by Anne Perry
He turned on his heel and faced the closed door again. He wanted to ask them about Grey, and he had the excuse for it, indeed he had no excuse not to. He took a step forward, and then felt foolish. He could hardly go back and knock like a servant asking entry. But he could not walk out of the house, knowing they had had a relationship with Joscelin Grey, that Imogen at least had cared for him, and not ask more. He stretched out his hand, then withdrew it again.
The door opened and Imogen came out. She stopped in surprise, a foot from him, her back against the panels. The color came up her face.
“I’m sorry.” She took a breath. “I—I did not realize you were still here.”
He did not know what to say either; he was idiotically speechless. Seconds ticked by. Eventually it was she who spoke.
“Was there something else, Mr. Monk? Have you found something?” Her voice lifted, all eagerness, hope in her eyes; and he felt sure now that she had come to him alone, trusted him with something she had not confided to her husband or Hester.
“I’m working on the Joscelin Grey case.” It was the only thing he could think of to say. He was floundering in a morass of ignorance If only he could remember!
Her eyes dropped. “Indeed. So that is why you came to see us. I’m sorry. I misunderstood. You—you wish to know something about Major Grey?”
It was far from the truth.
“I—” He drew a deep breath. “I dislike having to disturb you, so soon after—”
Her head came up, her eyes angry. He had no idea why. She was so lovely, so gentle; she woke yearnings in him for something his memory could not grasp: some old sweetness, a time of laughter and trust. How could he be stupid enough to feel this torrent of emotion for a woman who had simply come to him for help because of family tragedy, and almost certainly regarded him in the same light as she would the plumber or the fireman?
“Sorrows do not wait for one another.” She was talking to him in a stiff little voice. “I know what the newspapers are saying. What do you wish to know about Major Grey? If we knew anything that was likely to be of help, we should have told you ourselves.”
“Yes.” He was withered by her anger, confusingly and painfully hurt by it. “Of course you would. I—I was just wondering if there was anything else I should have asked. I don’t think there is. Good night, Mrs. Latterly.”
“Good night, Mr. Monk.” She lifted her head a little higher and he was not quite sure whether he saw her blink to disguise tears. But that was ridiculous—why should she weep now? Disappointment? Frustration? Disillusion in him, because she had hoped and expected better? If only he could remember!
“Parkin, will you show Mr. Monk to the door.” And without looking at him again, or waiting for the maid, she walked away, leaving him alone.
9
MONK WAS OBLIGED to go back to the Grey case, although both Imogen Latterly, with her haunting eyes, and Hester, with her anger and intelligence, intruded into his thoughts. Concentration was almost beyond him, and he had to drive himself even to think of its details and try to make patterns from the amorphous mass of facts and suppositions they had so far.
He sat in his office with Evan, reviewing the growing amount of it, but it was all inconclusive of any fact, negative and not positive. No one had broken in, therefore Grey had admitted his murderer himself; and if he had admitted him, then he had been unaware of any reason to fear him. It was not likely he would invite in a stranger at that time in the evening, so it was more probably someone he knew, and who hated him with an intense but secret violence.
Or did Grey know of the hatred, but feel himself safe from it? Did he believe that person powerless to injure, either for an emotional reason, or a physical? Even that answer was still beyond him.
The description both Yeats and Grimwade had given of the only visitor unaccounted for did not fit Lovel Grey, but it was so indistinct that it hardly mattered. If Rosamond Grey’s child was Joscelin’s, and not Lovel’s, that could be reason enough for murder; especially if Joscelin himself knew it and perhaps had not been averse to keeping Lovel reminded. It would not be the first time a cruel tongue, the mockery at pain or impotence had ended in an uncontrolled rage.
Evan broke into his thoughts, almost as if he had read them.
“Do you suppose Shelburne killed Joscelin himself?” He was frowning, his face anxious, his wide eyes clouded. He had no need to fear for his own career—the establishment, even the Shelburnes, would not blame him for a scandal. Was he afraid for Monk? It was a warm thought.
