A Dangerous Place

by Jacqueline Winspear

  Maisie brought her attention back to the photographs, still damp on the wire. There were compositions taken outside, as well as inside. They seemed very much the sort that might appear on society pages in the newspaper. She recognized a film starlet of the moment, and a man she seemed to recall was a millionaire. Then she started, leaning closer, bringing the magnifying glass in toward the black, white, and shades of gray that made up the picture before her. There, in a corner, apparently in conversation with a woman she thought might be in her sixties, was Professor Vallejo. She moved to the next photograph, and the next. In each he had moved just a little, so by the time she reached the fourth print, his head had turned, though his companion in conversation was—it seemed—still talking to him. Maisie went to another image, this time from farther back in the room. She followed the line of Vallejo’s gaze, and it was clear he was looking straight at a man in the foreground of the shot, a man with either blond or gray hair, swept back from a high forehead. He had what might be termed a Roman nose and was smiling at the young woman facing him. They were in evening dress, the woman in a silk gown that caught the light in such a way that the fabric shimmered like water rippling across the curves of her body. The man wore a dinner suit, a bow tie, and a heavy watch on his wrist—Maisie noticed the watch because it was quite obvious that it was not an everyday timepiece. There was something different about it. She considered the man’s face; his demeanor suggested he had an easy and elegant way about him. She moved on to the next image and held up the magnifying glass. She gasped and again drew in closer. Could it be? Something—perhaps the flash from the previous shot—must have caused the man and woman to turn to face the photographer. The woman’s thick, lustrous hair was swept to one side, revealing a single faux diamond earring—it had not the luminescence of a real gem. Her full lips were enhanced by lipstick, and her eyes had been made more expressive by kohl. It was almost a dated look, yet the sweep of the hair, the cut of the dress, suggested a modern and exciting glamour. She was younger than the man by about ten years, thought Maisie, which would put him at about thirty or thirty-five. She brought her attention back to the woman, then to the man. He seemed put out by the disturbance, or perhaps . . . could it be he was afraid? No, not afraid, but he did not want his photograph taken. His eyes, animated in the previous photograph, seemed cold.

  Maisie scanned the rest of the image and saw that in the background, Vallejo was also looking in the direction of the camera, though his eyes were focused on the distinguished man with the unusual watch. The man who had been in animated conversation with Carlos Grillo’s niece—though Maisie suspected that no one at the fisherman’s beach would have recognized her at first glance.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maisie returned to her room at Mrs. Bishop’s guest house, and was met by her landlady as she stepped across the courtyard.

  “Had a nice day, Miss Dobbs? You look like you’ve caught a bit of sun again.” Mrs. Bishop smiled. “Care to join me in a glass of wine? I thought I would just sit out for five minutes and rest my legs, and then it crossed my mind that a little tipple wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Maisie hesitated for a few seconds. “I think that would be very nice indeed. Thank you, Mrs. Bishop.”

  The woman smiled, holding out her hand toward a round table with two chairs. “I shan’t be a moment. I just have to nip down to the cellar—the wine keeps cool there.”

  The chair Maisie settled into was old and rickety, and would have been quite uncomfortable without a cushion. A fresh cloth had been laid across the table, and Maisie wondered if Mrs. Bishop had been anticipating her arrival, waiting for her to set foot across the threshold so that she might waylay her with an invitation to enjoy a glass of wine together. Perhaps she welcomed the company of another woman, someone also alone in the world. Or she might be a nosy one, looking for a bit of gossip. But Maisie could not help but feel that almost everyone she’d met since arriving in Gibraltar had his or her own agenda, and that they were all connected to Sebastian Babayoff’s death. And when she thought of the investigation, she felt as if she were trying to hold on to jelly with her bare hands.

  “There we are. It’s from Italy, this one. Not very cool, but enough for us to enjoy a drop or two.” She closed her eyes and wrenched the cork from the bottle, her exertion audible. “I thought I’d have to knock the top off for a minute there!” She poured the wine into glasses, pushed one toward Maisie, and set the bottle between them before sitting down. “Chin-chin, my dear.”

