The King's Justice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Maggie was on her second cup when Chuck entered, still in her nightgown and robe. “Tea,” Maggie said, pouring and then handing a mug to her friend.

  Chuck accepted it wordlessly as she sat, wrapping her hands around the mug for warmth. The two women sipped in silence. K jumped up and settled himself in Maggie’s lap, his purr a low and constant rumble.

  “The victory garden looks good,” Maggie offered finally.

  “Just onions and potatoes in now. They’ll be coming up soon.”

  “What else are you planting?”

  “Broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage in the next few weeks, when the ground thaws. I’ve started the lettuce and spinach inside, in the spare bedroom, along with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.”

  Maggie nodded. She searched for something else, anything neutral to say, and came up blank.

  Chuck was trying. “And then I’ll sow some sugar snap and English peas as soon as the soil really warms up. The rest—beans, cowpeas, corn, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers—I’ll plant sometime at the end of April. Oh, and I’ll ring the plumber—not only is the kitchen sink still dripping but the hall toilet’s stopped up.”

  “I know—I’ll call.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll do it.” The song segued into a short speech by the King. When he signed off, Chuck noted, “Old Georgie’s stutter is improving.”

  Maggie smiled. “You say that every time you hear him.”

  “Well, I don’t exactly love the British monarchy, as you know,” Chuck said, her Irish accent even stronger than usual. “But even I realize in wartime the King and the nation are one.”

  Outside, the hens were scratching and clucking. One of them, the mottled hen Maxene, fluttered up to the windowsill and regarded Maggie intently. “The chicken’s judging me,” she said, pulling her robe tighter over her chest.

  Chuck barked with unexpected laughter. “No!”

  “Absolutely.” Maggie grinned, happy to have distracted her friend. “They judge me constantly. They don’t approve of my drinking, my smoking, the motorbike, my new job…Probably don’t like James, either.”

  “Maggie dear,” Chuck said. “Is it really the chickens who are judging? What would Freud say?”

  Maggie thought back to how Durgin had left the party. “Freud would say…we have too many chickens and not enough cocks.”

  Chuck’s eyes twinkled. “I’d love to start breeding the girls.”

  “But cocks, er, roosters, can be aggressive…”

  The mirth drained from Chuck’s face. “Yes.”

  Maggie swallowed, deciding to plunge forward. “He could have hurt you, Chuck. Nigel could have really hurt you.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.”

  “But he could have—” Killed you, Maggie thought. The unspoken words hung in the air.

  “I can take it.”

  “But why should you have to?”

  Chuck was silent. Finally, Maggie asked, “Aren’t you angry? I don’t know what happened, but I heard you scream, twice.” She picked up her mug again. “If it happens again, I’ll break in and punch his lights out.”

  “No! No, he—he had a nightmare, that’s all. And I didn’t know what was happening.”

  Chuck reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small glass jar. She handed it to Maggie. “Gentian violet and petroleum jelly,” Chuck told her. “For those burns on your fingers, from the UXBs.” Before she’d married and had Griffin, she’d been a pediatric nurse.

  “Thank you.” Maggie opened the jar, inhaling the strong scent. She rubbed some of the jelly on her hands.

  Chuck looked away. “I know how it must look—”

  Maggie felt like a useless outsider. She’d seen so much violence, in so many corners of the world, she just couldn’t believe it was happening under her own roof. Still, she wanted to tread gently with her friend. “You don’t have to.” She ran her fingertips over the nicks and scratches of the wooden table, then traced the circle of a stain left from a tea mug.

  “I don’t think it’s as cold today,” she ventured after a minute or two. “Just damp and raw. I think the last of the snow might melt.” She had been raised in America and Chuck in Ireland, but they still knew the English convention of talking about the weather.

  “Yes,” Chuck answered. “I hope—I mean, I’m sure it will. Melt. Later, that is.”

  Maggie took a sip of tea. Then, “I’ve heard some men—people—come back from combat with shell shock.”

