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“Tea can wait. What about people changing their names? What has it to do with the murder of Elissa Beck?”
“I don’t know. But Kristian Beck’s family was one of those who did that. Elissa knew, but she never told Kristian, and he himself did not know. At least not at the time. She even went out of her way to protect him, knowing that if he were caught, and it became known he was really a Jew, it would be even harder for him.” Why was he still telling less than half the truth? To protect Kristian or Pendreigh?
Runcorn’s face tightened. There was a flash of pity in his eyes, something that might even have been understanding. He turned away, hiding it from Monk, and began to make tea for both of them, clattering the teapot, spilling a few leaves onto the bench. The silence in the kitchen was heavy as he left the tea to steep. Finally he poured it, putting in milk and passing over two cups onto the table, pushing one across to Monk. He did not need to ask how he liked it.
“And if she told him recently, perhaps in a quarrel over money and her gambling it away,” Runcorn said, stirring sugar into his own tea, clicking the spoon against the side of the cup, “that only gives him more reason to kill her.”
“The prosecution doesn’t know that!” Monk said sharply.
Runcorn raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to testify?”
“Yes, but I shan’t tell them that. It may have nothing to do with it. It would prejudice them against him. .”
Runcorn lifted up his tea, decided it was still too hot, and put it down again. “Because he’s a Jew?”
“No! For God’s sake! Because his family denied it in order to make things easier for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with being a Jew-there’s everything wrong with being a hypocrite! Neither Christian nor Jew would own the Becks for that.”
“You’re sure he didn’t know?”
Monk had no answer, but as he sat staring at his tea, and the scrubbed boards of the kitchen table in front of him, the possibility was inescapable that Elissa had told Kristian and that it had been the final straw that had broken his self-control. And the jury would see it far more easily than he did. They would not be reluctant, hating the thought, pushing it away with every shred of will and imagination, and finding it returning, stronger each time. And always there was the other, immeasurably worse thought as well, that somehow he had discovered the betrayal of Hanna Jakob. No one would find it difficult to believe he had killed her in revenge for that. Any man might. But always the shadow of Sarah Mackeson robbed it of pity or mitigation.
Runcorn sipped his tea. Monk’s steamed fragrantly in front of him, and he ignored it.
“If you’d been her, desperate for money to pay your debts, frightened of the gamblers coming after you,” Runcorn said grimly, “and you’d saved him in Vienna, knowing what his family was, wouldn’t you have been tempted now to tell him? Especially if he was angry with you, a bit condescending about your bad habits of losing on the tables, perhaps.”
“I don’t know. .” Monk was prevaricating. He sipped his tea also, aware of Runcorn staring at him, imagining the disbelief and the contempt in his gray-green eyes.
The silence grew heavier. Monk was damned if he was going to be manipulated by Runcorn, of all people. Runcorn who disliked him, who had spent years resenting him, trying to trip him up. They had watched each other’s weaknesses, probing for a place to hurt, to take advantage, always misunderstanding and seeing the worst.
Runcorn who had once been his friend, before ambition and envy eroded that away. That had been a painful discovery, but undeniable. Perhaps he had been the more to blame of the two of them. He was the stronger. Runcorn was full of prejudices, always trying to do the things others would approve of, and yet who had felt pity for Sarah Mackeson, and was embarrassed by it, and defiant. Runcorn half hated Monk, half wanted his approval. . and wholly expected him to love the truth above all else, no matter what other pain it brought.
“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 d
emur, and continued. “How long have you known the accused, Dr. Kristian Beck?”
