The Queen's Accomplice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Durgin put down his cup and stood as well. “I still don’t like the idea of this press conference,” he said, taking a step toward her. “I don’t like the idea of your speaking publicly as a way to lure this bastard closer.”

  Just like in North and South, when the heroine speaks in public, in front of an angry mob, only to be struck by a stone. “You don’t have to like it.”

  Another step. “I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

  Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. Then she said, “I’m sure you say that to all your colleagues. Mr. Collins from the morgue, especially.”

  Durgin took her hand, and interlaced his fingers in hers. “Collins especially, yes.”

  As their fingers entwined, Maggie felt a fierce and giddy joy in her chest. Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him on his stern mouth.

  When they both finally drew back, Durgin pushed her tumbled hair from her eyes. “When this is all over, and we’re not working together anymore, I’d like to do this properly. Ask you to dinner and a film, that sort of thing.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “In the meantime, since I’ve agreed to this press conference idea, I’ll take the couch. You take the bed. Be gracious in victory, lass.”

  Maggie made her way to the bed as Durgin tried his best to settle in on the sofa. “I do try.”

  —

  “Bronwyn Parry,” the voice droned as the door swung open. “Miss Parry! It’s time!”

  A man stepped into the room. He was wearing a black Victorian costume, complete with vest, cloak, jabot, and gloves. He had a silk top hat under one arm, and his face was hidden by a white mask with holes cut for the eyes and mouth.

  Brynn was already awake and alert, unaffected by the stupor-inducing gas since she’d plugged the copper pipe. Every fiber of her being was focused on the man standing in front of her. Her captor. Her jailer. Her killer.

  “I know what you did with the pipe, Miss Parry,” he purred. “Naughty, naughty, naughty! A naughty girl. None of the others thought of that.”

  “H-how do you know?”

  “Peepholes!” he said with glee. “But that’s unimportant. This is a special evening. A date, if you will—or an outing, you might say.” Behind the mask, he chuckled. “ ‘Out’-ing? Good, isn’t it? Do you catch it? No? Well, you will soon.”

  He dove at her, his gloved hand pressing over her mouth and nose, his weight forcing her into the corner, pinning her down.

  She struggled to stay clear and focused. Think, Brynn, think! She realized the glove was damp, with that same familiar odor. It squeezed against her face, suffocating her.

  When he saw her eyes close, the man swept her into his arms and carried her to the main room of the stone-walled cellar. It was cavernous, windowless, and dank. “I’m not a violent man,” he said to himself in a mild voice as he set Brynn’s limp body down on an operating table in the center of the room. “Not by nature, at least.

  “But if you poke at a lion in a cage with a stick, over and over and over again, the lion is going to roar. No, that lion is going to bite. And once the lion realizes the cage is but imaginary, the lion is going to kill everyone who ever tried to poke him, ever.”

  He leaned down to Brynn, his masked face close to her ear. “I’m not just Jack the Ripper, Miss Parry, or the so-called Blackout Beast—I’m a crusader. A crusader for the rights of the English gentleman, which have been trampled by you modern women. The female manipulation of males during the last decades—the feminized men in Britain and Europe. So I need to send a message.”

  Brynn began to regain consciousness. She had been trained by the SOE to fight, using any and all weapons she had at her disposal, and instinctively, her eyes flicked around the room as he bound her hands and ankles to posts built into the table with leather shackles. In the shadows, she could just make out a grotesque contraption in the corner that appeared to be a medieval torture rack. There was a shelf of organs in formaldehyde, a medical cabinet full of amber bottles, and a steel tray displaying surgical instruments.

  He noticed her eyes were open and finished binding her hands and feet. “I see my job, during this insane war, is to reestablish the patriarchy,” he continued. “How else can we win the war? And still keep our heads up when it’s over? It’s not your fault,” he continued, musing. “Women after you will see the bodies and they’ll be warned. Once again, they’ll know their place.”

  She blinked and fought to escape the shackles. But she was still drugged, and the shackles were too strong.

