“Old. An old witch.” Then, “You got any more money? Because the baby’s getting cold and there are three buggers upstairs probably setting fire to something.”
Durgin handed over the rest of the bills in his wallet before the girl slammed the door in his face.
* * *
—
“The first thing you need to know is Nicholas Reitter and I weren’t really friends,” Charles Wilson said over a plate of fish and chips, the air thick with the scent of hot oil. “I don’t think Nick ever had any friends. Although he could certainly be charming. And his work was excellent.” Durgin had tracked down Charlie, who said he could meet on his lunch break, at Poppie’s, near Whitehall.
Charlie shook his head as he dripped vinegar over his plate. “Finding out Nick was the Blackout Beast, though—that was a shock. You never truly know people, do you? Like we’re all wearing masks.” He was a pale man with white hair, but young—Durgin suspected he might be albino. He wore a three-piece suit with a polka-dot tie and carried a number of pens in his vest pocket, one leaking black ink.
Durgin tore through his battered cod. “Did Reitter ever seem competitive with anyone at work?”
“Kept to himself, mostly. Got on with the top brass at the firm. But I thought it was because Nick knew how to play the game—not because he was actually friendly, if you see what I mean.”
“Mr. Reitter has intimated he knows the murderer the press is calling Jimmy Greenteeth. Do you have any idea who he could be referring to?” Durgin asked.
Charlie licked grease from his lips. “No, indeed.”
Durgin reached into his pocket and produced a small black notebook. “Do you remember anyone Nicholas was particularly competitive with? Maybe someone who got an assignment he wanted?”
“He was affable at work,” Charlie said, taking a bite of a thick-cut chip. “I mean, he didn’t have friends per se, but he worked well with others. Never knew him to have a problem with anyone.”
“Did he ever mention his home life? Or his fiancée, May?”
“We knew he was engaged, of course. But he never talked much about her.”
Durgin frowned. “Did he ever mention his parents?”
“Never mentioned his dad. But occasionally Nick mentioned his mum. ‘The Witch,’ he’d call her. Sometimes ‘The Wicked Witch.’ ”
Durgin uncapped his pen and wrote Mother of the Beast—The Wicked Witch. “What kind of a relationship did they have?”
“Well, if you’re referring to your mother as a witch, probably not a good one.” He paused to take a sip of lager before continuing. “He did mention going to help her with things—the boiler in a building she owned, patching up the roof during a heavy rain, that sort of thing. But I never got the feeling they were close.”
“Did he ever mention a man in his mother’s life? Someone he might not have liked?”
“No, never.” Charlie pulled out a steel pocket watch and checked the time. “And it’s almost one and I’m afraid we’re at the end of my lunch break. Good luck to you, Detective Chief Inspector.”
As Charlie took his leave, Durgin looked down at his notebook and sighed. The Wicked Witch. He was no closer to finding Imelda Reitter.
* * *
—
Imelda Reitter sat in her garden flat. Garden was a misnomer; the rectangle of grass behind the building had been given over to pig raising since the war started. Looking out her window, she could see a large sow with a wet pink snout rooting for table scraps and oats in a wooden trough, tiny pink piglets circling her.
The apartment itself was small, with a musty smell Imelda’s small bowls of petals and herbs couldn’t get rid of. The main room was cramped and dark, with low ceilings. A shabby sofa upholstered in stained rose-colored silk dominated the space, while on a side table was a lamp with long black tassels hanging from its cerise shade. On the wall was a framed botanical print of round pink apples, and beneath was a silver-framed photograph of a younger woman and a toddler with dark eyes, who stared unsmiling at the camera.
Imelda put her coat and things away, then checked the door to the cellar to make sure it was bolted. Satisfied, she sat in a worn chintz-covered chair with the newspaper. She pulled out small silver scissors and a pot of glue from a drawer in the side table and began carefully cutting out the article with the bright blades: ANOTHER SUITCASE OF BONES This Makes Seven! Police Have No Leads as Jimmy Greenteeth Terrorizes City.
When she had finished, she reached over to the coffee table and picked up a thick scrapbook, with the title “Precious Memories.” She flipped through pages and pages of newspaper clippings and photographs captioned in calligraphy until she reached a blank page, opposite another article, NEW MURDERER IN LONDON: JIMMY GREENTEETH KILLS FOUR: Another Human Skeleton Found in Suitcase on the Bank of the Thames. Will Upstart Killer Jimmy Greenteeth Outdo the Blackout Beast?
She opened the pot of glue and dabbed the back of the article with the sticky brush. She laid it onto the fresh page and pressed down, smoothing all of the air pockets out.
When she was finished, she produced another clipping—the smaller article about Nicholas Reitter, with the artist’s rendering of Maggie Hope testifying in the Blackout Beast’s trial. She glued the article on the page opposite, then inscribed in neat rounded letters the caption BITCH.
* * *
—
Before the Blitz, Maggie would have done research at the British Library, at the British Museum in Bloomsbury. But even though most of the museum’s vast collection had been evacuated to locations around Great Britain, a bomb dropped on May 10, 1941, had caused serious damage to the building. The resulting fire destroyed everything remaining at the museum, including 250,000 books.
