Funeral in Blue (14 page)

Monk resented it with a bitterness he could not explain. Then the thought occurred to him that if he had died in the coach crash which had robbed him of his memory, he might have been buried as coldly as this, with no one to mourn, the decencies carried out as a public duty by someone who did not take the time or trouble to learn anything more than his name, someone who had never known him and certainly never cared.

He decided in that moment that he would go to the graveside as well. It was time in which he could have been looking for further evidence of Kristian’s movements. He might find something to prove that Kristian had been far enough away from Acton Street for it to be impossible for him to be guilty. But even as the thought passed through Monk’s mind, he followed the small procession out of the church and along the street towards the already crowded graveyard.

In the narrow space between the gravestones it was impossible not to find himself next to Runcorn. Whatever had taken him to the church, it could only be some personal emotion which had brought him there. He stood staring at the open hollow in the ground, avoiding Monk’s eyes. He still looked angry to be caught there, yet too stubborn to be put off.

Monk resisted the idea that Runcorn could possibly feel the same mixture of pity and resentment for Sarah that he did. He and Runcorn were nothing alike. Yet they were there side by side, avoiding each other’s eyes, aware of the chill of the wet ground under their feet and the dark hole gaping in front of them, the ritual words which should have held passion and comfort, if spoken with feeling, and the solitary figure of Mrs. Clark sniffing and dabbing a sodden handkerchief to her eyes.

When it was over, Monk looked once at Runcorn, who nodded curtly as if they were acquaintances met by chance, then hurried away.

Monk left a few minutes after him, headed towards the Gray’s Inn Road. He turned his mind back to the question of Kristian’s movements on the evening of the murders. He went to the patients Kristian had visited and asked them again for times as exactly as they could recall. The answers were unsatisfactory. Memories were hazy with pain and with the confusion of days which blurred one into another in a round of medicines, meals, naps, the occasional visit. Time meant very little. There was really no meaning in whether the doctor came at eight or at nine, or on Monday or Tuesday this week, or was it last?

He left uncertain as to whether or not Kristian could prove himself elsewhere at the time of the murder. He began to fear more and more that he could not.

What Hester had told him of Elissa’s gambling crowded his mind with ugly thoughts. Too easily, he could imagine the fear of ruin spiraling out of control, until one day the self-discipline snapped and violence broke through. The deed would be done before he had had time to realize what he meant. Then he would be faced with Sarah Mackeson, drunk, frightened, perhaps hysterical and beginning to scream. He would silence her in self-preservation, possibly his old fighting skills returning from the revolution in Vienna, where the cause had been great, and war and death in the air mixed with the hope, and then the despair.

Did such events change a man’s core, the way he responded to a threat, the value he placed on life?

He was walking more slowly now, turning south down Gray’s Inn Road. He passed a gingerbread man, very smartly dressed, smiling broadly. “Here’s your nice gingerbread, your spiced gingerbread!” he called out. “Melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat and rumble in your inside like Punch in a wheelbarrow!” He grinned at Monk. “You never heard o’ ’Tiddy Diddy Doll’?”

Monk smiled back at him. “Yes I did. Bit before your time, though, wasn’t he?”

“Hundred year,” the man agreed. “Best gingerbread man in England, ’e were. An’ why shouldn’t I copy him? Do you good—warm the cockles o’ yer ’eart. ’Ere—threepence worth. Keep the cold out o’ yer.”

Monk handed him threepence and took the generous slice. “Thank you. You here most evenings?”

“ ’Course I am. Come by any time. You’ll not find better in London,” the man assured him.

“Do you know Dr. Beck, Bohemian gentleman, who tends patients all around this area? He’s a couple of inches shorter than I am, dark hair, remarkable dark eyes. Probably always in a hurry.”

“Yeah, I know the gent you mean. Foreign. Out all hours. Friend o’ yours?”

“Yes. Can you remember the last time you saw him?”

“Lorst ’im, ’ave yer?” He grinned again.

Monk maintained his self-control with an effort. “It was his wife who was murdered in Acton Street. When did you see him?”

