Maisie watched the telephonist vanish into a snake of young women making their way back through the sandbagged entrance to the Faraday Buildings. Returning to a place where they were sworn to keep all manner of secrets—between husbands and wives, between lovers, government departments, long-lost friends. And even, she thought, secrets concerning the movement of money.
It was as Maisie walked away, toward the underground station, that she realized she had forgotten to impart an important piece of information to Vivian Coombes. She would have liked to let her know that young Private Billy Beale was home safe from the shores of Dunkirk. But perhaps it was best she hadn’t. For as they’d walked away from the coffee house, along streets flanked by sandbagged buildings, Maisie had taken a moment to mirror the way Vivian Coombes carried herself. So much was revealed in the way a person walked—and it was a simple technique, a means of understanding something of a person without their knowledge. But it was important to be distinct in the interpretation. By the time she made her way through the turnstiles at the underground station, Maisie was wondering how best to describe the waves of fear and regret she felt emanating from Vivian Coombes as she walked alongside her.
“Billy, look at this,” said Maisie, pointing to the case map. She had been back in the office for only twenty minutes when Billy came in, his footfall heavy on the stairs before he entered.
“Aren’t you even going to ask where I’ve been?” said Billy. “Any other employer would.”
“I know where you’ve been, Billy—your son is at home now, probably on a few days’ leave before he has to report for duty again, and you wanted to see a bit more of him.”
“He says I’m the only one he can talk to, that he can’t talk to his mum about it, or his brother. And he definitely can’t talk to his little sister—won’t even let her near him when she wants to give him a cuddle to make it all better. That’s what she keeps saying. ‘Let’s make Billy all better, Daddy.’”
“Billy—you should be at home, really.”
“Nah, he was sleeping when I left. Like the dead. Got a nasty tear along the shoulder, where a bullet just skimmed along. Could have killed him, miss—could have killed my boy.”
“But it didn’t kill him. Someone was watching over him.”
“Our little Lizzie. That’s who.” Billy took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “They patched him up at the military hospital and sent him home for a few days.”
Maisie pulled out a chair for Billy, and leaned back. “It must have brought back a lot of difficult memories for you, Billy—would you like to take the load off? And I don’t mean your feet.”
Billy gave a half-laugh, slumping into the chair. “I can’t let it take me down again, miss—I need the backbone for our Billy.” He looked at his hands, then back to Maisie. “But what he told me made me sick, miss. And he said, ‘Dad, I was lucky—I got away early. It’s bound to be worse now.’”
“Go on,” said Maisie.
“He told me all about it—and, miss, I don’t know if I can bear to think about what’s going on over there. Billy says the expeditionary force is being driven right back to the coast by the Germans. And I mean, right back. There’s men out there, our boys—and the French—holding the line so more can get to the coast, and when they get there, they’re lining up, masses of them, hoping to get onto a boat and sail for home. Some even tried to swim for it. And the blimmin’ Germans are coming down, flying above the beach and strafing the poor buggers. They’re bombing the navy ships and gunning them—coming in right overhead so the navy boys can’t get their big guns raised vertical enough to defend themselves. He saw one ship—a hospital ship, with a blimmin’ great red cross on it that you couldn’t miss from Mars—and the Luftwaffe came in for the attack and it sunk in seconds. There were doctors and nurses on board, wounded, and any other poor sods they could take. And Billy said he almost got on that one. The army’s having to leave everything—tanks, guns, motor cars. I tell you, miss, a miracle got hold of my son, pushed him to the front of the queue and brought him home.”
Maisie said nothing, allowing silence to wrap itself around Billy’s story. A minute passed before he looked up, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Now then, what was it you wanted me to look at, miss?”
“The case map—here.” Maisie’s voice was little more than a whisper, as she pointed to a long red line between two names, then linking it to a third.
“I should’ve seen it coming—if anyone’s going to make money out of a war, it’d be that one.”
“I just don’t have the links in place, Billy—that’s the trouble. I have to find the links.”
“I’ll go over and—”
Maisie shook her head. “Not this time, Billy. Doreen’s coping very well, all things considered, and I don’t want her given cause to slip. Life is too fragile, isn’t it? In fact, considering the situation, I am wondering about the future of the business—for the duration of the war, anyway.”
“You’ll still be busy, mark my words.”
“That’s not it—though I can see that pile of inquiries Sandra has left for me on the desk.”
“And this one,” said Billy, tapping the case map. “Is one you’re doing for nothing, no payment from anyone.”
“That’s why there are some in that pile we have to start working on. There’s nothing big in there—I just glanced through them. But enough to keep us on our toes.” She reached for the sheaf of six or seven inquiry messages and placed them on the table. “I’ve just been considering how we should work—if the worst happens and there’s an invasion, or London is targeted by the Luftwaffe. It might be an idea to limit the time we spend here, don’t you think?”
Billy shook his head. “Everyone has to go to work, miss—you can’t let them win, not this easily.”
“I wasn’t planning to lose anything—especially not my employees.”
“And I’ll second what Billy said,” said Sandra. Maisie had not heard her enter the office. “Lawrence says life has to go on, so we’re staying.”
