Maisie waited in the taxi while Grace Hackett checked on Mrs. Dunley. Once the vehicle set off, Hackett picked up the conversation. “Is your husband in the services?”
Maisie caught her breath. She had noticed Hackett glancing at the third finger of her left hand as she asked the question. “No. I’m a widow, Mrs. Hackett—but we’re doing well, my daughter and I. Very well indeed. Now, where would you like to be dropped off?”
Later, having given Mrs. Hackett—who had invited her to “call me Grace”—a lift to an address in Belgravia, the location of one of her several jobs, Maisie asked the driver to drop her at Victoria Station. She wanted to walk around for a while to settle her mind before joining Jamieson at his laboratory. She had a few thoughts to dissect before assisting the pathologist. For a start, Maisie was sure the broom handle had not taken a swipe at Grace Hackett’s face. She had seen enough wounds on both the living and the dead to know a bruise sustained as a result of a fist to the cheek and how it might differ from that of an accident. But of greater interest was the image of the man Maisie assumed to be Freddie Hackett’s father. Focusing on the photograph of Grace with her new husband on their wedding day, Maisie could see he had sustained his own facial wound: a long, prominent scar across his right cheek.
Chapter 5
Outfitted in a white laboratory coat, mask, and rubber gloves, her hair fingered back under a white scarf, Maisie scribbled notes on a clipboard as Jamieson spoke. On occasion she stopped him to ask a question, or to point out something for him to look at again. She liked Jamieson; there was something in his bearing that continued to remind her of Maurice—the way he touched the body, even whispering, “Sorry about that, old man,” as if the cadaver before them still held life and warmth.
Every part of the deceased was inspected and condition noted, right down to an ingrown nail on the big toe of the right foot.
“The shrapnel wounds are telling, don’t you think, Dr. Jamieson?” asked Maisie.
“Yes. I saw so many just like this in the last war—and the water has brought more shards to the surface of the skin. I daresay he picked out a few splinters each week, and the constant reminder probably gave him nightmares about the day he got them.” He sighed. “Trying to look beyond his condition, what age would you peg him, Maisie?”
Maisie looked up. Jamieson had never used her Christian name before. She stared down at the body again. “I’d say he was a young soldier during the last war, not too many years on him at the time, and perhaps only a little older than the century. Let’s settle on about forty-two, something of that order.”
“My thoughts exactly.” He looked up at Maisie. “And please, do call me Duncan. It seems silly to stick to formalities in the presence of the dead.”
Maisie could feel her face flushing. On the contrary, she would rather have stuck to the “formalities.”
Jamieson continued. “Anything else you’ve noticed?”
Maisie cleared her throat. “This man had quite a life—or quite a job. Look at these scars here—on the arm, and the thigh. And this one across the palm of his hand. He has been in a few scrapes—fights, I should say, and weapons were involved. Either that or he was terribly accident-prone.” She stood back and began to chew the side of her lip.
“What is it?” asked Jamieson.
She sighed. “Look, this is going to sound incredibly . . . well, it’s speculation, but I believe this man might have been some sort of fighter. And I don’t mean a boxer or wrestler. This body is like a child’s drawing book—there’s scribble everywhere and every mark looks like the result of a deliberate wound. I suspect he was in combat well beyond the last war, and that he found himself in some very tight corners.” She set the scalpel and clipboard on a metal trolley alongside the postmortem table, and folded her arms. “I even wonder if we are dealing with a seasoned killer.”
“The murderer was the one who knew how to kill, Maisie—swiftly and with ease.”
She nodded again. “Oh, I can see that.” Slipping her pencil into a pocket, she picked up a scalpel from the instruments tray and used it to point to the two knife wounds. “This is precision work, as you observed when we first saw the body. But I wonder if the murder could have been the result of two sharks fighting, two trained killers who would go at each other to the death. Or might one of those two killers—this one—have been unsuspecting, with no reason to fear the other man?”