Monk looked up at him.
“Perhaps not. But if he paid someone else, they would have been cleaner and more efficient about it, and less violent. Professionals don’t beat a man to death; they usually either stab him or garrote him, and not in his own house.”
Evan’s delicate mouth turned down at the corners. “You mean an attack in the street, follow him to a quiet spot—and all over in a moment?”
“Probably; and leave the body in an alley where it won’t be found too soon, preferably out of his own area. That way there would be less to connect them with the victim, and less of a risk of their being recognized.”
“Perhaps he was in a hurry?” Evan suggested. “Couldn’t wait for the right time and place?” He leaned back a little in his chair and tilted the legs.
“What hurry?” Monk shrugged. “No hurry if it was Shelburne, not if it were over Rosamond anyway. Couldn’t matter a few days, or even a few weeks.”
“No.” Evan looked gloomy. He allowed the front legs of the chair to settle again. “I don’t know how we begin to prove anything, or even where to look.”
“Find out where Shelburne was at the time Grey was killed,” Monk answered. “I should have done that before.”
“Oh, I asked the servants, in a roundabout way.” Evan’s face was surprised, and there was a touch of satisfaction in it he could not conceal.
“And?” Monk asked quickly. He would not spoil Evan’s pleasure.
“He was away from Shelburne; they were told he came to town for dinner. I followed it up. He was at the dinner all right, and spent the night at his club, off Tavistock Place. It would have been difficult for him to have been in Mecklenburg Square at the right time, because he might easily have been missed, but not at all impossible. If he’d gone along Compton Street, right down Hunter Street, ’round Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place, past the Foundling Hospital, up Caroline Place—and he was there. Ten minutes at the outside, probably less. He’d have been gone at least three quarters of an hour, counting the fight with Grey—and returning. But he could have done it on foot—easily.”
Monk smiled; Evan deserved praise and he was glad to give it.
“Thank you. I ought to have done that myself. It might even have been less time, if the quarrel was an old one-say ten minutes each way, and five minutes for the fight. That’s not long for a man to be out of sight at a club.”
Evan looked down, a faint color in his face. He was smiling.
“It doesn’t get us any further,” he pointed out ruefully. “It could have been Shelburne, or it could have been anyone else. I suppose we shall have to investigate every other family he could have blackmailed? That should make us rather less popular than the ratman. Do you think it was Shelburne, sir, and we’ll just never prove it?”
Monk stood up.
“I don’t know but I’m damned if it’ll be for lack of trying.” He was thinking of Joscelin Grey in the Crimea, seeing the horror of slow death by starvation, cold and disease, the blinding incompetence of commanders sending men to be blown to bits by enemy guns, the sheer stultifying of it all; feeling fear and physical pain, exhaustion, certainly pity, shown by his brief ministrations to the dying in Scutari—all while Lovel stayed at home in his great hall, marrying Rosamond, adding money to money, comfort to comfort.
Monk strode to the door. Injustice ached in him like a gathering boil, angry and festering. He pulled the handle sharply and jerked it open.
“Sir!” Evan half rose to his feet.
Monk turned.
Evan did not know the words, how to phrase the warning urgent inside him. Monk could see it in his face, the wide hazel eyes, the sensitive mouth.
“Don’t look so alarmed,” he said quietly, pushing the door to again. “I’m going back to Grey’s flat. I remember a photograph of his family there. Shelburne was in it, and Menard Grey. I want to see if Grimwade or Yeats recognize either of them. Do you want to come?”
Evan’s face ironed out almost comically with relief. He smiled in spite of himself.
“Yes sir. Yes I would.” He reached for his coat and scarf. “Can you do that without letting them know who they are? If they know they were his brothers—I mean-Lord Shelburne—”
Monk looked at him sideways and Evan pulled a small face of apology.
“Yes of course,” he muttered, following Monk outside. “Although the Shelburnes will deny it, of course, and they’ll still ride us to hell and back if we press a charge!”
