“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 increased.
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 doppelg?nger 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.