  Maisie clinked her glass against Mrs. Bishop’s and took a sip of the wine. She tried hard not to wince.

  “It’s a little tart, isn’t it? Not as smooth as I prefer, but I don’t suppose I shall notice by the second glass.”

  “It goes down very nicely, Mrs. Bishop.”

  “So what did you do today, my dear? You seem to be walking a lot, I must say.”

  Maisie smiled and took another sip. “Yes, I like to walk. As long as I keep my hat on, I find it, well, restful, in a way.”

  The woman regarded her for a few seconds, then leaned forward, narrowing the space between them. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I’m feeling very well, Mrs. Bishop. Very well indeed.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. I saw that man again today—the one who came before. He was just walking into Mr. Salazar’s café. For a moment I thought he had seen me, and I was about to give a little wave, but he just walked in. Funny that, isn’t it—when people seem to look right through you without noticing that you’re there?”

  Maisie thought that MacFarlane would not have missed a trick, and would have known Mrs. Bishop was within striking distance of accosting him in conversation on the street.

  “I am sure I will bump into him, Mrs. Bishop. This is a small place, after all.”

  “It might be small, but people flood into Gibraltar in waves—off the boats, across the border, sailors, soldiers. One minute it’s quiet and then there’ll be a whoosh and you wonder what’s been washed up. They say most of the refugees have gone back now, but I wonder about that—there still seem to be a lot more people around than before. I wouldn’t want to go over to Spain, not with all that business going on.”

  “I would imagine it’s quite dangerous in places.” Maisie took another sip of her wine, and when Mrs. Bishop reached across to replenish her glass, she shook her head and covered the rim with her hand. “Oh, better not. I will never get up in the morning if I drink any more!”

  “Well, I think I’ll sit here and enjoy the shank of the day, Miss Dobbs, then I’ll get myself a bit of something to eat. I have some chicken—would you like some on a plate, with a little salad perhaps?”

  “I would indeed—I’ll come down and pick up a tray, in about an hour, if that’s convenient for you.”

  “Right you are. I’ll have it ready for you.”

  Returning to her room, Maisie put down her bag, kicked off her shoes, and lay on her bed. Images converged in her mind’s eye—Arturo Kenyon at the beach with Rosanna, then the aircraft overhead, and the sickening fear that rose inside her—oh, how she hated that sound, the engine coming closer, droning on like a hornet loose from the nest and intent only upon harm. Next the break-in attempt at Miriam Babayoff’s house, in broad daylight. The assault on her home had failed, and a community had gathered to protect the two women who lived alone.

  Maisie sat up, dragged her bag onto the bed, and took out the photographs, placing each carefully atop the counterpane so as not to damage the images. Three people were shown clearly, only one of them not known to her. As the shutter closed in the last photograph, Vallejo was captured moving toward the camera—toward Babayoff. To stop him, perhaps? But why? Did he not want to be in the picture? Or did he not want someone else to be photographed? Was he scared for himself, or for Grillo’s niece? He could have been trying to warn Babayoff. Was that it? Or was it simply that he had been a gate-crasher, and did not want to be discovered as such? Maisie remembered that Sebastian was at the time ea
rning his money by attending social engagements, selling prints later to party guests or to the press. But might he have been at this particular party in another capacity?

  She went to the wardrobe and lifted the other photographs from her case—the ones Babayoff had taken while out on the fishing boat with Carlos Grillo. She wished she had a means of enlarging the print—she believed it could be done, indeed, she remembered asking for a similar process once before, while on a case in London. But that was in London—she was sure such a procedure was beyond Miriam Babayoff’s capability.

