Anne Perry - Funeral in Blue

Hester went to her and took both Callandra’s hands in her own, holding them gently. “Yes, he did. Kristian’s wife has been killed. How did it happen?”

Callandra’s fingers tightened over hers and held her surprisingly hard. “No one really knows yet. She was found this morning in the studio of the artist Argo Allardyce. He was painting a portrait of her.” Her brow puckered faintly, as if she found it difficult to believe. “The cleaning woman came and found them. . both. .”

“Both?” Hester said with a catch in her breath. “You mean the artist as well?” It seemed incredible.

“No. . no,” Callandra said quickly. “Mrs. Beck and the artists’ model Sarah Mackeson.”

“You mean Allardyce killed them both?” Hester was struggling to make sense of it. “Yesterday afternoon? Why?”

Callandra looked totally confused. “No one knows. There was nobody there from midday until this morning. It could have happened at any time.”

“She would not have a sitting in the evening,” Hester replied. “He wouldn’t paint after the light was gone.”

Callandra colored faintly. “Oh no, of course not. I’m sorry. It’s ridiculous how deeply it shocks one when it is someone connected, however. .”

Monk came in from the kitchen. “The kettle is boiling,” he told Hester.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Callandra said with a tight little laugh. “You can make a cup of tea, William!”

He stopped, perhaps realizing for the first time how close to hysteria she was.

Hester turned to him to see if he understood. She saw the flash of comprehension in his eyes, and left him to attend to tea. She looked at Callandra. “Sit down,” she directed, almost guiding her to the other chair. “Have you any idea why this Allardyce did such a thing?” Now that she was met with the necessity of thinking about it more rationally, she realized she knew nothing at all about Mrs. Beck.

Callandra made a profound effort at self-control. “I don’t know for certain that it was Allardyce,” she answered. “They were both found in his studio. Allardyce himself was gone.” Her eyes met Hester’s, pleading for some answer that would make it no more than a sadness far removed from them, like an accident in the street, tragic but not personal. But it was not possible. Whatever had happened, this would change their lives irrevocably simply by the violence of it.

Hester tried to think of something to say, but before she could, Monk came back into the room with tea on a tray. He poured, and they all sat in silence for a few moments, sipping the hot liquid and feeling it ease the clenched-up knots inside.

Callandra set her cup down and faced Monk with more composure. “William, she and this other woman were murdered. It is sure to be very ugly and distressing, no matter how it happened. Dr. Beck will be involved because he is. . was her husband.” She picked up her tea once more, but her hand wobbled a trifle and she set the cup down again before she spilled it. “There are bound to be a lot of questions, and not all of them will be kind.” Her face looked extraordinarily vulnerable, almost bruised. “Please. . will you do what you can to protect him?”

Hester turned to look at Monk also. He had left the police force with extreme ill feeling between himself and his superior. One could debate whether he had resigned or been dismissed. Asking him to involve himself in a police matter was requiring of him a great deal. Yet both he and Hester owed Callandra more than was measurable in purely practical terms, regardless of loyalty and affection, which would in themselves have been sufficient. She had given them unquestioning friendship regardless of her own reputation. In lean times she had discreetly supported them financially, never referring to it or asking anything in return but to be included.

Hester saw the hesitation in Monk’s face. She drew breath in to say something that would urge him to accept. Then she saw that he was going to, and was ashamed of herself for having doubted him.

“I’ll go to the station concerned,” he agreed. “Where were they found?”

“Acton Street,” Callandra replied, relief quick in her voice. “Number twelve. It’s a house with an artist’s studio on the top floor.”

“Acton Street?” Monk frowned, trying to place it.

“Off the Gray’s Inn Road,” Callandra told him. “Just beyond the Royal Free Hospital.”

Hester felt her mouth go dry. She tried to swallow, and it caught in her throat.

Monk was looking at Callandra. His face was blank, but the muscles in his neck were pulled tight. Hester knew that the studio must be in Runcorn’s area, and that Monk would have to approach him if he were to involve himself. It was an old enmity going back to Monk’s first days on the force. But whatever he felt about that now, he masked it well. He was already bending his mind to the task.

“How did you hear about it so soon?” he asked Callandra.

“Kristian told me,” she replied. “We had a hospital meeting this afternoon, and he had to cancel it. He asked me to make his excuses.” She swallowed, her tea ignored.

“She can’t have been home all night,” he went on. “Wasn’t he concerned for her?”

She avoided his eyes very slightly. “I didn’t ask him. I. . I believe they led separate lives.”

As a friend, he might not have pressed the matter-it was delicate-but when he was in pursuit of truth neither his mind nor his tongue accepted boundaries. He might hate probing an area he knew would cause pain, but that had never stopped him. He could be as ruthless with the dark mists of the memory within himself, and he knew with bone-deep familiarity just how that hurt. He had had to piece together the shards of his own past before the accident. Some of them were full of color, others were dark, and to look at them cost all the courage he had.

“Where was he yesterday evening?” he continued, looking at Callandra.

Her eyes opened wide, and Hester saw the fear in them. Monk must have seen it also. She looked as if she were about to say one thing, then cleared her throat and said something else. “Please protect his reputation, William,” she pleaded. “He is Bohemian, and although his English is perfect, he is still a foreigner. And. . they did not have the happiest of marriages. Don’t allow them to harass him or suggest some kind of guilt by innuendo.”

He did not offer her any false assurances. “Tell me something about Mrs. Beck,” he said instead. “What kind of woman was she?”

Callandra hesitated; a flicker of surprise was in her eyes, then gone again. “I’m not certain that I know a great deal,” she confessed uncomfortably. “I never met her. She didn’t involve herself with the hospital at all, and. .” She blushed. “I don’t really know Dr. Beck socially.”

Hester looked at Monk. If he found anything odd in Callandra’s answer there was no sign of it in his expression. His face was tense, eyes concentrated upon hers. “What about her circle of friends?” he asked. “Did she entertain? What were her interests? What did she do with her time?”

Now Callandra was definitely uncomfortable. The color deepened in her face. “I’m afraid I don’t know. He speaks of her hardly at all. I. . I gathered from something he said that she was away from home a great deal, but he did not say where. He mentioned once that she had considerable political knowledge and spoke German. But then, Kristian himself spent many years in Vienna, so perhaps that is not very surprising.”

“Was she Bohemian, too?” Monk asked quickly.

“No. . at least I don’t think so.”

Monk stood up. “I’ll go to the police station and see what I can learn.” His voice softened. “Don’t worry yet. It may be that the artists’ model was the intended victim, and only a tragic mischance that Mrs. Beck was also there at that moment.”