by Anne Perry
She looked up at him and smiled.
For an instant he thought she was laughing at him, then he read her face more closely and his eyes filled with sudden tears. He turned away and blew his nose.
She gave him a moment, but only one, then she stood up and went to him, putting her arms around him and holding him as tightly as she could. She said nothing. She could not promise that it would be all right, that Imogen was not involved, or even that Imogen would stop gambling now. She did not know any of those things. But she did know that he could not have killed Elissa himself, and she could prove it.
The trip to the hospital was one of the worst journeys Monk could ever recall having made. He and Runcorn took a hansom, intending it to wait outside so they would have no difficulty in obtaining one for the return to the police station with Kristian Beck. Neither of them even mentioned the possibility of taking the police van in which criminals were customarily transported. They sat side by side without speaking, avoiding looking at each other. To do so would have made the silence even more obvious.
Monk thought about how he would tell Callandra that he had failed, and as he tried to work out in his mind what words he would use, each time he discarded them as false and unintentionally condescending, something she deserved least of all from him.
By the time they reached the hospital, and Runcorn had instructed the cabbie to wait, his sense of failure was for having led her to hope so fiercely, rather than warning her more honestly in the beginning, so she might have been better prepared for this.
They went up the steps side by side, and in through the doors to the familiar smells of carbolic, disease, drifting coal smuts, and floors too often wet. The corridors were empty except for three women with mops and buckets, but they did not need to ask their way. They both knew by now where Kristian’s rooms were, and the operating room.
“Are we . . .” Monk began.
“Are we what?” Runcorn said tartly, glaring at him.
“Going to wait until he’s seen his patients?” Monk finished.
“What the hell do you think I’m going to do?” Runcorn snapped. “Take him away with a knife in his hand, and some poor devil’s arm half off?” He drove his fists savagely into his pockets and strode along the corridor ahead of Monk, not looking back at him. He turned the corner and left Monk to follow.
As it happened, Kristian was not operating, but he still had five people in his waiting room, and Runcorn sat down on the bench as if he were the sixth. He gave Monk one glowering look and then ignored him.
The door opened and Kristian came out. He saw Runcorn first, then Monk.
Monk would not lie, even by implication. He wished he could have, because he knew Kristian would see the rest of those waiting for him, and it would have been easier if he had not known why the police were there. But the instant he met Monk’s eyes the question existed, and then the understanding. Something inside him faded, as if he had come to the end of a long test of endurance and reached the point at which he could no longer struggle.
“Mr. Newbury?” he said, turning away and looking at a large man with a pale, flabby face and receding hair. “Will you come in, please?”
Newbury stood up and limped across the floor, watched by everyone else in the room.
Monk sat stiffly in his seat, willing himself not to fidget, not to stand up and pace back and forth. The other people were sick, and probably frightened of whatever pain or debility lay ahead of them. Kristian faced God knew what. All Monk had to deal with was the misery of arresting Kristian, and then of telling Hester and Callandra what had happened. Comparatively, it was nothing.
Still the minutes dragged by, and as one patient went in after another, he alternated between anger with Runcorn simply for being there, for knowing what was in Monk’s mind because he had worked with him and could remember a thousand things Monk could not, and a desire to say something to him to ease the waiting, because he knew Runcorn also loathed this necessity. He, too, admired Kristian, whether he wanted to or not, and would have given a great deal for it to have been anyone else, preferably someone of a class and type he despised. Best of all if it could have been a gambler, but Allardyce would have done. Far better an artist, living a bohemian and essentially alien and dissolute life, than a doctor who spent his time healing the sick, the ordinary poor who came to this particular hospital. But Runcorn did not have the courage or the imagination not to do his duty.
