The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  “Did—did he remain at the temperance meeting all evening?” he asked desperately.

  “No sir.” Yeats shook his head. “He only went there to meet my friend, who is also a collector, a very learned one-”

  “He left!” Monk seized on it.

  “Yes sir.” Yeats danced around in his anxiety, his hands jerking to and fro. “I am trying to tell you! They left together and went to get some supper—”

  “Together?”

  “Yes sir. I am afraid, Mr. Monk, Mr. Stubbs could not have been the one to have so dreadfully attacked poor Major Grey.”

  “No.” Monk was too shaken, too overwhelmingly disappointed to move. He did not know where to start again.

  “Are you quite well, Mr. Monk?” Yeats asked tentatively. “I am so sorry. Perhaps I really should have told you earlier, but I did not think it would be important, since he was not guilty.”

  “No—no, never mind,” Monk said almost under his breath. “I understand.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad. I thought perhaps I was in error.”

  Monk muttered something polite, probably meaningless—he did not want to be unkind to the little man—and made his way out onto the landing again. He was hardly aware of going down the stairs, nor did he register the drenching weight of the rain when he passed Grimwade and went outside into the street with its gaslight and swirling gutters.

  He began to walk, blindly, and it was not until he was spattered with mud and a cab wheel missed him by less than a foot that he realized he was on Doughty Street.

  “’Ere!” the cabby shouted at him. “Watch w ‘ere yer going’, guv! Yer want ter get yerself killed?”

  Monk stopped, staring up at him. “You occupied?”

  “No guv. Yer want ter go somewhere? Mebbe yer’d better, afore yer get someb’dy into a haccident.”

  “Yes,” Monk accepted, still without moving.

  “Well come on then,” the cabby said sharply, leaning forward to peer at him. “Not a night fer man ner beast ter be out in, it ain’t. Mate o’ mine were killed on a night like this, poor sod. ’Orse bolted and ’is cab turned over. Killed, ’e were. ’It ’is ’ead on the curb an’ ’e died, jes’ like that. And ’is fare were all smashed abaht too, but they say as ’e were o’right, in the end. Took ’im orf ter ’orspital, o’ course. ’Ere, are yer goin’ ter stand there all night, guv? Come on now, either get in, or don’t; but make up yer mind!”

  “This friend of yours.” Monk’s voice was distorted, as if from far away. “When was he killed, when was this accident, exactly?”

  “July it were, terrible weather fer July. Wicked night. ’Ailstorm wot lay like snow. Swear ter Gawd—I don’t know wot the wevver’s comin’ ter.”

  “What date in July?” Monk’s whole body was cold, and idiotically calm.

  “Come on now, sir?” the cabby wheedled, as one does a drunk or a recalcitrant animal. “Get in aht o’ the rain. It’s shockin’ wet aht there. Yer’ll catch yer death.”

  “What date?”

  “I fink as it were the fourf. Why? We ain’t goin’ ter ’ave no haccident ternight, I promises yer. I’ll be as careful as if you was me muvver. Jus’ make up yer mind, sir!”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Yes sir, ’e were a good mate o’ mine. Did yer know ’im too, sir? Yer live ’rahnd ’ere, do yer? ’E used ter work this patch all ve time. Picked up ’is last fare ’ere, right in vis street, accordin’ ter ’is paper. Saw ’im vat very night meself, I did. Nah is yer comin’, sir, or ain’t yer? ’Cos I ’aven’t got all night. I reckon w’en yer goes a henjoyin’ yerself, yer oughter take someone wiv yer. Yer in’t safe.”

  On this street. The cabby had picked him, Monk, up on this street, less than a hundred yards from Mecklenburg Square, on the night Joscelin Grey was murdered. What had he been doing here? Why?

  “Yer sick, sir?” The cabby’s voice changed; he was suddenly concerned. “’Ere, yer ain’t ’ad one too many?” He climbed down off his box and opened the cab door.

  “No, no I’m quite well.” Monk stepped up and inside obediently and the cabby muttered something to himself about gentlemen whose families should take better care of them, stepped back up onto the box and slapped the reins over his horse’s back.

