Funeral in Blue (29 page)

“For God’s sake, his life could depend on it!” Monk said with rising panic, knowing he was failing and seeing his last chance slip away. “What do you know?” Was it the betrayal? Had it, after all, not been the secret Father Geissner had believed?

“I cannot see if it will help, and perhaps it will make things worse,” Herr Jakob said at last, his eyes filled with a sorrow that seemed too harsh and too deep for what Monk had told him, even the murder of a woman he might have admired, and the possibility that a man he had most certainly regarded highly could have been responsible.

“I need to know it anyway,” Monk said in the heavy silence. “Tell me.”

Beside him, Ferdi gulped. Herr Jakob sighed. “The history of our race is full of seeking, of homecoming, and of expulsion,” he said, looking not at Monk but at some point in the white linen tablecloth, and some vast arena of the world in his vision. “Again and again we find ourselves strangers in a land that fears us, and in the end hates us. We are permanent exiles. In Egypt, in Babylon, and across the world.”

Monk held his patience with difficulty. It was the passion of feeling that stilled his interruption rather than any regard for the words.

“We have been strangers in Europe for more than a thousand years,” Jakob went on. “And still we are strangers today, hated by many, even behind their smiling faces and their courtesy. We have lost some of our people to the fear, the exclusion, the unspoken dislike.”

Frau Jakob leaned forward a little as if to interrupt.

“I know,” he said, looking at her and shaking his head a little. “Herr Monk does not want a lesson in our history, but it is necessary to understand.” He turned to Monk. “You see, many families have changed their names, their way of life, even abandoned the knowledge of our fathers and embraced the Catholic faith, sometimes in order to survive, at other times simply to be accepted, to give their children a better chance.”

In spite of himself, Monk understood that, even if he did not admire it.

Jakob saw that in his eyes, and nodded. “The Baruch family was one such.”

“Baruch?” Monk repeated, not knowing what he meant.

“Almost three generations ago,” Jakob said.

Suddenly, Monk had a terrible premonition what Jakob was going to say.

Jakob saw it in his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “They changed their name to Beck, and became Roman Catholic.”

Monk was stunned. It was almost too difficult to believe, and yet not for an instant could he doubt it. It was monstrous, farcical, and it all made a hideous sense. It was a denial of identity, of birthright, of the faith that had endured for thousands of years, given up not for a change of conviction but for survival, to accommodate their persecutors and become one of them.

And yet had he been in the same circumstances, with a wife and children to protect, honesty told him he could not swear he would have acted differently. For oneself . . . perhaps . . . but for the parent who had grown old and frightened, desperately vulnerable, for the child who trusted you and for whom you had to make the decisions, with life or death as a result . . . that was different.

One question beat in his brain above all others. “Did Kristian know?” he demanded.

“No,” Jakob said with a rueful smile. “Elissa knew. Hanna was the one who told her. She had a friend whose grandfather was a rabbi, and interested in all the old records. I think she wanted Elissa to know that it was she who was the one who did not belong, not Hanna. But no one told Kristian. Elissa protected him more than once. She was a remarkable woman. I am very sorry indeed to hear that she is dead . . . still more that it was the result of murder, not accident. But I do not believe that Kristian would do such a thing.”

Monk took a deep breath. Hanna’s family did not know of the betrayal. His throat was suddenly tight with relief and his next words were hoarse. “Not even if she told him this now, without warning, perhaps to heighten the obligation to her?”

Jakob’s face darkened. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I think not. But people do strange things when they are deeply distressed, out of the character we know, even that they know of themselves. I hope not.”

Monk stayed a little longer, enjoying the comfort and the strange, alien certainty of the room with its millennia-old rituals and memories of history which was to him only faint, from old Bible stories. It was like a step outside the daily world into another reality. He envied Herr Jakob his belief, dearly as it had been bought. Then, at about nine o’clock, he thanked them and he and Ferdi excused themselves. Tomorrow, Monk must face Max Niemann.

