightening on her arm.

“Let go of me, William. You are bruising me,” she said coldly.

He loosened his grip without removing his hand. “Hester, you are deliberately being evasive. What have you discovered that is so ugly that you are prepared to compromise yourself for it?”

“I’m . . .” she began, then the truth of what he was saying bit more deeply. She
was
compromising herself, and also the trust between them. He would find out soon anyway. She was not really protecting Kristian by hiding what she knew from Monk. If Kristian had killed his wife, nothing would protect him, or Callandra; and if he had not, then only the whole truth would do any good.

She looked at Monk’s face and met his eyes squarely. “I went to find out why the funeral meal was held in Pendreigh’s house, not Elissa’s own home,” she answered.

“And why was it?” he said softly, a shadow in his face.

“Because Elissa gambled,” she replied. “Compulsively. Kristian has hardly anything left, no furniture, no carpets, no resident servants, nothing but her bedroom and one shabby sitting room, without a fire.”

He stared at her, absorbing what she had said. “Gambled?” he repeated.

“Yes. It became so she couldn’t help it, no matter how much she lost. In fact, if she weren’t risking more than she could afford, it didn’t have any excitement for her.”

He looked very pale, his face tight. He did not say anything of how he understood all that that meant, but he did not need to. It stood like a third entity, a darkness in the room with them.

CHAPTER FIVE

Monk was profoundly disturbed by what Hester had told him. He set out early, walking head down, through the still-shrouded streets. If it were true, then Kristian had a far deeper and more urgent motive for killing Elissa than any of them had realized before.

If she were driving him beyond poverty into ruin, the loss of his home, his reputation, his honor, even a time when debts could not be met, with the prospect of debtors’ prison, then Monk could very easily imagine panic and desperation prompting anyone in Kristian’s position to think of murder.

The Queen’s Prison was still kept exclusively for debtors, but all too often they were thrown in with everyone else: thieves, forgers, embezzlers, arsonists, cutthroats. They might remain there until their debts were discharged, dependent upon outside help even for food, and upon the grace of God for any kind of protection from cold, lice, disease, and the violence of their fellows, never mind the inner torments of despair.

Kristian was a man who in the past had faced injustice and fought it with violence, but then he had not stood alone. Half of Europe had risen in revolution against oppression, but perhaps the memory of it lay so deep in him that he would believe it was the answer again. Violence could have been instinctive rather than reasoned, and then, when it was too late, understanding and remorse returned.

It was too easily believable to discard. If he were honest, Monk could even understand it. Were anyone to threaten all he had spent his life building—his career, his reputation, the core of his own integrity and independence, his power to follow the profession he chose, to exercise his skills and feel of value to the things he believed in—he would fight to survive. He was not prepared to swear what weapons he would use, or decline, however bitter the price, or the shame afterwards.

There was an icy wind that morning, and he bent his head against it, feeling it sting his face. A newsboy was calling out something about a dispatch bearer for President Davis of the Confederacy in America who had been arrested in New Orleans, about to embark for England. It barely touched the periphery of Monk’s mind. He still had to know the truth, all of it, and he had to be aware of what Runcorn knew. If Kristian were not guilty, he would defend him to the last stand.

But if he were guilty, then such defense as there might be was different. Except there was no moral defense. Had it been only Elissa, some plea of mitigation might have been possible. He was certainly not the only man to have a wife who had driven him to the edge of madness, and violence lurks in many, if they are frightened or hurt enough. But whoever it was had then killed Sarah Mackeson also, simply because she was there. Nothing could justify that.

He would not yet tell Runcorn anything about what he had learned. It was still reasonable to assume that Sarah Mackeson was the intended victim, and even that Argo Allardyce was lying when he said he had not been back to Acton Street all night. They should begin by finding the woman companion that Elissa Beck had undoubtedly taken with her to her portrait sittings. She could have valuable testimony as to what had happened that night, at least up to the point when she and Elissa had parted. Where had she left Elissa, and for what reason? No doubt Runcorn had thought of that, too.

He stopped abruptly, causing the man behind him on the footpath to collide with him and nearly lose his balance. The other man swore under his breath and moved on, leaving Monk staring into the distance where one of the new horse-drawn trams loomed out of the thinning mist.

Runcorn would naturally begin with the assumption that Elissa had taken her maid, and he would go to Haverstock Hill to find her. And of course there was no lady’s maid there. A man who had sold all his furniture except the sort of thing a bailiff would leave could not afford such a thing. The scrubwoman who had answered the door the first time was probably the only servant they had, and she might come only two or three times a week.