The gingerbread man whistled between his teeth, and all the humor died out of his face. “I saw ’im that night, but it were about ten-ish. Bought a piece o’ gingerbread an’ took a cab up north. Goin’ ’ome, I reckoned, but maybe not. I went ’ome meself just arter that. ’E were me last customer.”

“How was he?”

“Fit ter drop, if yer ask me. That tired ’e could ’ardly stand up. Terrible thing to lose yer wife like that.” He shook his head and sighed.

Monk thanked him and moved on. He was not sure if the man’s news was good or bad. It tallied roughly with what Kristian had said, but it also placed him within a few hundred yards of Acton Street.

Perhaps rather than trying to follow Kristian he should learn more about Elissa? Obviously, she had been in Allardyce’s studio at the time of the murder, but what about before that? Both he and Runcorn had assumed she had gone from her home straight to Allardyce’s studio. Maybe she had gone to Swinton Street to gamble? Regardless of that, he should know more of her gambling. He had accepted Kristian’s word, given to Hester. If he believed Kristian capable of killing his wife, why did he assume that his account was true in every other particular, simply because it was humiliating and gave him a motive in her death? There might be things he was ignorant of, or mistaken in. He could be lying to conceal something else.

It was not difficult to find the gambling house. The most simple questions, asked with an assured eagerness and a certain glint in the eye, determined that it was the fifth house along from the Gray’s Inn Road, in the north side of the street, well concealed behind a butcher’s shop.

He walked briskly and went up the shallow step and through the interior, stacked only with a few miserable-looking sausages, and knocked on the door beyond. It was opened by a large-shouldered man with a badly broken nose and a soft, slightly lisping voice. “Yes?” he said guardedly.

“I’m told a man with a little money to spend can find rather better amusement here than in music halls or the local tavern,” Monk replied. “Something with a chance to win . . . or lose . . . a bit of involvement.”

“Well now? And who told you that, then?” The man still looked dubious, but there was a flicker of interest in his face.

“A lady I know who enjoys some excitement in her life now and then. Gentlemen don’t mention names.”

The man smiled, showing a chipped front tooth, and asked to see the color of his money.

“Gold—same color as everyone else’s! What’s the matter? Only cater for silver here, do you? Or copper, maybe?”

“No call to be rude,” the man said patiently. “Just a few ladies and gentlemen spending a pleasant afternoon. Causing nobody no fuss. But I think as I’d like ter know your friend’s name, gentleman or no gentleman.”

“Unfortunately, my friend met with a . . . misfortune,” Monk replied.

“A financial one, like?” the man asked with a sigh.

“She met with a few of those, but that’s life,” Monk replied laconically. “This one was worse. She was murdered.”

The man’s face tightened around the lips and jaw. “Very sad. But isn’t nothing to do with us ’ere.”

The fact that he denied it gave Monk a sudden sense of chill, but he knew that a murder which would draw such intense police attention was the last thing a house like this would wish. They would have to close down and set up somewhere else. That would take time and cost money. They would lose business, and while they were closed their custom would go to their rivals, possibly not to return.

It would be such an easy answer if he could think they were guilty of Elissa’s murder, but it made no sense.

The man was waiting for him to reply.

He shrugged deliberately. It cost him an effort of will, and the faces of the two dead women stayed in front of his eyes. “Not my business,” he said carelessly. “If you can’t pay your debts, you shouldn’t play. Pity about her, but life doesn’t stop . . . at least not for us.”

The man laughed heartily, but his eyes remained cold. “You got the idea right,” he said with a nod.

“So how long do I stand here debating the philosophy of debt?” Monk asked, matching him stare for stare.

“Until I decide you can go in!”

“And what would make you decide against it?” Monk enquired. He wondered if Kristian had ever been there. Perhaps Runcorn should ask, with the weight of police authority behind him. Except that there was nothing to make this man tell the truth. It would be instinctive to lie, to keep himself out of a murder.

“Maybe you’re another bad debtor,” the man said sanctimoniously.

“And on the other hand, maybe I’m a big winner,” Monk pointed out. “You afraid of that? Watch others, but no stomach to take a chance yourself?”

