Serpent in the Heather Read online

  “All she wanted was a newspaper feature. Lovely girl.” Coslett cocked his head, remembering. “She let me kiss her.”

  “What newspaper?”

  “The London Register. It’s damned good, too.”

  “And pictures? Of you, for example?”

  “What of it?” Coslett raised his chin, taking that superior tone that came so naturally to him. “It not as though she’s writing anything new.”

  “What does the dowager think of her?” Wicked to ask, but one must.

  “Oh, leave off. It hasn’t gone that far. And won’t until Mother passes, I suppose.”

  It was a false step, inviting this Kim to Sulcliffe. He stood up. “You have had enough, Baron.”

  Coslett rose to his feet, throwing down coins to settle the bill. “I have. Enough of everything.”

  “Your mother and Heinrich Himmler will be disappointed to learn that. But I have work elsewhere, so I do not care.”

  His companion frowned. Powell would do well to remember that this was a German operation, graciously modified to suit Coslett preferences. Hands across the water, he thought the expression was.

  19

  WRENFELL, EAST YORKSHIRE

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. Martin sat on the split-log fence, watching Rose surrounded by a clucking fury of hens. From her bag she tossed a kernel of corn at Martin as he ate his sandwich.

  Reaching to catch it, he almost fell off his perch.

  “Nah then, ol’ thing,” Rose said, twirling around to avoid ambush by a large black hen.

  “Who’re you calling ‘old thing’!” Martin said.

  Rose looked up. “You, if you fall in the muck!”

  “More like you, if you let those hens push you around.”

  She came over to him, handing the bag up. “You give it a go, then.” She climbed up beside him, and they threw kernels with impunity. Rose nodded thoughtfully. “You’re awfu’ smart.”

  “I’m not, just sitting on a fence.” He aimed a kernel and hit a hen solidly on the comb.

  “Martin! Tha’s not the proper way.” She held the bag of corn to her stomach. He tucked into his liverwurst sandwich, wishing it were bigger.

  Rose lowered her voice. “There’s bad people round aboot.” She nodded toward the house. “Like ’im that killed that girl yesterday.”

  Martin turned a startled look on her.

  “Aye. No older than you, and at church wi’ her parents just inside the doors, so they said.”

  He felt his gorge rise. Not again. It wasn’t going to stop, then. Sometimes, if you didn’t think about things, they went away. Not this time. Hopping down from the fence, he stuffed his unfinished sandwich into his shirt. He had to get inside and read the article before it went for kindling.

  Rose went on. “A bad person, ’e is, and me mum, she says ’e’s a nutter.”

  He handed Rose down from the fence. “He’d have to be, wouldn’t he? Someone so crazy, he couldn’t help himself.”

  “Vicar says we kin ’elp ourselves, or we’re no better ’n animals. But I think animals are better anyroad. My Blaze, she don’ hurt no one.” The big hen ruffled her feathers as though she’d heard the praise.

  “I saw her take a peck at that rooster, though.” He grinned at her to get a smile, but she was out of the mood now that it came to murder.

  Alice rushed up the steps at Wrenfell, clutching her copy of the Coomsby Herald. She knocked on the door and then let herself in without waiting. Hearing someone in the dining hall, she went in, to find Kim looking over architectural drawings for another Wrenfell remodel.

  Kim looked up as Alice strode into the room. She registered the look on Alice’s face. “What? What is it?”

  “Have you seen the paper?”

  Kim shook her head. “I’ve been hunkered down all morning, wrestling with drawings. . . .”

  “Another murder.” Alice handed her the newspaper.

  Over Kim’s shoulder Alice read the headline again. FOURTH VICTIM OF RITUAL KILLER.

  Kim swore under her breath. “Damn it to hell.”

  There was a photo of a girl, round-faced and smiling, holding up a trophy. Jane Babington of Notting Hill, London. Winner of school honors for music. Murdered in the courtyard outside the church where they’d held a political meeting. She had strayed out. The discovery of a cloth with anesthetic on it.

