A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry Page A

Melisande? He was not doing his job. He had in the far distant past criticized Monk for emotions, usually impatience and anger, and now he was guilty of them himself. How Monk would mock him!
    And then with surprise, a lurch into freedom—he realized that he did not care. He could be hurt by other people’s opinions of him, but he could no longer be twisted or destroyed by them.
    Moreover, he realized that he could learn more of Olivia Costain’s life from those less close to her, those who could see her with clearer eyes. And in doing that, he would also discreetly learn a great deal more about Alan Faraday as well. If there really was a violent and terrible envy, it could as easily be over him. And that might even mean that Melisande was in danger, too.
    Should he warn her? Of what? He had no idea.
    Just then, as he walked down the steep, winding road towards the town, he realized that in fact he did not believe it was a woman jealous of Olivia, so much as a woman afraid of her. She challenged the order of things. She was a disruption in the midst of certainty, the old ways mocked and the rules broken.
    But who cared about that enough to kill the trespasser, the blasphemer? That could be a woman. Or a man whose power and authority was vested in the rules that do not change. Whoever he was he could even feel himself justified in getting rid of her, before she destroyed even more.
    The vicar, Costain? The chief constable, Faraday? Or Newbridge, the lord of the manor, with roots centuries deep in the land.
    He paused before a house where he had never stopped before, then finally knocked. The woman who answered was white-haired and bent nearly double over her cane, but her eyes were unclouded and she had no difficulty hearing him when he spoke. “Miss Mendlicott?”
    â€œYes I am. And who are you, young man? You sound like a Londoner to me. If you’re lost, no use asking me the way, all the roads are new since I went anywhere.”
    â€œI’m not lost, Miss Mendlicott,” he replied. “It is you I would like to speak to. And you are right, I am from London. I’m in the police there, but it is about the death of Miss Costain I want to ask you. You taught her in school, didn’t you?”
    â€œOf course I did. I taught them all. But if I knew who had killed her, you wouldn’t have had to come looking for me, young man, I’ve had sent for you. Don’t keep me standing here in the cold. What’s your name? I can’t go on calling you ‘young man.’” She squinted up at him. “Not that you’re so young, are you!”
    â€œSuperintendent Runcorn, Miss Mendlicott. And thank you, I would like to come in.” He did not tell her he was fifty. That made him twenty years older than Melisande.
    She led him into a small sitting room with barely space for two chairs, but pleasantly warm. On the mantelshelf there was a small jug with fresh primroses and a spray of rosemary. Anglesey was always surprising him.
    He told her without evasion that he wished to learn more of the men who had courted Olivia, and whom she had refused.
    â€œPoor child,” the old lady said sadly. “Understood everything, and nothing. Could name most of the birds in the sky when she was fourteen, and had no idea how few other people even looked at them. Blind as a bat, she was.”
    Runcorn struggled to keep up with her. “You mean she was naïve?”
    â€œI mean she couldn’t see where she was going!” Miss Mendlicott snapped. “Of course she was naïve. Nothing wrong with her eyesight. Didn’t want to look.”
    â€œDid Sir Alan Faraday court her seriously, do you know?”
    â€œHandsome boy,” she said, staring beyond him into the winter garden with its bare trees. “Good at cricket, as I recall. Or so someone told me. Never watched it myself. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”
    â€œDid he court Miss