Funeral in Blue

by Anne Perry

  There was a faint murmur and a slurp of water ahead, and then suddenly the boom of a foghorn almost on top of them. The road was rising. The bridge!

  It was stupid, pointless, but Hester found herself calling out as well.

  There was a gust of wind; the fog cleared a few yards. Half a dozen lamps were visible. They were on the bridge, the water below a black, glistening surface, looking as solid as glass, and then gone again, rolled over and vanished in the choking vapor.

  Another hansom passed them, moving more certainly. A moment later the driver called out, a thick, sharp cry of alarm.

  Monk sprinted in the brief patch of light from the lamps.

  Hester picked up her skirts and ran after him, Charles catching up and passing her. Even so she saw the dark heap on the curbside between the lamps, almost as soon as they did, and only the volume of fabric around her ankles prevented her from reaching it at the same time.

  Monk fell on his knees beside the body, but in the fitful light through the vapor he could see little, except the ashen pallor of her face.

  “Imogen!” Charles cried, all but collapsing on his knees and reaching out for her. “Oh, God!” He snatched his hands back, covered with dark, sticky liquid. He tried to speak again, but he could scarcely breathe.

  Hester felt her heart choking in her throat, but it was too dark to see anything to help. She swiveled towards the roadway and scrambled to her feet. “Cabbie!” she shouted, her voice high and thin like a scream, except she had not drawn in enough breath. “Bring the carriage lamp! Hurry!”

  It seemed like an eternity in the mist and darkness before she saw it wavering towards them, but actually it was only a moment in time. He made his way at a run, carrying the lamp high, and held it over the body on the ground.

  Charles gasped and let out a sob of horror. Even Monk gave a low moan. Imogen was gray-faced, and the whole top of her body from the waist up was scarlet with blood.

  The cabbie drew in his breath with a hiss between his teeth, and the light in his hand swayed.

  Hester steeled herself to touch Imogen, to search for the wound and see if there was anything she could do. There was no blood pumping, no movement at all.

  Blinded by her own tears, she felt for Imogen’s neck and pulled away her collar. Her fingers touched warm skin, and a definite beat of pulse. “She’s alive!” she said. “She’s alive!” Then immediately she realized how stupid that was. There was blood everywhere, scarlet arterial blood. The whole of Imogen’s jacket front was soaked in it. But where was the wound? Was there even any point in trying to find it when so much blood had been lost?

  With fumbling fingers in the juddering light from the carriage lamp, she half pulled, half tore at the fastenings until Monk reached over and took them from her, ripping the jacket open. Underneath on Imogen’s white blouse there was only a single bright stain.

  Hester heard Charles sobbing.

  Less blood . . . not more. The blood was from outside. It was not Imogen’s! Just for a last assurance she pulled the blouse out of its anchorage in the skirt waist and pushed her hand underneath. There was no blood at all, no wound to the smooth skin.

  So why was Imogen unconscious? Quickly she replaced the clothes, wrapping them around her. “Coats!” she ordered. “Give me your coats to put around her!” And instantly Monk and Charles threw their coats off and handed them to her. The moment after, the cabbie offered his, struggling to keep the light high at the same time.

  Hester felt very gently under Imogen’s head, exploring, terrified to find broken bone, more blood, a soft indentation of the skull, but there was only a swelling. Her heart beating faster and faster, her mouth dry, she covered the last few inches. Still no splintered bone.

  “She’s struck her head,” she said hoarsely. “But her skull seems whole.” She looked up at the cabbie. “You’ll take her home, won’t you? Now . . .”

  “Yeah! Yeah, o’ course!” he said quickly. “But wot abaht all that blood, Miss? If she ain’t stabbed . . . ’oo is?”

  Charles let out a long, shuddering sigh.

  Monk stepped forward and took the lamp from the cabbie and held it high. It was Hester who saw the green umbrella lying on the pavement beside the bridge rails. It was still rolled up, and the long, sharp spike of it was thick with blood, and more had fallen in spots along the path.

  “Oh, God!” Charles burst out in horror.

  “Pendreigh . . .” Monk gasped. “Why?”

