William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

failure and prepared for it.
    He looked up and saw her face, full of relief, as if some burden had been lifted from her, and realized how mistaken he was.
    “William . . .” She stopped. “What is it?” The muscles of her face and neck pulled tight. He straightened up, ignoring the wet boots. “Kristian wasn’t where he said he was. God knows he had cause enough to kill her. She’s bled him of everything, and if she’d lived she would have gone on until he ended up in prison. Queen’s if he was lucky. Coldbath if he wasn’t.”
    “For heaven’s sake!” she exploded. “Some gambler killed her! Someone she owed . . .”
    He took her shoulder, forcing her to face him. “No, they didn’t. Do you think we haven’t pressed that as far as it will go? No one wants it to be Kristian.”
    “Runcorn . . .” she began.
    “No,” he said sharply. “He’s stubborn and prejudiced, full of ambition, taking offense where there isn’t any, thin-skinned and short of imagination . . . at times. But he didn’t want it to be Kristian.”
    “Didn’t!” she challenged, her eyes blazing. “You said ’didn’t’!”
    “Didn’t,” he repeated. He shook his head very slightly. “There’s nothing we could do to prevent it. The evidence was too much.”
    “What evidence?” she demanded. “There’s nothing except motive. You can’t convict anyone because they had a reason. All you know is that he can’t prove he was somewhere else!”
    “And that he lied about it, intentionally or not,” he answered quietly. “No one else has reason to, Hester. Allardyce was in the Bull and Half Moon, on the other side of the river. It doesn’t make sense for any of the gamblers to have killed her. Apart from that, her debts were paid anyway.”
    “Then the other poor woman was the intended victim,” she said instantly. “I don’t know why you even think Elissa Beck was the one killed first, and not Sarah Mackeson! Perhaps she was having a love affair with someone and they quarreled? Isn’t that far more likely than Kristian following his wife to an artist’s studio and killing her there? For heaven’s sake, William! He’s a doctor . . . if he wanted to kill her there are dozens of better and safer ways of doing it than that!”
    He did not bother to argue with her about passion and sense. It was true, but irrelevant to this. “Sarah wasn’t killed first,” he said, still holding her and feeling her pull against him, her muscles tight. “Elissa was.”
    “You don’t know that! No doctor could tell you which of two people died first when it was within minutes of each other,” she retaliated.
    “We found Elissa’s earring, torn from her ear in the struggle, fallen through a knothole in the floorboard . . . under where Sarah was lying.”
    She drew in her breath, then let it out in a sigh. “Oh,” she said very quietly. The anger drained out of her, leaving only misery, and he pulled her unresisting body closer to him, then held her in his arms, feeling her shiver and struggle to keep from weeping.
    It was several minutes, clinging close to him, before she finally drew back. “Then we’ve got to fight it,” she said, gasping over the words. “You . . . you mean Runcorn will arrest him, don’t you?”
    “He already has. I took his clothes and razor to him.”
    “He’s in . . . prison?” Her eyes were wide.
    “Yes, Hester.”
    “What?” She shuddered. “Don’t you dare tell me you think he could have done it!” Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t dare!”
    “Why would you think I might?” he asked. He wished passionately that he could say anything other. She looked so frightened and vulnerable, so willing to take on the battle whatever the odds, and be hurt . . . horribly. And yet he could not have loved her so deeply had she been ready to give in, been wiser, more realistic, even more able to cast aside her emotions and arm herself against the loss.
    She was furious because the tears slid down her cheeks. “Because you think he could be guilty,” she whispered.
    “He could be,” he said. “Everyone has a breaking point, you know that as well as I do. We all reach a degree where we can’t bear it any longer, and either we crumple up and surrender, or we run away, or else we fight back. Sometimes we lose our balance and we do something we thought was outside even our imagination. I’ve been there. Haven’t you?”
    She leaned against him again, her voice muffled because her face