The Queen's Accomplice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Max ignored the gibe. “Want to step out with a future RAF pilot?” he asked, using his handsome profile to great advantage.

  “I used to step out with an actual RAF pilot.” Yes, and look how that turned out.

  “John Sterling. Yes, gone now—to make cartoons for Walt Disney. Not exactly men’s work.”

  “Wartime propaganda,” Maggie corrected, concealing her surprise at how much he knew. “Words and images—just as important as bombs these days, if not more so.”

  “You know,” Max said, taking the last bite of cake, “before this war started I was studying to be a doctor.”

  “The military can always use doctors, of course.”

  “I was thinking, maybe instead of joining the RAF, about going back to finish medical school. Only a year left in my training…But the idea of flying a Spitfire is hard to shake off.” He grinned.

  “You won’t continue to work for Mr. Churchill?”

  Max shrugged. “The Boss knows I’m not going to be around forever. Although I feel sorry for him—losing all of the best and brightest young men to the services. Soon we’ll be down to a few nearsighted Jews and women.”

  “Are you trying to be offensive, Mr. Thornton?” she asked, warning in her tone. “Or are you just stupid?”

  It took a moment for her remark to register. “Sorry, sorry!” He laughed. “Don’t be so spiky! Look, Maggie,” he said, with his most earnest gaze. “We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot. Let me make it up to you with dinner tonight—”

  “Miss Hope!” The Queen stopped by their table, a trail of corgis following in her wake like ducklings.

  Maggie and Max rose. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Walk with me, please, Miss Hope,” the monarch commanded. “We didn’t get to finish our conversation earlier.”

  Maggie shot a look at Max, then returned her gaze to Queen Elizabeth. “Of course, ma’am.”

  The corgis all waddled after the Queen as she led Maggie out of the drawing room. The massive oil paintings in the corridor had been removed for safekeeping, but the ornate Sansovino frames remained, works of art in themselves. Still, there were stains on the ceiling from water damage, and some of the plaster on the walls had been shaken loose, probably from bombing. Although there were a few guards in sight, Maggie and the Queen had relative privacy underneath the glittering chandeliers.

  “It looks better at night,” the Queen confided. Maggie noticed she was holding a glass of what looked—and smelled—like Dubonnet and gin. “And I must confess I prefer Windsor. I live for the weekends, when we can get back to our girls.”

  Maggie dared a look at the Queen’s face. Her opalescent powder had settled in the creases around her eyes. She had aged in the last years. “It sounds challenging, ma’am.”

  The corgis’ claws clicked on the gleaming wood not covered by the carpet, and a few had decided to start yapping. “Hush, darlings.” The Queen opened her handbag and pulled out a small box of treats. She shook some onto the carpet, and the dogs dove, silent at last. So that’s what the Queen keeps in her handbag.

  One of the dogs looked up at Maggie, bared his sharp teeth, and growled low in his throat.

  Oh, heaven help me. “Is that Dookie? I think he remembers me from Windsor.” And ruining my lovely leather gloves.

  “Of course he does! You remember Miss Hope, darling Dookie?”

  Dookie the Corgi. My canine nemesis. But a loyal defender of the Princesses.

  As Dookie took his biscuit, continuing to glare, the Queen turned back to Maggie. “Did you enjoy the tea?”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you. And your words were inspiring. It’s wonderful you’ve taken the time to acknowledge and appreciate women’s war work.” Then, impulsively, she went on. “It’s not always easy. You know. To be female in the professional world.” She took a breath. “I know Your Majesty has many concerns, but women in the SOE—”

  The chewing corgis all plopped themselves down on the carpet with a collective sigh.

  “Yes, Miss Hope?” the Queen prompted.

  “They’re doing the same job as the men, but not being paid the same salary or receiving the same benefits. Not all of them return, of course, from their missions—and their families are cheated out of a pension.”