No, that was unfair, and Monk knew it even as the thought filled his mind. Monk, too, would have arrested Kristian, even if it had not been forced upon him by Runcorn’s presence. His own knowledge was enough. He could have forgiven Kristian for killing Elissa. She had provoked him beyond the limits of forbearance. But Sarah had done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong moment. There was no sense to it that he could explain, but the fact that no one else had mourned her except Mrs. Clark—and Runcorn, of all people—made it more of an offense in his eyes.
The last patient came out, and after barely a minute Kristian followed. He stood in the middle of the room, stiff and very straight, his head high. There were marks of sleeplessness like bruises around his eyes, and his skin was bleached of color. “I assume you believe that I murdered Elissa,” he said very quietly, not looking at either of them. “I did not, but I cannot prove it.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Beck,” Runcorn replied. He was acutely miserable, but he would not shirk doing his duty to the letter. “I don’t know whether you killed her or not, but the evidence all points that way, and there’s nothing to say anybody else did. You’ll have to come with me, sir. You are under arrest for the murders of Elissa Beck and Sarah Mackeson.”
Kristian said nothing.
Monk cleared his throat. He was surprised how difficult it was to speak steadily. “Would you like me to collect some clothes for you from your home?”
Kristian blinked and turned to him. “I’d be grateful if you would tell the hospital what has happened, and . . . and Mrs. Talbot, who cleans my house for me.” The ghost of a smile touched his mouth and echoed in his dark eyes. “Fermin Thorpe will be pleased. It will justify his opinion of me at last.” He could not have said anything which would have made Monk feel worse, or more totally inadequate. He saw with a flash of irony that Kristian recognized it, and although possibly he had not intended it, he could not apologize.
“I’ll do both,” Monk replied, looking at Runcorn.
Runcorn nodded.
Kristian held out his hand with the front door key in it.
“Thank you.” Monk took it and turned away, engulfed in misery.
Monk went straight to Haverstock Hill and let himself into the house with the key. Mrs. Talbot had already left, and there was no sound or movement at all. He found it acutely distressing to see the bare, chilly rooms, and to go upstairs to the stark bedroom Kristian occupied. The dressing room held only the necessities of grooming: a plain hairbrush, a wooden-handled open razor and leather strop, cuff links and shirt studs such as a clerk or shopkeeper might have owned. In the dresser he found four clean shirts and the minimum of underwear. There were two other suits in the wardrobe, and one other pair of boots, carefully resoled. This was all that was owned by a man with years of skill and experience, who worked from dawn to dusk and into the night every day of the week.
He took them back to the police station and gave them to the desk sergeant for Kristian. Now he could no longer put off going home and telling Hester that he had failed, and why.
When he went out into the street again it was raining steadily, and he walked for barely a mile, getting thoroughly soaked, before he finally caught a hansom for the last part of his journey. He reached home shivering with cold, wishing there were any way of avoiding what he must do.
Inside the door he took off his wet overcoat and removed his boots to save putting footprints over the carpet. He heard her come through from the kitchen and half expected her to know already. She was so quick to sense things, to understand,
he imagined she would be aware of his failure and prepared for it.
He looked up and saw her face, full of relief, as if some burden had been lifted from her, and realized how mistaken he was.
“William . . .” She stopped. “What is it?” The muscles of her face and neck pulled tight. He straightened up, ignoring the wet boots. “Kristian wasn’t where he said he was. God knows he had cause enough to kill her. She’s bled him of everything, and if she’d lived she would have gone on until he ended up in prison. Queen’s if he was lucky. Coldbath if he wasn’t.”
“For heaven’s sake!” she exploded. “Some gambler killed her! Someone she owed . . .”
He took her shoulder, forcing her to face him. “No, they didn’t. Do you think we haven’t pressed that as far as it will go? No one wants it to be Kristian.”
“Runcorn . . .” she began.
“No,” he said sharply. “He’s stubborn and prejudiced, full of ambition, taking offense where there isn’t any, thin-skinned and short of imagination . . . at times. But he didn’t want it to be Kristian.”
“Didn’t!” she challenged, her eyes blazing. “You said ’didn’t’!”