“You got a vicious tongue in you, sir,” the man said with something that sounded like reluctant admiration. He eyed Monk up and down, judging his balance, his physical strength and agility. A spark of interest lit in his eyes. “But I don’t see why you shouldn’t come in and spend a little time here in pleasant company for the afternoon. Seeing as how you understand the ways o’ life rather the same as we do.”

The idea that had been lurking at the back of Monk’s mind suddenly took form. He was being weighed up as a potential tool for discipline in the future. He would play into that. He smiled at the man, looking straight at him. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Very civil of you.”

Inside was a large room, probably originally two and now knocked into one. There were half a dozen tables set up, some surrounded by chairs, some with room only for standing. There were already at least twenty people there. No one noticed his arrival. Every eye was undeviating from the roll of the dice or the turn of a card. No one spoke. In fact, there was no sound but the soft flick of cards on the baize cloth, or the very faint thump of the dice falling. There was barely even the rustle of silk or taffeta skirts or the creaking of the bones of a bodice as someone leaned a little farther forward.

Then there was a win, and cheers. Losers turned away, faces filled with chagrin. It was impossible to guess how much they had lost, whether they could afford it, or were ruined.

The game resumed, and again the tension mounted.

Monk looked around at the faces, eyes on the play, some with jaws clenched. He saw one man with a slight tic in his temple and noticed his hands white-knuckled as the cards turned. Another fidgeted silently, stopping his fingers from drumming on the table edge but holding them just short of the surface. His shoulders seemed to be locked in position, a little higher than natural and totally unmoving.

Monk directed his attention to a woman, perhaps thirty-five, with a sharp, pretty face, blond hair pulled a little too tightly back from her brow. She scarcely breathed as the dice rolled and stopped. She won, and glee lit her eyes, a brilliance that was more like a fever. Immediately she played again, moving the dice from one hand to the other four times before blowing on them and rolling them.

Monk became aware of the man from the door watching him. He must play. Please heaven he could win enough to stay an hour or two. He moved over to the dice. He could not remember if he had ever played cards. He could not afford to make a fool of himself by displaying ignorance. This was not a place where any leeway was given. One glance at faces told anyone that each person in the room was obsessed with the game, win or lose. The money represented victory; they hardly saw it for itself or what it could buy, beyond another chance to play.

He watched the turn of the cards for another twenty minutes, and then he was invited to play, and without thinking he accepted. He had won the first hand before he realized with a cold ripple through his body how easily he had done it. An old, familiar needle of excitement pricked inside him. There was a thrill to winning; the danger of loss sharpened it. It was like galloping a little too fast along the white surf where the sea joins the land, feeling the wind and the spray in your face, and knowing that if you fell you could break bones, perhaps even be killed.

He played another hand, and another, and won. He was now ten guineas better off, police pay for over a month. He stood up and made an excuse to leave. He had more than established himself. He was there to find out about Elissa Beck, not to increase his own wealth. Kristian might have murdered her, and be hanged for it. Someone had killed her! And poor Sarah Mackeson as well. This was life and death. Money was a distraction, winning or losing at the turn of a piece of colored cardboard was idiotic!

But it was remarkably difficult to get any sensible conversation from any of the players. The game was everything. They barely glanced at each other. One could have stood next to a brother or sister and been unaware of it while the next play was awaited.

That was how he was so slow in noticing the woman at the table to his left. Her soft dark hair and slender body, bent forward in eagerness, jolted him back to his reason for being here. She was consumed in the game, her eyes fixed on the dice, her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. For an instant it could have been Elissa Beck. There was something familiar about her that clutched at his emotions and turned his heart. He could not help staring at her, sharing the moment’s exhilaration when she won. Her face was flushed with excitement. She seemed to vibrate life as if her energy could fill the room. She was beautiful with an inner fire.

He watched as she played again, and won again.

“Go play against her!” a voice said at his elbow. He turned to see the man who had let him in. “Go on!” he was urged with a broken-toothed smile. “Do the house good. You can’t both win.”