Funeral in Blue

by Anne Perry

  Charles stared at her. “Are you sure? Think back. Try to put yourself there again. Think of leaving the . . . the house, stepping—”

  “I can’t remember!” she interrupted. “I’m sorry. I was simply staring ahead of myself. I could have passed anyone, for all I noticed!” She turned away and smiled apology at Monk, then at Hester, but the refusal in her face was final.

  Monk put Hester into the hansom to send her back home to Grafton Street, and he took another to Lamb’s Conduit Street, where Runcorn lived. It was after midnight when he woke Runcorn by banging on the door. As he had expected, it was several minutes before Runcorn appeared, rumpled and half asleep, but as soon as he recognized Monk in the eerie glow of the streetlights, his hair plastered to his face in the rain, he opened the door wider to invite him in.

  “Well?” he said as soon as they were in the small hallway. “What did you find in Vienna? Anything?”

  “Yes.” Somehow being with Runcorn in this close, ordinary hallway took Monk back to the facets of police procedure, of the law, of what the realities were, separated from the emotions of love and need. As Runcorn went into the kitchen ahead of him, Monk pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down.

  Runcorn turned up the gas and went to riddle the ashes out of the black stove and try to get it burning hot again. “Well?” he said with his back to the room.

  “I brought Niemann back,” Monk replied. “He’s more than willing to testify, both to Kristian’s good character . . .”

  Runcorn swiveled around on his haunches and glared at Monk.

  Monk rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. For all the years of rivalry and dislike, the petty quarrels between them, they shared more beliefs than he had thought even a month ago, and they knew each other too well to hedge around with half-truths. He looked up at Runcorn, who had risen to his feet. The stove was beginning to draw again, and the heart of the fire burned red.

  “Niemann says he was in Swinton Street near the gambling house just before the murders, and saw Allardyce leaving.” Of course, Runcorn knew Allardyce had been there, from Hester. He must also know that she had stolen the picture, although she had returned it.

  Runcorn stared at him unblinkingly, only the barest, momentary reflection of that in his eyes. “Go on,” he prompted. Absentmindedly, he moved the kettle over onto the hot surface. “There’s more to it, or you wouldn’t be looking like a wet weekend in Margate. Maybe Allardyce is lying, but maybe he isn’t. Is Niemann Dr. Beck’s friend, or his enemy? Was he Elissa’s lover?”

  “Friend. And no, I don’t think so.”

  Runcorn leaned forward over the table. “But you don’t know! Have you got time to sit here half the night while I pull out of you whatever it is?”

  Monk looked up at him. It was extraordinary how familiar he was, every line of his face, each intonation of his voice. Evidence said that they had known each other since early manhood, over twenty years. And yet there were vast areas of emotion, belief, inner realities Monk was seeing only now. Perhaps he had never cared before?

  “There’s quite a lot of feeling against Jews in Vienna, in Austria,” he said slowly. “They’ve been persecuted for generations. I suppose centuries would be more accurate.”

  Runcorn waited patiently, his eyes steady on Monk’s face.

  “In order to survive, to escape discrimination, even persecution,” Monk went on, “some Jews denied their race and their faith and changed their names to German ones. They even became Roman Catholic.”

  “This must be going to mean something, or you wouldn’t be telling me,” Runcorn observed.

  “Yes. The kettle’s boiling.”

  “Tea can wait. What about people changing their names? What has it to do with the murder of Elissa Beck?”

  “I don’t know. But Kristian Beck’s family was one of those who did that. Elissa knew, but she never told Kristian, and he himself did not know. At least not at the time. She even went out of her way to protect him, knowing that if he were caught, and it became known he was really a Jew, it would be even harder for him.” Why was he still telling less than half the truth? To protect Kristian or Pendreigh?

  Runcorn’s face tightened. There was a flash of pity in his eyes, something that might even have been understanding. He turned away, hiding it from Monk, and began to make tea for both of them, clattering the teapot, spilling a few leaves onto the bench. The silence in the kitchen was heavy as he left the tea to steep. Finally he poured it, putting in milk and passing over two cups onto the table, pushing one across to Monk. He did not need to ask how he liked it.