  Chuck, lost in her own thoughts, didn’t respond. But as she tucked her hair behind her ears, she inadvertently revealed red marks around her neck. Maggie jumped to her feet. “Jesus H. Christ! Did Nigel do that?” Her friend didn’t look up. “Did he try to strangle you?”

  Chuck’s hand fluttered to her throat. “He had a bad dream. That’s what the fuss was about. It’s fine.”

  Maggie pushed aside her rage and came around the table to sit closer to her friend. She reached out to brush aside Chuck’s curls, seeing a loop of red circle her neck like a noose.

  “This”—her eyes widened as she saw the bruises rising—“is not fine.”

  “I told you,” Chuck repeated, “it’s fine. I’m fine.” She flipped her thick hair forward around her neck again, then pulled the robe around her. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing,” Maggie responded, her jaw tight. “If that’s what it looks like on the outside, how do you think it looks inside? You need to see a doctor.”

  “He only grabbed at me.”

  “Strangled—grabbed. This isn’t about semantics. Why are you defending him?”

  “Because I love him. Because he’s the father of my child. Because we took vows.” She continued, her voice thin. “Because something happened to him over there. Something that changed him. Something I can’t even begin to understand.”

  A wave of fury so strong it nearly knocked her down coursed through Maggie. She was furious at Nigel, at all the men who demeaned and diminished and degraded, who hurt. Furious at Nicholas Reitter, at Jimmy Greenteeth. At the Germans and Italians and Japanese. At the Nazi pilots who’d bombed London, their deadly cargo just waiting to explode.

  Done with his breakfast, K headed for the back door. “Meh!” he exclaimed, turning and fixing Maggie with a significant look. “Meeeeeeeeeh!”

  Heart still thumping, Maggie put a hand on her hip. “You really want to go out in this damp?”

  “Meh!” he responded, looking up at her as she approached.

  “All right, then, Mighty Hunter.” She opened the door and the cat darted past her, disappearing into the shrubs.

  “By the way, your Aunt Edith sent another care package,” Chuck said, pointing to a box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, covered in purple postage stamps with an American eagle bearing the seal WIN THE WAR. While Maggie’s Aunt Edith Hope wasn’t the type to send letters with flowery sentiments, she regularly sent Maggie boxes of American items like Spam, maple syrup, cranberry jelly, and bars of Hershey’s chocolate. Maggie used a box cutter to open the package, then busied herself putting things away in the cupboards.

  “All right,” Chuck said finally, her voice booming in the quiet. “I admit—things aren’t fine.” Maggie turned and leaned against the counter, making herself take slow breaths. “My marriage is circling the drain,” Chuck admitted, casting a quick glance at Maggie. “So to speak. Nigel and I have nothing to say to each other anymore. And these terrible nightmares…”

  “He seems to be good with Griffin,” Maggie prompted, concerned for the child’s safety. “Has, er, he…”

  “No—not Griffin. Never Griffin,” Chuck said. “We’re using Griffin as a buffer—so we don’t have to talk to each other.” She stopped. Then, “Sarah’s still sleeping?”

  Maggie noticed the change of subject, but decided
to go with it. “Actually, I think she was up early and left before…” Before the screams. “Well—before we got up.”

  “She’s rehearsing a lot.”

  Maggie nodded. “I think it’s easier for her to dance herself numb than think about Hugh’s death. And everything else she’s been through.”

  “I’m going to mass this morning,” Chuck said. “Then to the shops. What are you doing today?”

  “Shift at the Hundred and Seventh a bit later.”

  “You used to swim in the early mornings.”

  It was true; Maggie had regularly swum outdoors in the Ladies’ pond at Hampstead Heath, even during the worst of the winter. But she’d vowed the swim she’d taken off the Isle of Scarra in Scotland would be her last. She felt a wash of shame at her indolence. Her rage spluttered out. “I…quit.” It flattened into hopelessness. “I don’t swim anymore.”

  “You used to exercise so much.”

  When she’d been in SOE, Maggie had kept herself on a grueling training routine. “Yes, I quit that, too.”

