Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [141]
“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