Funeral in Blue (32 page)

“If they find Beck not guilty”—Runcorn’s voice cut across the silence—“then we’ll have to start again. Somebody killed those women, one maybe accidentally, but not the second. She was on purpose.” He did not add anything about her, but the emotion was in his voice, and when Monk looked up at him, the anger, the expression, the defensiveness were in his face as well.

“Yes, I know,” Monk agreed. “Niemann will testify anyway, for whatever good that will do. He can at least show them that Kristian was a hero in the uprising.”

“And that she was a heroine,” Runcorn added relentlessly. “And perhaps that they were in love. That could help. And that she was reckless of her own safety.”

“Why was she so drawn to danger?” Monk said, staring not at Runcorn but at the black kitchen stove and the poker sitting upright in the half-empty coke scuttle. “Did she really imagine she could always win?”

“Some people are like that,” Runcorn replied, confusion in his voice. He did not even expect to understand. “Even as if they’re looking to be . . . I don’t know . . . swamped by something bigger than they are. Seen children like it, go on taunting until they get walloped, sometimes black an’ blue. Kind of attention. With grown people, I don’t know . . .” He put more sugar into his tea and stirred it. “Some people will do anything to survive. Others seem to want to destroy themselves. Pick ’em out of trouble, and they get straight back into it, almost as if they didn’t feel alive if they weren’t afraid. Always trying to prove something.”

Monk picked up his cup. It was not quite hot enough anymore, but he could not be bothered to get the kettle and add to it. “It’s a bit late now. I’ll go and see Pendreigh in the morning.”

Runcorn nodded.

Neither of them said anything about how Callandra would feel, or Hester, about loyalties, or pain, or compromise, but it had already torn dreams apart inside Monk as he walked towards the door, and he could not even imagine the hurt that lay ahead.

At the front door they looked at each other for only a moment, and then Monk stepped out into the rain.

The judge allowed a slight delay for Pendreigh to speak alone to Max Niemann. He had already given the judge notification that he would call Niemann as a witness, in the hope that Monk would be able to bring him back from Vienna. However, he still needed to have a clearer idea of what Niemann could contribute to the defense.

It was nearly half past ten when, in a hushed and crowded courtroom, Max Niemann walked across the empty space of floor, climbed up the steep steps to the witness stand and swore to his name and that he lived in Vienna.

Pendreigh stood below him, picked out as in a spotlight by the sudden blaze of sunlight through the high windows above the jury. Every eye in the room was upon one or the other of them.

“Mr. Niemann,” Pendreigh began. “First let us thank you for coming all the way to London in order to testify in this trial. We greatly appreciate it.” He acknowledged Niemann’s demur, and continued. “How long have you known the accused, Dr. Kristian Beck?”

“About twenty years,” Niemann replied. “We met as students.”

“And you were friends?”

“Yes. Allies during the uprisings in ’48.”

“You are speaking of the revolutions which swept Europe in that year?”

“Yes.” A strange expression crossed Niemann’s face, as if the mere mention of the time brought all kinds of memories sweeping back, bitter and sweet. Hester wondered if the jury saw it as clearly as she did. Monk was not permitted in the room because Pendreigh had reserved the right to call him as witness.

“You fought side by side?” Pendreigh continued.

“Yes, figuratively, not always literally,” Niemann answered.

“Most of us in the room”—Pendreigh waved an arm to indicate the crowd—“but principally the jury, have never experienced such a thing. We have not found our government sufficiently oppressive to rise against it. We have not seen barricades in the street, nor had our own armies turned upon us.” His voice was outwardly quite calm, but there was an underlying passion in it, not in the tone, but in the timbre. “Would you tell us what it was like?”

Mills rose to his feet, his face puckered with assumed confusion. “My lord, while we sympathize with the Austrian people’s desire for greater freedom, and we regret that they did not succeed in their aim, I do not see the relevance of Mr. Niemann’s recollections to the murder of Mrs. Beck in London this year. We concede that the accused was involved, and that he fought with courage. Nor do we doubt that Mr. Niemann was his friend, and still is, and is prepared to put himself to considerable trouble and expense to attempt to rescue him from his present predicament. Old loyalties die hard, which is in many ways admirable.”