  “He must be very badly hurt.” Hester tried to gather her wits. Whatever had happened, someone was severely injured.

  “I can’t do anything more for Imogen,” she said, climbing to her feet. She turned to Charles. “Take her home, keep her as warm as you can, and when she comes to, try to get her to take a little beef tea. Call the doctor, of course. Don’t put her into sheets, put her straight into blankets, and sit with her.” She watched to make sure he had understood, then she faced Monk. “We must find Pendreigh, if he is still alive. I may be able to help.”

  “We’ve no idea where he is!”

  “We’ll begin at his home. That’s where most people go when they’re badly hurt.” She started towards the roadway again.

  “No!” Monk said instinctively.

  She ignored him. “And we must take a constable or someone with us! Apart from anything else, you haven’t any authority. And . . .” She gulped, the ice-cold vapor hurting her chest. “We have to know what happened, for Imogen’s sake. We have to protect her!” It was hideous, and still totally inexplicable. Why had she attacked Pendreigh? There had to be a reason, something that would excuse her in law.

  “I’ll get Runcorn,” he answered. “But you’re going home.”

  “No, I’m not! It’s my duty to help the injured, just as it’s yours to answer the law. Don’t stand here wasting time. We need a cab, and we need Runcorn!”

  Charles had already bent and picked up Imogen very carefully. Now he straightened his back and his legs to carry her across to the waiting cab. The cabbie suddenly galvanized into life and scrambled after them, waving the light, leaving Hester and Monk alone in the darkness.

  “Don’t argue!” Hester said.

  Monk swore, then bit it back and started to run towards the near end of the bridge, where he could see a cab looming up from New Bridge Street. He shouted at the driver, and saw the man turn in surprise and disapproval, silhouetted in his high-collared coat and stovepipe hat.

  “It’s an emergency!” Monk said breathlessly as he reached the cab, half lifted Hester in, then scrambled in behind her. “Take me to Superintendent Runcorn’s house in Lamb’s Conduit Street, and go as quickly as you can.”

  After only the slightest indecision the driver obeyed, and Monk sat beside Hester shivering, praying that Runcorn was at home. If he had to direct the cab to go looking for him, he had no idea where else to search but the police station, and even that was time wasted. Pendreigh must be badly wounded—from the amount of blood on Imogen, perhaps even fatally.

  “What on earth had they been doing on the bridge? Why did she go with him?” Monk said in the darkness as they sat together and the cab moved forward.

  Hester did not bother to answer. Nothing made sense, except that they had fought, wildly, desperately, leaving Imogen senseless on the footpath and Pendreigh bleeding so terribly he surely could not get far.

  The fog was thinning away from the river, and the cab picked up speed.

  “He must have attacked her,” Monk said in the fitful light as they moved from lamp to lamp. “But why? In what way could she possibly have threatened him? And don’t say to blame him for Elissa. He’s not that big a fool. Elissa was gambling from her own need. It had nothing to do with anyone else at all!”

  “Imogen was in Swinton Street on the night of the murders,” Hester replied. “We know she saw Allardyce. . . .”

  “Pendreigh?” he said in astonishment. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The cab pulled up a
bruptly, and after telling Hester to wait, Monk leaped out and ran across the rapidly icing pavement and pushed open the outer door. He went up the stairs two at a time to reach Runcorn’s apartments. He lifted his fist and banged so hard the door itself rattled against the frame.

  “Runcorn!” he shouted. “Runcorn!”

  The door opened and Runcorn stared at him. “What is it?” he said almost calmly.

  Monk swallowed. “Pendreigh took Imogen Latterly out of the courthouse and through the fog to Blackfriars’ Bridge. They quarreled about something.” He all but pushed Runcorn inside, looking around for his coat to hand it to him. “We found her senseless and covered with blood, but no injury on her. Her umbrella point was used to stab someone, and Pendreigh’s nowhere to be seen. We’ve got to find him. Come on!”

  Runcorn opened a cupboard and took his hat and coat out, then made for the door still carrying them in his hand.

  Monk ran down the stairs again on Runcorn’s heels, and across the pavement into the hansom, calling out Pendreigh’s address in Ebury Street as he went. Runcorn showed a moment’s amazement that Hester was in the cab, but there was no point in arguing about it now.