  Kim looked up, her eyes hard. Most people, when reading about these murders, expressed shock and dismay. A few were in the angry camp. That would be Kim, protector of the innocent, especially the young innocent. She would never be done with her crusade of justice, one that she was not even aware of waging. Though she put her brother’s death in one compartment and her determination to do the right thing in another, the boxes leaked, Alice felt certain.

  Kim pushed herself up from her chair. “This creature . . . must be stopped.” She paced to the window, where a riot of hollyhocks could be seen poking up from the soil like flowered lances.

  She turned her back on the garden, striding to the table to read the article a second time. The Herald described the work of the National Task Force, the summer camps cancelled, the groups of parents clamoring for more police protection, and the police calling for citizen vigilance.

  “We’ll be going to Sulcliffe, won’t we?” Alice said, lowering her voice. Julian was in London, but the Babbages might be about. “We’ll find something. I’ll see something or you’ll hear something, even if I am only a 5.”

  “Only? Well, I’m only a 6.”

  “Anyway, we’ll do it together. Two is better than one. You’ll see.”

  Kim wandered over to the mantel, adjusting the spacing of the Royal Dalton figurines, and then the four candlesticks, all in a row. That done, she turned to the architectural drawings and began aligning the sheets.

  Alice pressed her hand down on Kim’s, stopping her. “Maybe we should pack.”

  Kim shook her head. “I’m not sure the baroness will be open to a visit. She’s sick. And she doesn’t like young women to be around her son.”

  Alice had heard how the dowager was determined to keep her son to herself.

  Martin barged into the dining room, stopping when he saw Alice. “Is it true? Another one?”

  Alice sighed and passed the paper to him. A fifteen-year-old should not have to read about such things, but he was of an age that the news couldn’t be kept from him.

  He looked up from reading the article. “What’s a ritual murder?”

  Kim paused, then jumped in. “It’s where the killing looks particular. As though the murderer wanted it to look a certain way, or be a certain way that’s unusual.”

  “Unusual like what?”

  “The papers are sensationalizing it, Martin.” Kim glanced at Alice, conveying and we’ll say no more.

  He pulled the newspaper very close to his face, peering at the photo of the girl. He whispered, “God, what’s happening?”

  Alice pulled out a chair and pressed him into it. “What is it, Martin?”

  He held the paper in shaking hands. “It’s the girl, she—” He looked up at Alice. “Oh, nothing. It’s nothing.”

  Mrs. Babbage ducked in, noting the expression on their faces. “Anythin’ needed, miss?” she asked Kim.

  “Tea might be welcome, thank you, Mrs. Babbage.” Mrs. Babbage nodded, heading to the kitchen.

  After a few moments Martin looked up at Alice. “Do they suffer? The victims?”

  “No. The murderer uses chloroform so they don’t cry out. They felt nothing.” Or at least they didn’t feel it for long. The discussion was plunging Alice into a profoundly dark mood.

  As Kim spoke soothingly to Martin, Alice went to the kitchen to help Mrs. Babbage. They worked in silence, arranging a tray. Wrenfell was a comfortable home, one that Alice could imagine having one day, if not quite so grand. With or without a husband. She had not yet had her chat with James, something she was postponing until she got back from Wales, if she was going to go.

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nbsp; She followed as Mrs. Babbage carried the tray into the dining room. The biscuits would help. Martin was always hungry.

  We will stop the creature, Alice thought as they arranged themselves for tea. The country’s best site view teams had been at each murder scene. Just a few more pieces, and they would have him.

  Then Alice saw it. In her mind’s eye, the scene came to her vividly. It was happening. Her trauma view. And it was from Martin.

  His father hauled his fist back, punching Martin in the stomach. The boy crashed to the floor. From the kitchen door Martin’s mother wrung her apron into a twist. “You worthless bastard,” his father spat. He picked Martin up by his arms and held him in front of him. “You worthless sod!” He struck him again, a slap that sounded like a whip cracking. His mother pulled up the apron to cover her face. As Martin lay sprawled on his back on the floor, he lifted up on his elbow. He stared his father down, daring him to strike again. After a long pause where he appeared to be considering it, he stormed from the room, pushing past his wife.

