The Executioner's Heart

CHAPTER 23

This man was the same as all the other desperate souls who had sought out her most particular of services over the years. He, like them, had deceived himself that what he was doing-hiring a murderess to despatch those who might oppose him-was ultimately altruistic. He believed he sponsored these terrible deeds because they contributed to the greater good, and that by using her as an instrument to carry out such distasteful and necessary measures he remained one step removed from the responsibility. In other words, he wished to ensure that his hands remained clean and his conscience unblemished. He used phrases such as “a necessary evil” and “if I had any other choice” … but, truthfully, he was fooling only himself.

She had seen men-and women-struggle with such rationales a hundred times before, and she knew this behaviour for what it was. Their fragile minds were unable to cope with the truth: that they shared equally in the responsibility; that they, in effect, were guiding her hand as she hacked apart her victims’ chests and relieved them of their hearts. Men like this (for it was, predominantly, men) entered into the arrangements willingly, enthusiastically even. Afterwards, when she returned to describe the target’s death and show them the leather satchel containing the stolen, bloody organ, they wished to distance themselves from the results almost without fail.

She found this amusing, if, perhaps, a little tiresome. Only the Russian had remained impervious to such things, all those years ago in St. Petersburg. But he had paid for his inquisitiveness with his life.

Of course, she did not really care to understand the motivations of her clients, nor the means by which they made peace with themselves after the event. Hers was not to question, but to act. She understood, however, that in accepting a commission from a man such as this, she also accepted that a role in a political game

This time, though, something was different. The demeanour of the man had changed. Whereas before he had adopted a business-like approach to their encounters, had refused to look her directly in the eye, now he sat staring at her across the table as if imploring her to understand.

He looked tired, with dark rings beneath his eyes, and she wondered if he, too, was plagued by demons. This thought piqued her insatiable curiosity. Was that what it was to feel? It had been so many years, she could no longer remember.

He took another sip of his whisky and cleared his throat, but did not speak. The room was silent, other than the steady ticking of a grandfather clock. It stood in the far corner monotonously checking off the minutes: a steady, mechanical heartbeat, measuring each second.

She found the sound of a clock deeply reassuring. To her it was as if the constant tick-tocking was an echo of the heartbeat at the centre of the universe. It reminded her that she was still alive, despite her inability to appreciate the joy that such a thing should inspire. Indeed, she surrounded herself with clocks wherever she went. Her own heartbeat had died long ago, but in the tiny mechanisms of stolen clocks-often removed from the homes of her victims-she found peace.

The man was ready to speak. She could sense his need to divest himself of his burden. She would listen with ambivalence, and then ask for her instructions. She had no interest in his reasons, or how he felt about them. She wished only to know the name of the person he wanted her to kill.

The man placed both of his palms upon the table, exhaling. When he spoke, it was with great gravitas and solemnity. “I have another task for you,” he said. “There has been an alteration in our circumstances.”

She nodded, but did not reply.

The man reached for a sheaf of papers that he had laid out on the desk earlier in preparation for their meeting. He withdrew a single sheet from amongst the others, cast his eye over it, and then, with a sigh, slid it across to her. She noticed his hand was trembling.

She glanced down at the name and address written on the page:

SIR MAURICE NEWBURY, 1 °CLEVELAND AVENUE, CHELSEA

She took the piece of paper, folded it twice, and slipped it carefully into a concealed pocket.

“It is with great reluctance that I ask you to do this,” he said. “I had, until recently, hoped to spare this particular agent from the fate which awaits his colleagues. However, his tenacity is such that he puts us at risk of exposure.” He paused, looking her directly in the eye. “I ask that you end things swiftly and efficiently, and that you do not, under any circumstances, deprive the body of its heart.”

This was new. He was asking her to alter her modus operandi, to break the habit of almost a century. She had not killed without opening a victim’s chest since she’d fled Montmartre in the 1820s, aside from an incident in Bruges almost twenty years ago, when she had been interrupted in the process of cracking a man’s breastbone and was forced to flee to avoid capture.

She thought she should be outraged by the man’s impertinence, but she looked inside herself and could find no spark of anger, no consternation. Only the perpetual void where her heart had once been.

Outwardly, she shrugged her agreement, and the man nodded, clearly relieved.

Inwardly, however, she decided that she would make her decision after the deed, when the man lay dead before her on the floorboards of his Chelsea home. Only then would she know if she were truly prepared to do it, if she could leave empty-handed, knowing that she was granting the dead man a privilege she had willingly granted no one since her father: allowing him to keep his heart.

“So-you will do it this evening?” asked the man.

“Yes,” she replied, pushing back her chair and standing. “I shall end his life before the night is out.”