Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [82]
“I’ll do both,” Monk replied, looking at Runcorn.
Runcorn nodded.
Kristian held out his hand with the front door key in it.
“Thank you.” Monk took it and turned away, engulfed in misery.
Monk went straight to Haverstock Hill and let himself into the house with the key. Mrs. Talbot had already left, and there was no sound or movement at all. He found it acutely distressing to see the bare, chilly rooms, and to go upstairs to the stark bedroom Kristian occupied. The dressing room held only the necessities of grooming: a plain hairbrush, a wooden-handled open razor and leather strop, cuff links and shirt studs such as a clerk or shopkeeper might have owned. In the dresser he found four clean shirts and the minimum of underwear. There were two other suits in the wardrobe, and one other pair of boots, carefully resoled. This was all that was owned by a man with years of skill and experience, who worked from dawn to dusk and into the night every day of the week.
He took them back to the police station and gave them to the desk sergeant for Kristian. Now he could no longer put off going home and telling Hester that he had failed, and why.
When he went out into the street again it was raining steadily, and he walked for barely a mile, getting thoroughly soaked, before he finally caught a hansom for the last part of his journey. He reached home shivering with cold, wishing there were any way of avoiding what he must do.
Inside the door he took off his wet overcoat and removed his boots to save putting footprints over the carpet. He heard her come through from the kitchen and half expected her to know already. She was so quick to sense things, to understand, he imagined she would be aware of his failure and prepared for it.
He looked up and saw her face, full of relief, as if some burden had been lifted from her, and realized how mistaken he was.
“William . . .” She stopped. “What is it?” The muscles of her face and neck pulled tight. He straightened up, ignoring the wet boots. “Kristian wasn’t where he said he was. God knows he had cause enough to kill her. She’s bled him of everything, and if she’d lived she would have gone on until he ended up in prison. Queen’s if he was lucky. Coldbath if he wasn’t.”
“For heaven’s sake!” she exploded. “Some gambler killed her! Someone she owed . . .”
He took her shoulder, forcing her to face him. “No, they didn’t. Do you think we haven’t pressed that as far as it will go? No one wants it to be Kristian.”
“Runcorn . . .” she began.
“No,” he said sharply. “He’s stubborn and prejudiced, full of ambition, taking offense where there isn’t any, thin-skinned and short of imagination . . . at times. But he didn’t want it to be Kristian.”
“Didn’t!” she challenged, her eyes blazing. “You said ’didn’t’!”
“Didn’t,” he repeated. He shook his head very slightly. “There’s nothing we could do to prevent it. The evidence was too much.”
“What evidence?” she demanded. “There’s nothing except motive. You can’t convict anyone because they had a reason. All you know is that he can’t prove he was somewhere else!”
“And that he lied about it, intentionally or not,” he answered quietly. “No one else has reason to, Hester. Allardyce was in the Bull and Half Moon, on the other side of the river. It doesn’t make sense for any of the gamblers to have killed her. Apart from that, her debts were paid anyway.”
“Then the other poor woman was the intended victim,” she said instantly. “I don’t know why you even think Elissa Beck was the one killed first, and not Sarah Mackeson! Perhaps she was having a love affair with someone and they quarreled? Isn’t that far more likely