The Absolutist

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SEATED OPPOSITE ME in the railway carriage, the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders that she had committed over the years.

“There was the vicar in Leeds,” she said, smiling a little as she tapped her lower lip with her index finger. “And the spinster from Hartlepool whose tragic secret was to prove her undoing. The actress from London, of course, who took up with her sister’s husband just after his return from the Crimea. She was a flighty piece so no one could blame me for that. But the maid-of-all-work in Connaught Square, I rather regretted killing her. She was a hard-working girl of good Northern stock, who perhaps didn’t deserve such a brutal ending.”

“That was one of my favourites,” I replied. “If you ask me, she got what was coming to her. She read letters that were not hers to read.”

“I know you, don’t I?” she asked, sitting forward now, narrowing her eyes as she examined my face for familiar signs. A sharp combination of lavender and face cream, her mouth viscous with blood-red lipstick. “I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

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