Would Elissa have taken someone from her father’s house? Or a woman friend? Or might she actually have gone alone?

But the question beating in his mind was how to keep Runcorn from finding out about her gambling, or at least the ruinous extent of it. Perhaps he was only delaying the inevitable, but asking Allardyce himself about Elissa’s companion would be as logical as beginning at Elissa’s home. He quickened his pace. He must find Runcorn and suggest that to him, persuade him to agree.

He glanced both ways at the crossroads, then sprinted across between a dray and a vegetable cart. He reached the police station at twenty minutes past eight and went straight up to Runcorn’s office.

Runcorn looked up, his face carefully devoid of expression. He was waiting for Monk to make the first move.

“Good morning.” Monk hid his smile and looked back straight into Runcorn’s bland eyes. “I thought you’d probably be going to Allardyce again to see who the woman was who went with Mrs. Beck. I’d like to come with you.” He thought of adding a request, but that would be rather too polite for Runcorn to believe of him. He would suspect sarcasm.

Runcorn’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Yes, if you want,” he said casually. There was only the slightest flicker to betray that he had not thought of it. “In fact, it would be a good idea,” he added, standing up. “I suppose Mrs. Beck would take someone, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t be proper alone with an artist in his studio, especially not when there’s living quarters there as well. Who’d it be, a maid?”

“Or a friend,” Monk replied. “Which could be anyone. Easier to start by asking Allardyce himself.”

Runcorn frowned, taking his coat and hat from the stand near the door. “I suppose the fog’s still like pea soup, and it’ll be just as fast to walk.” It was not really a question because he did not wait for an answer.

Monk followed him down the stairs and fell into step beside him in the street. Actually, the weather was improving all the time and he could now see almost thirty yards in any direction. All the same, they decided to walk rather than try to flag down a hansom from the steady stream of traffic.

“How many sittings do you have to have for a portrait, anyhow?” Runcorn asked after several minutes.

“I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “Maybe it depends on the style and the artist. Perhaps the model sits in for you some of the time?”

“They didn’t look much alike.” Runcorn darted a sideways look at Monk. “Still, I suppose for a dress or something it wouldn’t matter.” He frowned. “What did she do the rest of the time? I mean, every day. A doctor’s wife . . . not quite a lady, but certainly gentry . . . at least.” He had exposed an ignorance without intending to. Puzzlement was written plainly in his face. “There isn’t anything she would actually have to do, is there?”

“I doubt it,” Monk lied. Surely without any resident servants she would have to do most of the housework, cooking and laundry herself. Or perhaps with so little of the house occupied, there was far less to attend to. Only sufficient food for Kristian when he was home, and herself if she was not out with friends or at the gambling tables. Maybe Kristian had his shirts laundered at the hospital.

“Then what?” Runcorn asked. They crossed the Gray’s Inn Road and walked north. “I was ill once with bronchitis. Took me ages to get back to regular duty. Enjoyed the rest for the first two or three days. Thought I’d get a lot out of a fortnight. Nearly drove me mad! Never been so bored in my life. Came back before the doctor said I should because I couldn’t stand it.”

Monk could picture it in his mind. Runcorn relaxing with a good book was almost a contradiction in ideas. Again he suppressed a smile with difficulty.

Runcorn saw it and glared at him.

“Sympathy!” Monk said quickly. “Broke my ribs, remember?”

Runcorn grunted, and they went on in silence as far as Acton Street and turned the corner. “Wouldn’t like to be a lady,” he said thoughtfully. “Imagine I’d rather have work to do . . . unless, of course, I didn’t know any different.” He was still frowning, trying to imagine a world so terrifyingly empty, when they reached the top of the stairs and knocked on Allardyce’s studio door.

It was several moments before it was opened by Allardyce himself, looking angry and half asleep. “What in hell’s name do you want at this hour?” he demanded. “It’s barely daylight! Haven’t you got a home?”

“It’s nearly nine o’clock, sir,” Runcorn answered flatly, his face set in disapproval and studiously avoiding looking at Allardyce’s hastily pulled on trousers and his nightshirt tails hanging over them. His feet were bare, and he moved from one to the other on the chilly step.

“I suppose policemen have to be up at this ungodly hour,” Allardyce said irritably. “What do you want now? You’d better come in, because I’m not standing out here any longer.” And he turned and went back inside, leaving the door open for them.