  Once again the cab started forward and picked up speed. The fog was drifting in patches and the hiss of tires on the wet roads was muffled as they swung through the alternating light of each lamp and into the spaces between.

  It was several moments before Runcorn spoke, and when he did it was with intense feeling.

  “What are you not telling me, Monk? Why was she there? What did she know about Fuller Pendreigh and his daughter that we don’t? Or at any rate, that I don’t?”

  “I’m working it out!” Monk said tartly, looking sideways at Runcorn’s face in the glare of lamplight. He saw no hostility, only puzzlement. “She was the woman in Swinton Street that night,” he began his reply. “At the gambling house.” He heard Runcorn’s quick intake of breath. “She must have seen Pendreigh there, too. That’s about the only thing that would make him take her down to the river and, we presume, attack her. She must have been at least half prepared for it, and she went for him with the spike of her umbrella. In spite of his clothes, she must have given him a fearful blow, from the blood all over her. Don’t know how she managed it.”

  Runcorn muttered a blasphemy under his breath, or perhaps it was not. He might even have been praying.

  The hansom careered its way through the streamers of fog and sudden glittering lights. The wind was rising.

  “Will she be all right?” Runcorn said at last.

  “I don’t know,” Monk admitted.

  Runcorn drew in his breath to say something, then could not make up his mind.

  Monk could feel the warmth of his body beside him. In the intermittent light he could see Runcorn’s indecision, his waiting to offer some kind of pity, and all the memories flooding back of envy and distrust, all the petty unkindnesses of the past.

  The cab stopped at Ebury Street and they both got out, Monk turning to help Hester. Runcorn paid the cabbie and then went up the front steps. He pulled the doorbell hard, and then again. They stood impatiently for what seemed an age until the butler came.

  “Yes sir, madam?” he enquired with just a hint of disapproval for the lateness of the hour.

  “Superintendent Runcorn, of the police,” Runcorn said icily. “And Mr. William Monk, and Mrs. Monk.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Pendreigh is not receiving at this hour, sir. If you come to—”

  “I’m not asking, I’m telling you,” Runcorn snapped. “Now be so good as to step aside, rather than oblige me to arrest you for obstructing the police in their duty. Do I make myself plain?”

  The butler quailed. “Yes sir, if . . .” But he was elbowed aside as Runcorn walked in with Monk on his heels.

  “Where is Mr. Pendreigh?” Runcorn asked. “Upstairs?”

  “Mr. Pendreigh is not well, sir. He was attacked by robbers in the street. If you—”

  “Yes or no?” Runcorn snapped.

  “Yes sir, but . . . Mr. Pendreigh is ill, sir . . . I beg you . . .”

  “Come on!” Runcorn ordered, ignoring the butler and gesturing to Monk as he began to climb the stairs, again two at a time. They met a startled maid at the head of the flight, carrying a pile of towels. “Mr. Pendreigh’s room?” Runcorn asked. “Is he in there? Answer me, girl, or I’ll arrest you.”

  She yelped and dropped the towels. “Yes . . . sir!”

  “Well, where is it?”

  “There, sir. Second door . . . sir!” She put her hands up to her face as if to stop herself from screaming.

  Runcorn strode to the door indicated and banged on it once then threw it open. Monk was at his shoulder.

  The room was very masculine, all paneled wood and deep colors, but it was extraordinarily beautiful. They barely had time for more than an impression. Fuller Pendreigh was lying on the bed, his face gray and his eyes already sunken. He clutched a folded towel around his throat and neck, but the scarlet blood was seeping through it and the stain was spreading.

  Hester moved forward to him and then stopped. She had seen too much death to mistake it easily. He had more stamina than most men to have made it this far. There was nothing she could do for him, even were it in mercy rather than a prolonging of pain.

  “She saw you in Swinton Street the night of Elissa’s death, didn’t she?” Monk asked softly. “She didn’t know who you were then, but she recognized you in court, and when you saw her looking at you, you knew it. It was there in her face, and it was only moments before she would tell someone. What were you hoping to do? Make her look like a suicide? Another gambler driven beyond sanity? But she’s not dead. We got to her in time.”

