Silent Witnesses Page 15

  'Yes,' he answered. 'That's the reason I keep insisting you know the killer.'

  'Which brings us to the third victim.' My voice trembled, and he must have noticed the change, for he cut a sideways glance at me that was sharp and knowing.

  'Her death is very similar to that of the second victim. She, too, was used to send a message. This time, the killer wrote you a letter. The letter tells us that he loves what he's doing. And that he won't wait long until he strikes again. Because he needs it. The power. The ecstasy a kill brings.'

  McCurley said nothing. If my assessment shocked him or surprised him, he did not show it. His expression remained neutral, almost relaxed.

  I continued, 'Throttling someone is an intimate way of killing. Much more so than shooting or poisoning. To wrap your hands around a throat to kill, you have to look into your victim's eyes. You have to watch how her life slips from her body. You have to watch her pain, her terror, her struggle to stay alive, to fight you off. In order to keep at it, you need an extraordinary urge to kill.'

  I paused and observed. His gaze drifted across the notes, from the first one I'd shown him, to all the others, the lists and schemata, and then got stuck on the photograph he'd brought.

  He tore his attention away from it, and asked, 'Judging from the letter, do you think him intelligent? Educated?'

  'The text is free of errors. But it's brief, not much to go by. He might have written it several times and corrected it. But yes, I think we can conclude that he is educated and not of low social standing. He might have an official function. A man in uniform.'

  'Why would you think that?' McCurley asked.

  'The second and the third victim died in the late evening hours. Soon after nightfall, to be precise. For a man to approach a woman in the dark — without her striking out, screaming for help, running away, or otherwise drawing attention to herself and her attacker — he must either be known to her, or appear trustworthy.'

  'He could have surprised her. Jumped out of the shadows.'

  'Yes, he could have. But the post-mortem reports say otherwise. The only signs of a struggle that were found on the bodies must have occurred when the victim was already prone. None of them had been knocked out. None of them were given chloroform or similar substances. Picture Sergeant Boyle, for example. A kind man in uniform. He creates a situation in which he clearly needs help. A situation where — when his chosen victim approaches to assist him — she will position herself so that he can easily put his hands around her throat, throw her down, and strangle her. She won't even get a chance to make a peep.'

  'But you said earlier that it's impossible to strangle someone without having them fight back,' McCurley pointed out.

  'I did. But now I know how he kept them from fighting back.'

  Warren had given me the idea. How he’d sat on my stomach and pinned my wrists. 'All three victims had faint bruising on their lower arms. He sat on them with his legs holding down their arms. He must've sat on the abdomen. High up. His legs would have trapped their arms by their sides, his ankles and shins pinning their wrists. There would actually be very little weight on the wrists when he sat like that. And he wouldn’t need to put his full weight on their abdomen, either. Rather, he leans with full force on the windpipe. And crushes it.’

  McCurley picked up my copy of the killer's letter. 'And he is arrogant.'

  'Yes. He fancies himself smarter than you, or anyone really. And that's why he will write to you again when you tell the reporters that the first victim, Mrs Hyde, was not killed by the Railway Strangler.'

  McCurley smiled coldly. 'If our assessment of him is correct, he might even explain to me how he did it.'

  'That's what I hope for. But more importantly: He won't see that we are baiting him.'

  Shoulders sagging, he sat back. 'You plan to be the bait.'

  'I already am, whether I want it or not. Anyway. You would do well to let him believe that he leads you around, and not the other way.'

  'You seem to be very sure of all this.' McCurley cocked his head.

  'I am. Because I know precisely what he wants.' I pushed the small photograph to McCurley. 'He’s laid a trail. He wanted you to find this. But only to tease you, because you cannot possibly know what this photograph means to him. And you have to keep pretending that you don't know what I'm about to tell you. In fact, you can't tell anyone what I will tell you now.'

  He dipped his head in assent.

  'This man is your connection,' I said, tapping my middle finger on a young lad's face. A pale, fine boned man I knew all too well.