  “And if she told him recently, perhaps in a quarrel over money and her gambling it away,” Runcorn said, stirring sugar into his own tea, clicking the spoon against the side of the cup, “that only gives him more reason to kill her.”

  “The prosecution doesn’t know that!” Monk said sharply.

  Runcorn raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to testify?”

  “Yes, but I shan’t tell them that. It may have nothing to do with it. It would prejudice them against him . . .”

  Runcorn lifted up his tea, decided it was still too hot, and put it down again. “Because he’s a Jew?”

  “No! For God’s sake! Because his family denied it in order to make things easier for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with being a Jew—there’s everything wrong with being a hypocrite! Neither Christian nor Jew would own the Becks for that.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t know?”

  Monk had no answer, but as he sat staring at his tea, and the scrubbed boards of the kitchen table in front of him, the possibility was inescapable that Elissa had told Kristian and that it had been the final straw that had broken his self-control. And the jury would see it far more easily than he did. They would not be reluctant, hating the thought, pushing it away with every shred of will and imagination, and finding it returning, stronger each time. And always there was the other, immeasurably worse thought as well, that somehow he had discovered the betrayal of Hanna Jakob. No one would find it difficult to believe he had killed her in revenge for that. Any man might. But always the shadow of Sarah Mackeson robbed it of pity or mitigation.

  Runcorn sipped his tea. Monk’s steamed fragrantly in front of him, and he ignored it.

  “If you’d been her, desperate for money to pay your debts, frightened of the gamblers coming after you,” Runcorn said grimly, “and you’d saved him in Vienna, knowing what his family was, wouldn’t you have been tempted now to tell him? Especially if he was angry with you, a bit condescending about your bad habits of losing on the tables, perhaps.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Monk was prevaricating. He sipped his tea also, aware of Runcorn staring at him, imagining the disbelief and the contempt in his gray-green eyes.

  The silence grew heavier. Monk was damned if he was going to be manipulated by Runcorn, of all people. Runcorn who disliked him, who had spent years resenting him, trying to trip him up. They had watched each other’s weaknesses, probing for a place to hurt, to take advantage, always misunderstanding and seeing the worst.

  Runcorn who had once been his friend, before ambition and envy eroded that away. That had been a painful discovery, but undeniable. Perhaps he had been the more to blame of the two of them. He was the stronger. Runcorn was full of prejudices, always trying to do the things others would approve of, and yet who had felt pity for Sarah Mackeson, and was embarrassed by it, and defiant. Runcorn half hated Monk, half wanted his approval . . . and wholly expected him to love the truth above all else, no matter what other pain it brought.

  “If they find Beck not guilty”—Runcorn’s voice cut across the silence—“then we’ll have to start again. Somebody killed those women, one maybe accidentally, but not the second. She was on purpose.” He did not add anything about her, but the emotion was in his voice, and when Monk looked up at him, the anger, the expression, the defensiveness were in his face as well.

  “Yes, I know,” Monk agreed. �
��Niemann will testify anyway, for whatever good that will do. He can at least show them that Kristian was a hero in the uprising.”

  “And that she was a heroine,” Runcorn added relentlessly. “And perhaps that they were in love. That could help. And that she was reckless of her own safety.”

  “Why was she so drawn to danger?” Monk said, staring not at Runcorn but at the black kitchen stove and the poker sitting upright in the half-empty coke scuttle. “Did she really imagine she could always win?”

  “Some people are like that,” Runcorn replied, confusion in his voice. He did not even expect to understand. “Even as if they’re looking to be . . . I don’t know . . . swamped by something bigger than they are. Seen children like it, go on taunting until they get walloped, sometimes black an’ blue. Kind of attention. With grown people, I don’t know . . .” He put more sugar into his tea and stirred it. “Some people will do anything to survive. Others seem to want to destroy themselves. Pick ’em out of trouble, and they get straight back into it, almost as if they didn’t feel alive if they weren’t afraid. Always trying to prove something.”

