Among the Mad

by Jacqueline Winspear

  She followed Croucher along Warren Street, and because the street was busy with people going in and out of the pubs—perhaps a little more raucous than usual on the last night of the year—she parked the MG where it could be seen by the police and then continued on foot, keeping Croucher in view. Where was MacFarlane? Was she being observed without her knowledge? Croucher continued on, and she wondered why he had not stepped off the bus earlier, when he’d had the opportunity, opposite Great Portland Street underground station. He could have simply walked across the road from there. Maisie allowed a distance to grow between Croucher and herself. It occurred to her that he might know he was being followed and was testing his theory by taking a circuitous route to his destination. With each step as she drew farther away from the more populated area around Warren Street, she knew she was on her own.

  Turning again, this time into the top end of Cleveland Street, Croucher snaked back and forth across neighboring streets until he stopped at the top of a flight of steps leading down into a basement flat. She stepped back into the shadows when he stopped and looked behind him. Though she could only see him as a gray shape in the darkness, she was aware that it was only after he had scanned back and forth several times that he began his descent. She approached the house with care and took stock of the neighborhood.

  It was said of the environs of Fitzroy Square—and they were not far from the square—that a peer could sit next to a plumber at supper, and neither would feel the worse for it. There were well-appointed houses adjacent to tenements, and clean properties neighboring slums. There were mansions where two people lived in comfort, and bed-sitting rooms where the landlord asked no questions, as long as the rent was paid. Some had only the soot-covered walls to look out upon, and others had compact walled gardens, where a riot of color fought against the grayness of buildings assaulted by smoke and damp. She could see that Croucher had come to visit someone who lived in a cold-water flat, cheap accommodation for a person on the bread line—an ugly place to live for someone who could not afford anything more, where the occupants vanished into the night, and were all but invisible during the day. It was a place where a sense of disenfranchisement could grow unchecked, where disappointment and despair were bedfellows, where a clammy damp kept the blood cold, and where warmth was sucked out, along with hope.

  Peering over the iron railing, Maisie saw the pale light from an oil lamp grow, as if the occupant lived in the dark, but now, with a visitor, turned up the wick to illuminate the room. She moderated her breathing, placing the fingers of her right hand against her coat, just three fingers width below her waist, balancing herself so that she would breathe with ease, and move with dexterity. She looked around, just in case MacFarlane’s men had discovered her whereabouts and help was on its way, but could wait no longer. She made her way down the steps and stood against the wall alongside the window.

  The men’s voices were low, almost indistinct. A few seconds passed, then there was movement toward the window, and she heard the voice of the man she knew to be the one for whom she searched. His words were thick, as if the man’s gullet itself were mucus-filled. He cleared his throat and wheezed, coughing before he spoke again.

  “I don’t need you to protect me, Croucher. I am able to look after myself. You have shown kindness, in bringing me food.”

  “You’ve got to look after yourself, sir. You need better food, and I can’t always get it.”

  “Don’t worry. It will soon be all over, anyway.”

  “What do you mean, sir, what do you mean?” Croucher’s voice escalated in tone, edged with a whine, as if he were a man facing the inevitable. Maisie frowned. The tone of the porter’s response suggested he was trying to control the man in the flat, and was without power against his will.

  “I mean, it’s almost over. Midnight. Then they’ll see.”

  “But you can’t, please don’t do it. I can’t cover for you anymore. The Dobbs woman came back to see Lawrence this evening—didn’t make an appointment first, just came to the hospital. I know she’s after you, I know she’ll find you. I’ve seen her type—she’s a terrier.”

  Keep your mouth shut and leave. Leave now . . . Maisie whispered into the cold night, knowing Croucher was playing with fire. Don’t say another word, just leave.

  “I think you should just lie down, sir. Let me make you a nice broth, or a cup of tea—look, I’ve brought you some bits and pieces of food. Slim pickings today, but enough to keep you going.”

  Maisie flinched upon hearing something crash to the ground—a jar, perhaps, or a can and two or three items. Had the man swept Croucher’s offerings from the table? She held her breath again as he raised his voice.

  “I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want you telling me what to do.”

