The Consequences of Fear

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “Only once, from a telephone box yesterday. He sounded all right, but I was going to wander over to the school today, catch him and have a word as he’s leaving.”

  “Not a bad idea—but be careful. You don’t want his friends seeing you.”

  “Reckon most of his friends are still evacuated. There’s not a lot of kids in that school.”

  “So what did you find out?”

  “Arthur Hackett, the father, was in the East Surrey Regiment in the last war. He was at Plugstreet Wood, then copped a Blighty a bit later on, but had a shock when they sent him back to join another regiment after he’d recovered—he thought he was out of the army and the war for good. He had some attitude about it, by all accounts. Got a temper on him too—he had a fight with an Australian while in the field hospital, then went for another bloke too. Poor soul survived a shelling and was almost killed by Hackett.”

  “I saw both sides when I was a nurse, Billy—most of the men just did their best to help each other out, but there were some who carried the weight of their wounding in anger.”

  “Yeah, but I went a bit deeper and it turns out he’s got previous as long as your arm. Was discharged from prison early in the war because they needed more men in uniform—but you’d have found it hard to come across a nastier piece of work than Arthur Hackett, and we’ve seen some in this business. He’d been sent down for robbery with intent to kill, plus he even attacked a copper when apprehended for another job. Had a little gang, but seems even they didn’t like him. I’m still chasing down some contacts. I might have some more tomorrow, but there’s a lot of information missing. Apparently the army records office was bombed a few weeks ago, and they’re saying that loads of files are gone forever, some are now incomplete and they’re lucky to have collected as many pages as they did before taking them all to new premises. I tell you, it’s a right mess.”

  Maisie was thoughtful. “How on earth did that sort of man meet a nice woman like Freddie’s mum?”

  “Young girl meets war hero. He probably spun a tale and that scar told a story, though I bet it was the wrong one. He might have got that on a job and not over there in France. She falls for him—and we know a lot of these wide boys have the gift of the gab. And then there’s the other thing to consider—there weren’t a lot of blokes around of the marrying age, so when he asks, she says yes. I’ve got to confirm this, but apparently she comes from a better sort of family—not wealthy, or anything like that, but good, solid working people. He rubbed them up the wrong way soon after the wedding and now they can’t abide him, plus her mum and dad were killed in an air raid. Her brothers would like to see more of her, but Hackett apparently doesn’t let her see her own family. And look at the place they live in. I mean, me and Doreen didn’t have much when we were in the East End, but my family were never in a grotty old back double. Anyway, I managed to talk to her older brother, who said that she’s welcome back into the fold any time, but she’s loyal to her husband.”

  “It’s not an unusual story, Billy—as we know only too well. When men cut off a family, it means trouble.” Maisie began to thread the telephone cord through her fingers.

  “You still there, miss?”

  “Sorry, Billy—I was just thinking.” She shook her hand so the cord dropped away. “Look, I’m going to be back at the office on Monday morning. I have a feeling I’ll be provided with some information shortly that will help us with Freddie’s murder case.”

  “Find out something, did you?”

  “It’s what I might be on the verge of finding out that could add to our evidence, such as it is.”

  “Blimey, miss, that sounds important.”

  “I hope so, Billy. I hope so.”

  As Maisie was helping Brenda prepare a late lunch, the telephone began to ring.

  “That’ll be for you, Maisie.”

  “And I bet I know who it is!”

  Brenda tut-tutted and shook her head. “That telephone hardly rings when you’re not here. Just like it was with Dr. Blanche. When he was away in London, it was quiet unless it was him to let me know when he’d be back. But as soon as he was home, off it went, nonstop, all hours of the day and sometimes the night. No peace for you people.”

  Maisie laughed as she walked away toward the library.

  “Hello Robbie,” said Maisie as she picked up the receiver and put it to her ear.

  “You just took the wind out of my sails. How did you know . . . oh never mind. There’s been a development.”

  “What sort of development?” asked Maisie, taking care to keep her voice even.