  Monk picked up his cup. It was not quite hot enough anymore, but he could not be bothered to get the kettle and add to it. “It’s a bit late now. I’ll go and see Pendreigh in the morning.”

  Runcorn nodded.

  Neither of them said anything about how Callandra would feel, or Hester, about loyalties, or pain, or compromise, but it had already torn dreams apart inside Monk as he walked towards the door, and he could not even imagine the hurt that lay ahead.

  At the front door they looked at each other for only a moment, and then Monk stepped out into the rain.

  The judge allowed a slight delay for Pendreigh to speak alone to Max Niemann. He had already given the judge notification that he would call Niemann as a witness, in the hope that Monk would be able to bring him back from Vienna. However, he still needed to have a clearer idea of what Niemann could contribute to the defense.

  It was nearly half past ten when, in a hushed and crowded courtroom, Max Niemann walked across the empty space of floor, climbed up the steep steps to the witness stand and swore to his name and that he lived in Vienna.

  Pendreigh stood below him, picked out as in a spotlight by the sudden blaze of sunlight through the high windows above the jury. Every eye in the room was upon one or the other of them.

  “Mr. Niemann,” Pendreigh began. “First let us thank you for coming all the way to London in order to testify in this trial. We greatly appreciate it.” He acknowledged Niemann’s demur, and continued. “How long have you known the accused, Dr. Kristian Beck?”

  “About twenty years,” Niemann replied. “We met as students.”

  “And you were friends?”

  “Yes. Allies during the uprisings in ’48.”

  “You are speaking of the revolutions which swept Europe in that year?”

  “Yes.” A strange expression crossed Niemann’s face, as if the mere mention of the time brought all kinds of memories sweeping back, bitter and sweet. Hester wondered if the jury saw it as clearly as she did. Monk was not permitted in the room because Pendreigh had reserved the right to call him as witness.

  “You fought side by side?” Pendreigh continued.

  “Yes, figuratively, not always literally,” Niemann answered.

  “Most of us in the room”—Pendreigh waved an arm to indicate the crowd—“but principally the jury, have never experienced such a thing. We have not found our government sufficiently oppressive to rise against it. We have not seen barricades in the street, nor had our own armies turned upon us.” His voice was outwardly quite calm, but there was an underlying passion in it, not in the tone, but in the timbre. “Would you tell us what it was like?”

  Mills rose to his feet, his face puckered with assumed confusion. “My lord, while we sympathize with the Austrian people’s desire for greater freedom, and we regret that they did not succeed in their aim, I do not see the relevance of Mr. Niemann’s recollections to the murder of Mrs. Beck in London this year. We concede that the accused was involved, and that he fought with courage. Nor do we doubt that Mr. Niemann was his friend, and still is, and is prepared to put himself to considerable trouble and expense to attempt to rescue him from his present predicament. Old loyalties die hard, which is in many ways admirable.”

  The judge looked at Pendreigh enquiringly.

  “Mr. Niemann has a long friendship with the accused and the deceased, my lord,” Pendreigh explained. “He can tell us much of their feelings for one another. But he was also in London at the time of the murder, and was in Swinton Street immediately before that event—” He was interrupted by a buzz of amazement from the crowd, and the rustle and creak of two hundred people shifting position, sitting more upright, even craning forward.

  “Indeed?” the judge said with some surprise. “Then proceed. But do not drag it out with irrelevancies, Mr. Pendreigh. I have already given you a great deal of latitude in that direction.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Pendreigh bowed very slightly and turned to Niemann again. “Can you tell us, as briefly as possible without sacrificing truth, the parts each of them played in the uprising, and their relationship to each other?”