  'A friend of yours? Or an acquaintance of the murderer?'

  'This man has no friends. He is harsh, arrogant, and knows only his work.'

  McCurley drew back. 'But you know him?'

  I nodded, and the movement made me feel nauseous. 'His name is Anton Kronberg. He is a German physician and bacteriologist.'

  He narrowed his eyes at me. 'He means something to you. I can see that. Do you hate him? Love him?' He shook his head. 'I don't understand. Why are you so certain that he's connected to the killer, but not the killer himself?'

  'He is not…innocent. But I know for a fact that he did not kill these three women.'

  McCurley worked his jaw. 'Why are you so sure?'

  'Kronberg left Boston years ago.'

  He squinted at me, knowing full well that I was holding back information. Slowly, he slid the photograph closer to himself. After a long scrutinising moment, he said, 'Are you two related?'

  I stared at the picture, feeling as though I were already falling, falling… I leant on the tabletop. Opening my mouth and getting my tongue to work took an amount of energy and willpower I didn't seem to possess. I croaked, 'That man… That man is me.'

  McCurley opened his mouth and shut it. Blinked. Shook his head. 'I don't understand.'

  I squeezed my eyes shut and made myself say, 'The killer knows that Anton Kronberg and Elizabeth Arlington are one and the same person.'

  19

  'You are a spy for the British Empire.' McCurley cupped his mouth. He shook his head from side to side, then burst out chuckling. 'I should have known the moment the Chief mentioned the Crown, hinted at diplomatic relations, and ordered me to stop digging into your past. How stupid of me.'

  'I'm not a spy. I infiltrated a criminal organisation. I'm a witness. I’ve told you the truth.'

  'I doubt the British government protects all their witnesses the way they protect you.'

  I lowered my head. 'It's how a potential spy is being courted, I expect.' Clearing my throat, I turned back to the matter at hand. 'There's more you need to know.'

  'I sincerely hope so. Because so far, you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered.’

  'Patience, Inspector. My mouth doesn't fire as fast as yours.'

  'That depends on who you ask.'

  'It's late and I'm exhausted. Let's get this over with. The timing of the messages the killer sent you is important. Elizabeth Hughes was killed on the evening of Tuesday, June 6. The following day, her body was found together with a photograph of a drawing of my portrait. The photographer stated that only a day earlier the client had picked up that photograph. Two days before that, the client had brought it in and asked him to make a copy. That means the drawing was in the killer's procession on Saturday, June 3 at the latest. I know for a fact that the portrait has been drawn on Friday, June 2. Two portraits, in fact. And both disappeared that same night or the morning after. In a matter of only four days, the murderer put a plan together, and executed it. It was the portrait that raised his ire.'

  As I spoke, McCurley placed his mug aside and bent forward as though he wished to jump into my skull and dig up all that I knew. 'And you know who drew the portrait?' he asked.

  'Yes. Warren Amaury.'

  Blinking, he sank against the backrest. The chair produced a pop. I told him about the Freaks, our Friday afternoon meetings at the music hall, which always ended in Warren's townhouse. Only
, on that Friday I hadn't joined them. Warren had drawn me from memory and then his sketchbook disappeared. I told him about that night’s drop-in at Warren's, which ended with a black eye, a shot to pale-eyed Joey's heart, and a short visit to McCurley's apartment.

  McCurley said, 'Huh,' stood and paced the kitchen.

  'Don't walk too close to the curtains,' I reminded him, and received an absent wave of his hand as a reply.

  'You told me earlier that your closest friends know that you examined Mrs Hyde's remains. Now you tell me that one of them drew the portrait which was pinned to Mrs Hughes’s body. That makes them prime suspects.'

  'I know.' I turned my gaze to the small photograph of bacteriologists. How young I looked. How fragile. I couldn't find any courage in that young face. None of the courage it had taken to betray each and every one of his peers, superiors, and neighbours.

  'Wait a moment…' McCurley came to a halt. 'Where is the connection to the third victim? And to you? I still don't understand.'

