Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [140]
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,