The King's Justice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Nicolette nodded, placing one hand on his forearm in sympathy. “It’s terrible what they’ve done to your people.”

  “I—I was told you’d have a new passport for me?”

  She removed her hand and leaned back. “Yes, I received the photographs. And the fee?”

  He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a stack of bills, handing them to her. She folded them and tucked the wad into her brassiere. “Thank you.”

  “When do I go?”

  “As soon as you’ve had your vaccinations,” she said, rising.

  Luciano started. “No one said anything about vaccinations!” Then, sheepishly, “I’m a little afraid of needles.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a nurse,” Nicolette said. “It’s just to get you into the country—all those nasty tropical diseases. Argentina won’t admit anyone who hasn’t received the proper vaccinations.”

  She went to her desk, opening a drawer and taking out some papers. “Now, I’d like you to write a few postcards to your family—just so they won’t worry,” she assured him. She passed him a postcard with a picture of a yacht. The caption read Marseilles: Point de Départ de la Côte d’Azur. “You’ll go from here to Marseilles, then on to Casablanca, and then finally to Buenos Aires,” she told him. “What you do when you arrive is your business, of course.”

  He did as he was told but asked, “Why can’t I just send the postcards when I get to the cities?”

  Nicolette gave a sweet smile and shook her head. “No, you won’t have time. And with the war, the delivery can take so long….No, it’s better for your family if they receive cards letting them know you’re all right. You don’t want them to worry unnecessarily, do you?”

  Luciano shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  When he’d finished with the cards, she picked them up, looked them over, and returned them to her desk. She pulled a leather box from a drawer.

  From the box, she took a syringe. She went to another drawer, a deeper one. It was filled with a variety of prescription drugs and narcotics, including morphine, worth a fortune on the black market. She selected a vial of liquid, and Luciano paled.

  “This is your vaccination,” she told him as she rolled up his sleeve. “You must have this, and the signed papers from me, to be let into Argentina.” She swabbed the crook of his elbow with an alcohol-soaked cotton pad. “Don’t be afraid, I’m known to be quite good at this sort of thing,” she assured him as she brought the needle closer. The neck of her robe fell open a bit, revealing her chest, pink and blotchy. “My patients at the hospital tell me they don’t feel a thing.” As she plunged the needle into the flesh, she ran a wet tongue over her lips, in almost unseemly pleasure.

  He braced himself and gritted his teeth. When she was done, she gave him a cotton ball. “Here,” she said as she pulled the needle out. “Apply pressure for a few minutes.”

  From the gramophone’s horn, Shaw’s clarinet wailed. “Now what?”

  “We wait.”

  “Wait? For what?”

  “For your pickup,” she told him. “They’ll be taking you out the back way. That way, no one can see you leave.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “It’s better not to know.” There was a skip in the record; the needle jumping again and again, playing the same phrase over and over. Nicolette glared at the gramophone in annoyance before rising to turn the machine off. She came back to sit beside him. “How are you doing?”

  “Feeling a bit dizzy, ma’am.”

  “Lean over and put your head between your knees.” Luciano did as he was ordered. Nicolette watched him closely, her eyes narrowing.

  “I’m just feeling a little faint, ma’am,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she reassured him, sitting next to him, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Don’t worry—all the boys have nerves.”

  He obeyed. “Tell me a story?” he pleaded, voice weak.

  Nicolette rose and began to circle the room. “You wouldn’t know it to look at me—or hear me talk, but my parents were Irish.” She said the word as if it were shameful, then forced a laugh. “My birth name was Imelda Lynch. My mother, Bridget, died of tuberculosis when I was a baby. My father, Kevin, was the town drunk, abusive and eccentric. I remember his nickname—‘Kevin the Crackpot.’ ”

  Nicolette checked Luciano’s breathing. It was slower, but still steady. She went back to circling. “Later, much later, I heard he was working as a tailor—sewed together his own eyelids. Can you imagine?”

