Anne Perry - Funeral in Blue

Runcorn’s lips tightened. “No,” he said flatly. He would like that to have been the answer, even if they never found the individual man responsible; it was clear in his face. “Doesn’t really make sense. If she wasn’t paying they’d simply ban her from the place. . long before she got to owe enough to be worth the risk of killing. They’d murder rivals who could drive them out of business, but not losers. Hell, the gutters’d be choked with corpses if they did that.” His eyes widened suddenly. “Might kill a winner, though! Win a bit’s good to encourage the others, win a lot is expensive.”

Monk laughed harshly. “And you don’t suppose they have control over how much anybody wins?”

Runcorn grunted, anger flickering across his face, then unhappiness. “Would have been a good answer. Wonder how long she’d been doing it and how much she lost?”

Monk felt the heat under his skin and the sweat drip down his body. Damn Runcorn for making him unable to lie to him anymore. Damn him for being real, and for finding an honesty in himself that made him impossible to ignore. Perhaps he could get by with a half-truth? No, he couldn’t! If Runcorn found out, and he would, he would despise Monk for it. He had patronized Runcorn in the past, bypassed him as not worthy of being told the truth, but he had never told him a face-to-face lie. That was the coward’s way.

There was no more time.

“A lot,” he said, hating the betrayal of Kristian, knowing that Hester had not meant him to tell Runcorn.

Runcorn’s eyes widened slightly. “How do you know?”

“Hester went to see Kristian last night. She told me.” He tried to make his voice final, closing the subject. Surely, Allardyce would come back any moment now? He had had time to wash and shave and dress fully.

Runcorn hesitated, drew in a long breath. He decided not to press it farther. Something in him sensed a victory, a balance. He turned away. “Mr. Allardyce!” he called.

Allardyce appeared in the doorway holding a mug of tea in one hand. He was shaved and dressed, and he looked composed. “What now?” he said glumly. “I already told you that I know nothing. Hell! Don’t you think if I knew who did it I’d tell you?” He waved his free arm angrily, slopping the tea in the other hand. “Look what it’s done to my life!”

Runcorn forbore from answering the last question. “This public house you say you were at. .”

“The Bull and Half Moon,” Allardyce supplied. “What about it?”

“Where is it, exactly?”

“Rotherhithe Street, Southwark.”

“Rather a long way to go for a drink?” Runcorn raised his eyebrows.

“That’s why I spent the night,” Allardyce said reasonably. “Too far to come home, and it was a filthy night. Could hear the foghorns on the river every few minutes. The Pool was thick as pea soup. Never understand how they don’t hit each other more often.”

“So why go that far?” Monk asked.

Allardyce shrugged. “Got good friends that way. Knew they’d put me up, if necessary. If I stayed home every time there was fog I’d never go anywhere. Ask Gilbert Strother. Lives in Great Hermitage Street, in Wapping. Don’t know the number. You’ll have to ask. Somewhere around the middle. Has a door with an angel on it. He did a sketch of us all. He’ll tell you.”

“I’ll do that,” Runcorn agreed, thin-lipped.

“Look, I can’t tell you anything useful,” Allardyce went on. “I’ve got a friend hurt in that pileup in Drury Lane. I want to go and see him. Broke his leg, poor devil.”

“What pileup?” Runcorn said suspiciously.

“Horse bolted. Two carriages got locked together and a dray got turned sideways and lost its load. Must have been twenty kegs burst open at least-raw sugar syrup. Said he’d never seen such a mess in his life. Stopped up Drury Lane all evening.”

“When was that?”

Allardyce’s face tightened. “The night of the murders.” He stared at Runcorn and suddenly his eyes filled with tears. He blinked angrily and turned away.

“Mr. Allardyce,” Monk said quietly, “when Mrs. Beck came for the sittings, who did she bring with her?”

Allardyce frowned.

“As chaperone,” Monk added.

Allardyce gave a burst of laughter. “A friend, once or twice, but she only came as far as the door. Never knew her name.” His face darkened, his mouth turned down a little at the ends. “She met the man here three or four times. I suppose you know about that?”

“What man?” Runcorn snapped.

“Dark. Strong face. Interesting. Wouldn’t mind drawing him sometime, but I never met him. Don’t know his name.”

“Draw him now!” Runcorn commanded.

Allardyce walked over to the table and picked up a block of paper and a stick of charcoal. With a dozen or so lines he created a very recognizable sketch of Max Niemann. He turned it towards Runcorn.

“Max Niemann, Beck’s ally in Vienna,” Monk told him.

“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” Runcorn was furious, his face mottling with dark color.

Allardyce was pale. “Because they were good friends. . or more,” he replied, his voice rising. “And I have no idea if he was anywhere near here that night. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting Elissa, or I’d have been here myself. If she met this man Niemann, it wouldn’t be in my studio. I assume the murderer was some old lover of Sarah’s, or something of that sort, and Elissa just picked the wrong time to call in. Perhaps she wanted to see if the portrait was finished. . or something.”

Runcorn gave him a withering look, but since it was more or less what he was inclined to believe himself, there was little argument to make. “We’d better find out a great deal more about Sarah Mackeson,” he said instead.

“I’ve told you all I know,” Allardyce said uneasily, all the anger draining from his face and leaving only sadness. “I gave all that to your man: where she was born, where she grew up, as far as she told me. She didn’t talk about herself.”

“I know. . I know.” Runcorn was irritated. It woke a mixture of feelings in him-pity because the woman was dead, duty because it was his task to find out who had killed her and see that the guilty person faced the law to answer for it. At the same time he despised her morality. It offended every desire for decency in him, the love of rules to live by and order he could understand. He turned to Monk. “We’d better get on with it, then.” His eyes widened. “If you’re interested, that is?”

“I’m interested,” Monk accepted.

They bade Allardyce good-bye and went back down the stairs into the street, where Runcorn pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I’m going to start with Mrs. Ethel Roberts, who used to employ her as a milliner’s assistant. You can go to see Mrs. Clark, who took her in now and then. I’ll leave you to find out for what.” His expression conveyed his opinion of the possibilities. “We’ll meet up at that pub on the corner of North Street and the Caledonian Road, can’t remember what it’s called. Be there at one!” And with that he thrust the piece of paper into Monk’s hand and turned abruptly to cross the street, leaving Monk standing on the curb in the sun and noise, the increasing rattle of traffic, street vendors’ cries for their shellfish, cheeses, razors, shirt buttons, rat poison.

He found Mrs. Clark in a boardinghouse in Risinghill Street, north of the Pentonville Road, just beyond a tobacconist’s shop with a Highlander on the sign to denote to the illiterate what it was he sold. Inside the boardinghouse, the air in the hall smelled of stale polish and yesterday’s cooking, but the house was cleaner than some he had seen, and there was a cheerful clatter of dishes, and a voice singing, coming from somewhere towards the back.