  The man slurped as he spoke.

  It’s him, I know—it is him! thought Maisie.

  “But I’m only trying to help—”

  A dull thud made Maisie flinch again. Had the man been pushed too far? Had he assaulted Croucher, perhaps with a sturdy walking stick, one with a steel tip, perhaps, or brass handle? She closed her eyes and imagined a cane brought against a head at a certain angle with weight behind it, and she knew that Croucher was down, and probably unconscious. He might even be dead.

  She closed her eyes and in that moment asked for guidance, asked a God she had doubted on many an occasion to aid her, for she knew—knew in the gut—that when the man left the flat, it would be with the intent to kill and he would not kill just one person. In the distance she heard a clock chime. It was past eight o’clock. Crowds would be congregating on the steps of St. Paul’s. People were already in the pubs—one only had to walk along to Charlotte Street to see that both rich and poor alike were merrymaking. With barely a sound she stepped up into the street and looked both ways. Nothing. No sign of the men from Special Branch. She had hoped the police would find her distinctive MG and then conduct a sweep-search of the neighboring streets. If the man left his flat, she couldn’t wait for them to arrive—she would have to stop him before he set foot on the street. At risk to her own life, she had to prevent him leaving.

  THE MAN PULLED BACK his chair and watched blood ooze from Croucher’s broken skull into a shallow puddle on the floor. He felt a coldness take over his body. It was not a chill that was the opposite of heat—he had, in any case, become used to the cold and damp, though sometimes it brought him down, took away his strength so that he could not emerge from his bed. No, this was another biting numbness. It was the thread of unfeeling that ran through his body as mercury runs in a line through a thermometer, the weight of the matter channeled along the tunnels of life, taking from him all sensitivity, all sense of horror, so that even when he regarded Croucher as his skin grew cold and his bones stiff, the man felt nothing. No shame, no sadness, no fear, no . . . nothing. If he had a soul, he could feel it no longer.

  He looked down at Croucher as if observing an experiment, watched the blood coagulate and stop in a pool, then thicken, so that, if he pushed a finger against it, it would wrinkle. He had never struck a man before. It was not his way. But it did not matter. What does anyone matter, after all? He pulled the leather-bound notebook toward him, unfurled the string that bound the pages, and took out the pencil. He ran his thumb across the lead, and winced when he felt a sliver of wood against his skin. Limping to a drawer, he brought out a knife and a sharpening steel, and took his seat again in a way that suggested he was losing his balance. Sweeping the poker-like sharpening steel back and forth across the blade, his brow furrowed as he brought every ounce of his attention to the task at hand. Once more he tested the blade, and satisfied that it was now up to the job, he set down the steel and whittled the pencil again until the lead was sharp, with a good eighth of an inch free of the wood. He placed the knife on the table and began to write.

  This is my last entry. I will write no more, for I will be gone. And no one will miss me. But I will not go alone, and perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, someone wi
ll take notice. I know my limitations, know the extent of what I can do, and if I could take the Prime Minister, or his self-serving cohorts, then I would. But I can’t, so I must take who I can, and then those fools in Westminster will know what it is to be invisible. One of the forgotten, one of the lost.

  The pencil dragged across the page in a jagged line. The man closed the leather book, bound it with string, and placed it in a pocket inside his threadbare greatcoat.

  THROUGH THE WINDOW, with barely any light to cast a shadow, Maisie Dobbs watched him turn up the wick and move to a cupboard. He removed a jar, and though she squinted, she could not tell whether it contained a viscous liquid or a thick powder. He collected matches and a vial. And as she watched, she knew she could not let him leave, could not let him go on his way. She could not let him kill again. She turned away from the window, took one step to the side, and knocked on the door.

  SIXTEEN

  “Who’s there? Who’s there at this time of night?”

  “Mr. Oliver?”

  “No one of that name here.”

  Maisie bit her lip and tried again. “Sir, I think you know who I am. My name is Maisie Dobbs. I believe you mentioned my name in a letter, delivered on Christmas Day.”

  Silence.

  “Sir?”

  “What do you want?”

  Maisie cleared her throat. “I’d like to talk to you, if I may.”