  He slapped her across the face, and she whimpered. “Look over there.” He seized her chin in one gloved hand and pointed her face toward the wall. “My kiln—made of firebrick. If I turn on an oil jet atomized with steam, the entire kiln’s filled with a flame so hot it can melt iron.” He laughed. “I told them it was because I was interested in researching glass bending. No one even questioned how large it was. But as soon as I get a body inside, close the door, and turn on both the oil and the steam—not even the bones remain.”

  “Did you get it from Hitler and his camps?” she managed. “Is that what you’re going to do to me?” Her whole body felt stiff, anesthetized.

  “No, Miss Parry,” he said, looking over his surgical instruments. “You are going to be immortalized as I am. You’re not Bronwyn Parry anymore. Tonight, you will be playing the role of Catherine Eddowes in my tribute to Jack the Ripper. Tonight we will be performing yet another act of a morality play I’ve created, to warn the whores of the world what’s to come if they don’t behave.

  “It’s time,” he told her, his eyes gleaming behind the mask. “For your out-ing.”

  She fought against the restraints.

  “Be loud as you’d like, Miss Parry,” he urged, finally choosing a ten-inch scalpel. He turned back to her, blade in hand. “This cellar is soundproof. No one will hear you scream.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Thank you all for coming, especially on such short notice,” Durgin was saying from a podium set up in a large conference room in Scotland Yard’s offices. The windows offered a view of the slanting afternoon light over the gray-green Thames, but everyone’s attention remained focused intently on the Detective Chief Inspector, dressed in uniform. A forest of microphones poised to catch every word—BBC, CBC, and even a few from Australia and the United States—surrounded him. Photographers, with their heavy black cameras and huge flashbulbs, were standing close, ready to take aim. “But today we have breaking news in the search for the sequential murderer whom the press has dubbed the ‘Blackout Beast.’ ”

  A murmur rippled through the restless crowd. Flashbulbs popped and exploded. The unexpected bright lights made Maggie, standing behind Durgin with a few of the Scotland Yard officers, wince and shield her eyes. Blinking to dispel momentary blindness, she stared at the crowd, going over each individual man in turn. In their dark suits and ties, they all looked perfectly respectable—serious and sober, as befitted the situation. What did you expect, Hope? Devil’s horns? Glowing red eyes? Cloven hooves?

  And what did the Beast expect from her?

  Maggie wore a tweed suit with thick shoulder pads, a scarf to hide her fading bruises, her pearl earrings, and a fresh pair of silk stockings she’d bought in Washington. She’d dabbed on lipstick and her red hair was swept back into a tight bun. Her goal was to look professional. The sort of competent woman the Beast hated most.

  “The Blackout Beast has been specifically targeting patriotic young women, working for the Government,” Durgin continued, leaving out any specific mention of SOE. “Three women have been killed and their bodies displayed in ways reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. But today, Scotland Yard has a new lead in the search for this killer.”

  More flashbulbs popped.

  Durgin gestured to Maggie to come forward. “Today, I have a colleague with me—Miss Margaret Hope. Miss Hope has been assisting us with the investigation.”

  The crowd’s murmurs in
creased.

  Maggie raised her head and pressed her lips together to disguise their trembling as she stepped toward the podium. When she reached the copse of microphones, Durgin shook her hand—a perfect photo opportunity. Another explosion of flashbulbs ignited, and she tried not to wince at the bright lights and dizzying cacophony.

  Then she turned to face the crowd, straightening her shoulders and raising her chin. “Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector,” she said, unsmiling. She swept her gaze over the assembled men. “I can tell you the man we’re looking for, the so-called Blackout Beast, has a specific type of victim. His ideal is female, in her twenties, and involved with Government work. Typically she’s in London for only a short while, meeting with higher-ups before beginning her war-related job. Because she’s not from London, and may not have family and friends here, she may stay at a women’s residence hotel. These are women just like me,” she said, scanning the pale faces of the men in front of her, “young, professional, trying to serve our country as best we can. So, for me, his attacks are personal. As will be his capture.”

