Funeral in Blue (12 page)

Runcorn grunted, anger flickering across his face, then unhappiness. “Would have been a good answer. Wonder how long she’d been doing it and how much she lost?”

Monk felt the heat under his skin and the sweat drip down his body. Damn Runcorn for making him unable to lie to him anymore. Damn him for being real, and for finding an honesty in himself that made him impossible to ignore. Perhaps he could get by with a half-truth? No, he couldn’t! If Runcorn found out, and he would, he would despise Monk for it. He had patronized Runcorn in the past, bypassed him as not worthy of being told the truth, but he had never told him a face-to-face lie. That was the coward’s way.

There was no more time.

“A lot,” he said, hating the betrayal of Kristian, knowing that Hester had not meant him to tell Runcorn.

Runcorn’s eyes widened slightly. “How do you know?”

“Hester went to see Kristian last night. She told me.” He tried to make his voice final, closing the subject. Surely, Allardyce would come back any moment now? He had had time to wash and shave and dress fully.

Runcorn hesitated, drew in a long breath. He decided not to press it farther. Something in him sensed a victory, a balance. He turned away. “Mr. Allardyce!” he called.

Allardyce appeared in the doorway holding a mug of tea in one hand. He was shaved and dressed, and he looked composed. “What now?” he said glumly. “I already told you that I know nothing. Hell! Don’t you think if I knew who did it I’d tell you?” He waved his free arm angrily, slopping the tea in the other hand. “Look what it’s done to my life!”

Runcorn forbore from answering the last question. “This public house you say you were at . . .”

“The Bull and Half Moon,” Allardyce supplied. “What about it?”

“Where is it, exactly?”

“Rotherhithe Street, Southwark.”

“Rather a long way to go for a drink?” Runcorn raised his eyebrows.

“That’s why I spent the night,” Allardyce said reasonably. “Too far to come home, and it was a filthy night. Could hear the foghorns on the river every few minutes. The Pool was thick as pea soup. Never understand how they don’t hit each other more often.”

“So why go that far?” Monk asked.

Allardyce shrugged. “Got good friends that way. Knew they’d put me up, if necessary. If I stayed home every time there was fog I’d never go anywhere. Ask Gilbert Strother. Lives in Great Hermitage Street, in Wapping. Don’t know the number. You’ll have to ask. Somewhere around the middle. Has a door with an angel on it. He did a sketch of us all. He’ll tell you.”

“I’ll do that,” Runcorn agreed, thin-lipped.

“Look, I can’t tell you anything useful,” Allardyce went on. “I’ve got a friend hurt in that pileup in Drury Lane. I want to go and see him. Broke his leg, poor devil.”

“What pileup?” Runcorn said suspiciously.

“Horse bolted. Two carriages got locked together and a dray got turned sideways and lost its load. Must have been twenty kegs burst open at least—raw sugar syrup. Said he’d never seen such a mess in his life. Stopped up Drury Lane all evening.”

“When was that?”

Allardyce’s face tightened. “The night of the murders.” He stared at Runcorn and suddenly his eyes filled with tears. He blinked angrily and turned away.

“Mr. Allardyce,” Monk said quietly, “when Mrs. Beck came for the sittings, who did she bring with her?”

Allardyce frowned.

“As chaperone,” Monk added.

Allardyce gave a burst of laughter. “A friend, once or twice, but she only came as far as the door. Never knew her name.” His face darkened, his mouth turned down a little at the ends. “She met the man here three or four times. I suppose you know about that?”

“What man?” Runcorn snapped.

“Dark. Strong face. Interesting. Wouldn’t mind drawing him sometime, but I never met him. Don’t know his name.”

“Draw him now!” Runcorn commanded.

Allardyce walked over to the table and picked up a block of paper and a stick of charcoal. With a dozen or so lines he created a very recognizable sketch of Max Niemann. He turned it towards Runcorn.

“Max Niemann, Beck’s ally in Vienna,” Monk told him.

“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” Runcorn was furious, his face mottling with dark color.

Allardyce was pale. “Because they were good friends . . . or more,” he replied, his voice rising. “And I have no idea if he was anywhere near here that night. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting Elissa, or I’d have been here myself. If she met this man Niemann, it wouldn’t be in my studio. I assume the murderer was some old lover of Sarah’s, or something of that sort, and Elissa just picked the wrong time to call in. Perhaps she wanted to see if the portrait was finished . . . or something.”

