“Goddammit!” said James, as he thought of his father’s office in the City once again.
“James!”
James Compton looked up, frowning, then smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he saw Maisie waving from the other side of the road. He crumpled the paper and pushed it into his jacket pocket as he walked across to greet her. “Maisie Dobbs! I was so lost in thought I almost walked straight past!” He paused as she offered him her hand. “Maisie, what on earth have you been doing?”
Maisie regarded her hands, then reached into her shoulder bag and brought out her gloves. “It’s dye. I couldn’t get it out of my hands and should have put on my gloves immediately—but I can’t do much about the splashes on my cheek until I get home.” She looked into the eyes of her former employer’s son, then reached out to touch his arm. “How are you, James?”
He shrugged. “Well, the engagement’s off, that’s the first bit of news for you. And as you know, I’m here in England on business—duty calls at the Compton Corporation’s London office.” James consulted his watch. “Look, Maisie, I know I said this wouldn’t take much more time than it would to drink a cup of tea, but I am starving, and I wonder—do you have time for a spot of supper? I’ve been wrangling—”
“Wrangling?”
“Excuse me, I forgot where I was. Let me start again. I’ve been considering—worrying about, to tell you the truth—this business transaction I mentioned, and I’ve not eaten a thing all day.”
“Well, we’d better do something about that, hadn’t we? I’m rather hungry myself.”
James turned and signaled a taxi-cab. “Come on, let’s go to a charming little Italian dining room I know—just around the corner from Exhibition Row.”
“YOU LOOK DIFFERENT, Maisie.” James Compton reached for a bread roll, pulled it apart, and spread one quarter with a thick layer of butter.
“The dye has that effect.” Maisie grinned, looking up from the menu. “You haven’t changed a bit, James.”
“Well, the blond hair has a bit of gray at the sides, but thank heavens it doesn’t show much. If I can still walk as upright as my father when I reach his age, I will be more than grateful.” He poured a glass of Chianti and leaned back. “You seem more . . . I don’t know, sort of . . . lighter.”
“I assure you I am not.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s your demeanor. You seem lighter within yourself, as our Mrs. Crawford would have said.” He looked at Maisie, her black hair, cut just above the shoulders to run parallel with the line of her chin, her fringe brushing against black eyebrows that seemed to deepen her violet-blue eyes. She wore a mid-calf-length wool barathea skirt in a rich purple hue, with a red blouse and blue coat—clearly old but well maintained—that draped to mid-thigh. Her shoes, with a single strap buttoned at the side, were of plain black leather. A silver nurse’s watch was pinned to her lapel.
“Oh, Mrs. Crawford. What will you do for gingersnaps, James, now that your favorite cook has retired?”
James laughed, and for some minutes they spoke of the past, neither shying from the loss of Enid, Maisie’s fellow servant at the Compton household so many years past, a young woman who had been in love with James and whom he had loved in return. Enid died in an explosion at the munitions factory where she worked, in 1915.
“So, tell me how I can help you.” Maisie glanced at her watch as she directed the conversation to the reason for their meeting. She did not want to make a late return to her flat in Pimlico, for her day’s work was not yet done.
As they ate supper, James described the business transaction that was giving him so much trouble and for which he had seen an opportunity to seek her help.
“There’s a large estate down in Kent that I want to buy, on the outskirts of a village called Heronsdene. It’s about ten or so miles from Tunbridge Wells—and not that far from Chelstone, actually. The estate is pretty similar to many of its kind in Kent—you know what I mean: a large manor house, Georgian in this case, tenant farmers to manage the land, hunting privileges. But this property has something I’m particularly interested in—a brickworks. It’s a small concern. Produces the sort of bricks used in those pseudo-posh neo-Tudor affairs they’re building in the new London suburbia. And they manufacture old-fashioned peg tiles for repair of the older buildings you see all over Kent and Sussex.”