Instead, she set off to the London Library, at St. James’s Square in Westminster. The London Library had begun preparing for war before the Blitz by purchasing tarpaulins, blankets, and black paint; the skylights were protected with sandbags. It closed earlier than normal to ensure the building was cleared by blackout time; at night a skeleton crew of librarians slept in the basement, so they could protect the cherished books in case of bombing and fire.
In the same month the British Museum burned, one of the London Library’s members, E. M. Forster, celebrated its centenary with an article in The New Statesman and Nation. Maggie remembered the glorious words: “Safe among the reefs of rubbish, it seems to be something more than a collection of books. It is a symbol of civilization….Perhaps the Nazis will hit it, and it is an obvious target, for it represents the tolerance and disinterested erudition which they so detest. But they have missed it so far.”
Inside, the London Library was shabby but civilized—and busy. Because of the closing of the British Library, it was more popular than ever. Maggie went straight to the Science and Miscellaneous section. There she collected an armful of dusty clothbound volumes and made her way to one of the few empty tables of the reading room, next to a square pillar, beneath a high window. She could see St. James’s Square in the gloom. It was dim enough so she turned on one of the green banker lamps; a pool of golden lamplight flooded the scratched table. The only sounds were footsteps on the creaking floor, the loud ticking of the clock over the fireplace, and the occasional whispered conversation at the front desk.
Maggie cracked open the first book, inhaling the old-page fragrance of vanilla and pipe tobacco. It was a text on the mythological ancient Greek serial killer Procrustes—a blacksmith and bandit from Attica who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, to force them to fit the arbitrary size of an iron bed.
From there, she went on to read about various sequential murderers through the ages and around the world: Locusta of Gaul, who poisoned in the service of Emperor Nero; Thug Behram, India’s “King of the Thugs”; Mary Bateman, dubbed “the Yorkshire Witch,” who used arsenic; Manuel Blanco Romasanta of Spain, known as “the Wer
ewolf of Allariz.” Maggie was interested to note that while Romasanta had committed thirteen murders and was scheduled to be executed by garrote, his sentence was changed to life in prison after medical doctors petitioned to study him further.
Maggie read the findings closely. Romasanta’s life was saved when the Minister of Justice wrote to Queen Isabella II, who personally commuted the killer’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Romasanta was transferred to a prison in Celanova, where a Monsieur Phillips, a French hypnotist, examined him and wrote he was suffering from a monomania known as lycanthropy—and therefore was not responsible for his actions. He claimed he’d successfully treated the condition through hypnosis and asked the execution be delayed so he could study the case.
Werewolves? Lycanthropy? Maggie thought as she closed the book with a bang, causing a few library patrons to glare in her direction. Might as well read Dracula. Bram Stoker researched it here, after all.
What she was really looking for was some clue about how these people became monsters. Why did they commit these horrific crimes? How could they be stopped?
She got up and searched the stacks yet again, pulling down texts in brain biology.
From the earliest record of brain surgery in ancient Egypt over 3,700 years ago, until the late nineteenth century, most people believed brains were basically blank slates of gray matter. Maggie rolled her eyes as she read Jack the Ripper given as an example of the brutish urban experience—violence and murders were the outcome of the Industrial Revolution.
Maggie paged through yet more texts. By the mid-1930s, the nature versus nurture issue was being debated. Brain and nerve science became a widely recognized discipline, and the first lobotomists began their experimentation on criminals’ brains. Doctors had established a clear connection between violence and deformities of the human brain.
Beliefs about the origin of criminal behavior began to swing away from “blank slatism”—which often blamed the murderer’s mother—toward biological determinism, viewing the brain as “hardwired” from birth.
So, is there a link between murder and biology? Maggie took a moment to look out the window at the low-hanging, dark clouds. But if serial killers are nothing more than the sum of their brain matter, does that mean they’re destined to become serial killers from birth? Is it possible their brain disorders somehow lessen their criminal responsibility? Can a person be born with a violent brain, or is the violence somehow a result of a brain injury? And what about the effect of physical abuse on children? Are serial killers perfect storms of nature and lack of nurture?
Maggie remembered the discussion at Vera’s book club meeting about women and violence and decided to research female killers. Good grief, there are so many…There was Anula of Anuradhapura, who poisoned her multiple consorts; Alice Kyteler, accused of practicing witchcraft and murdering four husbands; Catherine Monvoisin, known as “La Voisin,” the central figure in the famous affaire des poisons. And in the United States there was Jane Toppan, a Victorian-era nurse nicknamed “Jolly Jane,” who confessed to thirty-one murders. Toppan was quoted saying her ambition was “to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived.”
The clock above the fireplace chimed three and Maggie realized she had to leave immediately to make her interview with Reitter at the Tower.
Chapter Nineteen
“Scotland Yard’s been interviewing people,” Maggie told Reitter. She’d just heard from Durgin. “They’ve spoken with May. They’ve spoken with Charlie Wilson.”