  “Hmmm…” The Queen pondered. “I’ll look into it. I don’t know the details of what you actually do for the war effort, Miss Hope, but I know—and Lilibet certainly knows!—all you have done and how much you’ve sacrificed for the Royal Family. I can’t even imagine working in such a male-dominated profession—which is why I want to say to you as a fellow Briton, a fellow woman, and a grateful mother, if there’s anything I can ever do to help you—anything—please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Maggie felt the enormity of this offer. It was dizzying, as if she were a knight having a Queen’s token bestowed on her before battle. “Th-thank you, ma’am.”

  Once again, the Queen reached into her handbag. This time, she pulled out a guilloche and gold card case, and removed a thick white card, engraved with black lettering. “Should you ever need to see me, dear—in an emergency—merely show this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Maggie accepted the card with awe and gratitude. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “And I’m very glad this is not goodbye; we will meet again tomorrow night.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “For dinner! Just a small one, but the Princesses are here at Buck House and they do so want to see you. What? You didn’t receive that invitation? It’s for you and a guest—”

  “I’ve been traveling—and changing addresses, ma’am.”

  “Well, then, let me extend a personal invitation—come to Buckingham Palace tomorrow evening at seven-thirty, for dinner. Formal dress, of course.”

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time Maggie passed back through Buckingham Palace’s gates and into the dingy gray afternoon, the snow had stopped falling, but the slicing cold wind had once again picked up. The marble statue of Queen Victoria looked down worriedly at her subjects as the streets filled with people making their way through the slushy snow, desperate to get home before the sun set and blackout commenced. There was always an urgency at this time of day, to find safe haven.

  “Ah, there you are!” Max approached, red-striped university scarf flapping. “This is a dangerous wind.”

  “You caught me, Mr. Thornton,” Maggie said, her voice lost in the gusts. And here I thought I was getting away….

  “Max, please. And, again, I’d like to take you to dinner. To make up for my beastly behavior. Would you let me, Maggie?” He turned the full force of his charisma on her.

  “Dinner, fine,” she said loudly, almost shouting. “But it’s going to have to be an early night.”

  They took a taxi to Covent Garden as the sun set, transforming London into an unfamiliar shadow world. “This place is one of my favorites,” Max announced, seizing Maggie’s arm in a viselike grip and steering her up the stairs of the Market’s gray stone piazza to the Punch and Judy pub. As they walked, snow, leaves, newspaper pages, cigarette stubs eddied and swirled at their feet. She fought the urge to shake off his grasp. Her gut was telling her to. But there is no “gut,” she admonished. Think like the mathematician you were trained to be. Aunt Edith would be appalled at the very idea of “the gut.”

  And you don’t want to be rude, after all.

  The bright, bustling dining room of the pub seemed far removed from the dark, windy world outside, with its ornate gilded mirrors and shining brass chandeliers with frosted globe shades. The waxed, wooden walls glowed.

  Maggie and Max checked their coats with a young woman with lank brown hair drawn back in a velvet snood, then maneuvered between the front tables near the bar, where diners sat with gas masks at their feet. Finally, they found a small table in the corner.

  Beneath the high-beamed ceiling, framed posters of Punch and Judy shows through the years lined the walls, and puppets were displayed over the long oak b
ar. The mosaic floor was made of tiny black and red tiles, and the room thrummed with the clatter of metal against china, the clink of glasses, and the low rumble of conversation. It smelled of beer and cabbage. SOYA LINK SAUSAGES ONLY, warned the chalkboard menu.

  “Would you like a drink?” Max asked her. “I find in these dark times, alcohol is often the solution.”

  “Actually,” Maggie replied with a smile, trying to be gracious, “alcohol is not a solution—alcohol plus tonic is a solution.” It was one of chemistry professor Aunt Edith’s favorite quips.

  He looked aghast. “There’s certainly no tonic available now—”

  Poor Max. He doesn’t get it. “Actually, I’d prefer tea, please.”

  “Surely something a bit stronger!”

  “No,” Maggie countered. “I’d like tea. Thank you.”

  As Max went up to the crowded bar, she idly looked over to a dartboard. A game was in progress, with a cluster of white-haired men in the middle of a heated contest, their calls to one another growing more boisterous the more beer was consumed. Still, regardless of drink, they were good shots, and Maggie watched as player after player’s darts hit the red bull’s-eye, one flushed man in the corner keeping score.