  “One of our recruits suffered a fatal fall during the first of the outdoor exercises, not long after your departure.”

  “A fatal fall? And why is that any of my business, Robbie?”

  “You know very well why it’s your business, Maisie. Come on, it’s time to put our little row behind us.”

  Maisie allowed a few seconds of silence to pass before speaking. “Who is the dead man?”

  “One of the French bods. A bit older than the others, so probably that was something to do with it. And before you ask, Major Chaput was in the library. We’ve witnesses to his presence.”

  “Who were the witnesses?”

  There was another silence on the line, this time from MacFarlane.

  “Robbie, it’s not like you to go quiet on me. Who were the witnesses?”

  “The Algerian and a French Canadian.”

  Maisie nodded, as if MacFarlane had been in the room with her. “Do you want me to say the obvious, or will you spell it out for me?”

  “He’s in the clear, Maisie.”

  “I don’t doubt he is. But who is he really? And what about the little coterie around him—his witnesses, the Algerian and French Canadian? They’re not with us, but they’re sharing our training and they’re out there with our recruits.”

  “The French are our allies, Maisie, and they’re in a rough spot. We’re not an occupied country with the bloody Nazis marching down our streets, though god knows it could happen any day—so we’ve got to help them any way we can. We’re putting our people into their country to help lead their resistance, so it stands to reason they want their own agents going in too. We do the best we can to get the job done in collaboration. It’s a fair arrangement all round.”

  “It wasn’t a fair arrangement for the dead French agent, was it?”

  MacFarlane’s sigh was audible. “We’re back to work on Monday, Maisie. I may have dismissed you on grounds that you have a conflict of interest between your work for one of your so-called customers and your country, but don’t forget I still have a piece of paper attesting to the fact that you are under my orders.”

  “So you reminded me in Scotland. All right, Monday morning it is, Robbie. I’ll be there at eleven and no sooner. I’m coming up from Chelstone, on the train.”

  “Go straight to the mortuary in Victoria.”

  The line was disconnected. Maisie replaced the receiver and sat for a moment, thinking, before leaving the library to return to the kitchen.

  “I’ve put the kettle on, Maisie,” said Brenda. “Let’s have a nice cup of tea before your father comes back again with Anna. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that lovely necklace—I’ve not seen you wearing it before.” She raised an eyebrow. “Mind you, it’d be nice to see that stone in a ring.”

  Chapter 8

  “Maisie! Hello, darling!” Priscilla tossed her cigarette onto the rails as she walked along the platform, and upon reaching Maisie, leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. “I should have let you know I’d be taking the same train up to town, but I only decided last night—it’s a spot of luck though, isn’t it? We’ll have time for a nice long chat,” said Priscilla.

  Maisie smiled, glad to have her friend’s company—she was becoming tired of her own thoughts, which had been circling time and again around the question of Freddie Hackett and what he might have seen, or thought he had seen, on the night a man was murdered.
“Bored with being in the country, are you, Priscilla?”

  “Bored with myself, actually.” Priscilla sighed. “Douglas loves working at the cottage, with perhaps just the odd journey up to town to see the bods at the ministry to discuss his next story about the war, or to talk to his editor about the new book.” Douglas, Priscilla’s husband, had been assigned to work for the Ministry of Information for the war’s duration. “But now I’m feeling better—and more to the point, relieved that Tim is doing well—as well as can be expected anyway. Now I just have to get back to civilization a bit more often. I’ve tried gardening, tried watercolor painting and I’ve even tried to cook, all to no avail. And please—one more evening spent at a meeting of local women and I will have to tear my hair out. I’ve even seen Rowan gritting her teeth—we are not your jam-and-cakes sort of people, and neither are you. Your stepmother does a lovely lemon curd though.”

  “You make me laugh, Pris—and I love you for it! But what will you do in London?”

