The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(83)

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After having a few bites of toast and sips of coffee at a nearby café, Maggie went back to what she now thought of as their—Mark’s, Durgin’s and her—shared office to work, sitting down at Mark’s desk to use the telephone. According to David Greene, Max Thornton had indeed been in the office at the estimated times of the murders. And Chuck had neither seen nor heard anything about the package; she had merely found it at the back door. Maggie leaned on the desk in exhaustion. Two more dead ends, she thought wearily. And two more murders to go. Once again, the image of the bloody kidney in its waxed paper came back to her, unbidden, relentless. She wondered when she would stop thinking about it. If she would ever stop thinking about it.

As the door opened, she started. “Ah, Mark,” she exclaimed, relieved. “You scared me!”

“Sorry,” he said.



“Are you feeling better today?” Maggie inquired as he hung up his coat and hat.

“Glad to see you’ve made yourself at home.” Mark sat on the sofa, his eyes not meeting hers.

“Oh,” Maggie said, rising. “I needed to make a few calls in private—didn’t think you’d mind.”

“No, no.” He waved his hand at the desk. “It’s yours now. Obviously Frain’s going to see the work you’ve done and promote you. I’ll be working back down in the basement before long, most likely.”

Maggie could see the tension and exhaustion on his face. “Mark, you know that’s not true. You’re doing an excellent job during a stern time.” She appraised their corkboard and the map. “We’re all on the same team.”

She squinted at the map and the red pushpins. “Two to go.” She remembered her dream of the man of numbers and flies. Mathematics, she thought. Patterns. Logic. Math…

Mark pulled out a silver flask from his breast pocket. “Want some?”

“No, thank you.”

Mark took a gulp before saying, “Sometimes I need a drink.”

“Mark, how much have you had today?”

He took another long swallow, then looked at her sideways. “None of your damn business.” Then, gentler, “Remember, this is England—we drink our feelings.”

Well, not much to say to that, is there?

“This is all I have now,” Mark continued, raising his flask. “No wife, no children, no home. This”—he looked around the office, gesturing with the flask and spilling a bit—“is all I have left. And I’m mucking it all up.”

“We’re all doing our best,” Maggie reminded him, her voice low. His misery distressed her. “You’re doing your best, Mark.”



“Do you think so?” He turned to face her. “Do you really think so?”

Maggie saw the look in his eyes, the way they burned with need and desperation. “Mark, no.”

“Please, Maggie.” He leaned in closer, breath stinking of whiskey. “Just once. What harm can it do? I need to forget everything that’s happened, everything that keeps happening….” He reached for her, trying to bring her mouth to his.

She stiffened as his hand met bruised flesh. “No,” she insisted, trying to be gentle, but still pushing him away. “No, Mark.”

“Please, Maggie…” He was nearly sobbing as he forced his mouth on hers. “I just need to forget….”

“I said no.”

His eyes narrowed, cruel. “You gave it up for Hugh. Oh yes, do you think he didn’t tell me all about it? And you gave it up for your RAF pilot. So what’s one more time, with one more man? As you keep pointing out, it’s not as if you’re some blushing virgin….”

“You’re drunk, Mark. Leave. Now.”

He toasted her with his flask. “Bitch! Frigid bitch!”

“Get out.” She stared at him until he edged to the door.

The furious glitter was back in his eyes. “You spread your legs for Hugh….”

“Get. Out.”

After a long moment, he picked up his coat and hat and strode out.

When he was gone, she went to the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. Then she leaned against it, heart pounding, waiting for the sound of his echoing footsteps in the hall to cease.

And now she was crying, weeping, really—for the first time since she had opened the package, since she’d seen Joanna Metcalf’s mutilated body in the park, really since she’d left John in Washington.



She crossed back to the sofa and dropped down on it, her shoulders shaking and her chest heaving, her hands pressed over her wet face as she tried to muffle her sobs. The kidney, she thought. The kidney most likely belonged to a woman who’d died in terrible, brutal circumstances. A sharp knife had reduced a woman to a lump of meat, a re-creation of a Ripper victim, a numbered murder case to be solved. But she wasn’t just that—she’d been a living, breathing human being….After a few minutes of tears, Maggie went to her handbag and dug out a cambric handkerchief, wiping at her eyes and then her nose. She gave a sniffle and then a noisy blow. There now. Stiff upper lip. What would Mrs. Vera Baines say?

But she was grateful she’d had a few moments to be alone, to not have to look brave or efficient or professional, to not have to talk or explain, to not be judged according to her sex by her male colleagues.