“Didn’t,” he repeated. He shook his head very slightly. “There’s nothing we could do to prevent it. The evidence was too much.”
“What evidence?” she demanded. “There’s nothing except motive. You can’t convict anyone because they had a reason. All you know is that he can’t prove he was somewhere else!”
“And that he lied about it, intentionally or not,” he answered quietly. “No one else has reason to, Hester. Allardyce was in the Bull and Half Moon, on the other side of the river. It doesn’t make sense for any of the gamblers to have killed her. Apart from that, her debts were paid anyway.”
“Then the other poor woman was the intended victim,” she said instantly. “I don’t know why you even think Elissa Beck was the one killed first, and not Sarah Mackeson! Perhaps she was having a love affair with someone and they quarreled? Isn’t that far more likely than Kristian following his wife to an artist’s studio and killing her there? For heaven’s sake, William! He’s a doctor . . . if he wanted to kill her there are dozens of better and safer ways of doing it than that!”
He did not bother to argue with her about passion and sense. It was true, but irrelevant to this. “Sarah wasn’t killed first,” he said, still holding her and feeling her pull against him, her muscles tight. “Elissa was.”
“You don’t know that! No doctor could tell you which of two people died first when it was within minutes of each other,” she retaliated.
“We found Elissa’s earring, torn from her ear in the struggle, fallen through a knothole in the floorboard . . . under where Sarah was lying.”
She drew in her breath, then let it out in a sigh. “Oh,” she said very quietly. The anger drained out of her, leaving only misery, and he pulled her unresisting body closer to him, then held her in his arms, feeling her shiver and struggle to keep from weeping.
It was several minutes, clinging close to him, before she finally drew back. “Then we’ve got to fight it,” she said, gasping over the words. “You . . . you mean Runcorn will arrest him, don’t you?”
“He already has. I took his clothes and razor to him.”
“He’s in . . . prison?” Her eyes were wide.
“Yes, Hester.”
“What?” She shuddered. “Don’t you dare tell me you think he could have done it!” Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t dare!”
“Why would you think I might?” he asked. He wished passionately that he could say anything other. She looked so frightened and vulnerable, so willing to take on the battle whatever the odds, and be hurt . . . horribly. And yet he could not have loved her so deeply had she been ready to give in, been wiser, more realistic, even more able to cast aside her emotions and arm herself against the loss.
She was furious because the tears slid down her cheeks. “Because you think he could be guilty,” she whispered.
“He could be,” he said. “Everyone has a breaking point, you know that as well as I do. We all reach a degree where we can’t bear it any longer, and either we crumple up and surrender, or we run away, or else we fight back. Sometimes we lose our balance and we do something we thought was outside even our imagination. I’ve been there. Haven’t you?”
She leaned against him again, her voice muffled because her face was buried in his shoulder. “Yes . . .”
It was several moments later before she spoke clearly. She sniffed hard and pulled away from him. “What are we going to do?” Her voice, her face, the angle of her body, all asserted passionately that they were going to do something.
“I don’t know.” He hated admitting it, but he had already exhausted every possibility he knew, or he would have argued with Runcorn and delayed the arrest even a day.
“Well, if it isn’t Kristian, it has to be someone else!” she protested with desperation. “We’ve got to find out who it is. I’ve done nothing so far. I don’t know how I can have been so stupid! So complacent! I took it for granted since I . . .” She looked away. “Since I refused to believe it could be Kristian. Where can I begin?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “Runcorn’s sent men to check if Max Niemann came to London more often than the times we know of, but we know of no reason why he would kill her.”
“Perhaps they were lovers?” She said the words with difficulty. “And they quarreled? You said Allardyce told you she met Niemann there. That makes sense . . . doesn’t it?” There was no conviction in her voice. Maybe she was remembering Niemann clasping Kristian’s hands at the funeral. The feeling between them that had looked intensely real. Yet it seemed as if one of them had killed the woman they had both loved, and with whom they had shared a noble and turbulent past. Which of them was lying so superbly, and what agony of emotions was pouring through him?