Maisie looked at Billy and Sandra. “All right—that subject is out of bounds for now, but I may come back to it. Your safety is paramount in my book.” She beckoned Sandra to a chair on the other side of the table bearing the case map. “Indeed, we’ll discuss it again when this case is closed. Right now, it seems to be splitting open wider every day.”
With Billy dispatched to call upon three of the prospective new clients, Maisie spent some time with Sandra going over the afternoon’s work, and then made her way downstairs to the front door—she had an appointment with her solicitor. As she closed the front door behind her, she heard someone calling after her.
“Miss Dobbs—Miss Dobbs.”
“Mr. Miles—how are you?” Walter Miles reached the top step of the stairs that led from the basement flat up to the street. “Oh, and I must thank you once again for getting me out of a tight spot the other day.”
“I was wondering if everything was all right now—are you safe?” asked Miles.
“I’m not sure I was particularly unsafe, but I didn’t want to be followed by that motor car.”
“They have been back, you know,” said Miles.
Maisie felt the familiar ice cold sensation across her neck, as if a finger had traced the old wartime scar that was now hardly visible.
“You’ve seen them?”
He nodded. “You weren’t here, nor were your two friends, as I discovered. There were two men, one older, one younger. The older one waited across the road in the motor car, while the younger came toward the square, lingering over there with his newspaper and cigarette. When one of the students who lives upstairs left, the younger one sprinted across and caught the door just in time. I’d been tending my plants down there.” He pointed to a lower window, where a series of flowers struggled to bloom in terra-cotta pots. “That area never catches the sun, but I try, though my ministrations are not as successful as they are in the courtyard a
t the back. Anyway, I’d come up a few steps to look across, that’s how I knew what was going on. I was worried that Mrs. Pickering was upstairs on her own with young Martin, so I went into my flat and then up to your office via the inside staircase. I found the man outside the door, looking at the lock. It’s a good one, isn’t it?”
“What happened?”
“I asked him if he needed assistance, and he—very quickly—asked me if it was where Vivian lived. I told him he had the wrong address, and sent him on his way. I would say he picked the name out of thin air—it was probably his mother’s name, which is why it came to mind when he was put on the spot.”
Maisie nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Miles—I am much obliged to you for looking out for us.” She smiled, not wanting him to know her level of concern. “And thank you for being so thoughtful regarding the safety of my staff—especially Mrs. Pickering. I—I didn’t know you’d already met.”
“Oh, she always says hello. Such a nice young lady, and not often you see a woman working following marriage and especially now she has a child. I suppose times are changing. But that lock stood you in good stead.”
“Yes, it certainly has been worth it.” Maisie paused. “Actually, before her marriage to Mr. Pickering, she was a widow—her first husband was killed in a terrible accident. But he had put in those locks for me when they were courting, and the subsequent tenant obviously kept them—I’ve leased the office twice, you see.”
Miles nodded and began to retreat down the stairs, holding on to the railing for balance as he took each step. “I’d better get back to work, Miss Dobbs. Always much to do.”
As she walked toward the Tube station, Maisie considered two elements of the conversation with Walter Miles—first, the fact that the younger man Miles had intercepted had said he was looking for “Vivian.” The second was that Miles had seemed so easy to confide in. Sandra had clearly made his acquaintance, to the extent that he was concerned for her safety. And for her part, she had told a story about Sandra’s past—something that, as a rule, she wouldn’t do. Now she was intrigued, though the intrigue did not extend to the man looking for Vivian. She already knew his identity.
Chapter 14
Four days had passed since the service at Westminster Abbey. Four days since Tim’s disappearance. Later in the afternoon, Maisie would collect her motor car, pick up Priscilla, and the two would drive to Chelstone. Priscilla would be distracted from worrying about her son by the journey, then—hopefully—by life at Chelstone and being away until Monday, at least.
The more she thought about it, the more sound Maisie considered her plan to limit the time she, Billy and Sandra spent in the office during the week. Sandra was already working only on those days when administrative tasks had piled up, and she seemed to enjoy coming in. She and her husband were renting Maisie’s old flat in Pimlico, and had made no plans to move, despite having a new baby to consider. Lawrence’s small publishing firm was located in London, and employed several people, so they could not up and move. Indeed, Sandra’s fears while expecting—of bringing a child into a country at war—seemed to have been put aside, which surprised Maisie. Billy lived outside the capital, and if need be could work from home on occasion, traveling as any investigation demanded. For her part, she was beginning to begrudge time spent in London when she could be in Kent, at the Dower House and closer to her family. Fortunately, as she had told Billy and Sandra, business was still coming in, and in fact seemed to have increased of late—which in turn could mean her plan might not work.
The telephone was ringing when she entered the office. She ran to the desk and picked up the receiver. The caller addressed her before she could issue a greeting.
“Is that Miss Dobbs?”
“Yes, speaking,” said Maisie, recognizing the voice.
“Clarissa Clark here. Do you have a moment, Miss Dobbs?”
With one hand, Maisie removed her hat. “Of course, Dr. Clark.”