“Now you’re venturing outside my territory, Maisie. I’m strictly the corpse man. I can tell you about the weapon, the trajectory of the knife as it was plunged into the body here and here, and I can tell you that this chap liked a drink or two—or three or four—if I’m not mistaken. Nasty-looking liver—could be the result of too many French aperitifs and a good number of other spirits. More than that is beyond my purview. But it’s always interesting to hear someone like you begin to see the story.”
Maisie frowned. “French aperitifs? Have you assumed he’s French?”
Jamieson shrugged. “That’s where I speculate, I suppose.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I can trust you with my thoughts because you’re a product of Maurice Blanche’s teaching methods. First, I was a doctor at a casualty clearing station, and then later a field hospital during the last war. For the most part the soldiers under my supervision—my patients—were British, but we had a number of French, Australian, Canadian, South African men—and even the odd German brought in. In time, I didn’t even need to be told the nationality—I just knew. Ask the other doctors and they would say the same. I expect you would have known too—after all, you were a nurse in the last war, if my memory services me well.”
Maisie nodded. “Go on.”
“And the other thing is that I found myself speaking to him in French before you arrived. Obviously not because he could have answered; it was a matter of instinct. That probably sounds frightfully strange, but as you know, it makes the job so much easier if you have a word or two for the poor bastard in front of you.”
Maisie put down the scalpel and picked up the clipboard. She noted a couple of additional points from their observations of the body, making a brief mention that the deceased was believed to have been of French origin.
“I think I can guess why you transferred to forensic pathology,” she said.
Jamieson laughed. It was a hearty laugh, a laugh that Maisie thought seemed to come from the very heart of him.
“I’m sure you can, Maisie. I just didn’t want to lose another patient, another lad screaming for his mother or his sweetheart, or begging me to please end it for him so the pain would go away. At least with the dead I can’t do any worse than has already been done. I don’t have to live with the screams anymore, or the fear of making the wrong decision and losing someone who hasn’t had enough time to know what life is all about.” He looked down at the body of the man Freddie Hackett had seen murdered. “He may have been a killer, Maisie, but we cannot judge the reason why.”
We cannot judge the reason why. Now back in her Fitzroy Square office, Maisie was sitting at her desk letting a pencil run through her thumb and forefinger before dropping onto the blotting pad time after time as Duncan Jamieson’s words continued to echo. A professional killer, possibly a Frenchman, was dead and another on the loose. The witness was a boy tasked with running through burning streets to deliver messages—“doing his bit” and likely becoming as shell-shocked as any soldier she’d seen in the last war. And he was a boy whose father bore a scar, as had the killer he’d described.
We cannot judge the reason why. She allowed the pencil to drop through her fingers once more and hit the desk, but this time she let it bounce onto the floor as she pushed back her chair. She stood up and walked to the window, folded her arms and looked down at the courtyard below, to the small area where just last year a German spy had grown flowers and vines to disguise the aerial that allowed him to send radio messages to his superiors. Maisie had reported him to Robbie MacFarlane, and as far as she knew he was already dea
d. Executed. Months later she had rented the downstairs flat so that Billy could use it on those nights when he was not able to return to his family. His wife, Doreen, and daughter, Margaret Rose, were now living in Frankie and Brenda’s bungalow in Chelstone village, while Maisie’s parents had moved full-time to the Dower House. Billy would return to the office before the blackout, and she knew that she, too, should leave soon to go home to her Holland Park flat. But she lingered, pondering her next move. It was like a game of chess.
The telephone began to ring, interrupting her thoughts. She picked up the receiver.
“Fitzroy—”
As always when the caller was Robert MacFarlane, his voice boomed into the receiver before she could finish reciting the number.
“Maisie! There’s a motor car coming over to take you to your abode so you can throw a few necessaries into a suitcase—and make it a small one, you won’t need much. You’re booked on the sleeper to Edinburgh. Best time of the year in my bonny Scotland.”
