"Sorry, miss, you can"t stay that long," the sergeant replied. "Alf an hour."
"I am not "miss", I am Lady Callandra Daviot," she corrected him firmly. "Then be so good as to return in half an hour not twenty-five minutes. And don"t waste the little time I have by standing there eavesdropping. I have nothing secret to say, but it is private, and not your concern." He looked taken aback, but decided he could not afford to be offended.
"Yes, my lady," he obeyed, locking the door sharply behind him as he retreated.
There was a flash of humour in Kristian"s face, but it died immediately. He struggled to find something to say that was not absurd, and discarded each idea as it came to him.
"Stop it!" she said sharply. "Stop trying to be polite! We have to talk about what matters. Half an hour will go by far too quickly as it is." She saw relief in his eyes, and then fear, real and deep, gouging into the heart of her. It shocked her more than anything physical could have done. But before she could respond to it, it was masked, gone again by an effort of will.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.
There was nowhere to sit down but the cot, and she was not going to sit side by side with him on that. It was low and awkward.
"Oliver Rathbone is in Italy, so Pendreigh has offered to conduct your defence," she said abruptly.
He breathed in surprised, not certain if he had heard correctly if he should believe it.
"He is certain you are not guilty," she added.
Bitterness filled his face and he turned away from her. "Not guilty," he repeated the words softly. "Not guilty of what? I didn"t put my hands around her neck and break it, certainly. I was with a patient. I may have miscalculated the time, but not the essential facts." His voice dropped still lower, filled with bitterness. "But am I "not guilty" of ignoring her, allowing her to fall further and further into gambling and debt and the kind of desperate boredom that took her to Allardyce"s studio, alone, where she could be killed?" Callandra wanted to deny it immediately. It was an absurd a.s.sumption of responsibility for someone else"s weaknesses, but she could hear in the strain of his voice that it was more real to him than the physical imprisonment of his own circ.u.mstances. Perhaps it was easier to consider that kind of guilt than the future, and the accusations he would have to answer in court.
He straightened his shoulders but he still did not turn to face her.
His voice shook when he spoke again. "She was so full of life in Vienna. She made every other woman look grey in comparison. She would have stayed there, you know? It was I who was sick to the heart of it and wanted to come to England." Callandra said nothing. She sensed in him the need to talk; she was only the audience for something he was saying to himself, perhaps putting into words for the first time.
"She would have gone to Paris, Milan, Rome, anywhere that the struggle was still going on. But I brought her here and turned her into a housewife to spend her time ordering groceries and exchanging gossip about the daily trivia of lives she saw as perfectly safe and ordered, and with nothing on earth to fight for!"
"What absolute rubbish!" she exploded in real anger. "There is everything to fight for, and you know that, even if she did not! There is ignorance and pain to battle, disease, crime, selfishness, domestic and social violence, prejudice, authority, bigotry and injustice of every kind and colour. And when you have conquered all of those, you can always try addressing poverty, madness, and perfectly ordinary dirt! Or if those seem too large and indeterminate, what about common or garden loneliness and fear of death, hungry children with no one to tell them they are good... and lonely old people neglected by the rest of us in a hurry, and too busy to listen any more? If she didn"t find that exciting enough, or glorious, that is not your fault!" He turned slowly to face her, for a moment surprise sharper in his face than anything else. "Honest to the last," he said. "You really are angry! Thank you at least for not patronising me with false comfort.
But I did ignore her. I knew her and if I had thought more of her and less of myself I would not have tried to change her. Her gambling was beyond control, and I didn"t do anything about it. I argued with her, of course. I pleaded, I threatened, reasoned. But I didn"t look at the cause, because that would have meant I would have to change as well, and I was not prepared to."
"It"s too late for that now, Kristian," Callandra replied. "We have only fifteen minutes left at the most, before the constable comes back.
Pendreigh will defend you in court. I don"t know whether he expects to be paid for it or not. He may do it simply out of belief, and because he would naturally prefer that you were shown to be not guilty, because it reflects less badly on his daughter if she were killed by someone outside the family. It raises less unfortunate speculation in the minds of others. And if he is in control of the defence, he can exercise some restraint over the exploration of her character by the counsel for the prosecution. At least he can do all that anyone could."