  Alice closed her eyes to steady herself. What a Talent this was, to collect the dark matters of the world. And why not the joyful ones?

  But now she knew the real reason that Martin didn’t want to go home.

  ANTWERP, BELGIUM

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. The antique dealer turned the doll over in nimble, fat hands, inspecting the number impressed on the back of the head, under the wig. “An average doll,” he said in French. “German made.”

  Gustaw nodded. “Oui. Kammer and Reinhardt. C’est correct?”

  Wincing at Gustaw’s French, the shopkeeper tried English. “It could be Kammer and Reinhardt.” He shrugged. “You sell this doll?”

  “No. It is the arm. Someone to replace it?” The doll was just interesting enough that it always got antique dealers talking. So much more effective than him showing up as a police officer. “You know of an expert, perhaps.”

  The dealer scratched his double chins. “An original arm, ball and socket . . . it is difficult. The doll’s value, half what it was. Best to sell and save yourself difficulty.”

  Gustaw patted the doll. “Sentimental value.”

  “A Mein Liebling doll. My darling.” The antique dealer gave a pitying smirk. The business of dolls should not be clouded by sentiment.

  “You cannot recommend someone?” Gustaw had a list, but it was long. A gifted restorer might be the first name that came up in a chat such as this, shortening Gustaw’s mission.

  “Non,” the man said, looking up as another customer entered the shop. Well. A buyer of dolls wishes to purchase at a discount, not help with repairs, Gustaw reflected. Still, the doll and its obvious need for repair was his best ruse to obtain information on doll restorers who might specialize in antique varieties.

  He left the shop, his fourth on a list of antique dealers provided by a very helpful woman in Brussels. It would take many days to track down all the names, even though his counterpart in Belgium, with the Sûreté Militaire, had half the list. The Dutch and Belgian authorities were all eager to crack open Nachteule. Unlike the British, who kept their cards hidden.

  Gustaw sat on a bench in the Grote Markt and considered the long list of antique dealers. Unfortunately, the occupations of those who sold, traded, and repaired dolls and other antiques were not distinct professions. Anyone might both sell and repair. It would be a tedious investigation, but what else could they do except pursue an expert of antique dolls, one who wore thick glasses and might be Dutch. Nine murders in Poland. It must stop.

  He looked up at the lavish guild houses that fronted the square, standing like self-satisfied burghers. How quickly the world had returned to commerce after the slaughter of the war. Peace had returned to Antwerp, and all was well.

  Yet it was difficult to believe it would last. Even if alliances between governments proclaimed that acts of aggression against any country would be met with military aid, how firm would nations be in the face of Germany’s might? Already the Third Reich prepared for war. Last year, army conscription, the expansion of the German naval fleet. Amid all this, who guaranteed Polish borders? France claimed to, and Czechoslovakia, yes, but who could believe them? The Czech army was weak, and the French did not wish to share military secrets, even with an ally. No, Poland could not depend on such friends. When five starving men sit down to divide a leg of mutton, honor goes out the window.

  He would stay in Belgium for a few more days. They would stop this predator of Talents, this tool of Hitler. Gustaw sighed. He had seen how lofty missions made fools of all men, so he put it to himself this way: Someone would pay for murdering Tilda Mazur. Perhaps not soon. Perhaps not from tracking down doll restorers. But they would not give up the hunt. Even in a craven world, a small justice mattered.

  With his thick pencil, he reluctantly struck the French names off the list. He would concentrate upon only the Dutch.

  On his lap lay the package wrapped in brown paper and bound in twine. Tilda’s my darling, loaned from her uncle. Since his investigations of the Dutch assassin had begun, he could have sold the doll several times. Of course, it was not for sale, but for his cover as a man with a family heirloom needing repair . . .

  Yes, Gustaw, very clever you are. So far, three days in Belgium, and no one knows of an expert of dolls with thick glasses and a crooked light in his eyes.

  THE EMBANKMENT, LONDON

  Rain fell in relentless sheets on the Victoria Embankment. The storm had begun yesterday and lingered over the city, as though the cross on St. Paul’s had speared the clouds.