Maisie set down her knife and fork, reaching for her table napkin. “And you’re interested in the brickworks because there’s a building boom despite all indications that the economy isn’t showing signs of improvement.”
“That’s right. Now is the time to buy, ready to make a mint when we’re on an even keel, even sooner if output can be improved.” James pulled a silver cigarette case from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Mind?’
Maisie shook her head.
James continued. “So, despite Ramsay MacDonald being pressed to form a National Government to get us through this mess, and well-founded talk of Britain going off the gold standard any day now, there’s still room for optimism—and I want to move ahead soon.”
“So what’s stopping you, and how can I help?” Maisie waved a hand in front of her face as diplomatically as possible to ward off smoke from James’s cigarette.
“I have my doubts about the landowner, a man called Alfred Sandermere. He’s the younger son but became heir to the estate when his brother, Henry, was killed in the war. I knew Henry, by the way—good chap, excellent man—but the brother has done nothing but draw funds from the estate, leaving it on the verge of bankruptcy—which of course means I get value for my money. It’s essentially a fire sale.”
“And?”
James Compton extinguished his cigarette, pressing it into a glass ashtray which he then set to one side, away from Maisie. “There’s been some funny business going on down there, and if there is one thing the Compton Corporation likes, it’s a clean transaction. We may move fast in circumstances such as these, but we don’t get our hands dirty.”
“What’s been going on?”
“Mainly what appears to be petty crime. There’s been vandalism at the house and at the brickworks. The farmers haven’t reported anything amiss, and the villagers—many of whom are employed at the brickworks—are keeping quiet about it.”
Maisie frowned. “That’s not unusual. You are talking about rural Kent, after all.”
“No, this is different. The locals have been almost silent, no one hurrying to point the finger. And you know how unusual that is, especially when there are diddakoi in the area.”
“Diddakoi or Roma? They’re different, James.”
“Alright, people who travel with caravans. Doesn’t matter what they are, the locals are always pretty quick to blame them for all manner of ills—either them or the Londoners.”
Maisie nodded, understanding. “Hop-pickers?”
“Last year, yes. Of course, the police from Tunbridge Wells couldn’t do much; they tend to let the villages just get on with it. And it’s not as if there was any lasting damage. But I don’t like these reports, Maisie. If we move on this, I have to ensure that the brickworks is at maximum output from the first day of ownership. We’ll expand from there. And given the dependence upon local labor, goodwill and no vandalism are of the essence. Of course, the tenant farmers will remain as such, no plans to change that arrangement.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to look into matters, find out if there’s anything amiss locally that would affect our purchase of the Sandermere estate. You have three weeks—perhaps a month—to compile your report. That’s all the time I have now, and it’s not much where property of this kind is concerned.” He poured more wine for himself, setting the bottle back on the table when Maisie shook her head and rested her hand to cover the top of her glass. “I know it’s not the sort of case you’re used to,” he continued, “but you were the first person I thought to call.”
Maisie nodded, lifting her glass of Chianti to
her lips. She sipped the wine, then put down her glass with one hand as she reached for her shoulder bag and took out a small writing pad with the other. She made several notations, then circled a number before tearing off the sheet and passing it to her supper companion. “I assume my fee is acceptable to you.” It was a statement, not a question.
James Compton smiled. “There’s another thing that’s changed, Miss Maisie Dobbs. I do believe you’ve become a canny business proprietor.”
Maisie inclined her head, as James took a checkbook from his pocket. “An advance against expenses.” He scribbled across the check and passed it to Maisie. “You’ll have your work cut out for you. Hop-picking’s about to start, and the place will be teeming with outsiders.”
The investigator nodded. “Then it’s the perfect time, James, the perfect time. We’ll have your report ready in a month—at the latest.”