"I can"t pay him," Kristian said ruefully. "Surely he is as aware of that as I am?"
"I imagine so. But if the matter arises I shall take care of it..." She saw his embarra.s.sment, but there was no time to be sensitive to it now. "I think money is the last thing that concerns him at the moment," she said honestly. "He is simply a proud man trying with every skill he has to rescue what is left of his family the truth of how his daughter died, and a.s.surance that the wrong man is not punished for it, and some remnant of her reputation preserved as the brave and vital woman she was." Kristian blinked suddenly and his marvelous eyes flooded with tears. He turned sharply away from her. "She was..." his voice choked.
Callandra felt awkward, lumpy and ordinary, and bitterly alone. But she could not afford the self-indulgence of her own hurt. There would be plenty of time for that later, perhaps years.
"Kristian someone killed her." She had not intended it to sound as brutal as it did at least most of her had not. "The best defence would be to find who it is." He kept his back to her. "Do you not think that if I knew I would have told you? Told everyone?"
"If you were aware that you knew, yes, of course," she agreed. "But it was nothing to do with Sarah Mackeson, except that she was unfortunate enough to be there, and it was not Argo Allardyce. We have exhausted the likelihood of it being anyone who wanted to collect money she owed, and make an example of her so others would be more in dread not to pay their debts."
"Have you?"
"Yes. William a.s.sures me that gamblers will injure people to make them pay, or even murder those whose deaths would become known among other gamblers, but not to cause a major police investigation like this. It draws far too much attention to them. Gambling houses get closed down.
Anywhere she had been is likely to face a lot of trouble. It would be stupid. They are not at all happy that she was killed. They have lost business because of it, and no doubt Runcorn will close the house when he is ready."
"Good!"
"Not permanently," she responded with the truth, and then wished she had not.
"Not permanently?" He looked back at her slowly.
"No. They"ll simply open up somewhere else, behind an apothecary"s shop, or milliner"s, or whatever. It will cost them a little outlay, a little profit, that"s all." He was too weary to be angry. "Of course. It"s a hydra."
"It has to have been someone else," she repeated. "Someone personal." He did not answer.
There was silence in the cell, but it was as if she could hear a clock ticking away the seconds. "I am going to ask William to go to Vienna and find Max Niemann." He stared at her. "That"s absurd! Max would never have hurt her, let alone killed her! If you knew him you wouldn"t even entertain the thought for an instant!" Then who did?" She stared straight back at him, meeting his eyes unrelentingly. It hurt to see the fear deep in them, the loyalties struggling, the pain. But she had seen death often when she had accompanied her husband abroad on his duties. As an army surgeon"s wife she had mixed with other military wives on various postings in Europe, and often she had lent what a.s.sistance she could to those who were injured or ill. She had no practical training as Hester had had, but intelligence served for much, and experience had taught her more.
Her husband had died before the Crimean War, or she would have seen that terrible conflict too.
"Not Max," Kristian insisted, but there was less certainty in his eyes, and he knew that she had seen it. "He loved her," he repeated.
"Callandra " She could not wait. The constable would be back any moment now. "What was she meeting him for?" she asked.
He winced. His voice was very quiet. "I don"t know. I didn"t know he was in London until the funeral."
"And I imagine you did not know the other times he was in London this year either?" He started to deny it, and then stopped, seeing the truth in her face.
"He was here at least twice before," she told him. "He saw Elissa, and not you. Doesn"t that call for some explanation?" Kristian"s face was ashen grey. She could only guess how much the thought of Max"s guilt hurt him. It was a double betrayal on top of the loss, but turning from it now altered nothing, except placed the truth one step further away, and his own life in even greater danger.
Those were words she could say while still refusing to picture their meaning. At least while she was talking, thinking of what to do, she could keep it at bay.