  Gauntlet thrown! Maggie looked past the microphones, the cameras, and into the crowd. He was there, she knew it. A hot rush of anger quelled her nerves. “This killer drugs the women, so he can control them.” Maggie felt strength course through her, as she imagined the Beast taking in her words. “But now he’s beginning to slip up, to make mistakes. One of his victims, whose name we’re protecting for privacy, survived his attack. And she’s been able to give us details, crucial details—details that will ultimately lead to the Blackout Beast’s capture and arrest.”

  Durgin joined her before the microphones. “We hope to bring this murderer to justice as soon as possible,” he said, wrapping things up. “Thank you for coming.”

  Again, flashbulbs exploded as reporters shouted questions. Durgin and Maggie ignored them. Walking out of the room, Maggie decided it had gone fairly well, considering they hadn’t given any real news. Not that the press will complain. The press conference was merely like a javelin grazing the Beast’s side—enough to wound his pride, to rouse his bloodlust—to make her his primary target.

  As she and Durgin walked together to a squad car in full view of the throng, she kept her spine ramrod straight. Follow me, you bastard. You know you want to. Follow me and tonight we’ll catch ourselves a beast.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The voice came from an officer with white hair who’d cut his chin while shaving that morning, leaving an angry red mark. “But I’m afraid another body’s been found.”

  —

  When Maggie and Durgin reached the crime scene, again in Regent’s Park, dark clouds were rolling in. The wind had picked up, and branches of the oak, ash, and beech trees were black against the overcast sky and the snow-covered ground. The police were putting up another tent, so the Yard’s staff could keep out both drifting snow and interlopers as the doctor worked. Entering the tent, Maggie flinched. It stank of blood, now an all-too-familiar scent. Mrs. Vera Baines, with her silver-handled walking stick, sat in one dim corner, arms wrapped tightly around herself as though to keep pieces from flying off.

  Maggie took a deep breath and looked to the body laid out on the tarp. She started when she saw the young woman’s face.

  Brynn.

  The dead girl was Brynn.

  She swallowed hard as she blinked back scalding tears.

  “Just like Catherine Eddowes,” she could hear the doctor saying to Durgin, as though underwater. “The report shows the details.”

  “She was your friend, wasn’t she?” Durgin said to Maggie, his voice gentle. “The one you asked after?”

  “Yes,” Maggie managed. She flipped up the collar of her coat. “Excuse me, I need some air.”

  She left, walking a few paces away from the tent, then sagged against the brick wall enclosing the misty park. The afternoon was oddly quiet. All she could hear was the occasional distant hum of a car engine, the rattle of bare branches in the frosty east wind.

  Brynn was dead, slaughtered the same way Jack the Ripper’s victim Catherine Eddowes had been. Another brave woman of the SOE, dead before she could even begin her mission. Before she could even begin her life.

  Maggie felt rage rising inside of her. There was one murder left—the doppelgänger of redheaded Mary Jane Kelly—one more chance to stop the Blackout Beast. I’m going to catch you, you monster. And I’m going to stop you. You’ll never do this to any of us, ever again.

  She unpinned her hat and shook out her hair from its tortoiseshell clip, so it swirled around her shoulders and down her back. It was red, like Red Riding Hood’s cloak. Red as any matador’s cape. Tonight I’ll be playing the role of my fellow redhead Mary Jane Kelly, Maggie thought. Between the press conference and the hair, I should be damn well irresistible.

  As she looked around the ghostly park, wondering if he was there, she thought, Come on, you bastard, you son of a bitch. Come at me, then—like the Minotaur you are, coming for the maiden in the labyrinth.

  Come on, you Devil—I dare you.

  —

  The man with the smudged green sunglasses smiled as he tracked Maggie and Durgin from the Scotland Yard press conference to where he’d dumped the body in Regent’s Park. He watched from his usual bench, throwing crumbs for a few pigeons into the snow. He watched as Maggie left the tent, looking queasy. Would she vomit? No—too bad. She saw him then, saw him and held his gaze, watching him watch her. He couldn’t move. And then she unpinned her red hair, shaking it down to her shoulders, eyes flashing.

