The press, the tabloids in particular, seemed to take bloodthirsty relish in having so traditional and homegrown a menace to share with their readers; it was as if the yellow journalists were relieved to be able to interrupt the continuing chronicle of international woe-Singapore falling, Rommel’s Afrika Corps advancing again in the Western Desert-with good old-fashioned British blood lust.
Any respectable women-forced to walk alone down pitch-dark snowy streets, making their way to the safety of air-raid shelters-moved quickly, looking about them in bird-like anxiety, terrified that a lurking murderer might spring from the silence of a doorway or an alley’s mouth, to claim another victim. And was a shelter truly safe, when Monday’s victim had been discovered in one?
And what of the not-so-respectable women of London?
The first Jack the Ripper had terrorized the East End, notorious in its day for an abundance of ladies of the evening. The Blackout Ripper-as the tabloids had dubbed the unknown killer, who had instantly become a household name-sought his soiled-dove prey on the West End, which had become (in these war years particularly, and in the words of Superintendent Fabian of the Yard) “the Square Mile of Vice.”
Even before the blackout, the limited visibility of which made conditions virtually identical to Jack’s fog-shrouded atrocities, these narrow streets and shadowy pavements-Soho, particularly-echoed with the eerie footsteps of London’s long, proud, wicked criminal history. Here you could enjoy anything and everything, for a price-drugs, games of chance, blue movies (in “secret” cinemas); you could buy a diamond ring for two hundred and fifty pounds (only it would prove to be diamothyst, worth one-thirtieth of the price). You could be dominated by a woman with a whip, or defile a “virgin” (Catholic school girl costumes were a must, in the wardrobes of the higher-paid call girls).
By day and night, Piccadilly Circus was bustling, swarming with uniforms from many nations-Poles, Canadians, Free French, and of course the Americans, so many Americans. Sinful business was booming….
So the women of the street, who were not seeking the relative safety of a shelter, put themselves at even greater risk than usual. Many stayed in, however, alone in their dingy flats-or confining their clientele to known and trusted “regulars”-too frightened to venture into their usual haunts. Unbeknownst to them, the ladies of the evening were joined by policewomen in plainclothes and too much makeup, under the watch of Yard men also in the disguise of ordinary clothing.
This had been Detective Chief Inspector Ted Greeno’s doing, only one of a number of strategies he’d pursued, following the three murders. He was, after all, in charge of the biggest case of the war, the kind of murder case that could make a career.
Or break it.
SIX
Agatha awoke with a start, slightly after seven a.m. Typically, she had been sleeping with her head under a pillow.
This was a wartime habit for her, a precaution against flying broken glass, and to help dampen the shrill cry of air-raid sirens, which she ignored. Since the war had begun, during air raids, she and Max had always stayed in their bedroom, wherever they might be living, and did not follow the conventional wisdom of fleeing to the basement.
The futility of shelters had been proven beyond doubt to Agatha when Sheffield Terrace had been bombed, one weekend, while she and Max were away in London. A bomb hit across the way, taking out three houses, and what had been blown up at their own home? The basement! The ground and first floors had gone largely undamaged (although her precious Steinway had never been quite the same).
Even before that incident, she refused any suggestions that she ought to go to a shelter. Few things frightened Agatha Christie Mallowan, but the thought of being buried alive, of being trapped underground under dirt and rubble… well, she had decided to sleep only in her own bed, wherever she might be.
And Max had honored her preference, staying right with her throughout the nastiest and noisiest of bombings. By now she was so used to air raids on London that she hardly woke up for them, sleeping through the worst of it in 1940. When a siren or bomb did manage to wake her, she’d merely roll over, muttering, “Oh, dear, there they are again!” and would pull the pillow over her head, tighter.
What had woken her, this morning, was that nightmare again, that damned Gunman dream. She dreamed she was having lunch with Max in a large country house, surrounded by flower beds. Afterward, she and Max walked through the garden, vivid colors, wonderful fragrances, all around them, James on a leash at her side; and then she had glanced at Max and, suddenly, he was that blue-eyed Gunman, and rather than suffer any longer through the unpleasantness of it, she had forced herself awake. Right now!
Next to her bed, as was also her wartime habit, was a chair on which she kept her two most precious possessions: her fur coat; and her rubber hot-water bottle. Gold and silver came and went; but in this war, rubber, now that was valuable.
The fur coat and rubber hot-water bottle, she knew, would see her through all emergencies.
Outside her window, the world was an overcast gray, the sky the color of gunmetal and her beloved cherry tree a skeletal figure silhouetted against the sky like a surrendering prisoner. She had intended to sleep in, but once awake, she was awake….
She felt rather in a funk and did not care to dress straightaway, much less go down for breakfast in the little Lawn Road Flats restaurant. Even the most trivial passing conversation with a waitress or fellow resident of the Flats seemed quite more than she could bear to face. She was scheduled to work this evening at the hospital, in the pharmacy, and so the day stretched out endlessly before her. Slipping into the lovely powder-blue Jaeger dressing gown Max had given her as a farewell present, she padded downstairs.
She did not bathe-she was restricting herself to twice a week, due to the water shortage-but allowed herself a sponge bath, using soap sparingly, as the ration was one tablet per person per month. (When she did bathe, she used only the allowed five inches of hot water; it was the least she could do, since King George VI was having his valet measure five inches thereof for the royal bath.) She put on no makeup, briefly frowning at the face of the old woman who glanced at her from the mirror.
After poaching herself an egg and making toast and coffee, and barely touching any of it, she wandered into the library and sat herself down. She began to cry. She wept for perhaps five minutes. This had happened before, and she kept a handkerchief handy in a pocket of the robe.
She was not sure why she was blue (“depressed” would have overstated it). Missing Max was a constant in her life, but on certain days, his absence hit her like a physical blow; she hurt from not having him here-she ached with the possibility of any harm coming to him. True, he was as safe as any military man might be, in his posting; but this was, nonetheless, war. People died.
She might die. A bomb might strike the Flats and her pillow wouldn’t do a bit of good and she and Max would never see each other again. She cried a little more.
James was curled beside the chair, but the terrier ran for cover when she dried her face, blew her nose, cleared her throat, rose with resolve, moved to her desk and began typing-the machine’s chatter always frightened the animal, though on the last air raid, the dog had slept soundly through it, much as he did through thunderstorms.