  As soon as they arrived at Grafton Street Monk paid the cabby and hurried inside.

  “Mrs. Worley!”

  Silence.

  “Mrs. Worley!” His voice was hard, hoarse.

  She came out, rubbing her hands dry on her apron.

  “Oh my heavens, you are wet. You’d like an ’ot drink. You’ll ’ave to change them clothes; you’ve let yourself get soaked through! What ’ave you bin thinking of?”

  “Mrs. Worley.”

  The tone of his voice stopped her.

  “Why, whatever is the matter, Mr. Monk? You look proper poorly.”

  “I—” The words were slow, distant. “I can’t find a stick in my room, Mrs. Worley. Have you seen it?”

  “No, Mr. Monk, I ’aven’t, although what you’re thinking about sticks for on a night like this, I’m sure I don’t know. What you need is an umbrella.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  She stood there in front of him, square and motherly. “Not since you ’ad yer haccident, I ’aven’t. You mean that dark reddish brown one with the gold chain like ’round the top as yer bought the day afore? Proper ’andsome it were, although wot yer want one like that fer, I’ll never know. I do ’ope as you ’aven’t gorn and lorst it. If yer did, it must ‘a’ bin in yer haccident. You ’ad it with yer, ’cos I remember plain as day. Proud of it. Proper dandy, yer was.”

  There was a roaring in Monk’s ears, shapeless and immense. Through the darkness one thought was like a brilliant stab of light, searingly painful. He had been in Grey’s flat the night he was killed; he had left his own stick there in the hall stand. He himself was the man with the gray eyes whom Grimwade had seen leaving at half past ten. He must have gone in when Grimwade was showing Bartholomew Stubbs up to Yeats’s door.

  There was only one conclusion—hideous and senseless—but the only one left. God knew why, but he himself had killed Joscelin Grey.

  11

  MONK SAT IN THE ARMCHAIR in his room staring at the ceiling. The rain had stopped and the air was warm and clammy, but he was still chilled to the bone.

  Why?

  Why? It was as inconceivably senseless as a nightmare, and as entanglingly, recurringly inescapable.

  He had been in Grey’s flat that night, and something had happened after which he had gone in such haste he had left his stick in the stand behind him. The cabby had picked him up from Doughty Street, and then barely a few miles away, met with an accident which had robbed him of his life, and Monk of all memory.

  But why should he have killed Grey? In what connection did he even know him? He had not met him at the Latter-lys’; Imogen had said so quite clearly. He could imagine no way in which he could have met him socially. If he were involved in any case, then Runcorn would have known; and his own case notes would have shown it.

  So why? Why kill him? One did not follow a complete stranger to his house and then beat him to death for no reason. Unless one were insane?

  Could that be it—he was mad? His brain had been damaged even before the accident? He had forgotten what he had done because it was another self which had enacted such a hideousness, and the self he was in now knew nothing of it, was unaware even of its lusts and compulsions, its very existence? And there had been feeling—inescapable, consuming, and appalling feeling—a passion of hate. Was it possible?

  He must think. Thought was the only possible way of dealing with this, making some sense, finding an escape back into reason and an understandable world again, following and examining it, piece by piece—but he could not believe it. But then perhaps no clever, ambitious man truly believes he is mad? He turned that over in his mind too.

  Minutes turned into hours, dragging through the night. At
first he paced restlessly, back and forth, back and forth, till his legs ached, then he threw himself into the chair and sat motionless, his hands and feet so cold he lost all sensation in them, and still the nightmare was just as real, and just as senseless. He tormented his memory, scrambling after tiny fragments, retelling himself everything he could remember from the schoolroom onward, but there was nothing of Joscelin Grey, not even his face. There was no reason to it, no pattern, no vestige of anger left, no jealousy, no hatred, no fear—only the evidence. He had been there; he must have gone up when Grimwade had taken Bartholomew Stubbs up to see Yeats and been absent for a moment on his other errand.