  “Fish and chips!” a gentleman in suspenders chortled as his three darts hit the 20, 1, and 5 for a total of 26. The rest of the group raised their glasses to him as he gave a toothy grin and took a deep bow. His friends applauded.

  The dartboard reminded Maggie of the map they had at Mark’s office with its red pushpins. In darts, each player’s trying to hit the bull’s-eye or come as close as possible, she mused. But the Blackout Beast wanted to get the bodies as far away as possible from where the murders took place. He wouldn’t leave a body too near the scene of the crime and/or his residence.

  Maggie watched as another man with wispy white hair and rolled-up checked shirtsleeves shot his three darts. They fell on the outer ring, and his friends taunted him with a chant of “Fish, fish! Fish!”

  She chewed her lip, deep in thought. While the dart player’s goal is to hit the center, the serial—sequential murderer’s is to create a protective zone. When the Blackout Beast dumps the bodies, he’s going to want it to seem random—no evidence too close to him. But when someone’s trying to do something at random, and not make a pattern—there’s always an unconscious inherent design to it.

  A jolt of realization shot through her. Could one create a formula that would point to where the killer was located, based on where the bodies are found?

  Max returned from the bar with two whiskeys. He sat in the chair opposite Maggie and put a glass in front of her while raising his own in a jocular salute.

  “Thank you,” she said, eyeing the whiskey, wishing for pen and paper to write down her dart-inspired revelation. “But I asked for tea.”

  “They’re out of tea.”

  Maggie didn’t believe him. As she left her drink untouched, she watched Max drain his glass in one thirsty gulp. He rolled the tumbler between his palms and held Maggie’s eyes with his. She found his gaze disconcerting and looked back to the darts game.

  “You know, I loved Punch and Judy as a child,” he said, gesturing to a framed red-and-white striped poster on the wall near them, an enraged, hook-nosed Punch beating Judy over her head with his stick.

  Maggie studied one of the Punch puppets above the bar: This one had a papier-mâché head with a red face, a sugarloaf hat, and a hunchbacked body clad in scarlet jester’s motley with a tassel on his cap. He carried a huge black stick. “I didn’t grow up with Punch and Judy.” She imagined the beatings the Judy puppet must have endured over the years. “The show’s not as popular in the States.”

  “Have you ever even seen a Punch show?”

  “In passing, in the parks. It’s a bit violent for my taste.”

  “Nonsense! It’s great fun! Covent Garden is where it all started, you know.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  “I admit I had puppets when I was a child—and used to put on my own little shows. I had a pretty good swazzle, if I do say so myself—that’s Punch’s traditional voice.” He cleared his throat. “Hullo, Judy my girl. I want a little dance. What do you mean, you don’t want to dance? I’ll beat you silly and throw the baby out the window! What a piece of work about nothing!” He smirked like a Cheshire cat. “I played a passable Devil, too.”

  “I don’t like how Mr. Punch treats his wife.” In most of the performances Maggie had seen, Judy had been bludgeoned to death, to the cheers of the audience.

  “Oh, it’s all in good fun. Besides, Judy’s no angel herself. She has it coming, really.” Max laughed. “Why don’t I get us some food,” he declared, more of a statement than a question.

  “No.” Maggie had lost her appetite. I need to get home and work on the formula….“I need to get home.”

  “Oh! Want to go somewhere quieter? More private? Do you know anywhere around here where we can go? Air-raid shelter, perhaps?” he added with a suggestive leer.

  Maggie stood. “I’m leaving now.”

  “Are you a naughty girl?” he asked, mimicking Mr. Punch’s shrill tones. The effect was unsettling.

  “No, I’m not. And stop using that ridiculous voice.”

  Max pulled out his wallet and opened it. He continued, still as Punch, “I have plenty of money, you know. Let me show you something.” He flashed a thick wad of bills.

  “Put that away,” Maggie hissed. “You’ll be pickpocketed.”

  “I have about fifty pounds.”

