Why was Evan so keen to work with him? To learn? He felt a quick stab of shame at the thought of what he might teach him; and he did not want Evan turned into a copy of himself. People change, all the time; every day one is a little different from yesterday, a little added, a little forgotten. Could he learn something of Evan's feeling instead and teach him excellence without his accompanying ambition?
It was easy to believe Runcorn's feelings for him were ambivalent, at best. What had he done to him, over the years of climbing; what comparisons presented to superiors? What small slights made without sensitivity-had he ever even thought of Runcorn as a man rather than an obstacle between him and the next step up the ladder?
He could hardly blame Runcorn if now he took this perfect opportunity to present him with a case he had to lose; either in failure to solve, or in too much solving, and the uncovering of scandals for which society, and therefore the commissioner of police, would never excuse him.
Monk stared at the paper files. The man in them was a stranger to him, as one-dimensional as Joscelin Grey; in fact more so, because he had spoken to people who cared for Grey, had found charm in him, with whom he had shared laughter and common memories, who missed him with a hollowness of pain.
His own memories were gone, even of Beth, except for the one brief snatch of childhood that had flickered for a moment at Shelburne. But surely more would return, if he did not try to force them and simply let them come?
And the woman in the church, Mrs. Latterly; why had he not remembered her? He had only seen her twice since the accident, and yet her face seemed always at the back of his mind with a sweetness that never quite let him go. Had he spent much time on the case, perhaps questioned her often? It would be ridiculous to have imagined anything personal-the gulf between them was impassable, and if he had entertained ideas, then his ambition was indeed overweening, and indefensible. He blushed hot at the imagination of what he might have betrayed to her in his speech, or his manner. And the vicar had addressed her as "Mrs."-was she wearing black for her father-in-law, or was she a widow? When he saw her again he must correct it, make it plain he dreamed no such effrontery.
But before then he had to discover what on earth the case was about, beyond that her father-in-law had died recently.
He searched all his papers, all the files and everything in his desk, and found nothing with the name Latterly on it. A wretched thought occurred to him, and now an obvious one-the case had been handed on to someone else. Of course it would be, when he had been ill. Runcorn would hardly abandon it, especially if there really was a question of suspicious death involved.
Then why had the new person in charge not spoken to Mrs. Latterly-or more likely her husband, if he were alive? Perhaps he was not. Maybe that was the reason it was she who had asked? He put the files away and went to Runcorn's office. He was startled in passing an outside window to notice that it was now nearly dusk.
Runcorn was still in his office, but on the point of leaving. He did not seem in the least surprised to see Monk.
"Back to your usual hours again?" he said dryly. "No wonder you never married; you've taken a job to wife. Well, cold comfort it'll get you on a winter night," he added with satisfaction. "What is it?"
"Latterly." Monk was irritated by the reminder of what he could now see of himself. Before the accident it must have been there, all his characteristics, habits, but then he was too close to see them. Now he observed them dispassionately, as if they belonged to someone else.
"What?" Runcorn was staring at him, his brow furrowed into lines of incomprehension, his nervous gesture of the left eye more pronounced.
"Latterly," Monk repeated. "I presume you gave the case to someone else when I was ill?"
"Never heard of it," Runcorn said sharply.
“I was working on the case of a man called Latterly. He either committed suicide, or was murdered-"
Runcorn stood up and went to the coat stand and took his serviceable, unimaginative coat off the hook.
"Oh, that case. You said it was suicide and closed it, weeks before the accident. What's the matter with you? Are you losing your memory?"
"No I am not losing my memory!" Monk snapped, feeling a tide of heat rising up inside him. Please heaven it did not show in his face. "But the papers are gone from my files. I presumed something must have occurred to reopen the case and you had given it to someone."
"Oh." Runcorn scowled, proceeding to put on his coat and gloves. "Well, nothing has occurred, and the file is closed. I haven't given it to anyone else. Perhaps you didn't write up anything more? Now will you forget about Latterly, who presumably killed himself, poor devil, and get back to Grey, who most assuredly did not. Have you got anything further? Come on, Monk-you're usually better than this! Anything from this fellow Yeats?"
"No sir, nothing helpful." Monk was stung and his voice betrayed it.
Runcorn turned from the hat stand and smiled fully at him, his eyes bright.
"Then you'd better abandon that and step up your inquiries into Grey's family and friends, hadn't you?" he said with ill-concealed satisfaction. "Especially women friends. There may be a jealous husband somewhere. Looks like that kind of hatred to me. Take my word, there's something very nasty at the bottom of this." He tilted his hat slightly on his head, but it simply looked askew rather than rakish. "And you, Monk, are just the man to uncover it. You'd better go and try Shelburne again!" And with that parting shot, ringing with jubilation, he swung his scarf around his neck and went out.
Monk did not go to Shelburne the next day, or even that week. He knew he would have to, but he intended when he went to be as well armed as possible, both for the best chance of success in discovering the murderer of Joscelin Grey, whom he wanted with an intense and driving sense of justice, and-fast becoming almost as important-to avoid all he could of oflFense in probing the very private lives of the Shelburnes, or whoever else might have been aroused to such a rage, over whatever jealousies, passions or perversions. Monk knew that the powerful were no less frail than the rest of men, but they were usually far fiercer in covering those frailties from the mockery and the delight of the vulgar. It was not a matter of memory so much as instinct, the same way he knew how to shave, or to tie his cravat.
Instead he set out with Evan the following morning to go back to Mecklenburg Square, this time not to find traces of an intruder but to learn anything he could about Grey himself. Although they walked with scant conversation, each deep in his own thoughts, he was glad not to be alone. Grey's flat oppressed him and he could never free his mind from the violence that had happened there. It was not the blood, or even the death that clung to him, but the hate. He must have seen death before, dozens, if not scores of times, and he could not possibly have been troubled by it like this each time. It must usually have been casual death, pathetic or brainless murder, the utter selfishness of the mugger who wants and takes, or murder by the thief who finds his escape blocked. But in the death of Grey there was a quite different passion, something intimate, a bond of hatred between the killer and the killed.
He was cold in the room, even though the rest of the building was warm. The light through the high windows was colorless as if it would drain rather than illuminate. The furniture seemed oppressive and shabby, too big for the place, although in truth it was exactly like any other. He looked at Evan to see if he felt it also, but Evan's sensitive face was puckered over with the distaste of searching another man's letters, as he opened the desk and began to go through the drawers.