"If not Max Niemann, who else?" she demanded. Her voice sounded peremptory, even hostile. "Kristian! There is no time to be keeping secrets!" His eyes opened wide. "I don"t know! For G.o.d"s sake, Callandra, I have no idea! She came and went and I barely saw her! We used to be allies in a great cause, friends and lovers once. The last two or three years we"ve been strangers meeting in the same house and exchanging empty words. I was consumed in my own causes, and I knew hers were demons, taking us both to destruction, but I didn"t know what to do about it and I didn"t alter my own cause enough to find out." Guilt was naked in him. She saw it and could not argue. Perhaps he had deliberately not tackled something which was demanding and dangerous, and which he feared was going to eat away a part of him he needed to keep. Perhaps Elissa had been every bit as lonely as he, and equally unable to do anything about it.
No, that was an excuse. She would have been more so. She had no occupation to use her pa.s.sion and her intellect, to fill her time. Even an hour ago Callandra could not have imagined feeling deep and hurting pity for Elissa Beck, however much she had wasted her talents and ignored all the causes Callandra could name. But now she could not escape pity, nor could she wholly excuse Kristian, for all her furious words.
He saw it in her face. He did not try to evade it, but accepted the unspoken change.
"I"ll ask William to go to Vienna," she said again.
He was about to speak when they both heard the constable"s footsteps loud and sharp along the corridor. There was no time for anything except the briefest of goodbyes before she was escorted out, and back up the steps to the entrance, gulping in the tainted air of the street, the sunlight and the everyday noises of horses and wheels and people shouting and jostling, exactly as if life were as always.
She found her carriage and gave orders to go straight to Monk"s house in Grafton Street.
She found him in, as she had expected. It was still only early afternoon, and they had no plan to follow yet, no ideas to pursue.
Again Callandra did not pretend to the usual courtesies. As soon as the door was closed she began. "I can think of nothing we can do except pursue Max Niemann," she told Monk and Hester. "Kristian says he is certain Niemann could not be guilty, but I think that is loyalty speaking rather than realism." She ignored the sudden widening of Monk"s eyes. "It seems from the evidence that Mrs. Beck was bored and hungering for excitement such as she had known in the past," she continued relentlessly. "Perhaps she was remembering her days in Vienna with regret compared with the present. Niemann turns up in London, still in love with her, remembering her as she was." She took a deep breath, avoiding Monk"s eyes, and Hester"s also. "She may have led him to suppose she returned his feelings, and then realised what she was doing and changed her mind. We will probably never know what was said, or quite what emotions drew him. People in love can do things they would be incapable of in other circ.u.mstances." What an idiotically facile understatement! She dared not even guess what lunacy she herself could commit! Friends of a lifetime would think she had lost her wits, and probably they were right.
"He will have gone back to Vienna now," Monk was saying reasonably. Was that pity in his voice?
It stung her. She felt peculiarly naked in his gaze which saw so much.
His own vulnerability had made him attuned to the weaknesses of others, even those he cared for, and on whose grief or foolishness he would rather not have trespa.s.sed.
"I a.s.sumed he had!" she said crisply. "If not, then I have very little idea where to look for him. Also I know of no one in London, except for Kristian who will hear no ill of him, who can tell us anything of what manner of man he is."
"Vienna?" Hester said in surprise, looking from Callandra to Monk.
"Can you think of anything better?" Callandra asked. She sounded more defiant than she had intended, but she did not apologise.
"I don"t know Vienna," Monk said hesitantly. "And I have no German at all." He gave a slight, embarra.s.sed shrug. "I should be no use.
Perhaps I could find someone who would?"
"I need a detective, not an errand boy!" Callandra snapped, fear eating away at her self-control. "If we don"t succeed, Kristian could hang!" She had put it into words at last. Only anger gave her any semblance of dignity.
"I"ll find someone to translate for me," he said with sudden gentleness, "and to guide me around the city. Perhaps the British Emba.s.sy can help. I"m perfectly happy to lie to them. Kristian is not British, but Elissa was, and Pendreigh"s name might help. From what you say, he has friends in powerful places." The relief in Callandra was visible, like colour returning. "Yes...
I"ll write letters. There"s bound to be someone who can spare the time to go with you. You"ll have to be discreet that you"re considering an Austrian subject may be responsible for murder." Her face darkened again. "I don"t know how you will be able to bring him back to London.
