by Anne Perry
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?
But he must dismiss Imogen from his mind—however easily, with whatever bitter fragrance, she returned. She was a dream, a creation of his own memories and hungers. He could never have known her well enough to feel anything but a charm, a sense of her distress, her courage in righting it, the strength of her loyalty.
He forced himself to think of the present; Evan searching in the sideboard, the remark on his memory.
"Training," he replied laconically, although he didn't
understand it himself. "You'll develop it. It might not be the second drawer, better look in all of them."
Evan obeyed, and Monk turned back to the pile on the floor and began to pick his way through the mess, looking for something to tell him its purpose, or give any clue as to who could have caused it.
"There's nothing here." Evan closed the drawer, his mouth turned down in a grimace of disgust. "But this is the right place; it's all slotted for them to fit in, and lined with cloth. They went to a lot of trouble for a dozen settings of silver. I suppose they expected to get more. Where did you say the jade was?"
"There." Monk stepped over a pile of papers and cushions to an empty shelf, then wondered with a sense of unease how he knew, when he could have noticed it.
He bent and searched the floor carefully, replacing everything as he found it. Evan was watching him.
"No jade?" he asked.
"No, it's gone." Monk straightened up, his back stiff. "But I find it hard to believe ordinary thieves would go to the trouble, and the expense, of forging police identification papers just for a few pieces of silver and a jade ornament, and I think a couple of snuffboxes." He looked around. "They couldn't take much more without being noticed. Grimwade would certainly have been suspicious if they had taken anything like furniture or pictures."
“Well, I suppose the silver and the jade are worth something?"
"Not much, after the fence has taken his cut." Monk looked at the heap of wreckage on the floor and imagined the frenzy and the noise of such a search. "Hardly worth the risk," he said thoughtfully. "Much easier to have burgled a place in which the police have no interest. No, they wanted something else; the silver and the jade were a bonus. Anyway, what professional thief leaves a chaos like this behind him?"
"You mean it was Shelburne?" Evan's voice was half an octave higher with sheer disbelief.
Monk did not know what he meant.
"I can't think what Shelburne could want," he said, staring around the room again, his mind's eye seeing it as it had been before. "Even if he left something here that belonged to him, there are a dozen reasons he could invent if we'd asked him, with Joscelin dead and not able to argue. He could have left it here, whatever it was, any time, or lent it to Joscelin; or Joscelin could simply have taken it." He stared around the ceiling at the elaborate plaster work of acanthus leaves. "And I can't imagine him employing a couple of men to forge police papers and come here to ransack the place. No, it can't have been Shelburne."
"Then who?"
Monk was frightened because suddenly there was no rationality in it at all. Ever
ything that had seemed to fit ten minutes ago was now senseless, like puzzle parts of two quite different pictures. At the same time he was almost elated—if it were not Shelburne, if it were someone who knew forgers and thieves, then perhaps there was no society scandal or blackmail at all.
"I don't know," he answered Evan with sudden new firmness. "But there's no need to tiptoe in this one to find out. Nobody will lose us our jobs if we ask embarrassing questions of a few screevers, or bribe a nose, or even press a fence a little hard."
Evan's face relaxed into a slow smile and his eyes lit up. Monk guessed that perhaps he had had little taste so far of the color of the underworld, and as yet it still held the glamour of mystery. He would find its tones dark; gray of misery, black of long-used pain and habitual fear; its humor quick and bitter, gallows laughter.
He looked at Evan's keen face, its soft, sensitive lines. He could not explain to him; words are only names for what you already know—and what could Evan know that would prepare him for the hive of human waste that teemed in the shadows of Whitechapel, St. Giles, Bluegate Fields, Seven Dials, or the Devil's Acre? Monk had known hardship himself in childhood; he could remember hunger now—it was coming back to him—and cold, shoes that leaked, clothes that let through the bitter northeast wind, plenty of meals of bread and gravy. He remembered faintly the pain of chilblains, angry itching fire when at last you warmed a little; Beth with chapped lips and white, numb ringers.
But they were not unhappy memories; behind all the small pains there had always been a sense of well-being, a knowledge of eventual safety. They were always clean: clean clothes, however few and however old, clean table, smell of flour and fish, salt wind in the spring and summer when the windows were open.
It was sharper in his mind now; he could recall whole scenes, taste and touch, and always the whine of the wind and the cry of gulls. They had all gone to church on Sundays; he could not bring back everything that had been said, but he could think of snatches of music, solemn and full of the satisfaction of people who believe what they sing, and know they sing it well.
His mother had taught him all his values: honesty, labor and learning. He knew even without her words that she believed it. It was a good memory, and he was more grateful for its return than for any other. It brought with it identity. He could not clearly picture his mother's face; each time he tried it blurred and melted into Beth's, as he had seen her only a few weeks ago, smiling, confident of herself. Perhaps they were not unalike.
Evan was waiting for him, eyes still bright with anticipation of seeing at last the real skill of detection, delving into the heartland of crime.
"Yes." Monk recalled himself. "We shall be free there to pursue as we wish." And no satisfaction for Runcorn, he thought, but he did not add it aloud.
He went back to the door and Evan followed him. There was no point in tidying anything; better to leave it as it was—even that mess might yield a clue, some time.
He was in the hallway, next to the small table, when he
noticed the sticks in the stand. He had seen them before, but he had been too preoccupied with the acts of violence in the room beyond to look closely. Anyway, they already had the stick that had been the weapon. Now he saw that there were still four there. Perhaps since Grey had used a stick to walk with, he had become something of a collector. It would not be unnatural; he had been a man to whom appearance mattered: everything about him said as much. Probably he had a stick for morning, another for evening, a casual one, and a rougher one for the country.