Runcorn gave him a withering look, but since it was more or less what he was inclined to believe himself, there was little argument to make. “We’d better find out a great deal more about Sarah Mackeson,” he said instead.

“I’ve told you all I know,” Allardyce said uneasily, all the anger draining from his face and leaving only sadness. “I gave all that to your man: where she was born, where she grew up, as far as she told me. She didn’t talk about herself.”

“I know . . . I know.” Runcorn was irritated. It woke a mixture of feelings in him—pity because the woman was dead, duty because it was his task to find out who had killed her and see that the guilty person faced the law to answer for it. At the same time he despised her morality. It offended every desire for decency in him, the love of rules to live by and order he could understand. He turned to Monk. “We’d better get on with it, then.” His eyes widened. “If you’re interested, that is?”

“I’m interested,” Monk accepted.

They bade Allardyce good-bye and went back down the stairs into the street, where Runcorn pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I’m going to start with Mrs. Ethel Roberts, who used to employ her as a milliner’s assistant. You can go to see Mrs. Clark, who took her in now and then. I’ll leave you to find out for what.” His expression conveyed his opinion of the possibilities. “We’ll meet up at that pub on the corner of North Street and the Caledonian Road, can’t remember what it’s called. Be there at one!” And with that he thrust the piece of paper into Monk’s hand and turned abruptly to cross the street, leaving Monk standing on the curb in the sun and noise, the increasing rattle of traffic, street vendors’ cries for their shellfish, cheeses, razors, shirt buttons, rat poison.

He found Mrs. Clark in a boardinghouse in Risinghill Street, north of the Pentonville Road, just beyond a tobacconist’s shop with a Highlander on the sign to denote to the illiterate what it was he sold. Inside the boardinghouse, the air in the hall smelled of stale polish and yesterday’s cooking, but the house was cleaner than some he had seen, and there was a cheerful clatter of dishes, and a voice singing, coming from somewhere towards the back.

He followed the sound of it and knocked on the open kitchen door. It was a large room with a scrubbed stone floor, a wooden table in the middle and on the stove a pan was boiling briskly, the steam jiggling the lid. In the stone scullery beyond he could see three huge wooden sinks filled with linen soaking, and on a shelf above them big jars of lye, fat, potash and blue. A washboard was balanced in one sink, and in the other was a laundry dolly, used to push the clothes up and down within the copper when they needed to be boiled. He appeared to have interrupted Mrs. Clark on her wash day.

She was a rotund woman, ample-bosomed and broad-hipped, with short, plump arms. Her blue sleeves were pushed up untidily. An apron which had seen very much better days was tied around her waist and slipping to one side. She pushed her hair back off her face and turned from the bowl where she was peeling potatoes, the knife still in her hand.

“Can’t do nuthin’ for yer, luv,” she said amiably. “Ain’t got room ter ’ouse a cat! Could try Mrs. Last down the street. Number fifty-six. In’t as comfy as me, but what can yer do?” She smiled at him, showing several gaps in her teeth. “My, aren’t yer the swell, then? Got all yer money on yer back, ’ave yer?”

Monk smiled in spite of himself. There was a time when that would have been true. Even now there was a stronger element in it than perhaps for most men.

“You read people pretty well, Mrs. Clark,” he replied.

“Gotter,” she acknowledged. “It’s me business.” She looked him up and down appreciatively. “Sorry as I can’t ’elp yer. I like a man wot knows ’ow ter look ’is best. Like I said, try Mrs. Last.”

“Actually, I wasn’t looking for lodgings.” He had already decided to be candid with her. “I’m told you used to give Sarah Mackeson a room now and then, when times were rough.”

Her face hardened. “So what’s that ter you, then? Yer got ideas about her, yer can forget ’em. She’s an artists’ model now, and good at it she is, too.” She stopped abruptly, defiance in her stare.

“Very good,” Monk agreed, seeing in his mind the pictures Allardyce had painted of Sarah. “But she was killed, and I want to know who did it.”

It was brutal, and Mrs. Clark swayed a little before leaning against the table heavily, the color draining from her face.

“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized. It had not occurred to him that she might not know and that she had cared about Sarah, and suddenly he realized how much he had concentrated on the reality of Elissa Beck and forgotten the other woman and those who might have known her and would be wounded by her death. On the other hand, if Mrs. Clark knew her well enough to feel her loss deeply, then perhaps she could give him some better information about her.