Perhaps it doesn"t matter, if you could show that he is guilty or even that it is extremely likely." She stopped. They all knew that an acquittal for lack of proof would ruin Kristian. He would be free, but only physically. Emotionally he would be imprisoned in the suspicion for the rest of his life.
It was a mark of how desperate they were that they even considered it.
Hester glanced at Callandra, and then away again. Monk saw her do it, and knew how intrusive and helpless she felt. And yet he had racked his mind over what they might do, even the most ridiculous things, and nothing was better than this.
"I"ll go as soon as I"ve spoken to Kristian, and you"ve written some letters of introduction for me," he promised.
"You"ll ask about Niemann, his character, his reputation, especially with women, won"t you?" Callandra urged. "Someone is bound to know if he had a temper, if he was obsessive about Elissa. There may be stories about the past that someone will know." Her voice was gathering speed, a semblance of conviction in her face. "If he really loved her all that time, as Pendreigh says, then his closest friends will be aware of it! You"ll have to be careful, of course. They won"t want to believe ill of him, and certainly not to " "Callandra!" he interrupted. "I know what is necessary. I"ll do all that. I"ll even bring people back to testify, if I find anything worth telling the court, I promise." She coloured very faintly, but she was not ashamed. The slight treading on someone else"s feelings did not matter. She could think of only one thing proving that Kristian could be innocent. "I"m sorry," she said briefly. "I wish I were coming with you, but someone must be here, apart from Pendreigh, to see to all that must be done." She did not add "and to pay", but they all knew it was so.
"It is very well you are not!" Monk said crisply. "I don"t need my elbow jogged every time I open my mouth." She gave him a sharp look, but there was a vestige of the old humour in it, which was what he intended, even though he meant every word of the remark.
They parted, Hester to make enquiries as to the best way to travel to Vienna, and with money from Callandra to make the necessary bookings.
Monk himself went to see Kristian and ask for as much guidance as he could obtain, and Callandra to see Pendreigh and secure all the a.s.sistance he could offer.
It was now late afternoon and the fog was returning, but Callandra was perfectly prepared to wait for Pendreigh at his home as long as necessary.
She was received by the footman with civility and told with exaggerated patience that Mr. Pendreigh was unable to receive her without an appointment. He was engaged on a case of great importance and could not be interrupted.
Callandra forced herself to be courteous, putting a smile on her face which felt like something painted on a mask. "Naturally. However, if you give him a note, which I will write, if you are good enough to lend me a pen and paper, I believe that he will wish to make time for me."
"Madame..."
"Are you empowered to make family decisions for Mr. Pendreigh?" she asked, her politeness suddenly icy.
"Well "I thought not. Be so good as to oblige me and I shall write to him, and he can decide as he will!" The pen and paper were forthcoming, and she wrote a brief note: My dear Mr. Pendreigh, I am about to dispatch William Monk to Vienna to trace all possible leads in the matter which concerns us both. This must be done with the greatest haste, for reasons you will appreciate as well as I.
Unfortunately I have no friends in that city, and am unable to call upon a.s.sistance for him myself. Therefore if you have any advice or practical help to offer, I should be most profoundly grateful for it. I am in the outer room of your chambers, and await your reply, in order to carry it to Monk before he departs tonight.
Yours most sincerely, Callandra Daviot The response was immediate. A very startled footman returned and conducted her to the study where Pendreigh rose to his feet, coming around the desk to greet her. He had obviously dismissed another matter in order to see her again. There were papers all over his magnificent walnut desk. The room smelled of cigar smoke, almost dizzying Callandra with old memories of her husband and his friends, long evenings of argument and conversation, talk of war and medicine and the lunacy of politicians.
But that was the past. The present crowded in, dismissing everything else.