Reitter lounged on his narrow bed as Maggie addressed him through the bars. “And how is my darling May?”
“Still in prison. And she says she doesn’t know of anyone who might have reason to, what was it? ‘Steal your legacy.’ ”
Reitter put a hand to his chin. “Now that I think of it,” he drawled, “May might not have known everyone in my life.”
Maggie’s face froze into a mask. “And the address for your mother, Imelda Reitter, turned up nothing. She doesn’t live there, just collects the rent from tenants.”
“Mother always was industrious. Probably rented out her own place to someone who needed a home after the Blitz.”
“While that might be charitable, there’s no other known address for an Imelda Reitter in London or any of the surrounding cities.”
“Maggie,” he said, rising and walking toward her. “Yesterday, you admitted you dream of me. What exactly do you dream?”
She knew this was his way of signaling he knew he’d gotten under her skin. She wasn’t about to let him have the pleasure. “I dream of solving this case and never seeing you again.”
A tenor voice singing a snippet of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado reverberated from down the hallway:
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I’ve got a little list—I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed—who never would be missed!
They both heard footsteps on the landing and turned to see Yeoman Warder Bertie Boyce, bearing a tray. “Excuse me, Major Hope,” he said, then turned to Reitter. “Nicholas Reitter, your official death warrant has been issued.” Reitter’s mouth fell open, the knobby Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Your execution will take place three days from today. As mandated, you will have clergy present. You will be shot or hanged—your choice. And you have twenty-four hours to make the decision.” He pushed the tray with a plate of food and a mug of cold tea under the bars.
“What’s this?” Reitter asked.
“Shepherd’s pie.”
Reitter raised his one eyebrow. “With actual shepherd?”
“ ‘Mystery meat.’ ”
“Lovely.” He brought the tray to the table, but left it untouched. Warder Boyce touched his cap to Maggie as he left.
“Where does your mother really live?” she asked.
“What do you dream of?” he countered.
“I dream,” Maggie said, realizing if she told the truth, she might get more information from him, “of the two of us. Of running from you. Of us fighting. And then I find the gun. And I shoot you.”
“Are you trying to kill me? Or just take me down.”
“I was trying to kill you,” she said, attempting to keep her voice even. “And I’m an excellent shot. Must have been the drugs you used on me that ruined my aim.”
“I wish you’d killed me then and there,” he said, turning toward the window and looking out over the Thames. “I wish I’d died.”
She cleared her throat. “Yesterday you told me none of the men reported missing would match with the skeletons. Or, rather, the murdered men weren’t—at least as of yet—reported missing. Then you turned around and pretended to go to sleep.”
“Yes.” He took in her outfit—not a uniform this time, but a rayon blouse she’d bought with coupons and an old prewar wool suit. “This ensemble is better than yesterday’s, but still not quite to my taste.”
“Do you want to help, Mr. Reitter, or is this just a game? Because I need to tell you, I’m in no mood for playing. And I have better things to do with my time.”
“I could tell you so many things, Maggie. So many things you’re dying to know. Like why I chose each of those women I killed. Why I hated them. How I felt as they died. But I’m not going to yet. Those are answers you will have to earn—and you are not even a little bit close yet.”
“You might believe yourself some kind of avenging god, Mr. Reitter, but you’re merely a man who might have brain damage, who became addicted to the thrill of dominating innocent women who remind him of his mother.”
Maggie was pleased to see Reitter start. Then: “I want a life sentence.”
“I want the real name of Jimmy Greenteeth.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can go to the King, ask him for justice.”
“Justice?” Maggie scoffed. “The King’s justice? You were sentenced by the court.”
“The King can overturn the sentence.”
“Why on earth would he?”
Reitter paced in a circle. “Then I want you to attend my execution.”
“No.” Maggie tried again. “Mr. Reitter, there’s another serial killer—sequential murderer—in London. Young men are dying. You could make up for your sins—try to balance the cosmic scale, so to speak—by telling us what you know. Tell us who Jimmy Greenteeth is. You said you know the person’s name. You could do this as an act of contrition before you die. I personally don’t know if there’s a heaven or a hell—or anything at all for that matter—but if I were you I’d want to at least cover my bases.”
He stared back with one cold eye.
“And I’ll see what I can do about your sentence. Although I certainly can’t promise anything.”
He rubbed his nose. “All right, I’ll give you another clue—no bodies.”
“Yes, just bones, we already know.” Maggie’s voice was tight with impatience.
“Think, Maggie, think!” he goaded her. “What kind of person would do that?” He chuckled. “Not someone like me, certainly.”
Reitter had killed his victims in the manner of Jack the Ripper, then left the murder scene arranged as a tableau. This killer was different. “A butcher, someone who works in a food processing plant—”
“You’re leaving out a whole other profession.”
Maggie thought while Reitter closed his eye and leaned his head back. She took a moment to look closely at his mottled scars. “Coroner.”
He blinked as he snapped his head forward. “Warmer. And whoever is murdering is making the body, the flesh, disappear. Why?”
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