  Luciano moaned. “My older sister, Ann,” she continued, “was taken to an insane asylum. And I was sent to—I suppose I was about six or so—a home for indigent children. Two years later, I was placed as an indentured servant in the home of a Mrs. Moira Quinn. Mrs. Quinn renamed me Nicolette Quinn, you see, because she didn’t want anyone to know she had a dirty Irish gombeen working for her.

  “But I had a plan to get out, you see—I wanted to go to nursing school. And I did—they would take anyone during the Great War. The things I saw in France…” She shuddered. “Well, no use talking about that.”

  Luciano leaned over to the armrest to try to rest his head, but instead, he missed, crashing into the side table before hitting the floor. A snow globe of a carousel fell, the glass breaking, water spilling out over the carpet.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nicolette said in irritation. But the carousel, with its colorful horses spinning around and around, was well and truly destroyed, the graceful dome smashed, the rug soaked. She looked at Luciano and turned him, then went to his feet and began to pull.

  “You’re heavier than you look,” she grumbled, dragging his body into the kitchen. Once there, she opened the cellar door. The steep steps were outfitted with a crude metal slide. She put the body on it and gave it a shove with her foot. He slid down, hitting the packed dirt floor below with a loud thud.

  Nicolette flipped on the lights and descended the steps, humming to herself once again.

  * * *

  —

  Two police officers in Met uniform walked down Hatton Garden, part of the Clerkenwell beat. The sky was still dark, only a band of brightening red at the horizon indicating dawn was pending. The morning fog hadn’t yet burned off. They passed two nuns, and Officer Geoffrey Bean doffed his peaked cap and called out into the chill, “Good morning, sisters!” They nodded to him.

  His fellow officer Danny Cooper didn’t. “I forgot you were a morning person,” he grumbled.

  “I like this shift,” Bean replied. “Smell the fresh air! Why, I do believe there’s just a hint of spring in the breeze today.”

  “Smells like cat piss and horse dung to me,” Cooper retorted as they passed a steaming pile. “And I’d appreciate your keeping your gob shut. Didn’t get to finish my tea.”

  “We can always stop in for a cuppa at that dago place.”

  Cooper brightened. “I do like their rolls,” he admitted. “Whaddya call ’em? Fette biscottate.”

  “You must’ve been on this beat a long time—you sound like a real ‘Eye-talian.’ ”

  “I’m an Englishman, thank you very much—and don’t you forget it.”

  Bean stopped short under Café Mela Rossa’s stained red awning, sniffing. “Wait a minute—now that don’t smell like springtime.”

  Cooper grimaced. “Bloody hell, that’s foul.” He waved a hand in front of his nose. Then he punched Bean in the arm. “Come on—I want me tea and rolls.”

  “Didn’t we just get a memo about bad smells? From DCI Durgin? Something about cat stew and people getting diseases?”

  “So many bleedin’ memos…”

  “We just got it—”

  “Well, I haven’t seen it. Look, the café’s not even open now—and I’m not about to barge in, waking people up, and start asking questions ju
st because someone’s a bad cook. Or hungry enough to eat a cat.” He kept walking. “Terroni’s is open.”

  “I don’t know…” The blackout curtains were still up, blocking the view.

  “Look, breakfast’s on me. Just don’t dawdle—come on then!” Cooper called over his shoulder. Bean took one last look around, then followed his partner to the café.

  * * *

  —

  With all the skills of a professional spy, Reina had followed Nicolette to her flat and then waited until she witnessed her supervisor emerge the next morning. Then, pulling her hat down over her eyes, Reina waited until the street was empty, went to the door, and picked the lock.

  Once inside, she took a look through the old-fashioned rooms. The flat was clean, although a foul odor, like the reek of spoiled food, hung in the air. Reina tried to find the source but couldn’t. Perhaps it was the nursing pink pig and the piglets she could see through the dirty back windows.