She fumbled behind her for the chair, and he stepped forward quickly and placed it so she could sit down.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t know you were close to her.”

She sniffed fiercely and glared at him, ignoring her brimming eyes and daring him to comment. “I liked ’er, poor little cow,” she said tartly. “ ’Oo wouldn’t? Did ’er best. So wot yer want ’ere, then? I don’t know ’oo killed ’er!”

He fetched the other chair and sat down opposite her. “You might be able to tell me something about her which would help.”

“Why? Wot der you care?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “ ’Oo are yer, any’ow? Yer never said. Yer just came bargin’ in ’ere like the rent collector, only I don’t owe no rent. This place is me own. So explain yerself. I don’t care ’ow swell yer look, I in’t tellin’ yer nothin’ as I don’t want ter.”

He tried to put it in terms she would grasp. “I’m a kind of private policeman. I work for people who want to know the truth of something and pay me to find out.”

“An’ ’oo cares ’oo killed a poor little cow like Sarah Mackeson, then?” she said derisively. “She in’t got nobody. ’Er pa were a navvy wot got killed diggin’ the railways an’ ’er ma died years ago. She’s got a couple o’ brothers someplace, but she never knew where.”

“The wife of a friend of mine was murdered with her,” he replied. There was a kind of dignity in this woman, with her crooked apron and straggling hair, that demanded the truth from him, or at least no lies.

“There were two of ’em done?” she said with horror. “Geez! ’Oo’d do a thing like that? Poor Sarah!”

He smiled at her very slightly, an acknowledgment.

She sniffed and stood up, turning her back to him. Without explaining, she filled the kettle and put it on the hob, then fetched a china teapot and two mugs.

“I’ll tell yer wot I know,” she remarked while she waited for the water to boil. “Wot in’t much. She used ter do quite well sometimes, and bad others. If she were in an ’ard patch she’d come ’ere an’ I’d find ’er a bed for a spell. She’d always turn ’er ’and ter cookin’ an’ cleanin’ as return. Din’t expec’ summink fer nuffink. Honest, she were, in ’er own fashion. An’ generous.” She kept her back to him as the steam started to whistle in the spout.

He did not press her in what way; he understood it from her turned back. She was not willing to put words to it.

“Anyone in particular?” he asked, quite casually.

“Arthur Cutter,” she said, bringing the teapot over to the table and putting it down. “ ’E’s a right waster, but ’e wouldn’t ’ave ’urt ’er. It would ’a bin some o’ them daft artist people. I always told ’er they was no good.” She sniffed again and reached for a piece of cloth in her apron pocket. She blew her nose savagely and then poured the tea for both of them, not bothering to ask if he wanted milk or sugar, but assuming both. Monk disliked sugar intensely, but he made no comment, simply thanking her.

“How did she get in with the artists?” he asked.

Now she seemed willing to talk. She rambled on, telling and retelling, but a vivid picture of Sarah Mackeson emerged from a mixture of memory, opinion and anger. Fourteen years ago, aged eighteen, she had arrived in Risinghill Street without a penny but willing to work. Within weeks her handsome figure and truly beautiful hair and eyes had attracted attention, some of it welcome, much of it beyond her skill to deal with.

Mrs. Clark had taken her in and taught her a good deal about caring for herself and learning to play one admirer off against another in order to survive. Within a few months she had found a protector prepared to take her as his mistress and give her a very pleasant standard of living.

It lasted four years, until he grew bored and found another eighteen-year-old and began again. Sarah had come back to Risinghill Street, wiser and a good deal more careful. She found work in a public house, the Hare and Billet, about half a mile away, and it was there that a young artist had seen her and hired her to sit for him.

Over a space of a couple of years she had improved her skill as a model, and finally Argo Allardyce had persuaded her to leave Risinghill Street and go to Acton Street to be at his disposal any time he should wish. She kept a room nearby, when she could afford it, but more often than not she had to let it go.

“Was she in love with Allardyce?” Monk asked.

Mrs. Clark poured more tea. “ ’Course she was, poor creature,” she said tartly. “Wot do you think? Told ’er she were beautiful, an’ ’e meant it. So she was, too. But she were no lady, an’ she never imagined she were. Knew ’er limits. That were part of ’er trouble. Never thought she were more’n pretty. Never thought no one’d care for ’er once ’er skin and ’er figure went.”