LATER, AT HER flat in Pimlico, as Maisie sat in her favorite armchair looking at the check, she breathed a sigh of relief. Business was still ticking along but wasn’t as brisk as it had been. The summer had been slow, and she was grateful that her assistant, Billy Beale, was planning to take two weeks’ holiday to go hop-picking himself—it was, after all, a tradition among East Enders. She wouldn’t have to pay his wages for those weeks, and at least he’d be earning money and taking a break from the Smoke—the streets of London—and getting his wife and boys away to the country. They needed it, for the family was still grieving for young Lizzie Beale, who had been lost to diphtheria at the beginning of the year. Yes, James had come along at the right moment, the answer to a prayer. In fact, one of the reasons she had indulged in Marta Jones’s class, was to do something different and not fret about a certain lack of custom for her business. To balance the expenditure, she’d even minimized use of her MG, understanding the importance of frugality in uncertain times. And she could never forget she had the mortgage on her flat to consider.
Yet, despite the pressures of being a sole proprietor, Maisie knew that the curtain of darkness from her past was lifting. Not that she forgot, not that she didn’t still have nightmares or close her eyes and see images from the war in stark relief. But it was as if she were on firmer ground, and not at the mercy of memory’s quicksand.
She checked her watch, marked the file of notes that now rested on her lap, and made ready to go to bed. As she reached for the cord to close the blinds, she remembered a dream she’d had twice this week. Dreams that came more than once demanded attention, and even though this was not a fearful dream, she reflected on it and wondered what it might mean. She had been walking through a forest and came upon a clearing bathed in shards of light splintering through the trees. As she walked into the clearing, she saw the still-enflamed embers of a fire, yet there was no one there, no traveler or tramp claiming a home for the night. There was only a loosely tied bunch of Michaelmas daisies set aside upon a fallen tree.
TWO
Maisie Dobbs sat alongside Billy Beale at the table in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the one-room office in Fitzroy Square. There had been a pause in their conversation, during which documents were passed back and forth, along with a page of notes sent by messenger from the office of James Compton.
“So, what you want me to do, Miss, is to recce this village to get the lay of the land and let you know what’s going on.”
“Yes, in the first instance. You’ll fit in nicely, being one of the London hoppers, down for the picking.”
“Well, that’s all very well, but we’ve been taken on by a farmer a few miles away, not this one. You can’t just up and get work at any old farm, not for the ’oppin’; it don’t work like that.”
Maisie turned to Billy. “Oh, dear. Would you explain to me how it works, then?”
Billy leaned forward and began to scribble a diagram onto a length of wallpaper pinned to the table. These offcuts, from a painter and decorator friend of Billy’s, were reversed to form a background for each new assignment’s case map, a diagram created with colored pencils upon which Maisie and Billy set down hunches, clues, information and any other points that might help them usher an investigation to its close. Thus far this length of paper had remained untouched.
“You register with a farmer, one who knows you, usually at the end of pickin’ the year before. My family’s been goin’ down ’oppin’ since before my grandfather was a boy. The farmer knows which families ’e wants back, the good workers. Then, in spring or thereabouts, you get your brown envelope, with a letter telling you to come on such and such a date for the ’oppin’ and that you’ll get your hut to live in. So when you get on the train, with all your family and everything from yer sheets down to the tin kettle, you know you’ve got work and a roof over yer ’ead.”
Maisie was silent for a moment. “Do you know anyone going to”—she paused to consult her notes—”Dickon’s Farm on the Sandermere Estate? Couldn’t you sort of swap with another family?”
Billy shook his head. “No, I don’t know anyone goin’ to Dickon’s Farm, not off the top of me noddle.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “But you know what I’ll do, I’ll ’ave a word with a few blokes I know, see if it can be done. It ain’t normal, though. The farmers don’t like messin’ about with their allocations.”
“Good man.” Maisie smiled and reached for a file. “Look at this, just like the number twelve bus—none for ages, then three, one after the other. It never rains but it pours, and about time too!”
“More work comin’ in?”
