The William Monk Mysteries Page 5

  Monk put down the report, sobered by the details of death. The bare language, shorn of all emotion, perversely brought the very feeling of it closer. His imagination saw it sharply, even smelled it, conjuring up the sour odor and the buzz of flies. Had he dealt with many murders? He could hardly ask.

  “Very unpleasant,” he said without looking up at Evan.

  “Very,” Evan agreed, nodding. “Newspapers made rather a lot of it at the time. Been going on at us for not having found the murderer. Apart from the fact that it’s made a lot of people nervous, Mecklenburg Square is a pretty good area, and if one isn’t safe there, where is one safe? Added to that, Joscelin Grey was a well-liked, pretty harmless young ex-officer, and of extremely good family. He served in the Crimea and was invalided out. He had rather a good record, saw the Charge of the Light Brigade, badly wounded at Sebastopol.” Evan’s face pinched a little with a mixture of embarrassment and perhaps pity. “A lot of people feel his country has let him down, so to speak, first by allowing this to happen to him, and then by not even catching the man who did it.” He looked across at Monk, apologizing for the injustice, and because he understood it. “I know that’s unfair, but a spot of crusading sells newspapers; always helps to have a cause, you know! And of course the running patterers have composed a lot of songs about it—returning hero and all that!”

  Monk’s mouth turned down at the corners.

  “Have they been hitting hard?”

  “Rather,” Evan admitted with a little shrug. “And we haven’t a blind thing to go on. We’ve been over and over every bit of evidence there is, and there’s simply nothing to connect him to anyone. Any ruffian could have come in from the street if he dodged the porter. Nobody saw or heard anything useful, and we are right where we started.” He got up gloomily and came over to the table.

  “I suppose you’d better see the physical evidence, not that there is much. And then I daresay you’d like to see the flat, at least get a feeling for the scene?”

  Monk stood up also.

  “Yes I would. You never know, something might suggest itself.” Although he could imagine nothing. If Lamb had not succeeded, and this keen, delicate young junior, what was he going to find? He felt failure begin to circle around him, dark and enclosing. Had Runcorn given him this knowing he would fail? Was it a discreet and efficient way of getting rid of him without being seen to be callous? How did he even know for sure that Runcorn was not an old enemy? Had he done him some wrong long ago? The possibility was cold and real. The shadowy outline of himself that had appeared so far was devoid of any quick acts of compassion, any sudden gentlenesses or warmth to seize hold of and to like. He was discovering himself as a stranger might, and what he saw so far did not excite his admiration. He liked Evan far more than he liked himself.

  He had imagined he had hidden his complete loss of memory, but perhaps it was obvious, perhaps Runcorn had seen it and taken this chance to even some old score? God, how he wished he knew what kind of man he was, had been. Who loved him, who hated him—and who had what cause? Had he ever loved a woman, or any woman loved him? He did not even know that!

  Evan was walking quickly ahead of him, his long legs carrying him at a surprisingly fast pace. Everything in Monk wanted to trust him, and yet he was almost paralyzed by his ignorance. Every foothold he trod on dissolved into quicksand under his weight. He knew nothing. Everything was surmise, constantly shifting guesses.

  He behaved automatically, having nothing but instinct and ingrained habit to rely on.

  The physical evidence was astonishingly bare, set out like luggage in a lost-and-found office, ownerless; pathetic and rather embarrassing remnants of someone else’s life, robbed now of their purpose and meaning—a little like his own belongings in Grafton Street, objects whose history and emotion were obliterated.

  He stopped beside Evan and picked up a pile of clothes. The trousers were dark, well cut from expensive material, now spotted with blood. The boots were highly polished and only slightly worn on the soles. Personal linen was obviously changed very recently; shirt was expensive; cravat silk, the neck and front heavily stained. The jacket was tailored to high fashion, but ruined with blood, and a ragged tear in the sleeve. They told him nothing except a hazard at the size and build of Joscelin Grey, and an admiration for his pocket and his taste. There was nothing to be deduced from the bloodstains, since they already knew what the injuries had been.

  He put them down and turned to Evan, who was watching him.