  “I can try,” Niemann said thoughtfully. “They were not married then, of course. Elissa was a widow. She was English, but she fought for the Austrian cause with a passion I think greater than many of us who were native had.” His voice was soft as he spoke, and both the tenderness and the admiration he felt were apparent. “She was tireless, always encouraging others, trying to think of new ways to confront the authorities and draw the sympathy of more people to make them understand the justice of our cause and believe we could win. It was as if there were a light inside her, a flame from which she would set a spark to burn in the souls of more lukewarm people.”

  For a moment he was silent, as if needing to regain his self-control so he could go on trying to show these calm-faced Englishmen in their tailored suits what passion and courage had been in the streets of Vienna, facing an overwhelming enemy.

  Everyone was watching him. Hester moved fractionally in her seat. She wondered what Callandra was thinking, if this memory of heroism and unity hurt her, or perhaps if all she cared about now was proving Kristian innocent, or even just saving his life. She glanced sideways at her and wished she had not. It was intrusive, looking at a nakedness that should not be seen.

  Then, to her surprise, she caught sight of Charles on the other side of the aisle, and Imogen beside him. Since she had refused to testify, saying she had not seen Niemann, why were they here? Was it simply a concern to see the truth of the matter, even a loyalty to Hester, although neither of them had spoken to her? Or was there some deeper cause, some purpose of their own?

  Imogen looked haggard, her eyes enormous. Could she know something after all, and if the utmost disaster fell, she would speak?

  “She was the bravest person I ever knew.” Niemann’s voice filled the room again. It was quiet, as if he were talking to himself, and yet the absolute stillness carried the sound of it to every ear.

  Hester turned forward again.

  “She was not foolish, and God knew, we lost enough of us that she saw death intimately.” Niemann’s lips tightened, and there was a wince of pain as he spoke. His voice dropped a little. People strained to hear him. “She knew the risks, but she conquered her own fear so completely I never once saw her show it. She was a truly remarkable woman.”

  “And Kristian Beck?” Pendreigh prompted.

  Niemann lifted his head. “He was remarkable also, but in a different way.” His voice resumed its strength. He was speaking now of a man who was his friend, and still alive, not of a woman he had only too obviously loved. “He was the leader of our group—”

  Pendreigh held up his hand. “Why was he the leader, Mr. Niemann? Why he, and not, for example, you?”

  Niemann looked slightly surprised.

  “Was it by election
, because of superior knowledge, or was he perhaps older than the rest of you?” Pendreigh enquired.

  Niemann blinked. “I think it was common assent,” he replied. “He had the qualities of decision, courage, the ability to command respect and obedience and loyalty. I don’t remember us deciding. It more or less happened.”

  “But he was a doctor, not a soldier,” Pendreigh pointed out. “Would it not have been more natural to put him in some kind of medical duty, rather than in command of what was essentially a fighting unit?”

  “No.” Niemann shook his head. “Kristian was the best.”

  “In what way?” Pendreigh pursued. “Was he also passionately dedicated to the cause?”

  “Yes!”

  “But doctors are healers, essentially peaceful,” Pendreigh persisted. “We have heard much evidence of his caring for the injured and the sick, tirelessly, to the exclusion of his own profit or wellbeing, never of him as a man of action, or any kind of warfare.”

  Mills stirred in his seat.

  “If we are to believe you, Mr. Niemann,” Pendreigh went on more urgently, “then we have to understand. Describe Kristian Beck for us, as he was then.”

  Niemann drew in a deep breath. Hester saw his shoulders square. “He was brave, decisive, unsentimental,” Niemann answered. “He had an extraordinarily clear vision of what was necessary, and he had the intelligence and the will, and the moral and physical courage, to carry it out. He had no personal vanity.”

  “You make him sound very fair,” Pendreigh observed.

  Hester thought Niemann made Kristian sound cold, even if it was not what he intended. Or perhaps it was? If he wished to exact a revenge on Kristian for his winning of Elissa, this was his perfect opportunity. Had Monk brought him here for that, unintentionally sealing Kristian’s fate?

  Or was it possible, even probable, that Niemann believed Kristian guilty?

  “He was fair,” Niemann said. He hesitated, as if to add something more, then changed his mind and remained silent.