William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

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 disappointedhim 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