  “Not very helpful, is it, sir?” Evan looked at them with a mixture of unhappiness and distaste. There was something in his face that might have been real pity. Perhaps he was too sensitive to be a police officer.

  “No, not very,” Monk agreed dryly. “What else was there?”

  “The weapon, sir.” Evan reached out and picked up a heavy ebony stick with a silver head. It too was encrusted with blood and hair.

  Monk winced. If he had seen such grisly things before, his immunity to them had gone with his memory.

  “Nasty.” Evan’s mouth turned down, his hazel eyes on Monk’s face.

  Monk was conscious of him, and abashed. Was the distaste, the pity, for him? Was Evan wondering why a senior officer should be so squeamish? He conquered his revulsion with an effort and took the stick. It was unusually heavy.

  “War wound,” Evan observed, still watching him. “From what witnesses say, he actually walked with it: I mean it wasn’t an ornament.”

  “Right leg.” Monk recalled the medical report. “Accounts for the weight.” He put the stick down. “Nothing else?”

  “Couple of broken glasses, sir, and a decanter broken too. Must have been on the table that was knocked over, from the way it was lying; and a couple of ornaments. There’s a drawing of the way the room was, in Mr. Lamb’s file, sir. Not that I know of anything it can tell us. But Mr. Lamb spent hours poring over it.”

  Monk felt a quick stab of compassion for Lamb, then for himself. He wished for a moment that he could change places with Evan, leave the decisions, the judgments to someone else, and disclaim the failure. He hated failure! He realized now what a driving, burning desire he had to solve this crime—to win—to wipe that smile off Runcorn’s face.

  “Oh—money, sir.” Evan pulled out a cardboard box and opened it. He picked up a fine pigskin wallet and, separately, several gold sovereigns, a couple of cards from a club and an exclusive dining room. There were about a dozen cards of his own, engraved “Major the Honorable Joscelin Grey, Six, Mecklenburg Square, London.”

  “Is that all?” Monk asked.

  “Yes sir, the money is twelve pounds seven shillings and sixpence altogether. If he were a thief, it’s odd he didn’t take that.”

  “Perhaps he was frightened—he may have been hurt himself.” It was the only thing he could think of. He motioned Evan to put the box away. “I suppose we’d better go and have a look at Mecklenburg Square.”

  “Yes sir.” Evan straightened up to obey. “It’s about half an hour’s walk. Are you well enough for it yet?”

  “A couple of miles? For heaven’s sake, man, it was my arm I broke, not both my legs!” He reached sharply for his jacket and hat.

  Evan had been a little optimistic. Against the wind and stepping carefully to avoid peddlers and groups of fellow travelers on the footpath, and traffic and horse dung in the streets, it was a good forty minutes before they reached Mecklenburg Square, walked around the gardens and stopped outside Number 6. The boy sweeping the crossing was busy on the corner of Doughty Street, and Monk wondered if it was the same one who had been there on that evening in July. He felt a rush of pity for the child, out in all weather, often with sleet or snow driving down the funnel of the high buildings, dodging in among the carriages and drays, shoveling droppings. What an abysmal way to earn your keep. Then he was angry with himself—that was stupid and sentimental nonsense. He must deal with reality. He squared his chest and marched into the foyer. The porter was standing by a sm
all office doorway, no more than a cubbyhole.

  “Yes sir?” He moved forward courteously, but at the same time blocking their further progress.

  “Grimwade?” Monk asked him.

  “Yes sir?” The man was obviously surprised and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t say as I remember you. I’m not usually bad about faces—” He let it hang, hoping Monk would help him. He glanced across at Evan, and a flicker of memory lit in his face.

  “Police,” Monk said simply. “We’d like to take another look at Major Grey’s flat. You have the key?”

  The man’s relief was very mixed.

  “Oh yes, sir, and we ain’t let nobody in. Lock’s still as Mr. Lamb left it.”

  “Good, thank you.” Monk had been preparing to show some proof of his identity, but the porter was apparently quite satisfied with his recognition of Evan, and turned back to his cubbyhole to fetch the key.