“But Robbie . . . it’s Anna’s—”
“Don’t fret, lassie, I’ll have you back by Friday night, and you won’t miss the wee girl’s show-jumping debut on Saturday. And from what I hear, your gentleman friend left today to return to the Colonies, so I know you’re not booked up. Anyway, we’re needed as a matter of some urgency—got a group being pushed through the first part of their assessments, the paramilitary training, and we’ve got to get them double-checked, approved for whatever it is we think they’ll be best at, then on to the next stage as soon as we can. Make sure you bring a pair of trousers and some boots. And a woolen jacket—as you know, it can get a bit nippy up there.”
“We’re both needed?”
“I’ll see you at the station, Maisie—we can have a dram or two over our supper on the train. Thank the good Lord the sleeper is running again.”
“I’d better be back in London by Friday, Robbie—come what may.”
“I promise.”
The continuous tone on the line signaled that Robbie MacFarlane had ended the call in his usual manner, which amounted to slamming the receiver into its cradle.
“First time I’ve heard you promise anything, if my memory serves me well,” said Maisie to the empty room as she placed a finger on the switch bar, then let go and began to dial. After several rings, Brenda answered the Dower House telephone.
“Good afternoon.”
Maisie smiled when she heard the clipped tone of her stepmother’s “telephone voice.” She knew the woman on the other end of the line would always be as protective of her privacy as she had been of Maurice Blanche’s need for seclusion when she was his housekeeper.
“Hello, Brenda—sorry to bother you, but there’s been a couple of changes to my plans this week,” said Maisie, running the telephone cord through her fingers. “First of all—”
“First of all, Maisie, I do hope this is not going to disappoint Anna—I don’t think I could bear to see the hurt on my granddaughter’s little face when I tell her that Mummy won’t be there at the show to see her ride.”
Maisie raised her eyebrows. It was a day of firsts—she had never heard Brenda refer to Anna as “my granddaughter,” although she was sure she would have done so while chatting to other villagers. She smiled as the words seemed to swaddle her in comfort. “No, I’ll be there, but I won’t be home until Friday evening.”
“Is it to do with Mr. Scott?”
Now she could almost feel Brenda bristle as she spoke. “No, he’s . . . he’s not here at the moment. And I have to go to . . . to go somewhere else. Not too far, but I won’t be able to get back until Friday. Which means that I will be home as soon as I can.”
“What about him?”
“Him?”
“Mr. Scott. Will he be coming? I would like to know if he’s also going to return from wherever he’s been, so I can make up a room.”
“No, he won’t be in London for another week or so.”
“Right then. Will you telephone to speak to Anna later? She’s still down at the stables with her grandfather.”
“I’ll call from the station—she’ll be back by that time.” There was a pause, one Brenda did not fill. “Well, I’ll be off then. Give my love to Anna and to Dad—and to you, Brenda.”
“Mind how you go, Maisie,” said Brenda.
Once again Maisie was left holding the receiver, having heard another person end the call without saying good-bye. She exhaled as she replaced the receiver in its cradle.
“Seems I’m in more trouble with Brenda than I thought,” she said aloud. She looked at her watch and wrote a message for Billy before picking up her jacket and leaving the office, locking the door on her way out. A black motor car was waiting for her, engine idling and a young ATS driver standing alongside the rear passenger door. The ATS—the Auxiliary Territorial Service—was the women’s branch of the army. The driver smiled as Maisie approached, saluting as she opened the door.
“Miss Dobbs? Traffic is light today, so I should have you home in next to no time.”
Maisie thanked the driver, taken aback by the salute.
As the motor car pulled up outside the front entrance to Maisie’s garden flat, another black vehicle approached from behind.
“Wonder what he wants,” said the ATS driver, glancing into her rearview mirror. “One of them Yank motors just pulled up behind us.”
Maisie glanced up at the rearview mirror and met the eyes of her driver, who had raised an eyebrow. She smiled at the young woman and turned to look out of the back window. “Yes, I wonder,” she said, and was about to open the door when the driver stepped out of the vehicle and opened it for her. Maisie alighted from the motor car as the driver of the other vehicle approached, bearing a small package.