  “Why did you kill Elissa, sir?” Runcorn asked in the silence. “She was your own daughter.”

  Very slowly, as if he barely had strength to lift it, Pendreigh let go of the towel and put one hand up to his face, trying to waken himself from a nightmare. “For God’s sake, man, I didn’t mean to kill her!” he said in a whisper. “She flew at me, lashing out with her fists, clawing at my face and screaming. I only wanted to fend her off, but she wouldn’t stop.” He struggled for breath. “I didn’t want to strike her. I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, but she kept on. She wouldn’t listen.” He stopped, his face filled with horror as if a hell of reliving it over and over again had opened up in front of him, always with the same, terrible inescapable end, worse now because he knew it was coming.

  “I stepped back and she lunged forward and slipped. I tried to catch her as her feet went from under her. She turned, and I caught her face in my hands. I couldn’t hold her. I meant to take her weight . . . I . . . she broke her neck as she went sideways. . . .”

  Hester wet a corner of the sheet in the pitcher on the table beside the bed and touched Pendreigh’s lips with it.

  “Why did she attack you?” Monk asked.

  “What?” Pendreigh stared at him.

  “Why did she attack you?” Monk repeated. “Why were you there anyway?”

  Runcorn looked at Hester, his eyes wide with question.

  “Why were you there?” Monk said again.

  “I had an appointment to see Allardyce,” Pendreigh said hoarsely. “I was going to give him an interim payment for the picture. I know he needed it. But I was delayed. I was late.” He gasped and was silent for a moment.

  Hester bent forward, then looked at Monk, shaking her head minutely.

  Seconds ticked by. Pendreigh opened his eyes again. “He’d grown tired of waiting for me, and angry, and he’d gone out. But I wasn’t going to pay him without seeing the picture first.” His voice faded to a whisper. The scarlet stain was soaking through the towels. His face was gray. “It was beautiful!”

  Runcorn drew his brows together. “So why was Mrs. Beck lashing out at you?”

  Pendreigh’s face was a mask of horror. “When I got there his model answered the door to me. She was alone, half dressed, and stag
gering around with drink. She fell over and her robe slid off, leaving her half naked. I tried to help her up. I . . . I was sorry for the woman.”

  He stopped while Hester wet his lips again.

  “She was heavy and kept sliding away,” he went on, determined now to talk. “I had her in my arms when Elissa came in. She misunderstood and assumed she had interrupted some sexual assignation. She worshiped me . . . as I did her! She couldn’t bear it . . .”

  Monk could picture it easily. Elissa’s own shame of her appetite beyond control, suddenly finding her adored father, who she believed had so perfectly mastered his own life and virtue, in the arms of a drunken, half-naked woman. “She flew at you in rage for shattering her ideal of you, for betraying her dreams. The idol was clay all the way up to the waist!”

  Pendreigh’s voice was no more than a sigh. “Yes.”

  “And you killed her accidentally?”

  “Yes!”

  “But you killed Sarah Mackeson on purpose!” Runcorn burst out, his face ravaged by fury and an anguish he did not know how to express. “You killed that woman only because she’d seen you! You took hold of her and you twisted her neck until you broke it!”

  Pendreigh stared at him. “I had to. She would have told Allardyce, and it would have ruined me. She would have prevented all the good I could have done.”

  Runcorn shook his head. “No she wouldn’t. Any real friends would have stood by you. . . .”

  Pendreigh seemed to find a last strength. “Friends. You imbecile. I would have made Parliament! I would have changed the laws. Do you know how easy it is for a greedy man to take everything and leave a woman destitute? Do you?”

  Runcorn blinked at him. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “It’s got everything . . .” Pendreigh sighed, and his breathing grew more labored, his chest rattling. The shadow of death was on his face. “One woman sacrificed . . . I wouldn’t have chosen it, but it was unavoidable . . . to get justice for millions.”

  “And Kristian?” Monk asked. “Is it worth it for him to hang for murders he did not commit? What about all the sick he could have cured? What about the discoveries he might make that could heal millions? What about the fact that he is innocent? What about truth?”