The judge looked at Pendreigh enquiringly.

“Mr. Niemann has a long friendship with the accused
and
the deceased, my lord,” Pendreigh explained. “He can tell us much of their feelings for one another. But he was also in London at the time of the murder, and was in Swinton Street immediately before that event—” He was interrupted by a buzz of amazement from the crowd, and the rustle and creak of two hundred people shifting position, sitting more upright, even craning forward.

“Indeed?” the judge said with some surprise. “Then proceed. But do not drag it out with irrelevancies, Mr. Pendreigh. I have already given you a great deal of latitude in that direction.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Pendreigh bowed very slightly and turned to Niemann again. “Can you tell us, as briefly as possible without sacrificing truth, the parts each of them played in the uprising, and their relationship to each other?”

“I can try,” Niemann said thoughtfully. “They were not married then, of course. Elissa was a widow. She was English, but she fought for the Austrian cause with a passion I think greater than many of us who were native had.” His voice was soft as he spoke, and both the tenderness and the admiration he felt were apparent. “She was tireless, always encouraging others, trying to think of new ways to confront the authorities and draw the sympathy of more people to make them understand the justice of our cause and believe we could win. It was as if there were a light inside her, a flame from which she would set a spark to burn in the souls of more lukewarm people.”

For a moment he was silent, as if needing to regain his self-control so he could go on trying to show these calm-faced Englishmen in their tailored suits what passion and courage had been in the streets of Vienna, facing an overwhelming enemy.

Everyone was watching him. Hester moved fractionally in her seat. She wondered what Callandra was thinking, if this memory of heroism and unity hurt her, or perhaps if all she cared about now was proving Kristian innocent, or even just saving his life. She glanced sideways at her and wished she had not. It was intrusive, looking at a nakedness that should not be seen.

Then, to her surprise, she caught sight of Charles on the other side of the aisle, and Imogen beside him. Since she had refused to testify, saying she had not seen Niemann, why were they here? Was it simply a concern to see the truth of the matter, even a loyalty to Hester, although neither of them had spoken to her? Or was there some deeper cause, some purpose of their own?

Imogen looked haggard, her eyes enormous. Could she know something after all, and if the utmost disaster fell, she would speak?

“She was the bravest person I ever knew.” Niemann’s voice filled the room again. It was quiet, as if he were talking to himself, and yet the absolute stillness carried the sound of it to every ear.

Hester turned forward again.

“She was not foolish, and God knew, we lost enough of us that she saw death intimately.” Niemann’s lips tightened, and there was a wince of pain as he spoke. His voice dropped a little. People strained to hear him. “She knew the risks, but she conquered her own fear so completely I never once saw her show it. She was a truly remarkable woman.”

“And Kristian Beck?” Pendreigh prompted.

Niemann lifted his head. “He was remarkable also, but in a different way.” His voice resumed its strength. He was speaking now of a man who was his friend, and still alive, not of a woman he had only too obviously loved. “He was the leader of our group—”

Pendreigh held up his hand. “Why was he the leader, Mr. Niemann? Why he, and not, for example, you?”

Niemann looked slightly surprised.

“Was it by election, because of superior knowledge, or was he perhaps older than the rest of you?” Pendreigh enquired.

Niemann blinked. “I think it was common assent,” he replied. “He had the qualities of decision, courage, the ability to command respect and obedience and loyalty. I don’t remember us deciding. It more or less happened.”

“But he was a doctor, not a soldier,” Pendreigh pointed out. “Would it not have been more natural to put him in some kind of medical duty, rather than in command of what was essentially a fighting unit?”

“No.” Niemann shook his head. “Kristian was the best.”

“In what way?” Pendreigh pursued. “Was he also passionately dedicated to the cause?”

“Yes!”

“But doctors are healers, essentially peaceful,” Pendreigh persisted. “We have heard much evidence of his caring for the injured and the sick, tirelessly, to the exclusion of his own profit or wellbeing, never of him as a man of action, or any kind of warfare.”

Mills stirred in his seat.

“If we are to believe you, Mr. Niemann,” Pendreigh went on more urgently, “then we have to understand. Describe Kristian Beck for us, as he was then.”