  He came with it a moment later and led them upstairs with the solemnity due the presence of the dead, especially those who had died violently. Monk had the momentarily unpleasant impression that they would find Joscelin Grey’s corpse still lying there, untouched and waiting for them.

  It was ridiculous, and he shook it off fiercely. It was beginning to assume the repetitive quality of a nightmare, as if events could happen more than once.

  “Here we are, sir.” Evan was standing at the door, the porter’s key in his hand. “There’s a back door as well, of course, from the kitchen, but it opens onto the same landing, about twelve yards along, for services, errands, and the like.”

  Monk recalled his attention.

  “But one would still have to pass the porter at the gate?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I suppose there’s not much point in having a porter if there’s a way in without passing him. Then any beggar or peddler could bother you.” He pulled an extraordinary face as he pondered the habits of his betters. “Or creditors!” he added lugubriously.

  “Quite.” Monk was sardonic.

  Evan turned and put the key in the lock. He seemed reluctant, as if a memory of the violence he had seen there still clung to the place, repelling him. Or was Monk projecting his own fancies onto someone else?

  The hallway inside was exactly as Evan had described it: neat, blue Georgian with white paint and trims, very clean and elegant. He saw the hat stand with its place for sticks and umbrellas, the table for calling cards and so forth. Evan was ahead of him, his back stiff, opening the door to the main room.

  Monk walked in behind him. He was not sure what he was expecting to see; his body was tight also, as if waiting for an attack, for something startling and ugly on the senses.

  The decoration was elegant, and had originally been expensive, but in the flat light, without gas or fire, it looked bleak and commonplace enough. The Wedgwood-blue walls seemed at a glance immaculate, the white trims without scar, but there was a fine rime of dust over the polished wood of the chiffonier and the desk and a film dulling colors of the carpet. His eyes traveled automatically to the window first, then around the other furniture-ornate side table with piecrust edges, a jardiniere with a Japanese bowl on it, a mahogany bookcase—till he came to the overturned heavy chair, the broken table, companion to the other, the pale inner wood a sharp scar against its mellowed satin skin. It looked like an animal with legs in the air.

  Then he saw the bloodstain on the floor. There was not a lot of it, not widespread at all, but very dark, almost black. Grey must have bled a lot in that one place. He looked away from it, and noticed then that much of what seemed pattern on the carpet was probably lighter, spattered blood. On the far wall there was a picture crooked, and when he walked over to it and looked more carefully, he saw a bruise in the plaster, and the paint was faintly scarred. It was a bad watercolor of the Bay of Naples, all harsh blues with a conical Mount Vesuvius in the background.

  “It must have been a considerable fight,” he said quietly.

  “Yes sir,” Evan agreed. He was standing in the middle of the floor, not sure what to do. “There were several bruises on the body, arms and shoulders, and one knuckle was skinned. I should say he put up a good fight.”

  Monk looked at him, frowning.

  “I don’t remember that in the medical report.”

  “I think it just said ’evidences of a struggle,’ir. But that’s pretty obvious from the room here, anyway.” His eyes glanced around at it as he spoke. “There’s blood on that chair as well.” He pointed to the heavy stuffed one lying on its back. “That’s where he was, with his head on the floor. We’re looking for a violent man, sir.” He shivered slightly.

  “Yes.” Monk stared around, trying to visualize what must have happened in this room nearly six weeks ago, the fear and the impact of flesh on flesh, shadows moving, shadows because he did not know them, furniture crashing over, glass splintering. Then suddenly it became real, a flash sharper and more savage than anything his imagination had called up, red moments of rage and terror, the thrashing stick; then it was gone again, leaving him trembling and his stomach sick. What in God’s name had happened in this room that the echo of it still hung here, like an agonized ghost, or a beast of prey?

  He turned and walked out, oblivious of Evan behind him, fumbling for the door. He had to get out of here, into the commonplace and grubby street, the sound of voices, the demanding present. He was not even sure if Evan followed him.

  3

  AS SOON AS MONK was out in the street he felt better, but he could not completely shake the impression that had come to him so violently. For an instant it had been real enough to bring his body out in hot, drenching sweat, and then leave him shivering and nauseous at the sheer bestiality of it.

