Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [143]
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.
“Did he fall in love with Elissa von Leibnitz?” Pendreigh asked. His voice was thick with his own emotion.
“Yes,” Niemann replied. “Very much.”
“And she with him?”
“Yes.” This time the word was simple, painful.
“And they married?”
“After the uprising, yes.”
“Did you ever doubt his love for her?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“And you all three remained friends?” Pendreigh asked.
Neimann’s hesitation was palpable.
“You didn’t?” Pendreigh asked.
“We lost touch for some time,” Niemann answered. “One of our number was killed, very violently. It distressed us all profoundly. Kristian seemed to feel it most.”
“Was he at fault?”
“No. It was just the fortune of war.”
“I see. But he was the leader. Did he feel perhaps he should somehow have prevented it?”
Mills half rose to his feet, then changed his mind. Niemann was painting a darker picture of Kristian than the dedicated doctor that had been shown so far. It was hardly in his interest to stop Niemann, or to question his veracity.
“I don’t know,” Niemann answered. It was probably the truth, but it sounded evasive.
Pendreigh retracted. “Thank you. Now may we come to the present, and your recent visit to London? Did you see Mrs. Beck?”
“Yes.”
“Several times?”
“Yes.”
“At her home, or elsewhere?”
“At the studio of Argo Allardyce,