Page 59 of A Vocation of Violence
“Fine,” I lied through clenched teeth, unwilling to show vulnerability even as darkness nibbled at my consciousness. “The oak leaf. Left at Lena Goldman’s murder.” I stabbed a damning finger in Drumft’s direction, even as the lines around his form began to blur. “He confessed to killing three women.”
“Not women!” Drumft roared. “Jews!I am an innocent man.” He injected a plaintive note into his voice. “Surely you won’t take the word of a deranged immigrant over a respectable gentleman like myself? Look what she’s done to me!” He pointed to where the chair leg had connected with his face. Blood still dripped from his nose and a split by his cheekbone.
The younger officer frowned, glancing between us. But the elder was unmoved.
“You are both under arrest for assault and attempted murder. You can explain yourself to the magistrate.” With a swift motion, he struck Drumft’s uninjured cheek with his baton, sending the man reeling and blood running fresh.
“Turn the other cheek, asyourpeople say,” The officer spat at Drumft’s feet, and that was when I saw his badge and name tag.
His name was Abraham Cohen.
When I woke,pale daylight filtered through the hospital room windows. I shifted, then winced as pain lanced through my shoulder. The events of the previous night flooded back. Drumft’s attack, my desperate flight, the police intervening just in time.
The subsequent interviews and statements and surgery to safely extract the dagger without my bleeding to death.
I was alive.
Groaning, I attempted to shift my weight and grimaced at the sharp pain. My body was a battleground of pain and medication, but it was the inability to lean back without agony that drew from me a string of curses fit for the East End docks. The doctor had said it would be several weeks before I could even think about resuming normal activity—a laughable concept, as if any part of my life had ever been normal.
The February chill intensified as a shadow fell over the doorway.
Detective Croft.
He assessed me thoroughly, his face as unreadable as stone, and was accompanied by another detective, whose presence seemed to swallow up the room’s meager comfort.
Hope fluttered within my chest at the sight of him, only to be doused as quickly as it had ignited. There was no warmth in his gaze, no familiar glimmer of camaraderie.
He was still angry, then.
“Miss Mahoney,” he began, his voice carrying the detachment of duty rather than the intimacy of friendship. “This is Detective Inspector Jones. We are here as a professional courtesy to inform you…”
I held my breath, anticipating a victory, a sliver of justice in this forsaken city. But the words that spilled from Croft’s lips were daggers of their own, each syllable laced with the poison of disillusionment.
“Due to a treaty of diplomatic immunity,” Detective Jones intervened, “Oswald J. Drumft will not stand trial for his crimes committed on British soil.”
“Immunity?” I echoed, the word tasting of ash and betrayal. “He confessed to murder.”
Croft shook his head. “Our hands are tied. Drumft is returning to Berlin today. There’s nothing more to be done.”
“Nothing more—” A bitter laugh clawed its way out. “You tell me that a monster walks free because of some papers? Some agreement between governments?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Croft’s jaw tightened.
“Then whose hands are capable enough to deliver justice?” I demanded, my voice quivering with fury and despair.
He showed me empty palms for an answer before half turning from me.
“Detective Croft,” I said, my voice threaded with a plea for recognition, for any sign of the friendship we’d once cultivated amidst the mire of London’s foulest crimes. But he bestowed nothing more than a curt nod, a professional boundary erected where there once stood an unspoken understanding.
Jones offered a sympathetic tilt of the head before following his superior. Their departure loomed over the room, leaving a void where warmth should reside.
Fury boiled up in me, but it was no use.
Drumft was untouchable, and Croft was closed to me. I had never felt so powerless. So there I lay, impotent in my rage, my thoughts circling like carrion birds around the carcass of what little faith I had left in the world.
Alone now, truly alone, I felt the dam holding back my emotions begin to crumble. I could no longer hold the façade of the strong, unwavering woman who delved into the darkest of humanity’s sins to scrape away the remnants.
Tears welled up from a wellspring of sorrow long suppressed. They traced hot, salty paths down my cheeks, the release both a balm and a poison. I sobbed, the sound muted within the confines of my sterile prison, a lamentation for justice denied, for the lives extinguished, and for the connection with Croft—the connection we’d forged over long nights puzzling out clues and trading stories of our pasts.