Monk's eye was caught by a dark, straight stick, the color of mahogany and with a fine brass band on it embossed like the links of a chain. It was an extraordinary sensation, hot, almost like a dizziness; it prickled hi his skin—he knew with total clarity that he had seen that stick before, and seen it several times.
Evan was beside him, waiting, wondering why he had stopped. Monk tried to clear his head, to broaden the image till it included where and when, till he saw the man who held it. But nothing came, only the vivid tingle of familiarity—and fear.
"Sir?" Evan's voice was doubtful. He could see no reason for the sudden paralysis. They were both standing in the hallway, frozen, and the only reason was in Monk's mind. And try as he might, bending all the force of his will on it, still he could see nothing but the stick, no man, not even a hand holding it.
"Have you thought of something, sir?" Evan's voice intruded into the intensity of his thought.
"No." Monk moved at last. "No." He must think of something sensible to say, to explain himself, a reason for his behavior. He found the words with difficulty. "I was just wondering where to start. You say Grimwade didn't get any names from those papers?"
"No; but then they wouldn't use their own names anyway, would they?"
"No, of course not, but it would have helped to know what name the screever used for them." It was a foolish
question to have asked, but he must make sense of it. Evan was listening to his every word, as to a teacher. "There are a vast number of screevers in London." He made his voice go on with authority, as if he knew what he was saying, and it mattered. "And I daresay more than one who has forged police papers in the last few weeks."
"Oh—yes, of course," Evan was instantly satisfied. "No, I did ask, before I knew they were burglars, but he didn't notice. He was more interested in the authorization part."
"Oh well." Monk had control of himself again. He opened the door and went out. "I daresay the name of the station will be enough anyway." Evan came out also and he turned and closed the door behind him, locking it.
But when they reached the street Monk changed his mind. He wanted to see Runcorn's face when he heard of the robbery and realized Monk would not be forced to ferret for scandals as the only way to Grey's murderer. There was suddenly and beautifully a new way open to him, where the worst possibility was simple failure; and there was even a chance now of real success, unqualified.
He sent Evan off on a trivial errand, with instructions to meet him again in an hour, and caught a hansom through sunny, noisy streets back to the station. Runcorn was in, and mere was a glow of satisfaction on his face when Monk came into his office.
"Morning, Monk," he said cheerfully. "No further, I see?"
Monk let the pleasure sink a little deeper into him, as one hesitates exquisitely in a hot bath, inching into it to savor each additional moment.
"It is a most surprising case," he answered meaning-lessly, his eyes meeting Runcorn's, affecting concern.
Runcorn's face clouded, but Monk could feel the pleasure in him as if it were an odor in the room.
"Unfortunately the public does not give us credit for amazement," Runcorn replied, stretching out the anticipation. "Just because they are puzzled that does not, in their view, allow us the same privilege. You're not pressing hard enough, Monk." He frowned very slightly and leaned farther back in his chair, the sunlight in a bar through the window falling in on the side of his head. His voice changed to one of unctuous sympathy. "Are you sure you are fully recovered? You don't seem like your old self. You used not to be so—" He smiled as the word pleased him. "So hesitant. Justice was your first aim, indeed your only aim; I've never known you to balk before, even at the most unpleasant inquiries." There was doubt at the very back of his eyes, and dislike. He was balancing between courage and experience, like a man beginning to ride a bicycle. "You believe that very quality was what raised you so far, and so fast." He stopped, waiting; and Monk had a brief vision of spiders resting in the hearts of their webs, knowing flies would come, sooner or later: the time was a matter of delicacy, but they would come.
He decided to play it out a little longer; he wanted to watch Runcorn himself, let him bring his own feelings into the open, and betray his vulnerability.
"This case is different," he answered hesitantly, still putting the anxiety into his manner. He sat down on the chair opposite the desk. "I can't remember any other like it. One cannot make comparison."
Monk decided to split hairs.
"Not really," he demurred. "There is no love story, and the public likes romance above all things. There is no woman."
"No love story?" Runcorn's eyebrows went up.
"I never suspected you of cowardice, Monk; and never, ever of stupidity!" His face twitched with an impossible blend of satisfaction and affected concern. "Are you sure you are quite well?" He leaned forward over the desk again to reinforce the effect. "You don't get headaches, by any chance, do you? It was a very severe blow you received, you know. In fact, I daresay you don't recall it now, but when I first saw you in the hospital you didn't even recognize me."
Monk refused to acknowledge the appalling thought that had come to the edge of his mind.
"Romance?" he asked blankly, as if he had heard nothing after that.
"Joscelin Grey and his sister-in-law!" Runcorn was watching him closely, pretending to be hazy, his eyes a little veiled, but Monk saw the sharp pinpoints under his heavy lids.
"Does the public know of that?" Monk equally easily pretended innocence. "I have not had time to look at newspapers." He pushed out his lip in doubt. "Do you think it was wise to tell them? Lord Shelburne will hardly be pleased!"
The skin across Runcorn's face tightened.
"No of course I didn't tell them yet!" He barely controlled his voice. "But it can only be a matter of time. You cannot put it off forever." There was a hard gleam in his face, almost an appetite. "You have most assuredly changed, Monk. You used to be such a fighter. It is almost as if you were a different person, a stranger to yourself. Have you forgotten how you used to be?"
For a moment Monk was unable to answer, unable to do anything but absorb the shock. He should have guessed it. He had been overconfident, stupidly blind to the obvious. Of course Runcorn knew he had lost his memory. If he had not known from the beginning, then he had surely guessed it in Monk's careful maneuvering, his unaware-ness of their relationship. Runcorn was a professional; he spent his life telling truth from lies, divining motives, uncovering the hidden. What an arrogant fool Monk must have been to imagine he had deceived him. His own stupidity made him flush hot at the embarrassment of it.