“Yes. I came back to the office yesterday evening and there were two postcards and a telegram, all with jobs for us. I’ve set appointments with the new clients already. There’s nothing huge, but it’s a good sign and means that, along with my private clients, the business will go along nicely for us, probably right up to Christmas.”
“You were worried there for a bit, weren’t you, Miss?”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, just a bit.” She flipped open the Compton file again. “Billy, I’m anxious to have my planning for this case settled, so here’s what I’d like you to do today—after you’ve completed the notes on the Jacobsen case so I can send our report and issue an invoice. I want you to find out if you can get onto the Sandermere estate as soon as you can.” She paused. “I won’t have this case eat into your holiday time, and I’ll obviously pay you for the work you do while you’re down there, so keep a good record of your hours. I just want you to give me initial impressions, based on James Compton’s concerns. Then I really want an in for myself—you might find me picking hops with the Beales, if I have to.”
Billy laughed. “Miss, I can’t get over it—you a Londoner and never been down to Kent pickin’ ’ops.”
Once Maisie might have nipped such informality in the bud and not encouraged frivolous repartee on a working morning, but since she had known Billy, they had seen much together—not least during their first brief meeting, when he was brought into the casualty clearing station in France where she was working as a nurse in 1916. Her first love, a young army doctor, Simon Lynch, had saved Billy’s life, and the man who was now her assistant had never forgotten either of them. Billy’s life intersected with Maisie’s again when she rented an office on Warren Street where he was caretaker—he had recognized her immediately. After he’d helped her on a significant case, she asked him to become her assistant, a role he gratefully accepted. Now there was an ease in their relationship, though the occasional joke on Billy’s part never slipped into overfamiliarity.
“No, I never went down ’oppin’, Billy, though my father picked hops when he was a boy. Of course, I’ve seen them growing, seen the men out stringing for the bines to grow up and the women banding-in and training the shoots along the strings in late spring. But I know nothing about the actual business of hop-picking.” She paused, remembering. “Instead, we used to spend a week in the summer with my mother’s parents, when they lived near Marlow. Granddad was a lockkeeper. He’d been a lighterman on the Thames for years, but my grand
mother yearned to be out of the city, and because they both wanted to be near the water he went to work on the waterways eventually—you couldn’t keep him away from that river, even when he should have been retired.”
“And your grannie? A Londoner, was she?”
Maisie shook her head. “Oh, no, she was a different kettle of fish altogether.” She changed the subject, taking up a sheet of paper. “Now then, after a bit of a lull, thank heavens we’ve some real work to do.”
BILLY AND HIS family left London at the weekend, on one of the trains known as a Hoppers’ Special. He had managed to effect an exchange of farm employment with another man and his family and, following a swift back-and-forth of postcards and telegrams between the men and the farmers concerned, the Beales were now ensconced in a one-room hopper hut on Dickon’s Farm. For her part, Maisie turned to assessing the case in greater detail.
James Compton’s notes included a map of the estate, a significant acreage set amid the swath of land known as the Weald of Kent. Heronsdene neighbored the estate at its southern edge, where the village met the perimeter of Dickon’s Farm, which Tom Dickon had inherited from his father, and his father before him. And so it went, down through the centuries. Thanks to long leases that were all but untouchable, the farmer considered the land his own, to be kept in the family.
The brickworks was to the east of Dickon’s Farm and, as James had said, was doing well. More information on Alfred Sandermere was included, together with a photograph. Not very flattering, thought Maisie, as she sized up a man of perhaps thirty or thirty-one. He seemed quite ordinary, though she did not care for his eyes, which were narrowed, bridged by thin eyebrows and swept-back hair with an overabundance of oil—the photograph revealed an unfortunate shine indicating as much. His lips drew back across his teeth as he smiled for the camera, and Maisie noticed that he held a half-smoked cigar in his hand. Nothing unusual there. However, she thought it unseemly, and there was something about his slouch that suggested arrogance and cynicism. She knew she would have to meet Sandermere at some point and did not look forward to making his acquaintance.