Read Online William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin by Anne Perry - Free Book Online Page A

boy, that was all that was necessary.”
    “And the house?” Monk pressed. “Anyone intrude in the night? Or impossible to tell, if Havilland had left the door open. Had he?”
    “Yes. The butler says he sat up late. Told them he wanted to work in his study, and sent them all to bed. But a thorough search was made and both Miss Havilland herself and the housekeeper said nothing at all was missing, or even moved. And there were plenty of nice things, easy to carry, if a burglar’d wanted. Easy to sell.”
    “What time did he die?” Monk was not yet willing to give up, although it was beginning to look more and more as if Mary Havilland’s belief in her father’s murder was simply a desperate young woman’s refusal to accept the truth that he had killed himself.
    “Police surgeon reckoned between midnight and about three, close as he could tell. Pretty cold in the stables, late autumn. The thirteenth of November, to be exact. Frost was sharpish that night. I remember it was still white all around the edges of the leaves on the garden bushes we passed going in.” Runcorn was hunched up, as if the memory chilled him.
    “No one heard a shot?”
    “No.” Runcorn gave a tiny, bleak smile. “Which was unusual. You’d think someone would’ve. Tried shooting the thing myself, and it was loud enough. Could hear it clear a hundred yards off, on a still night like that. I followed that one all the way, but if anyone heard, they wouldn’t admit to it.” There was long experience in his face, and fighting against it a very faint quickening of hope.
    Monk realized with surprise that Runcorn wanted Mary Havilland to be right; he simply could not see the possibility.
    “Muffled by something?” Monk asked.
    Runcorn shook his head no more than an inch or two. “Nothing there. Powder burns on his skin. If he’d wrapped a towel or a cloth around it to deaden the sound, that’d account for why nobody heard it, or maybe didn’t recognize it for a shot, but then the cloth would still be there, and it wasn’t. Unless…somebody took it away!” He did not quite make it a question, but it was in his eyes.
    “No sign of anyone else there?” Monk asked, seeking the same hope.
    “Not a thing, and I looked myself.”
    Monk believed him. Not only was Runcorn not easily a liar, there was a painful hunger in him to believe better of Havilland than the circumstances justified. Even now, two months later, it was still there.
    Monk asked the next, obvious question. “Why? What was so wrong that he’d shoot himself in his own stables in the middle of the night?”
    Runcorn pressed his lips together and hunched his shoulders a little more. “I looked.” There was an edge of defense in his voice. “As far as anyone knew, his health was excellent. He ate well, slept well enough, walked often. We checked into his affairs; he certainly was more than comfortably off. No unaccounted expenditure. He didn’t gamble. And if anyone was blackmailing him, it wasn’t for money. If he had a mistress, we never found her. If he had bad habits, we saw no sign of them, either. He drank very little. Never been seen the worse for it. Wife died seven years ago. Had two daughters. Jenny, the elder, is married to Alan Argyll, a very successful businessman.”
    Runcorn took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Havilland worked for Argyll’s company as an engineer in the big rebuilding of the sewers. Well respected, well paid. Seemed to get on all right, at least until recently, when Havilland took it into his head that the tunnels were dangerous and there was going to be an accident one day. We couldn’t find any evidence for it. Argyll’s safety record is good, better than most. And we all know the new sewers are necessary, urgently so.”
    “And Mary?” Monk asked. He wanted to fault Runcorn, to find something the superintendent had forgotten or done badly, but he couldn’t.
    Runcorn’s face softened. “The poor girl was beside herself