“It’s regarding Joseph Coombes. As you know by now, I have had to be less decisive in my report than I might have wanted to be—to be fair, it was entirely possible that the injury to the skull could well have taken place during a fall onto the railway lines. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Go on,” said Maisie.
“I’ve been studying Joe’s brain matter. By the way, I hope you don’t mind me calling him ‘Joe.’ The police don’t always like it—they want to remain detached, claiming it makes them lose focus or some such thing. But Dr. Blanche taught us that we should speak to the dead by name—it helps us to remember respect, and to keep our questions coming. I’m sure you know that. Anyway, I’ve always done it—I find it’s led me up some very fruitful alleys of inquiry, and reminds me I’m dealing with a human being who was alive and in the world until fate stepped in to stamp the time card.” She paused, and Maisie heard a leaf of paper turn. “Right, anyway, as I said, I was studying Joe’s brain matter, and as you know it bothered me, this discoloration. So I spoke to a neurologist friend of mine because I know he’s interested in diseases of the brain and how they affect behavior. He came down to the lab here to have a look, and we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s likely that Joe was suffering from more than the physical sensation of headache, but also dizziness and swings in mood. He might also have been sensitive to sound.”
“Traffic, and such like.”
“Yes.”
“That explains one thing—he didn’t want to go back to London. He wanted to leave his job and stay in the country, working on a farm.”
“Hmmm, psychology is more your bailiwick, but I would say the physical trauma to the brain from whatever toxins he had been exposed to would have led people to say things such as ‘Joe isn’t himself these days.’”
“Yes, that’s why his parents came to me. But what about the injury that killed him.”
“To be fair, it could just as well have happened as a result of a fall as a blunt instrument.” Clark sighed, and Maisie thought she sounded exasperated. “There were tiny specks of cast iron in the hair and brain, but the railway line is iron, so that doesn’t help. And the behavior I’ve indicated might have led him to jump—my colleague has pointed that out.”
Maisie picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk, mindful of Clarissa Clark’s position. “I applaud you for keeping an open mind, Dr. Clark—but I have a feeling you believe he was killed elsewhere. Since we spoke, have you encountered any evidence to suggest his death might have happened at another location?”
“That railway siding is a dirty, filthy place. People have thrown fish and chip wrappings over the wall as they passed on the road above, cigarette stubs, and even urinated onto the railway. There’s over a century of accumulated debris down there, and it was last cleaned decades ago because it’s not even used much for shunting engines back and forth these days. The station master likes everything to look shipshape where people can see the platform, but this part of the station is out of the way.”
“So, the rubbish on the line made it difficult to reach a final conclusion.”
“Not quite,” said Clark. “In fact, I was a little surprised because, having been to the location where the body was found, I would have expected to see more evidence of debris from the site in the actual bone matter and hair, and on the clothing. But I didn’t. He either had a clean fall, or he was laid there after the point of death. The police are quite within their rights to have asked for a declaration of death by misadventure. What I am telling you is just speculation.”
“Your word counts for something, Dr. Clark.”
“Which is why I have to leave the door open for the possibility that Joe jumped from the wall above, perhaps while in an unstable frame of mind.”
“I think you want to add more,” said Maisie.
Clarissa Clark cleared her throat. “Miss Dobbs, you are engaged in a search for the truth, are you not?” Clark did not wait for a response from Maisie. “Then you should follow the injury sustained by Joe before
the wounds that took his life. Look at what happened to his brain before his skull was cracked open. That’s what killed Joe—whether he jumped, or not. In my humble opinion, of course.”
“It’s a web, though.”
“I deal with them every day. Dr. Blanche gave us sage advice in order to untangle them. Patience, and one thread at a time.”
Maisie smiled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing lately. Your conclusion confirms I’m going in the right direction. Thank you.”
“Of course. Now then, I have to get to work. Joe’s remains will be released to his family for burial soon, but I assure you I have kept copious notes, and also brought in a medical artist. It’s something I do at times, if I feel it necessary.”
“As evidence.”
“Yes. Indeed. Now, I must go. Good day, Miss Dobbs.”
“Thank you for telephoning, Dr. Clark.”
Maisie replaced the receiver. Much of the pathologist’s report was already known to Maisie. But she appreciated having her suspicions substantiated by Clark. She also rather liked speaking to a woman known for never having had a humble opinion in her life.
Maisie crossed the room to the window and looked down at the explosion of color now gracing Walter Miles’ postage-stamp yard below. Her own walled garden in Holland Park was much larger, and laid to lawn with shrubs around the perimeter, and various vines clinging onto the bricks—wisteria, clematis, climbing roses. A gardener came in once a fortnight, and though she kept it tidy enough in the interim, she would never have considered herself proficient in the realm of horticulture—indeed, the flowering vines in Miles’ yard were much further along than her own, and her garden received more direct sunlight, so it should have been equally abundant. Miles clearly had more than a green thumb—he was a gifted gardener. A book had been left on the small table, half read and upside down to keep the place. There was a cardigan over the back of one chair, and a notebook, as if he had only just left his seat. She wondered whether he worked, and if so what his profession might be. She was curious about Walter Miles.