  He had been in Joscelin Grey’s flat for three quarters of an hour, and Grimwade had seen him going out and presumed he was Stubbs leaving, whereas in truth Stubbs must have passed him on the stair, as Stubbs left and he arrived. Grimwade had said that the man leaving had seemed heavier, a little taller, and he had especially noticed his eyes. Monk remembered the eyes he had seen staring back at him from the bedroom mirror when he had first come from the hospital. They were unusual, as Grimwade had said, level, dark, clear gray; clever, almost hypnotic eyes. But he had been trying to find the mind beyond, a flash of the memory—the shade was irrelevant. He had made no connection of thought between his grave policeman’s gaze—and the stare of the man that night—any more than had Grimwade.

  He had been there, inside Grey’s flat; it was incontrovertible. But he had not followed Grey; he had gone afterwards, independently, knowing where to find him. So he had known Grey, known where he lived. But why? Why in God’s name did he hate him enough to have lost all reason, ignored all his adult life’s training and beliefs and beaten the man to death, and gone on beating him when even a madman must have seen he was dead?

  He must have known fear before, of the sea when he was young. He could dimly remember its monumental power when the bowels of the deep opened to engulf men, ships, even the shore itself. He could still feel its scream like an echo of all childhood.

  And later he must have known fear on the dark streets of London, fear in the rookeries; even now his skin crawled at the memory of the anger and the despair in them, the hunger and the disregard for life in the fight to survive. But he was too proud and too ambitious to be a coward. He had grasped what he wanted without flinching.

  But how do you face the unknown darkness, the monstrosity inside your own brain, your own soul?

  He had discovered many things in himself he did not like: insensitivity, overpowerful ambition, a ruthlessness. But they were bearable, things for which he could make amends, improve from now on—indeed he had started.

  But why should he have murdered Joscelin Grey? The more he struggled with it the less did it make any sense. Why should he have cared enough? There was nothing in his life, no personal relationship that called up such passion.

  And he could not believe he was simply mad. Anyway, he had not attacked a stranger in the street, he had deliberately sought out Grey, taken trouble to go to his home; and even madmen have some reason, however distorted.

  He must find it, for himself—and he must find the reason before Runcorn found it.

  Only it would not be Runcorn, it would be Evan.

  The cold inside him grew worse. That was one of the most painful realizations of all, the time when Evan must know that it was he who had killed Grey, he was the murderer who had raised such horror in both of them, such revulsion for the mad appetite, the bestiality. They had looked upon the murderer as being another kind of creature, alien, capable of some darkness beyond their comprehension. To Evan it would still be such a creature, less than quite human—whereas to Monk it was not outward and foreign, where he could sometimes forget it, bar it out, but the deformed and obscene within himself.

  Tonight he must sleep; the clock on the mantel said thirteen minutes past four. But tomorrow he would begin a new investigation. To save his own mind, he must discover why he had killed Joscelin Grey; and he must discover it before Evan did.

  He was not ready to see Evan when he went into his office in the morning, not prepared; but then he would never be.

  “Good morning, sir,” Evan said cheerfully.

  Monk replied, but kept his face turned away, so Evan could not read his expression. He found lying surprisingly hard; and he must lie all the time, every day in every contact from now on.

  “I’ve been thinking, sir.” Evan did not appear to notice anything unusual. “We should look into all these other people before we try to charge Lord Shelburne. You know, Joscelin Grey may well have had affairs with other women. We should try the Dawlishes; they had a daughter. And there’s Fortescue’s wife, and Charles Latterly may have a wife.”

  Monk froze. He had forgotten that Evan had seen Charles’s letter in Grey’s desk. He had been supposing blithely that Evan knew nothing of the Latterlys.

  Evan’s voice cut across him, low and quite gentle. It sounded as though there were nothing more than concern in it.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes,” Monk agreed quickly. He must keep control, speak sensibly. “Yes I suppose we had better.” What a hypocrite he was, sending Evan off to pry the secret hurts out of people in the search for a murderer. What would Evan think, feel, when he discovered that the murderer was Monk?

  “Shall I start with Latterly, sir?” Evan was still talking. “We don’t know much about him.”

  “No!”

  Evan looked startled.

  Monk mastered himself; when he spoke his voice was quite calm again, but still he kept his face away.

