Weighed in the balance - Anne Perry [60]
Then, when walking up a flight of stairs, he had a jolt of memory, one of those flashes that came to him now and again, a sense of familiarity without reason. For an instant he had been, not in Venice, but going up the stairs in a great house in London. The laughing voices had been English, and there was someone he knew very well standing near the newel post at the bottom, a man to whom he was immeasurably grateful. It was a feeling of warmth, a comfortable sort of certainty that the friendship required no questioning, no constant effort to keep it alive.
It was so sharp he actually turned and looked behind him, expecting to see … and there the image broke. He could bring no face into focus. All that remained was the knowledge of trust.
He saw the large, rather shambling figure of Klaus von Seidlitz, his face lit by the massed candles of the chandeliers, its broken nose more accentuated in the artificial light. The people beyond him were all speaking a medley of languages: German, Italian and French. There was no English anymore.
Monk knew who it was he had expected to see, the man who had been his mentor and friend, and who had since been cheated out of his good name and all his possessions, even his freedom. Monk could not remember what had happened, only the weight of tragedy and his own burning helplessness. It was that injustice which had caused him to leave the world of investment and banking and turn instead to the police.
Had he been good at banking? If he had remained with it, would he now be a wealthy man, able to live like this all the time, instead of only on Zorah’s money and on Zorah’s business?
What had caused the overwhelming gratitude he felt towards the man who had taught him finance and banking? Why, in the moment when he turned on the stairs, had he felt such a knowledge that he was trusted and that there was an unbreakable bond between himself and this man? It was more than the general relationship he already recalled. This was something specific, an individual act.
It was broken now. He could not even remember what it had been, except the sense of debt. Had their relationship been so unequal? Had he been given, in money, friendship, faith, so much more than he was worth?
Evelyn was talking to him, telling him some story of Venetian history, a doge who had risen to power in a spectacular way, over the ruin of his enemies.
He made an appropriate remark indicating his interest.
She laughed, knowing he had not heard.
But the feeling remained with him all evening, and would not be shaken, that he had owed something profound. The harder he tried to recapture it, the more elusive it was. And when he turned away to think of something else, it was there, touching everything.
The following day, as he drifted along a canal with Evelyn warm beside him, it still crowded his mind.
“Tell me about Zorah,” he said abruptly, sitting upright as they moved out of a byway into another of the main canals. A barge with streamers rippling in the breeze moved across their bow, and they were obliged to wait. Their gondolier rested his weight, balancing with unconscious grace. He made it look as if it were quite natural to stand with the shifting boat beneath him, but Monk knew it must be difficult. He had nearly lost his own footing and pitched into the water more than once.
“Why are you so interested in Zorah?” Evelyn was equally blunt. There was a sharp light in her eye.
Monk lied perfectly easily. “Because she is going to make an extremely unpleasant scene, but it might bring you back to London, and I shall like that, but not if she has the power to hurt you.”
“She cannot hurt me,” Evelyn said with conviction, smiling at him now. “But you are very charming to worry. People at home don’t take her as seriously as you imagine, you know.”
“Why not?” He was genuinely curious.
She shrugged, sliding a little closer to him. “Oh, she’s always been outrageous. People with any sense will simply think she is trying to draw attention