Outside in the street, it was freezing. The pavements glistened with a film of ice in the pools of light from the street lamps. Monk glanced sideways at Ferdi and saw the emotion raw in him. In a few hours he had been hurled through a torrent of passion and loss beyond anything his life had prepared him for, and seen it in a people he had been taught to despise. It had been installed in him that they were different, in some indescribably way less. And he had been touched by their dignity and their pain more deeply than he could control. Even if he could not have put it into such simple words, he was inwardly aware that their culture was the fount of his own. It stirred a knowledge in him too fundamental to be ignored.

Monk wanted to comfort him, assure him. But more than that, he wanted Ferdi to remember what he felt this moment as they walked, heads down in the darkened street, feeling the ice of the wind on their faces. He wanted him never to deny it within himself, or bend or turn it to suit society. It would be yet another betrayal. He had not the excuse of ignorance anymore.

He remained silent because he did not know what to say.

By the time Monk was face-to-face with Max Niemann at last, he had decided exactly what he was going to ask him. He already knew a great deal about Niemann, his heroism during the uprising, his love for Elissa, and how generously he had reacted when she married Kristian instead. From his outward behavior it was not difficult to believe he had largely got over his own passion for her and it had resolved into a genuine friendship for both Elissa and Kristian. He had never married, but that could have been due to a number of reasons. It was not so long ago that Monk himself had been quite sure that he would never marry, or if he did it would be someone quite unlike Hester. He had been certain he wanted a gentle, feminine woman who would comfort him, yield to him, admire his strength and be blind to his weaknesses. That memory prompted in him a wry laughter now. How little he had known himself. How desperately lonely that would have made him, like a man staring into a looking glass, and seeing only his own reflection.

But then he did know himself little, only five years, and those were strands worked out by deduction and sharp, sometimes ugly, flashes of disconnected memory.

He followed Max Niemann from his work as he strolled along the Canovagasse towards the open stretch of the Karlsplatz. It was not an ideal place for the conversation he needed to have, but he could not afford to wait any longer. In London, the trial might already have started. It was that urgency which impelled him to approach Max Niemann in the café where he sat listening to the chatter, and the clink of glasses.

It was discourteous, at the least, to pull up a chair opposite a man who was obviously intent upon being alone, but there was no alternative.

“Excuse me,” he said in English. “I know you are Max Niemann, and I need to speak to you on a matter which cannot wait for a proper introduction.”

Niemann looked only momentarily startled, his face set in lines of mild irritation.

Before he could protest, Monk went on. “My name is William Monk. I saw you in London at the funeral of Elissa Beck, but you may not remember me. I am a friend of Kristian’s, and it is in his interest that I am here.”

He saw Niemann’s expression ease a little.

“Did you know that Kristian has been charged with the murder, and is due to stand—” He stopped. It was apparent from Niemann’s wide eyes and slack mouth that he had not known, and that the news distressed him profoundly. “I’m sorry to tell you so abruptly,” Monk apologized. “I don’t believe it can be true, but there seems to be no other explanation for which there is any evidence, and I hoped I might find something here. Perhaps an enemy from the days of the uprising.”

A look of irony and grief crossed Niemann’s face. “Who waited thirteen years?” he said incredulously. “Why?”

A waiter came by, and Monk asked Niemann’s permission, then ordered coffee with cream and chocolate in it, and Niemann ordered a second coffee with hot milk.

“Of course we had quarrels then, loves and hates like any other group of people. But they were all over in hours. There were far bigger issues to care about.” His eyes were bright, his brow furrowed a little. The noises of crockery and voices around him seemed far away. “It was passionate, life and death, but it was political. We were fighting for freedom from Hapsburg tyranny, laws that crushed people and prevented us from having any say in our own destiny. The petty things were forgotten. We didn’t wait to murder our enemies in London thirteen years later; we shot them openly at the time.” He smiled, and his eyes were bright. “If there was anything on earth Elissa hated it was a hypocrite, anyone, man or woman, who pretended to be what they were not. It was the whole charade of the court, the double standards, that drew her into the revolution in the first place.”