  “No, I’ll try the people here: I want you to go back to Shelburne Hall.” He must get Evan out of the city for a while, give himself time. “See if you can learn anything more from the servants,” he elaborated. “Become friendly with the upstairs maids, if you can, and the parlor maid. Parlor maids are on in the morning; they observe all sorts of things when people are off their guard. It may be one of the other families, but Shelburne is still the most likely. It can be harder to forgive a brother for cuckolding you than it would be a stranger—it’s not just an offense, it’s a betrayal—and he’s constantly there to remind you of it.”

  “You think so, sir?” There was a lift of surprise in Evan’s voice.

  Oh God. Surely Evan could not know, could not suspect anything so soon? Sweat broke out on Monk’s body, and chilled instantly, leaving him shivering.

  “Isn’t that what Mr. Runcorn thinks?” he asked, his voice husky with the effort of seeming casual. What isolation this was. He felt cut off from every human contact by his fearful knowledge.

  “Yes sir.” He knew Evan was staring at him, puzzled, even anxious. “It is, but he could be wrong. He wants to see you arrest Lord Shelburne—” That was an understanding he had not committed to words before. It was the first time he had acknowledged that he understood Runcorn’s envy, or his intention. Monk was startled into looking up, and instantly regretted it. Evan’s eyes were anxious and appallingly direct.

  “Well he won’t—unless I have evidence,” Monk said slowly. “So go out to Shelburne Hall and see what you can find. But tread softly, listen rather than speak. Above all, don’t make any implications.”

  Evan hesitated.

  Monk said nothing. He did not want conversation.

  After a moment Evan left and Monk sat down on his own chair, closing his eyes to shut out the room. It was going to be even harder than it had seemed last night. Evan had believed in him, liked him. Disillusionment so often turned to pity, and then to hate.

  And what about Beth? Perhaps far up in Northumberland she need never know. Maybe he could find someone to write to her and say simply that he had died. They would not do it for him; but if he explained, told them of her children, then for her?

  “Asleep, Monk? Or dare I hope you are merely thinking?” It was Runcorn’s voice, dark with sarcasm.

  Monk opened his eyes. He had no career left, no future. But one of the few reliefs it brought was that he need
no longer be afraid of Runcorn. Nothing Runcorn could do would matter in the least, compared with what he had already done to himself.

  “Thinking,” Monk replied coldly. “I find it better to think before I face a witness than after I have got there. Either one stands foolishly silent, or rushes, even more foolishly, into saying something inept, merely to fill the chasm.”

  “Social arts again?” Runcorn raised his eyebrows. “I would not have thought you would have had time for them now.” He was standing in front of Monk, rocking a little on his feet, hands behind his back. Now he brought them forward with a sheaf of daily newspapers displayed belligerently. “Have you read the newspapers this morning? There has been a murder in Stepney, a man knifed in the street, and they are saying it is time we did our job, or were replaced by someone who can.”

  “Why do they presume there is only one person in London capable of knifing a man?” Monk asked bitterly.

  “Because they are angry and frightened,” Runcorn snapped back. “And they have been let down by the men they trusted to safeguard them. That is why.” He slammed the newspapers down on the desk top. “They do not care whether you speak like a gentleman or know which knife and fork to eat with, Mr. Monk; but they care very much whether you are capable of doing your job and catching murderers and taking them off the streets.”

  “Do you think Lord Shelburne knifed this man in Stepney?” Monk looked straight into Runcorn’s eyes. He was pleased to be able to hate someone freely and without feeling any guilt about lying to him.

  “Of course I don’t.” Runcorn’s voice was thick with anger. “But I think it past time you stopped giving yourself airs and graces and found enough courage to forget climbing the ladder of your own career for a moment and arrested Shelburne.”

  “Indeed? Well I don’t, because I’m not at all sure that he’s guilty,” Monk answered him with a straight, hard stare. “If you are sure, then you arrest him!”

  “I’ll have you for insolence!” Runcorn shouted, leaning forward towards him, fists clenched white. “And I’ll make damned sure you never reach senior rank as long as I’m in this station. Do you hear me?”