all.”
She looked only slightly surprised. “He was always in love with her,” she answered very quietly. “But as far as I know, she never looked at anyone but Kristian.”
“She was really in love with Kristian?” Monk wanted it to be true, even if it did not help.
“Oh, yes,” she said vehemently. A tiny, sad smile linked her lips. “She was jealous of that Jewish girl, Hanna Jakob, because she was brave as well, and full of character. And Hanna was in love with Kristian, too. I saw it in her face. . and her voice. Max was too easy for Elissa. She had to do no work to win his love.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Very often we don’t want what we are given without an effort. If you don’t pay, perhaps it isn’t worth a lot. At least, that is what we think.”
There was a noise of doors opening and closing.
“Thank you for coming to tell us personally, Mr. Monk,” she said quickly. “It was most courteous of you. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Frau Beck,” he answered, stepping outside into the wind and walking away, new thoughts filling his mind.
Ferdi was not the person to ask about the sudden ugliness he had seen in the Beck house, and it was almost entirely irrelevant to Kristian and Elissa, and to Max Niemann. However, Ferdi was burning with curiosity as to everything that Monk had learned and where it might fit in to form a clearer picture of the people who were already heroes to him. He asked question after question about Josef and Magda as he and Monk sat over hot chocolate and watched the lights come on as the streets grew darker and the cafes filled with chattering people. Without intending to, Monk let slip von Arpels’s comment about Strauss. He saw no discernible reaction in Ferdi’s young face.
“Do many people feel like that about Jews?” Monk asked.
“Yes, of course. Don’t they in England?” Ferdi looked puzzled. Monk had to think about it a moment. He had not moved in any area of society where he would have experienced such a thing. He realized with a jolt of surprise how few people he knew in a way of friendship rather than professionally. It was really only Rathbone, Callandra and, of course, Kristian. Those relationships were intense, built in extraordinary circumstances, the kind of trust most people are never called upon to exercise. But the lighter sides of friendship, the shared trivia, were missing.
“I haven’t come across it,” he said evasively. He did not want Ferdi to know that his life lacked such ordinary solidity. He did not really want him even to know that he had been a policeman. Ferdi might regard it as having a friend of excitement, but it would make Monk unquestionably socially inferior. One called the police when they were required; one did not invite them to dinner. One certainly did not allow one’s daughter to marry them.
Ferdi was puzzled. “Don’t you have Jews in England?”
“Yes, of course we do.” He struggled for an acceptable answer. “One of our leading politicians is a Jew- Benjamin Disraeli. I’m just not sure that I know any myself.”
“We don’t, either,” Ferdi agreed. “But I’ve seen them, of course.”
“How do you know?” Monk said quickly.
“What?”
“How do you know they were Jews?”
Ferdi was perplexed. “Well, people do know, don’t they?”
“I don’t.”
Ferdi blushed. “Don’t you? My parents do. I mean, you have to be polite, but there are certain things you don’t do.”
“For example?”
“Well. .” Ferdi was a little unhappy, and he looked down at the remains of his coffee. “You’d do business, of course. Lots of bankers are Jews. But you wouldn’t have them in your house, or at your club, or anything like that.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Well. . we’re Christians. They don’t believe in Christ. They crucified Him.”
“Eighteen hundred years ago,” Monk pointed out. “Nobody did it who’s alive today, Jew or otherwise.” He knew he was being unkind as he said it. Ferdi was only repeating what he had been taught. He was not equipped to find reasons for it, even to know where to look in the history of society, or the need for belief and justification to rationalize such a thing. The boy felt a stab of shame, and yet he kept on doing it. “Do a lot of people feel like that?” Monk asked.
“Everybody does that I know,” Ferdi replied, screwing up his face. “Or they say they do. I suppose it’s the same thing. . isn’t it?”
Monk had no answer, and it probably had nothing to do with Elissa Beck’s death anyway. It was just another facet of Kristian he had not expected, and could not fit in with the man he had known, or thought he had. He ordered coffee for both of them, forgetting it was chocolate they had had before.
Ferdi smiled, but said nothing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The upcoming trial of Kristian Beck caused a certain amount of public interest. It was not exactly a cause celebre. He was not famous, and certainly far from the first man to have been accused of killing his wife. That was a charge with which everyone was familiar, and not a few felt a certain sympathy. At least they withheld their judgment until they should hear what she had done to prompt such an act. The charge of killing Sarah Mackeson as well was another matter. Opinion as to her style of life, her values or morality, varied from one person to another. There were those who considered she might have been little better than a prostitute, but even so, the brutality of her death filled them with revulsion.
The first picture of Elissa, taken from one of Allardyce’s best sketches, that was published in the newspapers changed almost everyone’s view, and any tolerance or compassion for Kristian vanished. The beauty of her face, with its ethereal sense of tragedy, moved men and women alike. Anyone who killed such a creature must be a monster.
Hester was with Charles when she saw the newspaper. She had heard Monk’s description of Elissa, but she was still unprepared for the reality.
They were standing in her front room, which was robbed of its life for her because Monk was in Vienna and not returning tonight, or tomorrow, or any date that had been set. She was disconcerted by how profoundly she missed him. There was no point to the small chores she had to perform daily, no one with whom to share her thoughts, good and bad.
Charles had come because he was still desperately worried about Imogen, but he was also concerned for Kristian, and for her, too.
“I was uncertain whether to bring the newspaper,” he said, glancing at it where it lay open on the table. “But I felt sure you would see it sometime. . and I thought it might be easier if it were here. . ” He still looked uncomfortable at his assumption. “And if you had someone with you.”
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. She found she was quite suddenly moved by his care. He was trying so hard to reach across the gulf they had allowed to grow between them. “Yes, I am glad you are here.” Her eyes moved to the picture of Elissa again. “William tried to describe her to me, but I was still unprepared for a face that would touch me so closely.” She looked across at him. “I never met her, and I suppose I imagined someone I would dislike, because in my mind she. .” She stopped. She should not expose Callandra’s vulnerability to anyone at all. She ignored his look of confusion. “But when I see her, I feel as if I have lost someone I knew.” She went on as if no explanation were necessary. “I wonder if other people feel like that? It’s going to make it far worse for Kristian, isn’t it?”
His face pinched a little. “I think so. I’m sorry. I know you admire him a great deal. But. .” He hesitated, obviously uncertain how to say what he was thinking, perhaps even if he should say it at all. And yet it was equally plainly something he believed to be true.
She helped him. “You are trying to tell me he might be guilty, and I must be prepared for that.”