  She returned to the living room, and a scrapbook caught her eye. It was big and thick, covered in rose moiré. “Precious Memories” was written across the front in a round, loopy font. Curious, she sat down and picked it up; it was heavy. She carefully opened it up and began to look through the pages.

  Newspaper articles had been clipped and pasted in. An obituary for Rufus Quinn, who had died of a heart attack. Underneath, in the same rounded script, was the word Stepfather.

  A piece on Moira Quinn and her daughter, Rebecca, who had both perished in a fire, was on the opposite page. Arson had been ruled out and faulty wiring was the suspected culprit.

  Reina turned the heavy page. There was Nicolette’s acceptance letter to Florence Nightingale Training School at King’s College London on one page, and opposite a piece on missing housecats. It was recommended cats should stay indoors until the predator, thought to be a fox, was located.

  Next there was a picture of a young Nicolette in her graduation robe, smiling broadly, with the caption Off to St. Thomas Hospital! Then began page after page of obituaries. Cause of death ranged from “accident” to “short illness” or “long illness.” There were more pages, the clipped articles showing pictures of an increasingly older Nicolette as she changed hospitals regularly, followed by strings of death notices.

  Then there was an engagement announcement and a wedding picture. The groom’s face appeared to have been excised by a straight razor. His name had been scraped out as well, but Reina could fill in the letters, Miles Reitter.

  Then a few baby pictures, marked “Nicky,” changing to “Nick” and then “Nicholas” as the young man aged. There were photos of his graduation from university, from architecture school. An article announcing his engagement to a Miss May Frank. Then came the clipped columns about the Blackout Beast. And then the capture, arrest, and trial of Nicholas Reitter.

  There was a picture from the trial of a young woman exiting the courthouse, with the caption Margaret Hope, Eyewitness and Last Victim, Gives Testimony. Then the headline, GUILTY!

  There was the piece about the death sentence and then the picture of one of the female UXB defusers astride a bomb. Her face had been attacked by a straight razor as well, but Reina knew who it was: Margaret Hope. It was the same picture she’d seen in Nicolette’s locker. Reina read the curving letters spelling out BITCH. The following pages were about the Jimmy Greenteeth murders.

  Reina put the book back down in the exact position she’d found it and left.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A day and a half until Nicholas Reitter’s execution

  When Maggie arrived at the New Theatre that evening, she felt as if she could shatter at any minute. Her small gold watch read 7:40. There were forty hours and twenty minutes left until Nicholas Reitter’s execution. Two thousand four hundred and twenty minutes. A hundred forty-five thousand and two hundred seconds. Not only was Reitter on her mind but Carmine Basso haunted her as well, and the next conscientious objector who might be the victim of Jimmy Greenteeth. Her nerves were strained, her neck ached, and she had the beginnings of a migraine.

  She took a few moments to light up a cigarette in the marble lobby. At least the New Theatre’s still standing, she thought. The Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells theaters had been destroyed in the Blitz. Until they could be rebuilt, her friend Sarah and the rest of the Vic-Wells Ballet, led by Ninette de Valois, were performing at the New Theatre at St. Martin’s Lane in the West End. When war had been declared, in September 1939, London’s theaters had briefly closed and the Vic-Wells had been disbanded.

  But the dancers persevered and were soon performing in London once again and touring the provinces, dancing for the troops and the civilians. During the Blitz, performances were during the day for the most part, with “lunch, tea, and sherry ballets.” The company performed Giselle, Swan Lake, and Les Sylphides, as well as new pieces by choreographer Frederick Ashton. Maggie remembered Sarah describing the harrowing conditions during the Blitz: the company would routinely place a sign in front of the footlights: either AIR RAID or ALL CLEAR.

  She exhaled smoke and tried to focus on a vase of viridiflora tulips on a gilt table hiding a crack in the plaster. “Merciful Minerva, Mags—you look lovely!” David said, surprising her and kissing her on the cheek.

  She startled, then relaxed when she saw who it was. “You’re very kind,” she replied, crushing out her cigarette in a standing ashtray. “How’s Freddie? And where’s Freddie?”

