After locking the door to her modest bedsit behind her, she carefully made her way down the creaking wooden steps to the street door.

Betsy might have taken a taxi, but she didn’t have the money to spare. And once she got walking at a fast pace, the backpack really wasn’t that much of a burden.

It was only a twenty-minute walk, down streets that were ruined on one block and untouched on the next. German bombs were indiscriminate. Betsy found herself walking faster and faster, like others on the streets. People didn’t want to be outside longer than necessary. Usually it was later and darker when the bombers came, but the Hun liked to vary their attacks and try to catch the defenses off guard.

Betsy’s heart became a weight when she saw the damage to Clerkenwell. Narrow and winding Dalenby had fared no better in the recent bombing. Betsy stumbled along amid rubble that was blackened by fire. Packed ash piles were still damp from the fire brigades. The smell was terrible. Charred wood. And something else.

Would London ever get used to this? Survive it? One thing was for sure: There was nothing left of Betsy’s destination, Treasure Island Collectibles.

An air-raid siren growled then quickly died, as if clearing its throat, or emitting a terse reminder. Night was fast approaching. That meant another blackout, and almost certainly another rain of bombs.

Betsy hurried back the way she had come. She saw in the gaps between the buildings stubby barrage balloons lifting into the low, lead-colored sky. The city was just beginning to dim when she’d returned to her bedsit, lowered the backpack onto the table, and collapsed into a threadbare armchair.

She wanted to drift off to sleep, but instead forced herself up from the chair and closed the blackout curtains.

She had some veggies and tinned beans, and thought about preparing a meal. But she was more exhausted than hungry. And the Germans might interrupt her supper anyway.

She sat in her armchair and fell asleep trying to decide what to do with Henry Tucker’s backpack.

When she awoke, the narrowest of cracks of light showed around the blackout curtains. Dawn. Betsy rubbed her eyes and squinted at her clock on the mantel. Almost eight o’clock.

She recalled no air warning sirens during the night. Whatever air raids the Germans carried out must have been against military targets farther north. Or maybe the bombers simply hadn’t been able to find London. She was sure that had happened before, when the city was properly blacked out on moonless nights. Or when the RAF engaged the bombers when they were still over the channel.

Betsy stretched and yawned. Wouldn’t it be nice to pretend the war was over?

Sometime during the night, she’d decided on what to do with what was in Henry Tucker’s backpack.

There was no time, though, until tomorrow, when she came home from working at the hospital and had a few hours to spare. And then she might be too tired to carry out her plan.

No matter, she told herself, thinking again about the contents of the backpack. There was no rush about it, other than that it nagged.

21

New York, the present

Minnie Miner, around whom the news-talk program Minnie Miner ASAP was created, was a small, African-American woman with the energy of a Consolidated Edison power plant. She sat in a chair angled to face her guest, and dispensed deviousness and venom through the smile that made her a beautiful woman. She moved fast, in unexpected directions, and she talked the same way. News was her addiction, and she yearned to be right in the middle of it.

This afternoon her guest was the NYPD profiler, Helen Iman. She welcomed Helen vociferously and then put on a serious expression that was no more sincere than the smile it replaced. “You are, in a way, Helen, not a stranger to the D.O.A. killer.”

Helen leaned forward in her armchair that was part of the set. She sensed one of the several cameras being dollied to a closer position, and tried to ignore it. “That’s true,” she said, “but remember, we aren’t sure this is the same killer, pursuing his sick hobby in his old killing ground.”

Minnie squirmed and inched forward in her chair. “Sick hobby? Is it your opinion as a professional profiler that the killer is sick?”

“He wouldn’t agree with me,” Helen said, “but yes, sick.”

“Do you believe in evil, Helen?”

“I do, but—”

“Do you believe in demonic possession?”

“Er, no, I—”

“Might the killer be sick without being evil?”

“Pigs might fly.” Helen was feeling irritated. She told herself to calm down; this was Minnie Miner’s method, to get her guests to, accidentally or otherwise, say something important—or at least entertaining.

Minnie also cautioned herself. Helen had been on her program more than once, and had a way of using her without it being apparent.

“It’s difficult not to think of him as evil,” Helen said.

“But what if he really believes he’s helping those women leave an evil and unforgiving world, helping them because they were too afraid or too unknowing to help themselves? I mean, maybe he’s crazy but not, in his own mind, evil.”

“He wants to be evil,” Helen said. “If he is D.O.A., operating again in the area he so terrorized a few years ago, he’s back in New York for a reason.”

“He might know what he’s doing is wrong, but if it affords his victims an escape, as he might think of it, from a callous and dangerous world, he might see his motivations as pure.”

Ah, this was precisely where Helen wanted to go. “The thing is,” Helen said, “he tortures them and creates tremendous pain. Some of his victims died in shock, their bodies simply unable to accept what was happening. It was urgent to the victims that they should tell the killer the truth; it was the only way to stop the pain for whole minutes.”

Minnie made her eyes round, above the red O of her lips. “God, that sounds so awful.”

“One might even say evil.”

“Yes, yes, I understand now what you mean.”

“And what the killer wanted his victims to know was that if they lied to him their futures were indefinite. So they spilled their guts, going back to school days, afraid of what not to tell.”

“Do we know that for sure?”

“One would assume it after just a glance at the morgue photos.”

“You make it all seem so logical—at least in the mind of the killer.” Minnie shifted her weight, unable to sit still, and stared intently at Helen. “But why did he come back here, to New York, to resume killing? Isn’t that especially dangerous for him?”

“Definitely. He wants it dangerous. He’s egomaniacal. He doesn’t doubt for a minute that he’s the smartest one in this game of grisly chess.”

“Egomaniacal,” Minnie said. “Grisly chess games. That brings us around to Captain Frank Quinn.”

“Yes,” Helen said, “it certainly does. The killer sees Quinn as his alter ego, his flip side, his nemesis.”

Minnie looked out at the world through the camera lens, wearing a puzzled expression. “But if Quinn is his nemesis, it would be easier for him to take up killing again in a different city.”

“The different city wouldn’t have Frank Quinn,” Helen said. “If you were a chess master, you would want to avenge perhaps the only time you’d been outwitted, embarrassed, made a fool of for all the world to see.” Helen shook her head in disgust. “As if the world is interested in this pathetic creature.”

“So he sees himself as a loser?”

“God no,” Helen said. “He sees himself as the victim of incredibly bad luck. Not for one second does this nutcase think he can be outwitted by the law, especially the law as represented by Frank Quinn.”