“Hester . . .” He drew in a deep breath. “Of course it could be someone else, but Kristian’s been arrested. He’ll stand trial. He’ll need a better defense than your belief that it could be Niemann, or someone else we don’t know.”
“Have you told Callandra?” She shivered.
“No.”
“Then I’d better go and do it.” She pulled away from him.
“Tonight?” He was startled.
“Yes. It won’t hurt any less in the morning.”
“I’ll come with you.” He bent down and picked up his boots again.
Callandra refused to accept it. She had received them in her sitting room with the gas jets blazing, throwing the dark walls into a radiance of warmth, the flames from the fire dancing red and yellow. Suddenly the familiar comfort of it vanished and even the beauty of the paintings seemed no more than a trick of light.
“No,” she said, looking at neither of them, her face white, her body rigid. “He might have been tempted to kill his wife, but he could not have killed the artists’ model as well. There is another answer. We must find it.”
“I’ll go on looking,” Monk promised. He said it because he could not deny her, but he had no idea where to begin, and no belief that he could succeed. “But we must think how to defend Kristian as well.”
“Oliver?” she said immediately. “I’ll pay.” She did not bother to add how highly Sir Oliver Rathbone had regarded Kristian. Rathbone was more than a colleague or a friend, he was an ally in battles they had fought before, and his passion for justice was equal to their own.
“He is away in Italy,” Monk said grimly. “He might be gone another two or three weeks. We can’t afford to wait that long before beginning. Even when he returns, he might be committed.”
She looked at him with misery and rising panic. “Who else is as good?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. They had always turned to Rathbone, whatever the case, or the difficulty. “We’ll have to make enquiries—I’ll start in the morning, as soon as there’s anyone to ask. We’ll need every moment we have.” They wou
ld need far more than that, but he did not say so.
“I must come with you,” she insisted.
He thought of the rejections, those who would point out what a futile struggle it would be, how slight the chance of winning.
“Callandra . . .” he began.
She stared at him. “You will need my influence, William,” she said with infinite dignity. “And my money. I am perfectly aware of the arguments we shall receive, and you cannot protect me from them without also robbing me of the chance to be of any effect. If you imagine you can do it without me, then you are being naive.”
He surrendered without a pointless struggle. “Pendreigh doesn’t believe Kristian is guilty,” he said reasonably. “At least he didn’t this morning. We could begin by seeking his advice. He will care very much how the case is conducted, for the sake of Elissa’s reputation, if nothing else.”
“Then we shall begin with him,” Callandra said decisively. “I shall send my card at first light, and ask permission to call upon him as soon as possible.” She turned to Hester. “Do you wish to come?”
“Of course,” Hester responded. “We shall be ready as soon as you send for us.” She touched Callandra lightly on the arm, but it was a gesture of extraordinary tenderness. Callandra moved away, as if emotion now was more than she could bear.
“Come.” Monk turned towards the door, guiding Hester with him. “It is time we went home and considered what to say when we see Pendreigh.” He turned to Callandra. “We shall be ready for eight o’clock. Send word and we will be wherever you wish.”
“Thank you.” Callandra reached out and rang the bell for the maid, keeping her face turned towards the fire.
Monk followed Hester out as the maid led them to the door and helped them into their coats again. Outside was raw, with wind driving the rain. As soon as they were beyond the shelter of the steps he felt the chill of it through him, but it was only on the periphery of his awareness. Far deeper, as he watched Hester move into the arc of the lamplight ahead of him, and the gusting rain in the glare it shed, was the realization of how deeply Callandra cared. It was immeasurably more than admiration, loyalty or friendship, for all that that was worth. This was a wound which might not heal, a pain within her heart neither he nor Hester could reach to give any ease.