  'When I worked as Anton Kronberg at Harvard Medical School, Millie was a nurse. She fancied me. Everyone knew about it, while I pretended to be oblivious. Well…until she kissed me. I told her to stop being ridiculous, and that was that.'

  McCurley grabbed a chair and sat down. 'I still don't see what you are seeing. The connections. And why you believe this is all about you.'

  'I realised it only after I saw this photograph and learned about Millie's death.' I pointed to the group of bacteriologists. 'The killer knew me. Knew Anton Kronberg. The problem is that… The way others saw him…Kronberg was a brilliant, arrogant scientist. There was envy. Plenty of it. He was the youngest. He rarely talked to anyone if it wasn't about work. He never went to social events. Because he couldn't. I could not. Whatever Kronberg did, he was better than anyone before him. It caused…consternation among his peers, to put it mildly. The killer must have known Kronberg and he must have known about Millie. The killer must have hated Kronberg — me — for a long time. And when he saw my portrait he must have believed he was seeing Anton Kronberg, because it shows only my face in detail. My hair and my clothes were merely hinted at. If you have always believed a person to be a man, then it is a man you will see. Imagine the shock when he learned that Anton Kronberg was the doctor who examined the body of the woman he’d killed. Imagine the shock when he learned he was bested by a woman, and that she is now dabbling in his affairs.'

  'So we are looking for man who studied or worked at Harvard Medical School when you were there as Anton Kronberg, and who is connected to your friends or might be one of them.'

  'You are a quick.'

  Groaning, he rubbed his face. 'I need time to think. We should meet again and discuss your friends. Getting the Amauries to talk will be a problem.'

  'I'm Hattie Heathcote's physician. I can go in and out of her home as she chooses without causing suspicion. And there's a plan on how to get into the Amaury mansion. Oh, by the way, one of the men who could have taken the drawings was Mr Stone. The flower grower. I have a list of the people who had access to Hattie's purse and the drawings. I'll make a copy for you.'

  'Send it to my office.'

  'I'd rather not let anyone know we are working together.'

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, and shut his eyes for a moment. 'As you wish.'

  'My mind keeps returning to the first victim. That she did not fight. Or rather…it appears that she didn't. What if she was killed exactly like the others, but the killer didn't wear boots but—'

  'Slippers.'

  We looked at each other, our theories circling wildly in our skull.

  'She couldn't have broken her nails on felt slippers,' I said.

  'But there would be fibres under her nails.'

  ‘Under her short-trimmed washerwoman’s nails? I’ve seen them and doubt much would get stuck under them.’ I shook my head.

  ‘Well, it’s an idea. Let's keep it in mind, and proceed on the theory that she knew her killer intimately.'

  'The child was his,' I said.

  'Probably. And someone must have seen them together. Even if they were being secretive, they couldn't have coupled in a shack. They rented a room in a boarding house.'

  I grabbed McCurley's sleeve to stop him. 'There are boathouses by the shore. Near the Glass Works. One could be his.' The thought chilled me to the bone. He could have seen Zach, Margery, and Klara sneaking from our boathouse to our new apartment.

  'I'll have them watched.’

  'Let me talk to Georgie. He could take a look without raising suspicion.'

  McCurley lifted an eyebrow. 'You think that I or my men would raise suspicion?'

  'A policeman peeking through the windows of all the boathouses isn't precisely inconspicuous, is it?'

  'Why the bloody hell do you think us all blockheads?'

  'I don't think you are a blockhead.'

  'But an arrogant ass.'

  I coughed. 'You haven't been an arrogant ass for about an hour. Out of several weeks. Your most recent behaviour might be an outlier.'

  'An outlier?' Incredulous, he threw himself back in his chair.

  'When one or two measurements fall outside the main body of data.'

  'I know what an outlier is. You truly have a rare dislike for police.'

  'I learned that I cannot trust them. They are either too dumb, too arrogant, or too corrupt.'

  'They are just men. With all our faults.'

  I crossed my arms over my chest. 'Why did you give me your case notes? Why take the risk? I could have destroyed them.'