  Hunching under his umbrella, Julian leaned against the retaining wall, looking at the Thames in the shadow of Blackfriars Bridge. Where the blazes was Elsa? Normally punctual, she was already ten minutes late, and time was a precious commodity now that the youth murders had risen to four. Baldwin’s government felt up against the wall, as the murderer struck with impunity.

  The latest victim, thirteen years old, had been slain in the City. Elsa was attached to the National Task Force headed up by Scotland Yard, and had said that they did not yet know young Jane Babington’s Talent, but she had likely been in an Adder club, by the tiny snake symbol inked onto her wrist, in plain view. They were still questioning the parents.

  The job of the police was to catch their man, but so far they were just catching hell from the tabloids. Especially today, when the papers were making much of the church setting. The killer struck at will, spreading shock and fear throughout the country. The method of execution and display of the victim was generally the same. This murder site, however, was not Neolithic as the Frances Brooke murder had been. That association with Ancient Light, always slight, now appeared to be nothing more than coincidence. Nor was the Adder connection consistent. Of the four victims, only Jane and Rupert had been members. They were getting nowhere. He hoped that the investigation of the Babington murder would by God yield something they could work with.

  A taxi pulled up on the street. Elsa. Since she’d come without an umbrella, he met her on the strip of grass to share his. They made their way to the pavement beside the Thames. She scowled at the river, its gray surface like pockmarked tin. “Filthy weather. Couldn’t meet in a pub?”

  “Will I need a drink?” Julian hoped she had something for him. Even bad news was better than this holding pattern.

  “No breaks yet. We’re interviewing the Babington girl’s parents again this afternoon. The mother is quite off the rails.” Rain spilled from the umbrella in a round sheet, giving them even more privacy than that afforded by the deserted embankment. “The task force is interviewing students and school authorities on the Adder clubs.” She shrugged. “There are dozens of them, most members are boys, but the occasional club is mixed.”

  “Talon could be tapping a network of informants that have no connection to school clubs.”

  Traffic rumbled over Blackfriars like thunder. “Right,” Elsa said. “Sleeper cells, identifying young people, the ones that boast.”


  “Is the unit pursuing that angle?”

  “After a fashion.” Elsa handed Julian a card. “Here’s the bloke who’s supposed to be in charge. Bernard Weaver. But he’s not even competent. A bloody blowhard.”

  “You don’t fancy him, then,” Julian observed with as much irony as he thought she could stand.

  “Right-o. I do not. He’s made it clear I’m in the way, and it kills him that I’m along for the ride.”

  A tug churned by, towing an old dreadnought toward the Tower Bridge, now beginning to rise to let it pass. It seemed to Julian that it was an emblem of England’s preparedness for hostilities. A battered hulk with twelve-inch guns left over from the Great War, unable to move under its own power.

  “Elsa,” Julian murmured. “We haven’t turned up anything so far. Not on the Cosletts, not on the Adders, nothing. So, I want you to follow your own leads, around about.”

  She cut a glance at him.

  “Any leads that you can follow discreetly, do it. And bear in mind, the last thing we need is the police going up to Sulcliffe and putting them on their guard.”

  Elsa’s sneer was eloquent. “So, we’re to have nothing going on in Sulcliffe.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Sparrow’s going back in.” He opened his copy of the London Register. “Her article appeared yesterday.”

  She glanced at the spread. “That was quick.”

  “We fast-tracked it. It’s been well received, which gives us a basis for going after a follow-up article. And this time our asset will have a trauma view with her.”

  Elsa brightened. “So, Whitehall comes through, after all.”

  The downpour continued, relentless. August in London. Julian pulled his coat collar more tightly closed. “I’m afraid Whitehall hasn’t come through. It won’t do to openly pursue someone in the King’s circle. Not yet. We’re on our own.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “A bit dodgy.”

  Sending Sparrow in without the Foreign Office’s approval was the kind of call that could cost one’s job. This wasn’t the first time E had gone his own way. But pursuing a friend of the King on flimsy evidence meant the whole team could be on the line.