“Do you believe Kristian could have killed Elissa, even unintentionally, in a quarrel that got out of control?” Monk asked bluntly.

Niemann appeared to consider it. “No,” he said at length. “If you had asked me if he would have during the uprising, if she had betrayed us, I might have thought so, but he would not have lied, and he would not have killed the second woman, the artists’ model.” He looked directly at Monk without a shadow across his face. There was no guard in him, no withholding of the deeper, more terrible secret. He had used the word
betrayed
quite easily, because as far as he knew it had no meaning in connection with Elissa.

Monk hated the knowledge that he would have to tell him, and see the disbelief, the anger, the denial, and at last the acceptance.

“You know him well.” Monk made it half a statement, half a question.

Niemann looked up. “Yes, we fought side by side. But you know that.”

“People change sometimes, over years, or all at once because of some event—for example, the death of someone they are close to.” He watched Niemann’s face.

Niemann fiddled with his coffee cup, turning it around and around in his fingers. “Kristian changed after Hanna Jakob’s death,” he said at last. “I don’t know why. He never spoke about it. But he was quieter, much more . . . solitary, as if he needed to consider his beliefs more deeply. Something changed in his ability to lead. Decisions became more difficult for him. He grieved more over our losses. I don’t think after that he could have killed someone, even if he or she was a liability to the cause. He would have hesitated, looked for another way . . . possibly even lost the moment.”

“And you didn’t know why?” Monk said, compelled to press again to see if Niemann had any idea of the betrayal, or if all he knew was the subtle guilt in Kristian, the perception of his own bigotry which troubled him ever after that.

“No,” Niemann answered. “He couldn’t talk about it. I never knew what it was.”

“Do you think Elissa knew?” The question was a double irony.

Niemann thought for quite some time, then eventually answered with sadness edged in his voice. “No. I think she wanted to, and was afraid of it. I don’t think she asked him.”

Monk leaned forward a little over the table. “You went to London three times this last year. Each time you saw Elissa, but not Kristian. You did not even let him know you were in England. What happened to your friendship that you would do that?”

Niemann looked up at him, then away. “How did you know that?”

“Are you saying it is untrue?” Monk challenged.

“No.” There was weariness in Niemann’s voice, and a slump to his shoulders. “No, I did not tell Kristian because I did not want him to know. Elissa wrote to me. She was badly in debt and she knew Kristian had no more money to give her. She needed help. I went and did what I could for her, paid her debts. They were not so very great, and I have done well.” He smiled very slightly. “I did not tell Kristian. Sometimes the best way to help a friend is not to let him know that you have seen that he needs help.”

He looked up from his cup. “But surely it was the artist who killed her? What was his name . . . Allardyce? He was utterly in love with her, you know. Sarah Mackeson must have known it, and she had enough imagination to fear that Elissa would supplant her not only in Allardyce’s affections, but more importantly, on canvas, and she would be without the means of support. She must have been frightened and jealous. What if she killed Elissa? She was a stronger and heavier woman. And when Allardyce came home he found Elissa’s body and knew what had happened, and in his own rage and grief, he killed Sarah.”

“Possibly,” Monk agreed with a shrug. “But he wasn’t there that evening. He was in Southwark, and didn’t return until the morning.”

Niemann looked startled, staring at Monk with slow incredulity. “Yes he was! I saw him myself. He was coming out of the gambling house with paper and pencils and things under his arm. He’d been drawing the people at the tables—he often did. There were several people in the street, men and women, but he’s highly individual to look at with that broad brow and black hair falling over it. Besides that, I knew him. I spoke to him.”

Hope surged up in Monk, making him almost dizzy. “Allardyce was there? You’re sure it was that night?”

“Yes. He was in Swinton Street. Whether he went back to the studio or not I don’t know, but he certainly wasn’t all evening in Southwark. If he said he was, then he lied.” He watched Monk closely.

“Are you prepared to come back to London and swear to that?” Monk asked.

“Of course. And you’ll find others who saw him, but they may have their own reasons for not being willing to say so.”