  'A calculated risk. I knew you were trying to find the killer. Not giving you my notes would have meant leaving you unprotected. And there was a good chance you would share what you knew, if I offered you my insights first.'

  I placed a palm on the table and made a wiping gesture. ‘Back to the case. What we really need are the names of Ms Munro’s clients.’

  'Well…' He raked a hand through a mop of unruly hair that seemed unable to decide whether it wanted to be blond or brown, or in which direction to point. 'They wouldn't give her their real names, so I'll have to put a tail on each of them. Meanwhile, I'll be going through the list of staff and students of Harvard Medical School during your time there. God Almighty.' Groaning, he shook his head.

  'What? Too many men to interrogate?'

  He looked up. 'No. Yes. I was just wondering why you did it. Why you pretended to be a man.’

  I snorted. 'How else would I have studied medicine? There was absolutely no other way. Women are still not permitted to enrol at German Universities.'

  He dropped his gaze to his boots before cutting a glance at me through lowered lashes. 'May I ask what crime it was you witnessed? What criminal organisation you infiltrated? And why…you married a murderer? Did you know what he was?'

  'I did. He abducted me. I told you that. And he abducted my father. I was Britain's foremost bacteriologist, and he wanted me to develop weapons for germ warfare. My experiments would have killed thousands. Tens of thousands. To stop him, I had to make him trust me first.'

  'And getting with child was part of that plan?’ There was no harshness in his question. He simply wanted to know what I had been willing to do to take down a criminal.

  'I believed I was barren. To discover myself pregnant was…a shock. '

  He nodded once, and said, 'Thank you.'

  'I owed you. For what I made you tell me.'

  Silence fell. It didn't feel uncomfortable, and I was glad he had no urge to fill it with useless conversation.

  'Do you think she told him she was pregnant? Mrs Hyde? And that sent him into a rage?'

  'Perhaps,' he said, and scratched the back of his head. 'Impossible to tell. They could have been lying together when she told him, and he lost control and strangled her. Or she might've said something different that set him off. Or nothing at all. She might have been fully dressed, and he undressed her when she was already dead. Hum… He didn't seem to have a habit of abusing h
er. Ms Munro never saw bruises or signs of distress when Mrs Hyde returned from her lover.'

  'Maybe it wasn't her lover who killed her.'

  ‘Hum. Let's get back to what we know. The third victim had soil and cow manure under her fingernails.'

  I sat up straight. 'She did? Why wasn't that in the post-mortem report?'

  'It wasn't? Strange. I could swear Professor Goodman said it was cow manure. I'll ask him, and make sure.'

  'If it was… It's hard to step in cow manure by sheer accident. Especially here in Boston. Dog turds, horse manure, and pigeon droppings — yes. But cow patties? If it really was from a cow, and not a horse. Hum. Could he be a farmer? But then… It makes no sense. A man who attended Harvard Medical School turns to farming?'

  'The farmer could be a family member,' McCurley suggested.

  I shook my head. 'A farmer can't afford to send his son to Harvard Medical School. Except his son is brilliant enough to earn a scholarship. And a brilliant surgeon or physician will certainly not allow his son to turn to farming.'

  'Hum… Another matter that needs to be clarified is the transport of the bodies. How does he do that without being seen? He must be using a carriage. A closed carriage.'

  'Or a carriage no one pays attention to,’ I muttered. 'A grocer’s cart.'

  'He could have wrapped the body and covered it with wares.'

  'You could ask a naturalist to identify the soil found under the fingernails of the second and third victims.’

  'I did. Loamy soil. Nothing extraordinary.' McCurley put his head in his hands. It wasn't a gesture of exhaustion or defeat. It was more to shut out everything that surrounded him. To silence the world. I waited until he mumbled into his palms, 'There's a lot I'm not seeing.' He dropped his hands and exhaled. 'I need to leave. I'll send a note.'

  With that he stood, grabbed his revolver from the table, and slid it into his holster. Without another word, he made for the backdoor.

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