  “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is find out what’s going on with my niece! I’ve loved those long summer visits ever since you found Pascale for me, and now she’s a grown woman in London on a more permanent basis, it actually made me feel as if I had a daughter, instead of being the lone female among my four men. I do worry about her though, and I know she’s terribly concerned about her grandmother, as you can imagine. I keep telling her that Chantal is more than a match for any German officer living at her chateau—the woman has steel for a backbone. But I—I suppose I just would like to see more of Pascale.”

  “Pris—Pris, as I said before, she’s a young woman about town.”

  Priscilla sighed, took her cigarette case from her handbag, but put it back again. “First sign of trouble and I want to light up.” She shook her head. “Of course I know how it is. You find a party every night, if you can, and you make the most of it because tomorrow might not come. That’s what I did, anyway.”

  “There you are—don’t expect to see her, Pris.”

  “Maisie—” Priscilla turned to her friend. “Maisie . . . can you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know what’s going on? As my dearest friend—the friend who saved my life? The friend who I know will be at my bedside as soon as I wake up from my final operation on this dreadful scar.”

  “Oh no you don’t, Pris—that’s pretty low even for you. Don’t start the ‘poor me’ line, when it’s clear I have no idea what Pascale is doing with her life. I mean, has it occurred to you that she might be seeing someone and she doesn’t want you to know because you’ll have a very definite opinion that might not match her own? The girl is over twenty-one.”

  “So you don’t know then?”

  “No—and why do you think I would know anyway?” Maisie did not flinch from her friend’s gaze.

  “Because you know all sorts of things that are supposed to be on the q.t. Did you know she’s not at her flat? Told her flatmate she had a work assignment in Scotland.”

  “Priscilla, I suggest you stop gnawing at that bone. You know she has a translation job, and I am sure she is very busy—and you were right when you said it could be hush-hush, which means it has nothing to do with anyone but Pascale and her employer. Ah, here comes our train.”

  They boarded the train, Priscilla taking a seat opposite Maisie in the comfort of a first class carriage, with its wide seats and mirrored bulkhead. Maisie felt her friend staring at her.

  “What?”

  “Have you heard from your James Stewart yet? Or is he out of sight, out of mind?”

  “Pris—”

  “Oh, never mind. I suppose any talk of your dishy American is considered careless!” Priscilla opened her newspaper and took out her cigarette case. “To hell with the bloody operation. I need another gasper—and don’t worry, I’ll move over to the window.”

  Maisie felt a sigh of relief as the train reached the buffers at Charing Cross Station. Not only had it been a long journey due to trains being held up as they progressed toward the bomb-damaged station, but Priscilla had been increasingly snippy. Yet upon arrival, after they had made their way along the platform and passed the ticket collector, Priscilla turned to Maisie and wrapped her arms around her.

  “I’m sorry—I was just dreadful on the train.”

  “You’re worried, Pris—and you’ve been through a lot. Give yourself time.”

  “What with Tom flying bloody Hurricanes, Tim becoming quite another person after losing his arm, and then taking it out on everyone around him—mainly me . . . added to which I have Tarquin going off to be a forestry worker. I worry that he’ll be set upon by thugs and beaten to a pulp for being a conchie! Douglas is immersed in his work, and then there I am—the lost soul with a scarred face that even powder applied with a trowel doesn’t hide.”

  “You look lovely. I would be the first to tell you if you looked dreadful—and you don’t. Yes, I can see a bit of the scar if you move a certain way. But consider those boys in Mr. McIndoe’s wards at the hospital.”

  “Heavens, yes. I should shut up and remember every single one of them every day, with their scorched faces and hands. I cannot imagine the terror of coming down in an aircraft ablaze—I was only stuck in a burning house. I don’t know how I’ve the cheek to moan when I saw those wounded young men every day in the Victoria Hospital.”

  “And your sons are men now—they can deal with whatever is thrown at them. You’ve done a good job there, Pris—and Pascale is like you. She’s competent and brave. Do not fear for her, Priscilla—it would be the last thing she wants or needs.” Maisie looked up at the clock. “Oh dear, I must dash—look, I’ll come over for supper this evening, if you like.”

