Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

Evan's face ironed out almost comically with relief. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Yes sir. Yes I would." He reached for his coat and scarf. "Can you do that without letting them know who they are? If they know they were his brothers-I mean-Lord Shelburne-"

Monk looked at him sideways and Evan pulled a small face of apology.

"Yes of course," he muttered, following Monk outside. "Although the Shelburnes will deny it, of course, and they'll still ride us to hell and back if we press a charge!"

Monk knew that, and he had no plan even if anyone in the photograph were recognized, but it was a step forward, and he had to take it.

Grimwade was in his cubbyhole as usual and he greeted them cheerfully.

"Lovely mild day, sir." He squinted towards the street. "Looks as if it could clear up."

"Yes," Monk agreed without thinking. "Very pleasant." He was unaware of being wet. "We're going up to

Mr. Grey's rooms again, want to pick up one or two things."

"Well with all of you on the case, I 'spec' you'll get somewhere one of these days." Grimwade nodded, a faint trace of sarcasm in his rather lugubrious face. "You certainly are a busy lot, I'll give yer that."

Monk was halfway up the stairs with the key before the significance of Grimwade's remark came to him. He stopped sharply and Evan trod on his heel.

"Sorry," Evan apologized.

"What did he mean?" Monk turned, frowning. "All of us? There's only you and me-isn't there?"

Evan's eyes shadowed. "So far as I know! Do you think Runcorn has been here?"

Monk stood stiffly to the spot. "Why should he? He doesn't want to be the one to solve this, especially if it is Shelburne. He doesn't want to have anything to do with it."

"Curiosity?" There were other thoughts mirrored in Evan's face, but he did not speak them.

Monk thought the same thing-perhaps Runcorn wanted some proof it was Shelburne, then he would force Monk to find it, and then to make the charge. For a moment they stared at each other, the knowledge silent and complete between them.

"I'll go and find out." Evan turned around and went slowly down again.

It was several minutes before he came back, and Monk stood on the stair waiting, his mind at first searching for a way out, a way to avoid accusing Shelburne himself. Then he was drawn to wonder more about Runcorn. How old was the enmity between them? Was it simply an older man fearing a rival on the ladder of success, a younger, cleverer rival?

Only younger and cleverer? Or also harder, more ruthless in his ambitions, one who took credit for other people's work, who cared more for acclaim than for justice, who sought the public, colorful cases, the ones well reported; even a man who managed to shelve his failures onto other people, a thief of other men's work?

If that were so, then Runcorn's hatred was well earned, and his revenge had a justice to it.

Monk stared up at the old, carefully plastered ceiling. Above it was the room where Grey had been beaten to death. He did not feel ruthless now-only confused, oppressed by the void where memory should be, afraid of what he might find out about his own nature, anxious that he would fail in his job. Surely the crack on the head, however hard, could not have changed him so much? But even if the injury could not, maybe the fear had? He had woken up lost and alone, knowing nothing, having to find himself clue by clue, in what others could tell him, what they thought of him, but never why. He knew nothing of the motives for his acts, the nice rationalizations and excuses he had made to himself at the time. All the emotions that had driven him and blocked out judgment were in that empty region that yawned before the hospital bed and Runcorn's face.

But he had no time to pursue it further. Evan was back, his features screwed up in anxiety.

"It was Runcorn!" Monk leaped to the conclusion, suddenly frightened, like a man faced with physical violence.

Evan shook his head.

"No. It was two men I don't recognize at all from Grimwade's description. But he said they were from the police, and he saw their papers before he let them in."

"Papers?" Monk repeated. There was no point in asking what the men had looked like; he could not remember the men of his own division, let alone those from any other.

"Yes." Evan was obviously still anxious. "He said they had police identification papers, like ours."

"Did he see if they were from our station?"

"Yes sir, they were." His face puckered. "But I can't think who they could be. Anyway, why on earth would Runcorn send anyone else? What for?"

"I suppose it would be too much to ask that they gave names?"

"I'm afraid Grimwade didn't notice."

Monk turned around and went back up the stairs, more worried than he wished Evan to see. On the landing he put the key Grimwade had given him into the lock and swung Grey's door open. The small hallway was just as before, and it gave him an unpleasant jar of familiarity, a sense of foreboding for what was beyond.

Evan was immediately behind him. His face was pale and his eyes shadowed, but Monk knew that his oppression stemmed from Runcorn, and the two men who had been here before them, not any sensitivity to the violence still lingering in the air.

There was no purpose in hesitating anymore. He opened the second door.

There was a long sigh from behind him almost at his shoulder as Evan let out his breath in amazement.

The room was in wild disorder; the desk had been tipped over and all its contents flung into the far corner-by the look of them, the papers a sheet at a time. The chairs were on their sides, one upside down, the seats had been taken out, the stuffed sofa ripped open with a knife. All the pictures lay on the floor, backs levered out.

"Oh my God." Evan was stupefied.

"Not the police, I think," Monk said quietly.

"But they had papers," Evan protested. "Grimwade actually read them."

"Have you never heard of a good screever?"

"Forged?" Evan said wearily. "I suppose Grimwade wouldn't have known the difference."

"If the screever were good enough, I daresay we wouldn't either." Monk pulled a sour expression. Some forgeries of testimonials, letters, bills of sale were good enough to deceive even those they were purported to come from. At the upper end, it was a highly skilled and lucrative trade, at the lower no more than a makeshift way of buying a little time, or fooling the hasty or illiterate.

"Who were they?" Evan went past Monk and stared around the wreckage. "And what on earth did they want here?"

Monk's eyes went to the shelves where the ornaments had been.

"There was a silver sugar scuttle up there," he said as he pointed. "See if it's on the floor under any of that paper." He turned slowly. "And there were a couple of pieces of jade on that table. There were two snuffboxes in that alcove; one of them had an inlaid lid. And try the sideboard; there should be silver in the second drawer."

"What an incredible memory you have; I never noticed them." Evan was impressed and his admiration was obvious in his luminous eyes before he knelt down and began carefully to look under the mess, not moving it except to raise it sufficiently to explore beneath.

Monk was startled himself. He could not remember having looked in such detail at trivialities. Surely he had gone straight to the marks of the struggle, the bloodstains, the disarranged furniture, the bruised paint and the crooked pictures on the walls? He had no recollection now of even noticing the sideboard drawer, and yet his mind's eye could see silver, laid out neatly in green-baize-lined fittings.

Had it been in some other place? Was he confusing this room with another, an elegant sideboard somewhere in his past, belonging to someone else? Perhaps Imogen Latterly?