  Maisie took up the magnifying glass. What was it that Babayoff had caught in his viewfinder, that day out at sea? A fishing boat low in the water? An ocean creature? No, though she had read that there were cetaceans in these waters, whatever had attracted Babayoff’s attention seemed inorganic, not a giant of the natural world. She flicked through the photographs and with the magnifying glass squinted again at one of them. Yes, she was right. It could only be a submarine. And though she could only see part of a marking, she was sure it was not British.

  Maisie pored over her case map the following morning, with sun streaming through the window and a gentle breeze flapping the lace curtain back and forth. She was surprised not to have seen or heard from Kenyon for a couple of days. Perhaps his superiors had discovered his alliance with Maisie—though, on second thoughts, she was sure they had known of the arrangement from the start. Then again, here was the fact that the job was done—Lord Julian had received word of her whereabouts, and whoever he had asked for a report may well have considered the remit complete. Of course, there was still MacFarlane to consider, and to see. Today might be the day. In fact, she knew it. His presence had at first been like a small irritation on the skin. Now it was becoming a welt.

  She continued to work on the case map a little longer, using the colored pencils to link names and write out questions as she phrased them in her mind. She made a mental list of tasks she wanted to accomplish in the course of the day, and then leaned back to look at her work. It satisfied her, this challenge, though there was something missing. She would have liked another person to talk things over with, someone to echo her thoughts or contradict them. She had entertained a fleeting hope that Arturo Kenyon might have been a worthy companion, though she understood that he was playing the game with two racquets, bouncing a ball between her and the Secret Service.

  There was something about Miriam Babayoff as well—a feeling that there were elements of her recounting of events that did not quite fit—like a door that seems closed but then clicks open as one walks away, for the lock is not true.

  Maisie realized she had felt a frisson of connection with Vallejo. Had she been seeking a mentor since Maurice’s death, someone who seemed wiser, who possessed a greater understanding of the world? Her mind drifted to Dame Constance, the Benedictine nun who had counseled her on many occasions, and then to others in her circle, those she loved, though perhaps she had never voiced her affection.

  Minutes later she realized she had been daydreaming, staring into the whiteness outside the window. She was thinking of Billy and Sandra, and the office in Fitzroy Square. The daffodils would be gone by now, but she imagined the trees resplendent in their canopy of cooling green. She walked across to the window as if to recall the many times she’d stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the office, allowing herself to simply gaze at those trees in the square while she thought about a case, considering the next steps to take. How was Billy? What had happened to the Compton Corporation, now that James was dead?

  She put her hand to her mouth but could not stem the tide of tears. What was she going to do with herself, now that the future—a future she had finally embraced—was gone? Was she pursuing a wild goose chase to deflect her thoughts from what had become of her life? Yes, she admitted, of course she was. She sat down on the bed. Well, perhaps it wasn’t exactly a wild-goose chase, but without doubt she had latched on to the death of Babayoff as if it were a line thrown across the turbulent waters of early widowhood, a line she would use to pull herself through the pain of a terrible loss, onto land. And what was that land, if not a reason for staying alive, for putting one foot in front of the other? She looked toward the wardrobe and the bag with the leather straps and lock, and she knew it would be so easy, so simple, to swallow the pills one by one, until the bottle was empty. Then it would be done. She would drift away, held aloft in her dreams until she reached the heavens.

  She rested her head in her hands. Such a thing was not the solution. Apart from anything else, there was Frankie to consider, her beloved father. No, she had to keep going, to cast out her line to the next island, and the next, and the next, until the ocean was crossed and she found herself once more on firm and steady ground. But in the meantime, anywhere she might find herself seemed to be a dangerous place. Yet she felt no fear. Surely the very worst she could imagine had already happened.

  Mr. Salazar greeted her in the usual manner when she entered the café, taking her hand in both his own, asking her about her morning, telling her the weather would be good, with no wind today, though perhaps a little cloud. He pointed out which pastries were the most delicious, one sweet delicacy after another. Then he drew closer to whisper.

  “Your usual seat is taken, Miss Dobbs.”