Niemann drew in a deep breath. Hester saw his shoulders square. “He was brave, decisive, unsentimental,” Niemann answered. “He had an extraordinarily clear vision of what was necessary, and he had the intelligence and the will, and the moral and physical courage, to carry it out. He had no personal vanity.”

“You make him sound very fair,” Pendreigh observed.

Hester thought Niemann made Kristian sound cold, even if it was not what he intended. Or perhaps it was? If he wished to exact a revenge on Kristian for his winning of Elissa, this was his perfect opportunity. Had Monk brought him here for that, unintentionally sealing Kristian’s fate?

Or was it possible, even probable, that Niemann believed Kristian guilty?

“He was fair,” Niemann said. He hesitated, as if to add something more, then changed his mind and remained silent.

“Did he fall in love with Elissa von Leibnitz?” Pendreigh asked. His voice was thick with his own emotion.

“Yes,” Niemann replied. “Very much.”

“And she with him?”

“Yes.” This time the word was simple, painful.

“And they married?”

“After the uprising, yes.”

“Did you ever doubt his love for her?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“And you all three remained friends?” Pendreigh asked.

Neimann’s hesitation was palpable.

“You didn’t?” Pendreigh asked.

“We lost touch for some time,” Niemann answered. “One of our number was killed, very violently. It distressed us all profoundly. Kristian seemed to feel it most.”

“Was he at fault?”

“No. It was just the fortune of war.”

“I see. But he was the leader. Did he feel perhaps he should somehow have prevented it?”

Mills half rose to his feet, then changed his mind. Niemann was painting a darker picture of Kristian than the dedicated doctor that had been shown so far. It was hardly in his interest to stop Niemann, or to question his veracity.

“I don’t know,” Niemann answered. It was probably the truth, but it sounded evasive.

Pendreigh retracted. “Thank you. Now may we come to the present, and your recent visit to London? Did you see Mrs. Beck?”

“Yes.”

“Several times?”

“Yes.”

“At her home, or elsewhere?”

“At the studio of Argo Allardyce, where she was having a portrait painted.” Niemann looked uncomfortable.

“I see. And were you in that vicinity on the night of her death?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Where, precisely?”

“I was walking along Swinton Street.”

“At what time?”

“Shortly after nine o’clock.”

“Did you see anyone you knew?”

“Yes. I saw the artist, Argo Allardyce.” Niemann drew in a deep breath. “I also saw a woman who has since conceded that she was there, but unfortunately she does not remember seeing me.”

“Argo Allardyce?” Pendreigh affected surprise. “What was he doing?”

“Striding along the pavement with an artist’s case under his arm. He looked very angry. The woman was following him and spoke to him while I was there.”

“Thank you. Your witness, Mr. Mills.”

Mills bowed and rose. He did not ask more, but with a few skillful questions he drew from Niemann a picture of Kristian as a leader in the uprising which was even more self-controlled than before, a man who never lost sight of the goal, who could make sacrifices of all kinds, even of people, in the good of the greater cause.

Hester sat cringing with every new addition, and felt Callandra stiffen beside her. She could only imagine what she must be feeling.

“And you were in London and saw Elissa Beck several times, is that correct?” Mills enquired.

“Yes.” Was it defiance or embarrassment in Niemann’s face?

Mills smiled. “Indeed,” he observed. “Always at some place other than her home? Was Dr. Beck ever present, Mr. Niemann?”

The implication was obvious. Niemann blushed. “I came because Elissa was in some financial trouble,” he answered, his voice thick with emotion. “I was in a position to help her. Kristian was not. In deference to his feelings, I did not wish him to know what I had done.”

Mills smiled. “I see,” he said with only a whisper of disbelief in his voice. “I commend your loyalty to an old ally, and a woman with whom you were in love. I am afraid there is nothing you can do now to help either of them.” Mills thanked Niemann, and withdrew. He had caused the damage, and he needed do no more.

The luncheon adjournment was brief. Hester saw Charles and Imogen only as they disappeared through the farther doorway. She, Monk and Callandra ate in a noisy public house, where they took refuge in the difficulty of hearing amid the clamor to avoid speaking of the trial.