Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

scream like an echo of all childhood.
    And later he must have known fear on the dark streets of London, fear in the rookeries; even now his skin crawled at the memory of the anger and the despair in them, the hunger and the disregard for life in the fight to survive. But he was too proud and too ambitious to be a coward. He had grasped what he wanted without flinching.
    But how do you face the unknown darkness, the monstrosity inside your own brain, your own soul?
    He had discovered many things in himself he did not like: insensitivity, overpowerful ambition, a ruthlessness. But they were bearable, things for which he could make amends, improve from now on—indeed he had started.
    But why should he have murdered Joscelin Grey? The more he struggled with it the less did it make any sense. Why should he have cared enough? There was nothing in his life, no personal relationship that called up such passion.
    And he could not believe he was simply mad. Anyway, he had not attacked a stranger in the street, he had deliberately sought out Grey, taken trouble to go to his home; and even madmen have some reason, however distorted.
    He must find it, for himself—and he must find the reason before Runcorn found it.
    Only it would not be Runcorn, it would be Evan.
    The cold inside him grew worse. That was one of the most painful realizations of all, the time when Evan must know that it was he who had killed Grey, he was the murderer who had raised such horror in both of them, such revulsion for the mad appetite, the bestiality. They had looked upon the murderer as being another kind of creature, alien, capable of some darkness beyond their comprehension. To Evan it would still be such a creature, less than quite human—whereas to Monk it was not outward and foreign, where he could sometimes forget it, bar it out, but the deformed and obscene within himself.
    Tonight he must sleep; the clock on the mantel said thirteen minutes past four. But tomorrow he would begin a new investigation. To save his own mind, he must discover why he had killed Joscelin Grey; and he must discover it before Evan did.
    * * * * *
    He was not ready to see Evan when he went into his office in the morning, not prepared; but then he would never be.
    "Good morning, sir," Evan said cheerfully.
    Monk replied, but kept his face turned away, so Evan could not read his expression. He found lying surprisingly hard; and he must lie all the time, every day in every contact from now on.
    "I've been thinking, sir." Evan did not appear to notice anything unusual. "We should look into all these other people before we try to charge Lord Shelburne. You know, Joscelin Grey may well have had affairs with other women. We should try the Dawlishes; they had a daughter. And there's Fortescue's wife, and Charles Latterly may have a wife."
    Monk froze. He had forgotten that Evan had seen Charles's letter in Grey's desk. He had been supposing blithely that Evan knew nothing of the Latterlys.
    Evan's voice cut across him, low and quite gentle. It
    sounded as though there were nothing more than concern in it.
    "Sir?"
    "Yes," Monk agreed quickly. He must keep control, speak sensibly. "Yes I suppose we had better." What a hypocrite he was, sending Evan off to pry the secret hurts out of people in the search for a murderer. What would Evan think, feel, when he discovered that the murderer was Monk?
    "Shall I start with Latterly, sir?" Evan was still talking. "We don't know much about him."
    "No!"
    Evan looked startled.
    Monk mastered himself; when he spoke his voice was quite calm again, but still he kept his face away.
    "No, I'll try the people here: I want you to go back to Shelburne Hall." He must get Evan out of the city for a while, give himself time. "See if you can learn anything more from the servants," he elaborated. "Become friendly with the upstairs maids, if you can, and the parlor maid. Parlor maids are on in the morning; they observe all sorts of things when people are off their guard. It may be one of the other families, but Shelburne is still the most likely. It can be harder to forgive a brother for cuckolding you than it would be a stranger—it's not just an offense, it's a betrayal—and he's constantly there to remind you of it."
    "You think so, sir?" There was a lift of surprise in Evan's voice.
    Oh God. Surely Evan could not know, could not suspect anything so soon? Sweat broke out on Monk's body, and chilled instantly, leaving him shivering.
    "Isn't that what