William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray by Anne Perry

Author:Anne Perry [Perry, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

But it was not so easy. He was not able to contact Evan until early in the evening, when he came back tired and dispirited from a fruitless chase after a man who had embezzled a fortune and fled with it across the Channel. Now began the burdensome business of contacting the French police to apprehend him.

When Monk caught up with Evan leaving the police station on his way home, Evan was sufficiently generous of spirit to be pleased to see him, but he was obviously tired and discouraged. For once Monk put his own concern out of his immediate mind, and simply walked in step with Evan for some distance, listening to his affairs, until Evan, knowing him well, eventually asked why he had come.

Monk pulled a face.

“For help,” he acknowledged, skirting his way around an old woman haggling with a coster.

“The Carlyon case?” Evan asked, stepping back onto the pavement.

“No—quite different. Have you eaten?”

“No. Given up on the Carlyon case? It must be coming to trial soon.”

“Care to have dinner with me? There’s a good chophouse ’round the corner.”

Evan smiled, suddenly illuminating his face. “I’d love to. What is it you want, if it’s not the Carlyons?”

“I haven’t given up on it, I’m still looking. But this is a case in the past, something I worked on before the accident.”

Evan was startled, his eyes widened. “You remember!”

“No—oh, I remember more, certainly. Bits and pieces keep coming back. But I can remember a woman charged with murdering her husband, and I was trying to solve the case, or to be more precise, I was trying to clear her.”

They turned the corner into Goodge Street and halfway along came to the chophouse. Inside was warm and busy, crowded with clerks and businessmen, traders and men of the minor professions, all talking together and eating, a clatter of knives, forks, chink of plates and the pleasant steam of hot food.

Monk and Evans were conducted to a table and took their seats, giving their orders without reference to a menu. For a moment an old comfort settled over Monk. It was like the best of the past, and for all the pleasure of being rid of Runcorn, he realized how lonely he was without the comradeship of Evan, and how anxious he was lurching from one private case to another, with never the certainty of anything further, and only a week or two’s money in hand.

“What is it?” Evan asked, his young face full of interest and concern. “Do you need to find the case because of Mrs. Carlyon?”

“No.” Monk did not even think of being dishonest with him, and yet he was self-conscious about exposing his vulnerability. “I keep getting moments of memory so sharp, I know I cared about it profoundly. It is simply for myself; I need to know who she was, and what happened to her.” He watched Evan’s face for pity, dreading it.

“Her?” Evan said casually.

“The woman.” Monk looked down at the white tablecloth. “She keeps coming back into my mind, obscuring what I am thinking of at the time.

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