She felt as though she were about to be sick, but took a shallow breath. She reached for the sterling silver letter opener on her desk, then sliced through the twine.
She pierced through the brown wrapping paper and tore it open, then lifted off the cardboard lid. Inside, there was a sheet of folded paper. This, too, was stained with blood. And then—something—wrapped in waxed paper that had parted wide enough to reveal its glistening red contents. It gave off a strong meaty smell, and K tried to stick his head into the box to get a better sniff.
“No!” Maggie screamed in horror, her cry echoing in the sparely furnished room.
She backed away, unable to tear her eyes from the bloody organ, smothering the howl she wanted to make by clamping her hands over her mouth. Realizing K was trying to investigate the obscene object, she scooped him up, then set him on the floor, none too gently. K jumped silently up onto the bed to regard her, and the package, with inscrutable eyes.
Maggie swallowed hard and with shaking hands lifted the letter. She unfolded it, staring at the spidery handwriting.
Dear Miss Hope:
As you may have deduced by now, I have decided to send the working women, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker (or to the Devil, as the case may be).
Even though I’ve taken on the legacy of Jack the Ripper, in homage to his killing of whores, I consider myself a rational and erudite man. However, the so-called modern woman enrages me.
You want to keep the advantages of being women, while stealing the strengths of men.
You are intent on transforming our patriarchy into a matriarchy, which denies the intrinsic worth of Englishmen.
And so the once proud, virile, and impregnable British Empire has been turned into a woman, one who is submitting to the rape of the Nazis.
I may sound like a madman, but I am but a rational, intelligent English gentleman who has been driven to murderous insanity by modern women.
Do you want to know who’s to blame for the Blackout Beast killings?
Look in the mirror, Miss Hope.
It is you, and the rest of your modern sisterhood, who are at fault.
You did this.
And I will annihilate you all.
Chapter Fifteen
“This!” Maggie tossed the grisly box, which she’d wrapped in a white pillowcase, onto the low table in front of Durgin. “This package came today. It was left. At my house. My house!” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, hugging herself, heart thudding.
Durgin looked up from a stack of papers. “And what do we have here?”
“See the viscous red liquid leaking out of said package?” Maggie fumed. “Well, it’s blood. Blood from a kidney, if I’m not mistaken. And a human one at that, if I’m to believe the accompanying note!”
Durgin put down his tea and peered closer, opening the pillowcase, his eyes widening at the sight of the bloody box. He squinted down at it, as if it were Pandora’s and contained all the horrors of man—then back up at Maggie, seeing the stricken look in her eyes.
“Do you think—do you think it could be…Brynn’s?” she managed.
“There’s no way to know.” His expression of sympathy was the last straw. She ran out of the room, pressing her hand against her mouth to stifle her weeping.
In the ladies’ W.C., she retched into the toilet, bringing up the bad coffee. Finally, when she was done, she made her way to the sink to wash her face. As she spat water into the sink, she looked at her reflection. Look in the mirror, Miss Hope, the letter had read. She waited until the urge to vomit again had passed. Then she dried her hands and did what she could with her hair before exiting.
Durgin was in the hall, waiting for her. “I asked the secretary, Mrs. What’s-her-name, to make you tea.”
Maggie nodded. “At least I didn’t vomit on a crime scene,” she tried to joke as she walked unsteadily back to their shared office. His hand closed on her upper arm as he guided her steps. She didn’t shrug him away. Human touch felt terribly important at that moment.
Durgin walked her away from the grisly package and to the far sofa. “Where did you find it?”
She turned her face from the package. “In my bedroom.”
He perched on the sofa arm beside her. “Did you see who delivered it?”
“No. My flatmate found the package on the doorstep and brought it upstairs.”
“All right, I’m going to call the Yard and have someone investigate if there are any witnesses to who may have left it.” As he rose, he gave her shoulder an awkward pat. “And I’ll see where the blasted tea is….”
As he went to the desk and made the telephone call, she picked at a loose thread on the cuff of her sweater, her heart drumming. Someone left me a kidney. Whose was it? Brynn’s? That of another woman working with SOE? One murdered by the Blackout Beast?
She continued to pick at the fraying cuff as she listened to Durgin speak to an officer at the Yard, then place another call, this one within MI-5, requesting a photographer.
When he was done, Maggie began speaking, the words pouring from her. “I have a friend who’s a mother staying with me, with her child. A baby! I can’t have”—she fumbled for a word—“offal delivered to my home! And the letter—”
She put her hand to her mouth, covering it as though she could force the words back in; she couldn’t speak them aloud. If that’s her kidney, then where’s the rest of her? Oh, Brynn…She dropped her hands to her lap, and underneath the tabletop, curled them into fists, nails digging deep into her palms, making angry red crescents.
“Miss Hope,” Durgin said, gently. “Maggie. I’m now going to ask you—with all due respect—to take a deep breath.”
She did.
The detective put on a pair of rubber gloves. He moved back to the package, lifting it from the pillowcase. “It’s addressed to you—by name.”
Maggie nodded, mute with misery and fury. She watched as he parted the brown butcher’s paper. Using the tips of his fingers, he pulled out the note, then peered inside. “That’s half a kidney, all right,” he said as the unpleasant odor permeated the office. “Can’t tell if it’s human or not.” He looked over to her. “Please go into my bag and get my powder and brush. I’m going to dust for prints.”
Maggie did as he asked.
He dipped his brush into the powder. “Did you touch it?”
“No. Of course not,” she snapped. “Oh, goodness—I touched the letter! I didn’t know what it was when I did—”
“It’s all right,” Durgin allowed, unexpectedly gentle. After dusting the package, notes, and kidney itself, he picked something up with his tweezers. “What’s this?”
“A hair?”
“A cat hair,” Durgin specified. “Marmalade tabby, I’m guessing.”
“It’s mine.” Maggie groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “I mean, it’s from my cat.”
“It’s always best, on the whole, Miss Hope, not to allow animals to contaminate crime scenes. Whenever possible, of course.”
Maggie’s head shot up. “Well, tell that to him, living on rationed cat food and smelling a nice raw kidney!”
He gazed at her a moment before replying. “Well, we have no fingerprints, no insects, and no fibers—beyond the hair of one red tabby cat. But the letter…” He shook his head. “The letter gives us quite a lot of information on our Beast and the way he thinks.”
An MI-5 agent came to the door with a heavy black camera, and Durgin waved him in. As the photographer, a walrus of a man with an elaborate white handlebar mustache, began snapping pictures from every conceivable angle, Maggie asked, “Do you really think the Beast ate the other half, the way Jack the Ripper allegedly did? We’re now dealing with cannibalism?”
“Maggie, come walk with me.” Durgin picked up their coats. “Let’s let this man do his job.” He held Maggie’s for her as she put it on, then put on his own.
Outside, the pavement was slick and wet, and more snow was falling. For the moment, the wind had died down. The perfect time to light up, Maggie thought, suddenly desperately craving a cigarette. “Do you smoke?”
“No, I quit that habit, along with the whiskey, back in the day. You?”