Anne Perry - Funeral in Blue

It was several moments before Runcorn spoke, and when he did it was with intense feeling.

“What are you not telling me, Monk? Why was she there? What did she know about Fuller Pendreigh and his daughter that we don’t? Or at any rate, that I don’t?”

“I’m working it out!” Monk said tartly, looking sideways at Runcorn’s face in the glare of lamplight. He saw no hostility, only puzzlement. “She was the woman in Swinton Street that night,” he began his reply. “At the gambling house.” He heard Runcorn’s quick intake of breath. “She must have seen Pendreigh there, too. That’s about the only thing that would make him take her down to the river and, we presume, attack her. She must have been at least half prepared for it, and she went for him with the spike of her umbrella. In spite of his clothes, she must have given him a fearful blow, from the blood all over her. Don’t know how she managed it.”

Runcorn muttered a blasphemy under his breath, or perhaps it was not. He might even have been praying.

The hansom careered its way through the streamers of fog and sudden glittering lights. The wind was rising.

“Will she be all right?” Runcorn said at last.

“I don’t know,” Monk admitted.

Runcorn drew in his breath to say something, then could not make up his mind.

Monk could feel the warmth of his body beside him. In the intermittent light he could see Runcorn’s indecision, his waiting to offer some kind of pity, and all the memories flooding back of envy and distrust, all the petty unkindnesses of the past.

The cab stopped at Ebury Street and they both got out, Monk turning to help Hester. Runcorn paid the cabbie and then went up the front steps. He pulled the doorbell hard, and then again. They stood impatiently for what seemed an age until the butler came.

“Yes sir, madam?” he enquired with just a hint of disapproval for the lateness of the hour.

“Superintendent Runcorn, of the police,” Runcorn said icily. “And Mr. William Monk, and Mrs. Monk.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Pendreigh is not receiving at this hour, sir. If you come to-”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling you,” Runcorn snapped. “Now be so good as to step aside, rather than oblige me to arrest you for obstructing the police in their duty. Do I make myself plain?”

The butler quailed. “Yes sir, if. .” But he was elbowed aside as Runcorn walked in with Monk on his heels.

“Where is Mr. Pendreigh?” Runcorn asked. “Upstairs?”

“Mr. Pendreigh is not well, sir. He was attacked by robbers in the street. If you-”

“Yes or no?” Runcorn snapped.

“Yes sir, but. . Mr. Pendreigh is ill, sir. . I beg you. .”

“Come on!” Runcorn ordered, ignoring the butler and gesturing to Monk as he began to climb the stairs, again two at a time. They met a startled maid at the head of the flight, carrying a pile of towels. “Mr. Pendreigh’s room?” Runcorn asked. “Is he in there? Answer me, girl, or I’ll arrest you.”

She yelped and dropped the towels. “Yes. . sir!”

“Well, where is it?”

“There, sir. Second door. . sir!” She put her hands up to her face as if to stop herself from screaming.

Runcorn strode to the door indicated and banged on it once then threw it open. Monk was at his shoulder.

The room was very masculine, all paneled wood and deep colors, but it was extraordinarily beautiful. They barely had time for more than an impression. Fuller Pendreigh was lying on the bed, his face gray and his eyes already sunken. He clutched a folded towel around his throat and neck, but the scarlet blood was seeping through it and the stain was spreading.

Hester moved forward to him and then stopped. She had seen too much death to mistake it easily. He had more stamina than most men to have made it this far. There was nothing she could do for him, even were it in mercy rather than a prolonging of pain.

“She saw you in Swinton Street the night of Elissa’s death, didn’t she?” Monk asked softly. “She didn’t know who you were then, but she recognized you in court, and when you saw her looking at you, you knew it. It was there in her face, and it was only moments before she would tell someone. What were you hoping to do? Make her look like a suicide? Another gambler driven beyond sanity? But she’s not dead. We got to her in time.”

“Why did you kill Elissa, sir?” Runcorn asked in the silence. “She was your own daughter.”

Very slowly, as if he barely had strength to lift it, Pendreigh let go of the towel and put one hand up to his face, trying to waken himself from a nightmare. “For God’s sake, man, I didn’t mean to kill her!” he said in a whisper. “She flew at me, lashing out with her fists, clawing at my face and screaming. I only wanted to fend her off, but she wouldn’t stop.” He struggled for breath. “I didn’t want to strike her. I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, but she kept on. She wouldn’t listen.” He stopped, his face filled with horror as if a hell of reliving it over and over again had opened up in front of him, always with the same, terrible inescapable end, worse now because he knew it was coming.

“I stepped back and she lunged forward and slipped. I tried to catch her as her feet went from under her. She turned, and I caught her face in my hands. I couldn’t hold her. I meant to take her weight. . I. . she broke her neck as she went sideways. . ”

Hester wet a corner of the sheet in the pitcher on the table beside the bed and touched Pendreigh’s lips with it.

“Why did she attack you?” Monk asked.

“What?” Pendreigh stared at him.

“Why did she attack you?” Monk repeated. “Why were you there anyway?”

Runcorn looked at Hester, his eyes wide with question.

“Why were you there?” Monk said again.

“I had an appointment to see Allardyce,” Pendreigh said hoarsely. “I was going to give him an interim payment for the picture. I know he needed it. But I was delayed. I was late.” He gasped and was silent for a moment.

Hester bent forward, then looked at Monk, shaking her head minutely.

Seconds ticked by. Pendreigh opened his eyes again. “He’d grown tired of waiting for me, and angry, and he’d gone out. But I wasn’t going to pay him without seeing the picture first.” His voice faded to a whisper. The scarlet stain was soaking through the towels. His face was gray. “It was beautiful!”

Runcorn drew his brows together. “So why was Mrs. Beck lashing out at you?”

Pendreigh’s face was a mask of horror. “When I got there his model answered the door to me. She was alone, half dressed, and staggering around with drink. She fell over and her robe slid off, leaving her half naked. I tried to help her up. I. . I was sorry for the woman.”

He stopped while Hester wet his lips again.

“She was heavy and kept sliding away,” he went on, determined now to talk. “I had her in my arms when Elissa came in. She misunderstood and assumed she had interrupted some sexual assignation. She worshiped me. . as I did her! She couldn’t bear it. .”

Monk could picture it easily. Elissa’s own shame of her appetite beyond control, suddenly finding her adored father, who she believed had so perfectly mastered his own life and virtue, in the arms of a drunken, half-naked woman. “She flew at you in rage for shattering her ideal of you, for betraying her dreams. The idol was clay all the way up to the waist!”

Pendreigh’s voice was no more than a sigh. “Yes.”

“And you killed her accidentally?”

“Yes!”

“But you killed Sarah Mackeson on purpose!” Runcorn burst out, his face ravaged by fury and an anguish he did not know how to express. “You killed that woman only because she’d seen you! You took hold of her and you twisted her neck until you broke it!”