  “I’ll have Cook rustle something up—she’s been keeping the house as if we were there all the time, and she’s managed to get some groceries in. Seven o’clock?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  “A mortuary.” She waved as she walked away.

  MacFarlane was already in the mortuary’s examination room with the pathologist when Maisie arrived; he nodded by way of a greeting as she entered. Duncan Jamieson was inspecting the deceased’s body with a large magnifying glass and did not look up. Maisie placed her jacket and hat on a hook alongside a table, upon which she set her bag. She took a white laboratory coat from another hook, and a white mask from a pile on the desk. Proceeding to the sink, she scrubbed her hands and selected a pair of clean, disinfected rubber gloves pegged to a line above the taps.

  “Apologies for the late arrival, gentlemen. Trains were delayed coming into Charing Cross.”

  Jamieson looked up and smiled. “Hello, Maisie. We’ve only just started, so you haven’t missed anything.”

  MacFarlane caught Maisie’s eye and raised an eyebrow. She turned away and looked down at the body, that of a man of about forty years of age, with dark hair and an olive complexion.

  “I can see the bruising around the face,” said Maisie. “And on the torso—it’s very bad there. What did you find at the back of the head, Dr. Jamieson?” She hoped he noticed the more formal address.

  “What you might expect to find on a man who died as a result of a fall from a craggy mountainside in Scotland.” With gloved hands he lifted the dead man’s head and turned it to the side. “Easy turn even with rigor mortis, due to the broken neck.”

  Maisie leaned in to inspect the crushed underside of the skull. “His neck was also broken?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned to MacFarlane. “Robbie—where exactly did this happen?”

  “You know where we were last week? Well, if you stand at that point and look across to the crag with a drop down onto the path—we assume he fell from that high point, probably climbed up onto the crag while trying to get his bearings.”

  Maisie met Jamieson’s eyes.

  “Robbie,” said Jamieson. “We both know that this man died when his neck was broken, and then he fell.”

&nbs
p; “No, we don’t both know that, Duncan.” MacFarlane’s tone was terse. “He could have twisted his neck as his head hit the side of the crag on the way down.”

  “For what it’s worth, I agree with Dr. Jamieson,” Maisie said. “You can see from here that the way the neck was broken, if that’s what indeed happened, then this crushing of the skull would have happened on the other side of his head as he fell. And look at the bruises on his body—all on the right side, in line with the skull injury. The broken neck is telling a different story.”

  “I can confirm it when I get inside the neck,” said Jamieson. He shifted his attention to Maisie. “Would you like to assist?”

  “She can’t. Sorry,” MacFarlane interjected before she could respond. “Change of plan for Miss Dobbs—and the only neck I want to see open is on a bottle. Miss Dobbs’ time is spoken for this afternoon. Report on my desk by five, Duncan?”

  “I’ll have it dispatched over to you,” said Jamieson. “Thank you, M—Miss Dobbs.”

  “Dr. Jamieson.”

  Once outside the mortuary, having deposited aprons, masks and gloves in a bin by the door, both Maisie and MacFarlane took deep breaths before either spoke.

  “Phew, fresh air!” said MacFarlane. “I can’t stand the dance that happens when a living, breathing person goes from human being to corpse to cadaver. I’m all right until I see the likes of Jamieson brandishing a bloody scalpel, and especially over the head. Not thrilled about the abdomen either. You medical people are like a load of ghouls.”

  “None of us find it easy, Robbie. But it’s necessary work because we are either trying to save the living or discover how the dead met their end. And I don’t like how this one met his end.” She stopped walking and looked up at the man she had known for years. “We know he was murdered, don’t we? There’s no way we can quickstep around that one, and at this point Jamieson’s report is a formality—I doubt you’ll even open it.”

  “Not beating about the bush, so I’ll say you could be right on all points—there is that chance. But some things have to be kept under wraps.” MacFarlane pulled back his cuff and consulted his watch. “I could do with a drink in a quiet corner, and there’s an hour to go before last orders, so let’s chat in a more convivial atmosphere.”