Runcorn followed him in, and Monk came a step behind. The studio was otherwise unoccupied, but there were canvases stacked against the walls. Half a dozen were in one stage or another of development—four portraits, one street scene, an interior with two girls sitting on a sofa reading. The one painting on the easel was of a man of middle age and a great look of self-satisfaction. Presumably it was a commission.

Allardyce muttered something under his breath and disappeared through the farther door.

Runcorn wrinkled his nose very slightly. He said nothing, but his face was eloquent of his disgust.

Monk walked over to a sheaf of drawings in a folder and opened them up. The first was brilliant. The artist had used only a charcoal pencil, but with an extraordinary economy of stroke he had caught the suppressed energy in face and body as three women leaned over a table. The dice were so insignificant it took a moment before Monk even saw them. All the passion was in the faces, the eyes, the open mouths, the jagged force that held them transfixed. Gamblers.

He turned it over quickly and looked at the next. Gamblers again, but this time with the vacant stare of the loser. It was powerful, desolate. A home or a fortune lost on the turn of a piece of colored cardboard, but all despair was in the eyes.

The third was a beautiful woman, her face alight as if at sight of a lover, her eyes shining, her lips parted, but it was a fan of cards that she stared at, a winning hand, colors and suits blurred, already without meaning as she looked towards the next deal. Victory was so sweet, and the taste of it an instant, and then gone again.

Elissa Beck.

Monk turned the rest, aware of Runcorn at his shoulder, watching, saying nothing.

There were pictures of this woman, some sketched so hastily they were little more than a suggestion, half an outline, but with such power the emotion leapt raw off the paper, the greed, the excitement, the pounding heart, the sweat on the skin, the clenched muscles. Monk found himself holding his own breath as he looked at them one after another.

Had Runcorn recognized Elissa? Monk felt himself hot, and then cold. Could Runcorn possibly imagine Allardyce was so obsessed with her he had placed her there just to draw her again and again? Not unless he was totally naive. Those drawings were from life; anyone with the slightest knowledge of nature could see the honesty in them. He did not want to turn to meet Runcorn’s eyes.

There were two more pictures. They were probably just the same, but their blank white edges, poking out beneath the one he saw now, challenged him. What were they? More of Elissa? He could feel Runcorn’s presence so vividly he imagined the warmth of his body, Runcorn’s breath on his neck.

He turned the page. The second to last was a man, thick-chested, broken-nosed, leaning against a wall and watching the women, who were again playing. His face was brutish, bored. Sooner or later they would lose, and it would be his job to make sure the debts were collected. He would get rid of troublemakers.

Slowly, Monk lifted the page over to look at the last one. It was an expensively dressed man with dead eyes, and a small pistol in his hand.

Runcorn let out a sigh, and his voice was very quiet. “Poor devil,” he said. “I suppose he reckons it’s the better way. Ever seen a debtors’ prison, Monk? Some of them aren’t too bad, but when they throw ’em in with everyone else, for a man like that, he’s probably right, better off a quick end.”

Monk said nothing. His thoughts were too hard, the truth too close.

“I suppose you think he’s a coward,” Runcorn said, and there was anger and hurt bristling in him.

“No!” Monk returned instantly. “Don’t suppose. You’ve no idea what I think!”

Runcorn was startled.

Now Monk was facing him, their eyes meeting. Had Runcorn recognized Elissa? How long would it be before he realized the cost of her gambling? He knew enough not to imagine it was a game, a few hours of a harmless pastime. If he had not before, it was there in the drawings, the consuming hunger that swept away all other thought or feeling. They destroyed any illusion that it was a harmless, controllable vice.

“She didn’t break her own neck,” Runcorn said very softly, his voice rough as if his throat hurt. “Debt collectors? And the poor model just got in the way?”

Monk thought about it. Somewhere in his closed memory he must know more about gamblers, violence, ways of extorting money without endangering their own gambling houses, and thus losing more profit than they gained. “We don’t know that she owed enough to be worth making an example of,” he said to Runcorn. “Does it look that way to you?”

Runcorn’s lips tightened. “No,” he said flatly. He would like that to have been the answer, even if they never found the individual man responsible; it was clear in his face. “Doesn’t really make sense. If she wasn’t paying they’d simply ban her from the place . . . long before she got to owe enough to be worth the risk of killing. They’d murder rivals who could drive them out of business, but not losers. Hell, the gutters’d be choked with corpses if they did that.” His eyes widened suddenly. “Might kill a winner, though! Win a bit’s good to encourage the others, win a lot is expensive.”

Monk laughed harshly. “And you don’t suppose they have control over how much anybody wins?”