  Very well then, Miss Hope. Challenge accepted.

  —

  “We can still call this off,” Durgin said as Maggie checked in with May, the young blonde with the port-wine stain and gray front tooth at the desk at the Castle Hotel.

  “No,” Maggie told him. Then, to the girl, “No, I don’t have any luggage, actually.” She was trying to modulate her voice, which kept creeping higher in pitch. After she signed her name in flowing black ink, she looked around her. A number of women in uniforms or brightly colored dresses under wool coats were going out for the evening. The lobby was emptying out, the fire dying. It was quiet, but he was there, she was certain of it. She felt his presence. Come on, you Beast. Come and get me.

  “Well, please let me know if you need anything.” May’s face was troubled.

  Dr. Frank came out from his office, hand extended. “Ah, Miss Hope! How are you?”

  Maggie ignored his question. “This is DCI James Durgin,” she said, gesturing.

  “Why, hello! Hello! How do you do, Detective.”

  Durgin’s face was stone. “We spoke earlier today on the telephone.”

  “Of course, of course! Right this way!”

  In the privacy of his office, Dr. Frank asked, “How’s the investigation going? Any news? I certainly hope so—those poor, poor women. And I’m happy for you to make use of the Castle Hotel, in any way you need.”

  The plan Maggie and Durgin had devised was for her to check in to the Castle Hotel, where the Beast, incensed by her appearance at the press conference, would make his move. Durgin and his officers would be outside in an unmarked car, watching the front entrance. There would be another unmarked police car at the back. A plainclothes officer would be in the hotel’s lobby, pretending to wait for one of the guests. If Maggie were to be in any danger, she would take off the blackout curtains in her room, to let the light spill out into the darkness. Then they’d know she’d been approached.

  “I’ll have May escort you to your room.” The doctor was all concern.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Durgin said, taking her hand. “We can call this off, here and now.”

  Maggie wanted nothing more than to run from the building, run away from London, from the war, from everything. But instead she took a shaky breath. “No, I’m staying.”

  As Durgin glared, Dr. Frank dialed zero on the telephone. “Yes, Miss Hope is ready to be shown her room, darling.”

 
; When May entered, she asked, “Anything else, Daddy?”

  “No, my sister. This is Miss Margaret Hope, the woman I spoke with you about—”

  “Yes, we met when she signed the book—”

  “—and DCI Durgin. After you take Miss Hope to her room, I want you to exit the hotel, as we discussed. The police officers will take care of you.”

  “Daddy—” May protested.

  “Your father’s right,” Durgin said. “It’s for your own safety, Miss Frank.”

  May smiled. “Of course. Whatever you say.”

  “May!” came a deep, resonant voice, the sort movie stars used. It belonged to a young man opening the door; however, the voice didn’t match his looks. The man was short and slight, boyish-looking, despite his smart double-breasted, pin-striped suit and camel-hair coat. His eyes were a striking hazel. Skin tags dotted his face, and his upper front teeth overlapped, one with a significant chip.

  “DCI Durgin and Miss Hope, this is Nicholas Reitter,” May told them. She’d blushed hotly as the young man entered.

  “You’re May’s fiancé,” Maggie stated.

  Nicholas smiled. “Why yes. She mentioned that, did she?”

  “She’s wearing an engagement ring and your photograph is on her desk.”

  He looked at her strangely. “You look familiar, Miss Hope. Have we met before?”

  Maggie felt a prickle of recognition, but couldn’t quite place him. “I don’t think so.”

  May fluttered her eyelashes. “Nicholas couldn’t serve because of a congenital heart defect,” she explained, “but he’s off to the Middle East soon—surveying and mapmaking and all sorts of things I don’t really understand.” She twisted at her ring. “We’ll be married during his first leave.”

  Durgin looked to Maggie. “Are you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  May touched the redhead’s shoulder. “Come, let me show you to your room.”

  —

  Faux-gas lamps at haphazard intervals along the corridor left long shadows as Maggie and May walked past.