"So Monk has agreed to go to Vienna?" Pendreigh said eagerly. "That is the best news I have heard in ... days! I am loath to think it could be Niemann, but what other explanation is there? Runcorn a.s.sures me it is not debt," he glossed over the euphemism, "and since apparently it cannot be Allardyce, it seems the only explanation left." His face was tense, his eyes hot blue, as if emotions burned behind them he could neither hide nor share, but they seemed to consume him from within. "Lady Callandra, my daughter was an extraordinary woman." His voice shook a little. "If Monk can learn the details of her time in Vienna, of those who loved her, and perhaps envied her, he may well find the key to what happened in Acton Street. She was a woman of the kind of brilliance, the fire that arouses " "He will need help." She cut across his emotion gently, and only because time did not allow it. "Someone who knows the city and can interpret for him so that he can find the people he needs, and ask what he has to in language precise and subtle enough for the answers to have meaning."
"Yes, yes, of course," Pendreigh agreed with slight self-consciousness for his emotion. "Naturally. I shall write to the British Amba.s.sador.
He is a friend of mine not close, but we have done each other favours in the past. He will not hesitate to provide someone to a.s.sist. I dare say he will have friends who were there thirteen years ago, and will be familiar with the circ.u.mstances of the uprising. Monk will not find it difficult. Elissa will never be forgotten." His eyes shone, and for a moment the last few weeks were washed away. His voice was soft. "If he could bring back an account of how she was then, of her courage, her love of the people and how she inspired them to fight, to sacrifice anything for the cause of freedom, that may explain Niemann"s behaviour." He blinked rapidly. "Tell Monk to find someone who will describe the fighting at the barricades, the camaraderie of danger, how they lived, their pa.s.sions and loyalties. Make the court here see what she was truly like. It will be the best epitaph for her. She deserves that." His voice cracked and he looked away. "Not the woman they will try to present who owed money to sordid little men who never knew anything of her as she really was, men who never had a cause to fight for but their own greed." He raised his eyes to look at Callandra fully, intensely. "Bring back something that will make them understand how a man could lose his senses over her so that he never forgot her, even thirteen years later, when she was married to his friend, and how he could still feel for her so overwhelmingly that he lost all judgement and morality, so that her rejection of him made him feel as if his whole life was slipping out of his grasp. She was unique, irreplaceable by anyone else." He stopped abruptly, recalling himself to the present only with the severest effort of will. His hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and steadied his voice. "I wish I could go myself, see the places, speak to the people, but I must stay here and prepare the case.
I have been advised that it will be very soon. The Crown believe that they have all the evidence they require to proceed." He lifted one shoulder very slightly, barely a shrug. "I ... I hardly know where to begin. Kristian is a fine man, but opinionated. He has made many enemies among those in power in the hospital authorities, and very few friends. Those he has served are the poor and the sick, and in many cases, I"m afraid, those already dead. No doubt they would swear he had the patience of a saint and limitless compa.s.sion, but they are beyond our reach." He stared at her steadily. "Impress upon Monk the utmost importance of his errand, Lady Callandra. And please permit me to a.s.sist in the cost of it." He returned to the desk and opened one of the drawers. He produced several gold coins and a treasury note. He held them all out.
"I shall transfer to your bank a hundred pounds, but in the meantime, take this for his immediate needs, with my deepest grat.i.tude." She did not require it her own funds were ample, and to defend Kristian she would have given everything she possessed but she sensed his need to give as well, and she accepted it.
He returned to the desk and sat down, putting pen and paper towards him to begin to write in a large, generous scrawl.
She waited, with the first lift of hope she had felt in days. Perhaps in Vienna Monk would find the truth, and prove Kristian"s innocence.
Afterwards, when Kristian was free, she would bear the confusion of discovering Elissa Beck was a heroine, brave and beautiful, funny and kind.
"Thank you," she said, taking the letter when it was finished. "Thank you very much." Monk was not surprised to see Kristian looking haggard, almost shrunken, as if the shock of Elissa"s murder and his own arrest had drained the heart out of him, and even something of the physical substance. Monk had seen it before in other men.
"I"m going to Vienna," he said quickly, knowing they had only minutes.
"I need all the help you can give me." Kristian shook his head. "I can"t believe Max would have killed her," he said quietly. "Quarrelled, perhaps, lost his temper with her for what she was doing, that she was... wasting herself." The pain in his voice was like a razor edge. "And even what she was costing me, and the work I believe in. But he wouldn"t have hurt her!" It was brutal to discuss it, but neither of them could afford to be gentle at the expense of reality.