  “Good for you,” Maggie said. “I encourage you to use it to see a psychoanalyst.” She headed for the coat check and then the exit without a backward glance into the windy darkness.

  “Look,” he called after her, following. “If you’d be kind enough to have dinner with me, I promise I’ll show you a good time.” He stepped in front of her. “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Let me at least get you home safely. It can be dangerous for young ladies out there in the dark. I insist.”

  People were staring. Maggie saw no way of getting rid of him without making a scene. “Fine.”

  They walked side by side toward the Tube station. Beyond the blacked-out windows and blank façades, people’s voices could be heard, enjoying the evening. Happy noise in the darkness of the blackout always struck a strange chord with Maggie, the disembodied voices seeming somehow macabre. After turning down James Street, Max said to her, “Do you know I’ve had my Mr. Punch moments, too? I hit a girl once. Knocked her out.”

  What? “And why would you do that?”

  Once again, he began to speak in Punch’s squeaky tones. “Because her old man didn’t like me, you see. So I kicked him in the privates and then knocked him out.”

  Maggie realized there seemed to be no point to this strange admission and continued to walk, faster now. The pavement, covered in the afternoon’s snow, now turning to ice, was slippery. And in Paige’s tight Schiaparelli skirt and heels, she couldn’t walk as fast as she would have liked.

  Max kept up with her easily. “Did you know there’s a drug you can give to dogs to prevent them barking during air raids? It is called Calm Doggie, and you can buy it at any chemist’s—I admit to using a few myself during the Blitz. Slept like a baby through everything.”

  Calm Doggie. Maggie had heard of the pills you could grind up and put in dog food. Could it work to knock women out before they were murdered? Was there any way Mr. Collins could test for it being in the women’s blood?

  In the heavy darkness, she found it increasingly difficult to find her way and reached into her purse for a small electric flashlight, with regulation blackout shutters. She turned it on and shone the weak beam on the ground as she picked her way forward in the gusts.

  Again, Max stepped in front of her. “You don’t want to use that,” he told her, taking the flashlight from her and switching it off. He tossed it into an alley.

  “Hey!” Maggie was
angry. “That’s mine!”

  “But you have me, my dear, you have me!”

  “I’ll take it from here on my own.”

  “But I want to kiss you good night. There’s an air-raid shelter not far from here. It will be empty, I promise.” Punch’s voice in the darkness made her flinch.

  “No.” Maggie was adamant. “I’ve had quite enough of your cheek, Mr. Thornton. Goodbye.”

  “You must call me Max.” He pulled her into a doorway off the street.

  “I said goodbye!”

  Max tried to kiss her, putting his hands on her waist, then moving them lower.

  “Stop it!” Maggie hissed, shoving him away.

  He pinned her against the wall to block any escape and took her face between his hands. As Maggie opened her mouth to scream, his fingers wrapped around her throat. When he squeezed, she gasped frantically. But the more she struggled, the tighter his grip became. His fingers dug deeper into the flesh of her neck.

  Her throat began to close and her arms grew heavy. A thick gurgling noise was the only sound escaping her mouth—but she could hear another sound, too—him, moaning in pleasure as he rubbed against her.

  Her SOE training kicked in and she kneed him in the groin. While he cried out in pain and clutched at himself, she grabbed his head with both hands, pulling it down so she could slam it against her rising knee, hard. She heard a satisfying crack.

  He slumped to the top stair of the doorway, hands to his face. “Bitch!” he screamed into the shadows. “You broke my nose!”

  As Maggie backed away, she could see the blood dripping down his upper lip, black in the dim light. He spat out a loose tooth, looking shocked, almost offended. “How am I going to explain all this at Number Ten? I can’t work for the Prime Minister looking like this!”

  “Not my problem.” Maggie shrugged, turning to walk away. “Maybe it’s time to join the RAF.”

  “You whore!” he spat. “Dirty slut!”

  “No,” Maggie said, her voice calm and her senses sharp despite the pulse pounding in her ears. “If you want a prostitute, go to Hyde Park and use your money. But I’m not for sale. And never yours for the taking.”