  He put up his hand shakily and felt his wet cheek. There was a hard, angular rain driving on the wind.

  He turned to see Evan behind him. But if Evan had felt that savage presence, there was no sign of it in his face. He was puzzled, a little concerned, but Monk could read no more in him than that.

  “A violent man.” Monk repeated Evan’s words through stiff lips.

  “Yes sir,” Evan said solemnly, catching up to him. He started to say something, then changed his mind. “Where are you going to begin, sir?” he asked instead.

  It was a moment before Monk could collect his thoughts to reply. They were walking along Doughty Street to Guilford Street.

  “Recheck the statements,” he answered, stopping on the corner curb as a hansom sped past them, its wheels spraying filth. “That’s the only place I know to begin. I’ll do the least promising first. The street sweeper boy is there.” He indicated the child a few yards from them, busy shoveling dung and at the same time seizing a penny that had been thrown him. “Is he the same one?”

  “I think so, sir; I can’t see his face from here.” That was something of a euphemism; the child’s features were hidden by dirt and the hazards of his occupation, and the top half of his head was covered by an enormous cloth cap, to protect him from the rain.

  Monk and Evan stepped out onto the street towards him.

  “Well?” Monk asked when they reached the boy.

  Evan nodded.

  Monk fished for a coin; he felt obliged to recompense the child for the earnings he might lose in the time forfeited. He came up with twopence and offered it.

  “Alfred, I am a policeman. I want to talk to you about the gentleman who was killed in Number Six in the square.”

  The boy took the twopence.

  “Yeah guv, I dunno anyfink what I din’t tell ve ovver rozzer as asked me.” He sniffed and looked up hopefully. A man with twopence to spend was worth pleasing.

  “Maybe not,” Monk conceded, “but I’d like to talk to you anyway.” A tradesman’s cart clattered by them towards Grey’s Inn Road, splashing them with mud and leaving a couple of cabbage leaves almost at their feet. “Can we go to the footpath?” Monk inquired, hiding his distaste. His good boots were getting soiled and his trouser legs were wet.

  Th
e boy nodded, then acknowledging their lack of skill in dodging wheels and hooves with the professional’s condescension for the amateur, he steered them to the curb again.

  “Yers guv?” he asked hopefully, pocketing the twopence somewhere inside the folds of his several jackets and sniffing hard. He refrained from wiping his hand across his face in deference to their superior status.

  “You saw Major Grey come home the day he was killed?” Monk asked with appropriate gravity.

  “Yers guv, and vere weren’t nob’dy followiny’ im, as fer as I could see.”

  “Was the street busy?”

  “No, wicked night, it were, for July, raining summink ’orrible. Nob’dy much abaht, an’ everyone goin’ as fast as veir legs’d carry ’em.”

  “How long have you been at this crossing?”

  “Couple o’ years.” His faint fair eyebrows rose with surprise; obviously it was a question he had not expected.

  “So you must know most of the people who live around here?” Monk pursued.

  “Yers, reckon as I do.” His eyes sparked with sudden sharp comprehension. “Yer means did I see anyone as don’t belong?”

  Monk nodded in appreciation of his sagacity. “Precisely.”

  “’E were bashed ter deaf, weren’t ’e?”

  “Yes.” Monk winced inwardly at the appropriateness of the phrase.

  “Ven yer in’t lookin’ fer a woman?”

  “No,” Monk agreed. Then it flashed through his mind that a man might dress as a woman, if perhaps it were not some stranger who had murdered Grey, but a person known to him, someone who had built up over the years the kind of hatred that had seemed to linger in that room. “Unless it were a large woman,” he added, “and very strong, perhaps.”

  The boy hid a smirk. “Woman as I saw was on the little side. Most women as makes veir way vat fashion gotta look fetchin’ like, or leastways summink as a woman oughter. Don’t see no great big scrubbers ’round ’ere, an’ no dollymops.” He sniffed again and pulled his mouth down fiercely to express his disapproval. “Only the class for gennelmen as ’as money like wot vey got ’ere.” He gestured towards the elaborate house fronts behind him towards the square.