“Miss Dobbs?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Special delivery—from the United States embassy.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, accepting the proffered parcel. The driver touched his cap and returned to his vehicle.
As Maisie watched the motor car pull away, the ATS driver issued a reminder. “Sorry, ma’am, but we really don’t have much time.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
Maisie rushed into the house, gathered sufficient clothing for two days, including the items specified by MacFarlane, and pushed the parcel from Mark Scott between two woolen cardigans.
Negotiating streets still in the process of being cleared of debris from the previous night’s bombings, the young driver looked back at Maisie every time the motor car was required to come to a halt, before being waved on by police. Finally, she addressed Maisie.
“You don’t recognize me, do you, Miss Dobbs?”
“I—I beg your pardon?” said Maisie, once again meeting the woman’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I thought you looked somewhat familiar, but—well, to tell you the truth, everyone looks different in uniform.”
“It’s been a while, to be fair, and we only met briefly. I wasn’t in uniform then—but I was on my way out the door of that terrible office.”
“Of course! You were working for that dreadful man—the company where Joe Coombes was an apprentice.”
Maisie saw the driver’s eyes take on a mischievous sparkle as she smiled. “That’s it, Miss Dobbs. Charlie Bright at your service—though it’s Corporal Charlotte Bright now. And I was really glad to get away from that miserable sod in that gawd-awful office. What a—well, I shouldn’t say, Miss Dobbs. It wouldn’t be very ladylike.”
Maisie smiled. She thought not being ladylike probably didn’t worry the corporal at all. “And now you’re a driver.”
“I’ve done other jobs since I enlisted. For a while I was in the ack-ack batteries, working the cameras with my friend Mavis to get a position on enemy aircraft. We’d joined up together. I almost copped it one night—I’d sprained my wrist, so another girl was on duty with Mavis, and they were both killed. Broke my heart, it did. I thought I’d never stop crying, I miss her so much. She was a
real laugh, was Mavis. But you’ve just got to get on with it, haven’t you? We all have, you know, to get on with it, because the Germans aren’t giving us time to mourn.”
“And how did you become a driver?”
“I asked until I got, is more or less how I did it. Went on the training course—and it’s not that it takes a lot, driving a car, or a lorry, is it? I’ve done both—put me behind the wheel of anything and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Anyway, then I was funneled into more training for this posting.”
“Why was that?”
“Um—well.” Bright seemed to check herself. “It was just for a few more things I had to learn. I mean, I’ve got to look after important people like you, haven’t I?” Catching Maisie’s eye in her mirror, she gave a wink and then concentrated on the road again.
“So you must know Mr. MacFarlane,” said Maisie.
“Everyone knows Mr. Mac. It was him who told me to come over to your office to collect you and then take you to your flat. He’s a bit of a tease, old Mac, but a good sort. You don’t want to see him in a temper, mind. That’s why I always get his jobs, and I drive him too now. He knows I don’t care who he is, he doesn’t get away with having a go at his driver just because he’s annoyed about something somebody else did!”
“Good for you, Corporal Bright. It’s always best to stand your ground with Mr. MacFarlane.”
“Here we are, Miss Dobbs,” said Bright, as they approached the station. “I’ll bring your case in for you.”
“Not to worry, Corporal. It’s not heavy.”
“Right you are, ma’am.” Bright brought the motor car to a halt. “Just a tick.”
Corporal Charlotte Bright stepped out of the motor car clutching a brown envelope. She opened the rear passenger door and saluted as Maisie exited the vehicle and stood beside her.
“I don’t know if I warrant that sort of recognition, Corporal.”
“Miss Dobbs—I’m attached to Mr. MacFarlane’s department. Everyone in there deserves a salute as far as I’m concerned. Mr. MacFarlane will meet you on the train.” She handed Maisie the envelope. “This is for you—he said to have a dekko at it before he sees you.”
The Consequences of Fear Page 8