Monk knew that, and he had no plan even if anyone in the photograph were recognized, but it was a step forward, and he had to take it.
Grimwade was in his cubbyhole as usual and he greeted them cheerfully.
“Lovely mild day, sir.” He squinted towards the street. “Looks as if it could clear up.”
“Yes,” Monk agreed without thinking. “Very pleasant.” He was unaware of being wet. “We’re going up to Mr. Grey’s rooms again, want to pick up one or two things.”
“Well with all of you on the case, I ‘spec’ you’ll get somewhere one of these days.” Grimwade nodded, a faint trace of sarcasm in his rather lugubrious face. “You certainly are a busy lot, I’ll give yer that.”
Monk was halfway up the stairs with the key before the significance of Grimwade’s remark came to him. He stopped sharply and Evan trod on his heel.
“Sorry,” Evan apologized.
“What did he mean?” Monk turned, frowning. “All of us? There’s only you and me—isn’t there?”
Evan’s eyes shadowed. “So far as I know! Do you think Runcorn has been here?”
Monk stood stiffly to the spot. “Why should he? He doesn’t want to be the one to solve this, especially if it is Shelburne. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
“Curiosity?” There were other thoughts mirrored in Evan’s face, but he did not speak them.
Monk thought the same thing—perhaps Runcorn wanted some proof it was Shelburne, then he would force Monk to find it, and then to make the charge. For a moment they stared at each other, the knowledge silent and complete between them.
“I’ll go and find out.” Evan turned around and went slowly down again.
It was several minutes before he came back, and Monk stood on the stair waiting, his mind at first searching for a way out, a way to avoid accusing Shelburne himself. Then he was drawn to wonder more about Runcorn. How old was the enmity between them? Was it simply an older man fearing a rival on the ladder of success, a younger, cleverer rival?
Only younger and cleverer? Or also harder, more ruthless in his ambitions, one who took credit for other people’s work, who cared more for acclaim than for justice, who sought the public, colorful cases, the ones well reported; even a man who managed to shelve his failures onto other people, a thief of other men’s work?
If that were so, then Runcorn’s hatred was well earned, and his revenge had a justice to it.
Monk stared up at the old, carefully plastered ceiling. Above it was the room where Grey had been beaten to death. He did not feel ruthless now—only confused, oppressed by the void where memory should be, afraid of what he might find out about his own nature, anxious that he would fail in his job. Surely the crack on the head, however hard, could not have changed him so much? But even if the injury could not, maybe the fear had? He had woken up lost and alone, knowing nothing, having to find himself clue by clue, in what others could tell him, what they thought of him, but never why. He knew nothing of the motives for his acts, the nice rationalizations and excuses he had made to himself at the time. All the emotions that had driven him and blocked out judgment were in that empty region that yawned before the hospital bed and Runcorn’s face.
But he had no time to pursue it further. Evan was back, his features screwed up in anxiety.
“It was Runcorn!” Monk leaped to the conclusion, suddenly frightened, like a man faced with physical violence.
Evan shook his head.
“No. It was two men I don’t recognize at all from Grimwade’s description. But he said they were from the police, and he saw their papers before he let them in.”
“Papers?” Monk repeated. There was no point in asking what the men had looked like; he could not remember the men of his own division, let alone those from any other.
“Yes.” Evan was obviously still anxious. “He said they had police identification papers, like ours.”
“Did he see if they were from our station?”
“Yes sir, they were.” His face puckered. “But I can’t think who they could be. Anyway, why on earth would Runcorn send anyone else? What for?”
“I suppose it would be too much to ask that they gave names?”
“I’m afraid Grimwade didn’t notice.”
Monk turned around and went back up the stairs, more worried than he wished Evan to see. On the landing he put the key Grimwade had given him into the lock and swung Grey’s door open. The small hallway was just as before, and it gave him an unpleasant jar of familiarity, a sense of foreboding for what was beyond.
