The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(24)

“Please sit down.” He regarded her from across the desk, piles of folders, papers, and notes stacked neatly under brass paperweights. Not a salacious look, but intense—the kind one might give a particularly interesting crossword clue or a game of Chinese Go in progress.

“How’s your father?” he asked, sitting back and making a steeple with his fingers.

“Still in the hospital, I’m afraid. I’ve been visiting once a week, although he’s usually asleep or groggy. The doctors have him on a high dose of morphine.”

Earlier in the winter, Edmund Hope, Maggie’s estranged father, had been burned in an “accident” that revealed terrible abscesses on his feet, due to untreated diabetes. Both legs had to be amputated above the knee.

“I should go and visit, I know—but it’s been, shall we say, busy here.”

“?‘There’s a war on, you know.’?” She quoted their oft-repeated line. “Next time I see him, I’ll let him know you asked after him.”

“I knew he’d been drinking, but I had no idea things were so bad.”

Maggie didn’t want to discuss it. “And any news of”—she didn’t know what to call her estranged mother—“Clara Hess?”

“You know as much as we do. Either she died in the fire that night—or she somehow made it out of Chatswell House and she’s out there.” He waved a manicured hand in the direction of the window, with a view to Hyde Park and the rest of London. “Somewhere.”

Terrific, Maggie thought. Nazi agent Clara Hess could possibly be at large in London—now that’s just bloody well terrific, isn’t it?

“By the way, I have something for you.” Frain reached into a desk drawer.

“For me?”



He pulled out a brown paper envelope. To Miss Margaret Hope c/o MI-5 was written in calligraphy on the front. Maggie flipped it over before slipping it into her handbag.

“You’re not going to open it?”

It was the rarest of moments for Maggie to see Frain surprised. She rather liked it. “Later. I assume you asked me here for something more important than to pick up my mail.”

There was a rap at the door; it opened to reveal Mark Standish, Maggie’s former colleague. They’d worked together before, and while they hadn’t always gotten along, they’d developed a begrudging professional respect.

However, the Mark Standish who stood in front of her was a different man from the one she’d known in Scotland last fall. He wore the same style double-breasted suit, but now it hung loosely on him. Where he’d once been charitably called robust, he was alarmingly gaunt and wan. His formerly doughy face was angular, and a startling streak of white cut through his dark hair.

“Hello, Maggie. Welcome back to MI-Five.”

Maggie wondered if she would have recognized Mark if she’d passed him on the street. And when she shook his hand, she noticed it had a slight tremor. “Hello, Mark. Good to see you again.”

“Let’s go to your office, Mr. Standish,” Frain said, standing.

“Yes, sir.”

They walked down a corridor, and Mark opened a door. “Welcome.” He stepped aside to let them enter.

Maggie fought the urge to whistle. “Spiffy,” she said instead. It was spacious, with several good-size windows overlooking the street. There was a large desk with a green banker’s lamp and a leather chair, overlooked by the official photograph of the King. On the desk was a typewriter, hole punch, a TOP SECRET red stamp, several telephones, and a metal inbox.



On one wall of the office, a corkboard had been set up. Photographs of a dead girl, clearly taken at a crime scene, were tacked up. Opposite was a green chalkboard, recently cleaned, fresh chalk and erasers at the ready.

Maggie couldn’t help but think back to when Mark and Hugh had dented metal desks in MI-5’s windowless basement, with all the other junior agents. She wished she could say she’d seen Hugh in the morning, but it was against all rules to mention it. Anyway, Frain probably knew—he somehow made it a point to know everything.

“Sit, both of you,” the director ordered, gesturing to a sofa and a side chair. It might have been Mark’s office, but it was clear who was running the show.

The secretary with the white braid came in with the tea things and set them on a low table, then poured. Once the door closed again, Frain took a seat and turned to Maggie. “We want to borrow you.”

“Borrow me, sir? For what?”

Frain chose a cup of tea and took a sip. “There have been a number of girls vanishing around London. With the Blitz, it’s been hard to keep track of the dead, of course, but it seems there’s a definite pattern emerging in the Marylebone area. There are too many young professional women disappearing for it to be only the bombings. Which have ceased for the moment in London, at any rate.”

Mark continued to stir his tea, his eyes not leaving the cup and saucer in his hand.

“Vanishing women?” Maggie asked, her thoughts instantly turning to Brynn Parry. “But that would be a case for Scotland Yard, surely. Why MI-Five?”

“Many of the missing young women were with the ATS and tapped for SOE duties. They were here for their interviews.”



Joanna Metcalf, she thought. Then, with a shudder, Brynn. “Someone’s targeting SOE agents?” she managed.