  The interior of the café was usually shaded, but it had seemed even darker when Maisie first came in from the street, her eyes slow to adjust after the bright sunlight outside. She looked across to the seat below the mural.

  “I think the gentleman is expecting me. My usual coffee with hot milk, please. And you can choose which pastry I’ll have for breakfast—it’ll be a surprise.”

  Salazar gave a short bow, and Maisie turned toward the mural. A tall, heavyset man stood up to greet her.

  “Maisie Dobbs. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  “Robbie MacFarlane—it has indeed. I have heard that I should no longer use a Scotland Yard title, so I presume plain mister will do.”

  MacFarlane stepped aside to allow Maisie to sit on the more comfortable padded banquette, while he took a chair on the other side of the table. He unbuttoned his jacket for comfort. “Mister, perhaps, but please, Miss Dobbs—never plain.”

  Maisie smiled, though it was brief. “What can I do for you, Mr. MacFarlane?”

  “What can you do for me? Well, for a start, you could leave this place and return home. People are worried sick about you—people who care and who happen to be in places where they can make my life a bit of a misery.”

  “I think that’s something of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

  MacFarlane sighed. “Margaret—Lady Compton, if I may—”

  Maisie cleared her throat, shook her head, and nodded toward Salazar, who was approaching the table with a tray. He set down the cup of coffee in front of Maisie, and the plate with two pastries between them.

  “Oh, heavens, I don’t need any extra sweetness, do I, Miss Dobbs?” MacFarlane patted his stomach and smiled up at Salazar.

  “On the house, sir, but only because you’re with the lady,” joked the proprietor. He smiled, then turned to greet another customer.

  “Well, Maisie, here you are, staying in a less than salubrious area, in a small guest house when you can well afford to stay at the Ridge Hotel, and into the bargain getting yourself involved in the coshing of a two-bit purveyor of snapshots.”

  Maisie sipped her coffee, determined not to be goaded. She had worked with MacFarlane on several occasions, and their conversations had always been akin to a tennis match, the quips volleying back and forth. It seemed that even in her bereavement he would allow her no quarter.

  “As you know very well, I discovered the body of Sebastian Babayoff, and—”

  “And why didn’t you bloody leave well enough alone?” interjected MacFarlane.

  Maisie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, that’ll do wonders for Mr. Salazar’s business, I’m sure—and it’ll look very pretty on the front page of the Time
s: ‘Former Scotland Yard Man Disgraces Britain, Shouting in Gibraltar Café.’ ”

  “How about ‘Peer’s Daughter-in-Law in Garrison Lockup’?” It might have been a quip had MacFarlane not been frowning, his words uttered with a cutting edge.

  “For what crime, Mr. MacFarlane?”

  “I don’t need one. Neither does Brian Huntley.”

  “Oh, I might have known. And is Professor Vallejo one of your happy little trio of musketeers too? Or perhaps with Dr. Francesca Thomas you’re a quartet.” Maisie picked up her coffee and sipped, looking over the top of the cup at her companion.

  MacFarlane’s jaw tensed, and he pressed his lips together. His complexion became chalklike. He stared at her as she set down her cup and tore off a piece of the pastry.

  “This isn’t a game, Maisie. This isn’t a game, and you shouldn’t even be in the ring. Leave now, while you can.”

  “And what does Huntley say?”

  MacFarlane looked away, as if to control his temper.

  Maisie nodded slowly. “Right, I think I understand. Huntley wants to let me have my head, and to just follow on and see where I might end up—danger or no danger. But you don’t think it’s a good idea, because you have come to the conclusion that I am a loose cannon bereft of all good sense and focus because I’m a woman in an emotional—what . . . state?”

  “You’re grieving, Maisie. You’re vulnerable. You were pegged for work with Huntley even before you knew who he was, and I can see why—you’ve proven yourself to me, dear girl, on more than one occasion. But not now. Go home. Rest. Spend time under your father’s wing.”