"Niemann came over here to see Elissa... not you," Monk said.
"Several times." He saw Kristian wince, and the confusion in his face.
Kristian shook his head. "He wouldn"t have hurt her," he repeated, his voice hoa.r.s.e.
"Her neck was broken in one movement," Monk reminded him. "It was probably like this." He put his arm in front of him, as if he were holding one hand over someone"s mouth, and crushing their body to his chest with the other. He made a swift movement. "As if they had struggled and he had tried to hold them, wrenching around, perhaps one foot on hers." Kristian shuddered and his mouth pulled strangely twisted.
"He probably didn"t mean to kill her," Monk went on. "Perhaps only to stop her crying out." Kristian closed his eyes. "And Sarah Mackeson?" he said in a whisper.
"Whoever killed her meant to!" He shuddered convulsively. Imagination, or a memory too hideous to bear? Or the realisation that Max Niemann could be guilty after all "Tell me about him," Monk demanded tensely. "Kristian! For G.o.d"s sake, give me all you can! I need to find the truth! If it isn"t Niemann, then I need to know that. But someone killed them...
both!" Kristian made an effort to regain his composure and appeared to concentrate, but still he said nothing, as if the past enclosed him in its reality and the present ceased to be.
"Somebody"s going to the rope for it!" Monk said brutally. "If you didn"t kill them, don"t let it be you! Are you protecting someone?" He had no idea who. Why should Kristian die to save Max Niemann? Or to hide something that had happened in Vienna thirteen years ago? Kristian couldn"t possibly think Callandra had any part in it! Did he even know how much she loved him? Monk doubted it.
"I"m not defending anyone!" Kristian said with startling force, almost anger. "I just don"t know what to tell you! I haven"t any idea who killed them, or why! Do you think I want to hang or that I don"t realise that I almost certainly will?" He managed to say the words with superb control, but looking at his eyes Monk saw the fear in them, black and bottomless, without faith to build a bridge over the void, nothing but courage. And when at the very last he was utterly alone, with his body"s pain, and oblivion in front of him all love and friendship and pity left behind there would be nothing to hold on to.
"Tell me where to look!" Monk grated between his teeth, horrified by the vision himself, aware that the similarity between them was far more profound than any difference. "Where did you live? Who were your friends? Who do I look for to ask?" Reluctantly, each one an effort, Kristian gave him half a dozen names and addresses in three different streets. There was no lift of hope in his voice, no belief.
"She was beautiful," he said softly. "They"ll all say that. I don"t mean her face..." He dismissed it as trivial, but Monk could not. He saw in his mind the haunting loveliness of the woman on Allardyce"s canvas. That face was full of pa.s.sion, dreaming just beyond the grasp, inviting the onlooker to dare anything, imagine the impossible and love it, need it enough to follow her to the ends of the earth.
"I mean the heart of her," Kristian went on. "The will to live, the courage to meet anything. She lit the fire that warmed us all." Was it memory speaking, or wish, or the kind of emotion that gilds the recollection of people who are loved and lost? Or was it guilt trying to make up for the gulf that had grown between them since then? Would Monk find in Vienna the truth about Kristian as well?
He wrote down what Kristian gave him, then tried to think of something to say in parting which would convey what he wanted to. It was impossible. Frustration! He couldn"t express his hunger to believe that Kristian was innocent, not only for his sake but for Callandra"s, because she was in love with him, and Monk knew what it was to be in love.
He wanted Kristian"s innocence for Hester, because she believed in him, and would be so hurt for them all. Even for Pendreigh because he would not be able to contain the disillusion about his daughter if it had been a tragic domestic crime after all Perhaps also for the woman who stared out of Allardyce"s canvas, and surely deserved better than to end a crumpled heap on a studio floor, killed by accident or purpose by a husband she had destroyed in her crazy compulsion, throwing away everything on the turn of a piece of coloured cardboard not after she had fought for everything that mattered infinitely, known freedom and dignity, the right of strangers to govern their own destiny.