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Monk forbore from interruption with difficulty. He wanted to tell this equally determined, rather complacent, pretty woman who was discreetly flirting with him something of the horror of the battlefield and the hospital as he had learned it from Hester. He forced himself to keep silent, merely looking at her to continue.
She did not need prompting.
“Of course we all assumed that when she came home she would have had enough of it,” she said quickly. “She had served her country and we were all proud of her. But not at all. She then insisted on continuing with nursing and took up a post in the hospital in London.” She was watching Monk’s face closely, all the time biting her lip as if uncertain what to say, although he knew from the strength in her voice that that was anything but the case. “She became very—very forceful,” she continued. “Very outspoken in her opinions and extremely critical of the medical authorities. I am afraid she had ambitions that were totally impossible and quite unsuitable anyway, and she was bitter about it.” She searched Monk’s eyes, trying to judge his thoughts. “I can only assume that some of her experiences in the Crimea were so fearful that they affected her mind and destroyed her judgment to some extent. It is really very tragic.” As she said it her face was very sober.
“Very,” Monk agreed tersely. “It is also tragic that someone should have killed her. Did she ever say anything to you about anyone who might have threatened her or wished her ill?” It was an ingenuous question, but there was always the remote chance she might give a surprising answer.
Nanette shrugged very slightly, a delicate, very feminine gesture of her shoulders.
“Well, she was very forthright, and she could be highly critical,” she said reluctantly. “I fear it is not impossible that she offended someone sufficiently that he became violent, which is a fearful thought. But some men do have ungovernable tempers. Perhaps her insult was very serious, threatening his professional reputation. She did not spare people, you know.”
“Did she mention anyone by name, Miss Cuthbertson?”
“Oh not to me. But then their names would mean nothing to me even if I heard them.”
“I see. What about admirers? Were there any men, do you know, who might have felt rejected by her, or jealous?”
The blush on her cheek was very slight, and she smiled as if the question were of no consequence to her.
“She did not confide that sort of thing to me, but I gathered the impression that she had no time for such emotions.” She smiled at the absurdity of such a nature. “Perhaps you had better ask someone who knew her from day to day.”
“I shall. Thank you for your candor, Miss Cuthbertson. If everyone else is as frank with me, I shall be very fortunate.”
She leaned forward in her chair a little. “Will you find out who killed her, Mr. Monk?”
“Yes.” He was quite unequivocal, not because he had any conviction, still less any knowledge, but he would not admit the possibility of defeat.
“I am so glad. It is most comforting to know that in spite of tragedy, there are people who will see that at least justice is done.” Again she smiled at him, and he wondered why on earth Geoffrey Taunton had not wooed this woman, who seemed so excellently suited to his life and his personality, but had chosen instead to waste his time and his emotion on Prudence Barrymore. She could never have made either him or herself happy in such an alliance, which to him would have been fraught with tension and uncertainty, and to her would have been at once barren and suffocating.
But then he had imagined himself so in love with Hermione Ward, who would have hurt and disappointed him at every turn and left him in the bitterest loneliness. Perhaps in the end he would even have hated her.
He finished his tea and excused himself. Thanking her again, he took his leave.
The return journey to London was hot and the train crowded. He was suddenly very tired and closed his eyes, leaning back against the seat. The rattle and sway of the carriage was curiously soothing.
He woke up with a start to find a small boy staring at him with intense curiosity. A fair-haired woman pulled at the child’s jacket and ordered him to mind his manners and not to be so rude to the gentleman. Then she smiled shyly at Monk and apologized.
“There is no harm in it, ma’am,” he replied quietly, but his mind was suddenly jolted by a vivid fragment of memory. It was a sensation he had felt many times since his accident, and more and more frequently in the last few months, but it never ceased to bring with it a frisson of fear. So much of what he learned of himself showed him only actions, not reasons, and he did not always like the man he discovered.
This memory was sharp and bright, and yet distant. He was not the man of today, but very much of yesterday. The picture in his mind was full of sunlight, and for all its clarity there was a sense of distance. He was younger, far younger, new at his job with all the eagerness and the need to learn that comes with being a novice. His immediate senior was Samuel Runcorn, that was perfectly clear. He knew it as one knows things in dreams; there is no visible evidence, and yet the certainty is unquestionable. He could picture Runcorn as sharply as the young woman on the seat opposite him in the clanking train as it rushed past the houses toward the city. Runcorn, with his narrow face and deep-set eyes. He had been handsome then: bony nose, good brow, broad mouth. Even now it was only his expression, the mixture of temper and apology in his eyes, which marred him.
What had happened in the intervening years? How much of it had been Monk’s doing? That was a thought which returned to him again and again. And yet that was foolish. Monk was not to blame. Whatever Runcorn was, it was his own doing, his own choice.
Why had that memory returned? Just a snatch, a journey in a train with Runcorn. Runcorn had been an inspector, and Monk a constable working on a case under his direction.
They were coming into the outskirts of Bayswater, not far to go to the Euston Road and home. It would be good to get out of this noisy, jiggling, confined space and walk in the fresh air. Not that Fitzroy Street would be like Boston Lane with the wind over the wheat fields.
He was aware of a sharp inner sense of frustration, of questions and answers that led nowhere, of knowing that someone was lying, but not who. They had been days on the case and learned nothing that made sense, no string of evidence that began to form a story.
Except that this was the first day. Prudence Barrymore had died only yesterday. The emotion came from the past, whatever he and Runcorn had been doing however many years ago—was it ten, fifteen? Runcorn had been different. He had had more confidence, less arrogance, less need to exert his authority, less need to show he was right. Something had happened to him in the years between which had destroyed an element of belief in himself, injuring some inner part so that now it was maimed.
Did Monk know what it was? At least had he known before the accident? Was Runcorn’s hatred of him born of that: his vulnerability, and Monk’s use of it?
The train was going through Paddington now. Not long till he was home. He ached to be able to stand up.
He closed his eyes again. The heat in the carriage and the rhythmic swinging to and fro, the incessant clatter as the wheels passed over the joins in the rails, were hypnotic.
There had been another constable on the case as well, a slight young man with dark hair that stood up from the brow. The memory of him was vivid and acutely uncomfortable, but Monk had no idea why. He racked his brain but nothing came. Had he died? Why was there this unhappiness in his mind when he pictured him?