  “You’re drinking a lot these days. And smoking again.”

  Chuck said the words with genuine concern, but Maggie was in no mood to hear them. She liked her drinks, her cigarettes. She liked feeling numb. “Everyone in London drinks and smokes these days. And does heaven knows what else!”

  “There is such a thing as smokers’ cough, you know,” Chuck said. “Philip Morris just ran a magazine ad acknowledging it. Of course, they claim it’s caused by smoking brands other than Philip Morris—which I rather doubt.” Maggie knew smoking was affecting her breathing, but she didn’t care enough to quit. Chuck wasn’t finished. “And then there’s that motorbike—”

  “Fast as a car and saves petrol,” Maggie interrupted. Then, “I have a date tonight.” Chuck’s not the only one who can change the subject.

  “With James?”

  Maggie nodded. “He said something about a surprise.”

  Chuck’s eyes flashed with anticipation. “Do you think he’ll…propose?”

  Maggie laughed. “I think a proposal might be a bit premature.”

  “Tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

  “I—” She did really like Durgin, liked him very much. “Things are good right now.”

  “Good?”

  “We enjoy each other’s company.”

  “Hmmm. Well, it’s not sapphires or ermine or attar of rose, but he did leave a folder for you last night.”

  Maggie remembered—the information about the purloined Stradivarius. She picked it up. “Believe me, this is hearts and flowers for James. It’s about a stolen violin. He thinks it will somehow ‘fix’ me to be distracted by the case—one without violence and gore for a change.” She opened the file and took out the papers, leafing through.

  “Wait—do you mean the violin stolen from Giacomo Genovese?” Chuck asked, her voice tinged with reverence.

  “Yes, actually.” Maggie looked up, surprised. “Are you a violin aficionado?”

  “I’m a Giacomo aficionado,” Chuck clarified. “He’s ridiculously handsome. And so passionate when he plays. They call him the ‘Valentino of the Violin,’ you know…” She looked at Maggie expectantly. “Well, searching for a stolen violin would be a nice change of pace after the Blackout Beast and all of that. Are you going to help?”

  Maggie put down the file pages. The last thing she wanted was to work on another case, even if no murders were involved. Somehow, Durgin would have to solve it without her. “No.” She closed the file and put it back on the counter. “I want to have a regular life—”

  “Defusing bombs?” Chuck shook her head. “Should you really be doing that? I worry so when you’re out. I worry when you’re here, too—you seem a bit…off since you returned from Scotland.”

  “I’m doing my best. I’m working—doing a necessary job. And trying to have a normal relationship. Meaning no cases.” She rose and almost dropped the file into the rubbish bin, but then set it back down on the counter. They could use the clean back sides of the pages, as paper was in short supply. But no more cases, no more mysteries. She had a brief flashback to her dream. No more murders.

  She took her mug to the sink and rinsed it. From the window, she could see one of the back garden’s trees, a tall maple. K was sitting underneath, his body tensed, looking up at the bare branches without blinking.

  Maggie followed his gaze. There was a bird nest on one of the lower boughs. She looked closer. A tiny bird was perched on the edge, as if trying to decide whether to fly or not. “Psst! Chuck!” she whispered. “A baby bird! Look!”

  Chuck joined her at the glass pane. “Oh, how adorable!” she said. “Sweet little thing.” The bird tried to fly—and fell. It landed on the ground underneath the nest and remained there, unmoving, as though stunned.

  K, sensing his opportunity, crouched down low and began to slowly approach the bird. “Oh no you don’t!” In a flash, Maggie grabbed a dish towel and was out the door. K wailed, “Meeeeeeeh!” in protest, and she scooped up the tiny bird with the towel and placed it gently back in the nest.

  As Maggie returned to the kitchen, Chuck cupped her swollen breasts with her hands. Maggie could see the dark milk stains blossoming on her robe. Chuck looked down, then up to Maggie, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “For heaven’s sake, I’m leaking,” she exclaimed in horror, as she made her way upstairs to change.

