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Monk himself was intelligent, quick-witted, able to improvise, a natural rebel. In the end it was Monk who had been dismissed for insubordination, and Runcorn who had been promoted. Now it was Monk who held the higher rank.
After the accident, Monk had been forced to look a great deal harder at the man he discovered himself to be. He had not liked what he saw in himself, and he was not proud of his taunting of Runcorn.
Later Runcorn had fallen hopelessly in love with a witness in a case they had worked on together. In spite of every difference in background, education, and social class, Melisande had seen the gentleness in Runcorn, the deep, sincere love he had for her, and had found to everyone’s surprise that she returned it. Runcorn was happier than he had dreamed possible. He was a changed man. Enough so that Monk judged him to be the one person he could trust with the question he must now pursue.
Monk closed the office door behind him as Runcorn looked up, surprised to see Monk, and then, studying his face, concerned. He waved at the other chair for Monk to sit down.
“Tea?” he asked.
Monk shook his head. “Not yet…thank you. I’ve got a lot of questions to ask, and I don’t know anyone else….”
Runcorn leaned back in his chair and looked steadily at Monk as he recounted his latest case. It turned out that, stationed as he was near the river, Runcorn already knew some of the facts and the people involved.
“If I knew anything useful I’d have told you,” he said quietly when Monk had finished. “I’d barely heard of Aaron Clive until this episode of McNab’s man drowning. And I have no idea what Blount was doing, or Owen. I’ve asked around, but I haven’t heard anything back.”
“What do you know about McNab?” Monk’s nerves were tight and he came straight to the point. “Why does he hate me?”
Runcorn stared at him. He sat totally still, as if something long forgotten had suddenly flooded his mind.
“Oh God!” he said very quietly. “I never put it together….”
Monk was cold inside, as if the blood in him had stopped flowing. “What together? What did I do to him?”
Runcorn pushed his hands through his thick, wiry hair. “It wasn’t really your fault, but of course that isn’t the way we look at things….”
Monk wanted to scream at him, “What things? For the love of God—tell me!” He controlled himself with an intense effort. This was not the way to behave. He could not afford to antagonize Runcorn, who was one of the few friends he had. And he was still a friend, even though he knew so much of the truth.
“What things?” he asked almost levelly.
“Do you remember Robbie Nairn?” Runcorn asked, watching Monk closely, his long face very grave.
Monk searched his mind and could think of nothing at all, yet the name was vaguely familiar. He had no idea if he was another policeman, a friend, an enemy, yet he had surely heard the name recently. “No. Who is he?”
Runcorn sighed. “Almost sixteen years ago, a young man in his early twenties. Very violent. Also charming, in his own way. Handsome, too. Looked a bit like McNab, I suppose, though you might not see it, if you didn’t put them side by side.”
“So who was he?” Monk did not want to know, but he had to. “McNab’s son?”
“No…no. McNab was only thirty then, Nairn about six or seven years younger.” Runcorn looked very directly at him. There was no pleasure in his eyes or in his face. “Nairn got into a bad fight with another young man
. It ended with Nairn injured and the young man dead, his throat cut.”
“A fight? Who started it?”
“No one knows. Nairn had some bad injuries, too, and he said the other man started it. For a while we were inclined to believe him. It was you who discovered the evidence the other way….”
“Was I wrong?”
“I don’t think so. Nothing ever indicated it. The jury believed you.”
“Did you?” Monk pressed.
Runcorn nodded. “Yes. I had no doubt. Still haven’t. Nairn was a bad one.”
“What are you not telling me?”
“You pushed pretty hard to get the evidence.”
Monk winced. “Did I beat it out of him? Keep him up all night? Shame him, threaten him? What?” He did not want to think of it, but he knew he had been capable of all that.