Evan was immediately behind him. His face was pale and his eyes shadowed, but Monk knew that his oppression stemmed from Runcorn, and the two men who had been here before them, not any sensitivity to the violence still lingering in the air.
There was no purpose in hesitating anymore. He opened the second door.
There was a long sigh from behind him almost at his shoulder as Evan let out his breath in amazement.
The room was in wild disorder; the desk had been tipped over and all its contents flung into the far corner—by the look of them, the papers a sheet at a time. The chairs were on their sides, one upside down, the seats had been taken out, the stuffed sofa ripped open with a knife. All the pictures lay on the floor, backs levered out.
“Oh my God.” Evan was stupefied.
“Not the police, I think,” Monk said quietly.
“But they had papers,” Evan protested. “Grimwade actually read them.”
“Have you never heard of a good screever?”
“Forged?” Evan said wearily. “I suppose Grimwade wouldn’t have known the difference.”
“If the screever were good enough, I daresay we wouldn’t either.” Monk pulled a sour expression. Some forgeries of testimonials, letters, bills of sale were good enough to deceive even those they were purported to come from. At the upper end, it was a highly skilled and lucrative trade, at the lower no more than a makeshift way of buying a little time, or fooling the hasty or illiterate.
“Who were they?” Evan went past Monk and stared around the wreckage. “And what on earth did they want here?”
Monk’s eyes went to the shelves where the ornaments had been.
“There was a silver sugar scuttle up there,” he said as he pointed. “See if it’s on the floor under any of that paper.” He turned slowly. “And there were a couple of pieces of jade on that table. There were two snuffboxes in that alcove; one of them had an inlaid lid. And try the sideboard; there should be silver in the second drawer.”
“What an incredible memory you have; I never noticed them.” Evan was impressed and his admiration was obvious in his luminous eyes before he knelt down and began carefully to look under the mess, not moving it except to raise it sufficiently to explore beneath.
Monk was startled himself. He could not remember having looked in such detail at trivialities. Surely he had gone straight to the marks of the struggle, the bloodstains, the disarrang
ed furniture, the bruised paint and the crooked pictures on the walls? He had no recollection now of even noticing the sideboard drawer, and yet his mind’s eye could see silver, laid out neatly in green-baize-lined fittings.
Had it been in some other place? Was he confusing this room with another, an elegant sideboard somewhere in his past, belonging to someone else? Perhaps Imogen Latterly?
But he must dismiss Imogen from his mind—however easily, with whatever bitter fragrance, she returned. She was a dream, a creation of his own memories and hungers. He could never have known her well enough to feel anything but a charm, a sense of her distress, her courage in fighting it, the strength of her loyalty.
He forced himself to think of the present; Evan searching in the sideboard, the remark on his memory.
“Training,” he replied laconically, although he didn’t understand it himself. “You’ll develop it. It might not be the second drawer, better look in all of them.”
Evan obeyed, and Monk turned back to the pile on the floor and began to pick his way through the mess, looking for something to tell him its purpose, or give any clue as to who could have caused it.
“There’s nothing here.” Evan closed the drawer, his mouth turned down in a grimace of disgust. “But this is the right place; it’s all slotted for them to fit in, and lined with cloth. They went to a lot of trouble for a dozen settings of silver. I suppose they expected to get more. Where did you say the jade was?”
“There.” Monk stepped over a pile of papers and cushions to an empty shelf, then wondered with a sense of unease how he knew, when he could have noticed it.
He bent and searched the floor carefully, replacing everything as he found it. Evan was watching him.
“No jade?” he asked.
“No, it’s gone.” Monk straightened up, his back stiff. “But I find it hard to believe ordinary thieves would go to the trouble, and the expense, of forging police identification papers just for a few pieces of silver and a jade ornament, and I think a couple of snuffboxes.” He looked around. “They couldn’t take much more without being noticed. Grimwade would certainly have been suspicious if they had taken anything like furniture or pictures.”