  “He’s busy as ever. Wanted to be here tonight but working late. Still wants to buy a house in the country. Can you imagine? Me, in the country?” He shuddered. “Spiders. Dirt. And all the fresh air just might be the death of me.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  David took in her long kidskin gloves, red hair trapped in a velvet snood, long white gown. A tight pearl choker ringed her neck. “Where have I seen that dress before, Mags?”

  “In Washington. At the White House.” Before my last argument with John.

  “Ah, those days of wine and roses—or, rather, of Coca-Cola and what your people call ‘French fries.’ ” He closed his eyes and smiled in reverie. “By the way, where’s James?”

  “Working,” Maggie replied, opening her clutch and handing David his ticket. “He’s meeting us after the performance.”

  “Hello! Hello!” Chuck found them, her cheeks flushed from the cold. “It’s just me tonight, I’m afraid.”

  “Welcome,” Maggie said, kissing her on the cheek and handing her a ticket. “You’re not the only one.”

  “What is going on?” David asked. “Nigel’s AWOL, too?”

  “Something like that…” Maggie heard Chuck murmur as she went to turn in the three extra tickets at the box office. Tickets to performances were in such high demand that they were rationed, with queues forming up to ten hours before the precious seats were distributed.

  When Maggie returned, David offered an arm to each woman. “Shall we?”

  “Rather crowded, isn’t it?” Maggie said as they moved toward the doors to the orchestra section. She remembered going to see Sarah once in the dual role of Odile and Odette in a production of Swan Lake during the Blitz; it hadn’t been quite so chaotic.

  “Well, as a balletomane,” David began, “I can tell you there’s been a sharp uptick in ballet going as this wretched war’s gone on. It’s become patriotic—our own Margot Fonteyn and the Vic-Wells Ballet are indelibly English, after all. Who needs the French and Italians anymore?” He smiled. “Since the war, attending the ballet has become one of the country’s new habits. Like rationing. And powdered eggs. But more fun.”

  As they entered, Maggie looked around. The Louis XVI–inspired theater was lavish with brass and gilt and decorated with plaster wreaths, garlands, and portrait medallions of French Kings and Queens. The aisles and seats were filled with men in uniform, along with women in made-over gowns and jewels and paint
ed legs, the back of each calf lined with trompe l’oeil seams. The air was loud with chatter and fragrant with perfume, cigarette smoke, and hair pomade.

  David raised a hand in greeting to some, nodded to others as they waited in the aisle. An usher pressed a program into Maggie’s hand. When they reached their seats, she opened it. The evening’s ballet was a new one: Frederick Ashton’s Dante Sonata, set to Franz Liszt’s Fantasia quasi Sonata, orchestrated by Constant Lambert. The program’s back page ended with a quote from La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio III: Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde—“As long as hope still has its bit of green.”

  Chuck turned in her seat. Maggie saw she had a silk scarf tied around her neck, to hide the bruises. “Has anyone seen this ballet before?”

  “Sarah said Ashton choreographed it not long after the war broke out, so it’s fairly recent—a battle between good and evil, if I recall,” Maggie replied.

  “I adore it,” David assured them. “In times of strife, the theater is an emergency room for the soul.”

  If only. As they waited for the performance to begin, Maggie looked to the stage’s proscenium, with a gilt trophy of Peace and Music, attended by cupids illustrating Winter and Summer. She thought again of the last time she’d seen Sarah dance with the Vic-Wells. Chuck and Nigel had been so happy together. Paige had been there, of course, Maggie remembered. And I sat next to John that night…

  “Sixpence for your thoughts,” David said, noting her distant stare.

  Maggie shook her head, dispersing her memories. “Just remembering some of Sarah’s other performances.”

  “I don’t know how they do it,” Chuck said, settling in her seat. “Sarah was just telling me about the rationing that goes on—toe shoes, because there’s no glue, and tights, because there’s no silk. She says some of the costumes have been made from recovered parachute nylon.”