  K mewed once more in protest, and Maggie shook her head. “No murders today, K. Not even by you,” she chided the sulking cat.

  “Meh!” It sounded like profanity.

  “I know, Fur Face,” Maggie said. “Tell it to the Marines.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I don’t like Robbie Fallwell,” Milly Fletcher said, shouting over the wind, as she used a trowel to dredge through the sand and silt on a bank of the Thames near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  Her twin brother, Mark Fletcher, was digging a few feet away. “You do like Robbie Fallwell. You want to kiss him!”

  “Bollocks.”

  “It’s true!”

  “It’s not!”

  “You swore! I’ll tell Mother!”

  “If you tell Mummy, I’ll make you wish you didn’t!”

  Milly and Mark mudlarked in the early mornings before school. What they found and sold helped supplement their father’s income as the conductor and director of the church’s boy chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral School. Since so many children had left London during the Blitz, there were fewer singers than normal—women and girls now filled in the ranks of the formerly all-male choir. And without the tuition money, teachers at the school had taken significant pay cuts.

  Mark had been a chorister since he’d entered the school, following in his father’s footsteps. Milly had only sung with the choir since the summer of 1940, when so many of the boys had been sent away. They’d both stayed in London, though—their parents wanted to keep the family together. By finding bits and bobs in the Thames silt and selling them to the U.S. and Canadian soldiers, they were able to earn enough for the occasional trip to the cinema or boiled sweets—small paper sacks filled with root licorice, ginger cremes, anise-seed twists, and fizz bombs.

  Milly stood up and stretched, then put a gloved hand to her back, surveying the gray-brown water of the river. “Tide’s coming in,” she said as a gull swooped by overhead, shrieking obscenely.

  “We have plenty of time,” Mark insisted. “I haven’t found anything good yet.”

  Milly, who’d already unearthed a clay pipe, which she’d later string into a necklace for a soldier or sailor to send home to his sweetheart, wasn’t so sure. “There’s only a small strip of sand left—we need to hurry or we’ll get wet.”

  “What do I care about getting wet?” Mark muttered, as he continued to dig. “Easy for her to say—she’ll have e
nough to go to the cinema and maybe even a box of pear drops. And she won’t share with her own brother!” He stabbed at the cold silt until his trowel hit something hard.

  “Come on, Mark. Mummy’s got some smoked haddock. She’s going to make fish cakes.”

  He kept digging, trying to unearth what was buried below. “I loathe fish cakes—and when this bloody war is blooming over, I’ll never eat bloody fish cakes again.”

  “Mark—”

  He found a corner of what looked like a box and began to dig in earnest. “When I am a man, I shall only eat beef and chocolates!” The hard object in the sand was a valise, made of canvas, with rotting leather trim. “Hey—give me a hand here, all right?”

  “What is it?”

  “Case of some sort…” Mark grunted as he struggled to lift it free from the sand with Milly’s help.

  “What do you think’s inside?” she asked, the tide forgotten. “Jewelry?”

  “Gold doubloons and rubies, I’m sure.” Pressing on the metal locks, he popped the latches free, then opened the case’s lid. Both children jumped back when they saw the jumble of white bones.

  “Jimmy Greenteeth!” Milly whispered. The twins’ eyes met, their quarrel forgotten.

  * * *

  —

  At the end of the Met Police’s morning roll call, DCI Durgin entered the large, chilly room, carrying a steaming mug of tea. The uniformed police officers all stood, straightening their spines; one pulled at the hem of his woolen jacket to smooth any wrinkles.

  “We have a new sequential murderer in London,” Durgin said, setting the mug down and leaning his long frame against the front of the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. The other officers took their seats. “Although the press has nicknamed our new killer ‘Jimmy Greenteeth,’ that’s not a moniker I’d like any of us to use.”

  “What are we going to call him then, sir?” came a man’s low voice from the back.

  There were a few chortles, and then another officer offered, “You know the drill—we have to pick a name from the Book.” The Book was a long, bound list of names for operations, created by a special group of policemen at Scotland Yard.