  “What about?”

  “Well . . . ” She paused. “We could start with Ian Jennings. I believe you knew him, and so did Mr. Croucher. They were both friends of yours, weren’t they?”

  “Weren’t they?” The man’s eyes narrowed.

  She realized her error—she had referred to Croucher in the past tense. They were both friends of yours. Now he knew, now the man knew she had seen him strike Croucher. She heard the rattle of a chain, then a key unlocking the door, and a bolt drawn back. The door opened.

  Maisie showed no emotion when she saw the scarred face, the livid line that ran down from the man’s forehead and across his eye until it reached his jaw. His back was curved as if he were a hunchback, and one foot was splayed to the side. His right shoulder was held higher than the other, and his hands were like fists in front of him as he stood before her. She imagined that he might once have been a tall man, perhaps six feet or more. Now, though, he was diminished by circumstance, and she could only speculate as to what might have happened to him. But she knew she had seen him before.

  “I’ve seen you before, on Charlotte Street, I—”

  Without warning, the man reached forward with one clawed hand and dragged Maisie into the room by the collar on her jacket. He slammed the door behind him.

  “I have come to help you, sir, I—”

  “Well, you’re too bloody late!”

  In the flickering shafts of light and dark caused by the oil lamp’s wick burning down, Maisie fought the urge to steal a glance at the floor and the body of the man she had only seen as a taciturn hospital porter. Looking into the killer’s dark, expressionless eyes, she knew an empathetic approach would gain her nothing. She had been surprised by his strength, and knew that there was no connection, now, between rational thought and his actions.

  “Sir, I believe I understand why you’ve taken the lives of both men and animals, and I understand the . . . the great weight—”

  “Oh, do me a favor, please!”

  They stood facing each other, and Maisie wondered what words, what actions might placate a man for whom all accepted modes of human communication seemed to mean nothing. Even as he was facing her, his eyes rolled back in his head and saliva issued from his mouth.

  “You have committed murder, and I believe you intend to murder again, only this time you plan to take the lives of many more innocent victims.”

  “Innocent? Innocent? Innocent of what? Innocent of being blind toward the plight of other people, when you can see with your own eyes what they have to put up with? That’s a terrible thing, Miss Maisie Dobbs. I don’t see innocence, I don’t see innocence at all.”

  Maisie collected her thoughts again, hoping to play for time, hoping that soon the police would be searching street to street, door to door, for surely they would have found her motor car by now.

  “I saw you. I saw you on the street and gave you what I could.”

  The man nodded. “Yes, and you tried to give something to Ian.”

  “It was you, then, the man who was watching me.”

  “Yes. It was me, I remembered you. Only I didn’t know your name until I heard that bloke yelling at the top of his voice. ‘Maisie Dobbs! Miss Maisie Dobbs!’ But now you’re working for them, aren’t you? You’re part of the merry-go-round. You don’t know—none of your type know—what it is to be like us, to be alone, what it is to know that . . . no one knows you.”

  “Then how did you know Jennings? And Croucher?”

  He looked at the floor. “Oh, yes, poor sparrow Croucher.”

  Maisie frowned, wondering what the man meant. She felt as if she were walking on ice that might crack at any moment. She felt as if her world could upturn in the time it took to take a breath. Still she did not look down at Croucher, though she could smell the death on him, could smell time sucking the warmth from his body, leaving it hardened and cold.

  “I met Ian somewhere. I don’t know where now. I can’t remember, though it might have had something to do with Croucher, or . . . ” The man seemed distracted, as if he had suffered a sudden fatigue. “I might have known him years ago. And he tried to help me, even though he needed the help.” The man stared at the lamp, which was growing ever dimmer, and sighed. “They let him down, you know, the army pensions people. Called him up in front of three know-alls who said that he could do a job, what with his mind and the fact that he could get about.” He drew his attention back to Maisie, his eyes rolling back as he tried to focus. He shook his head and spoke again. “But of course, poor Ian couldn’t get a job—it’s all a man with the parts still intact can do to get on, isn’t it, Miss Dobbs?”

  She nodded, anxious to appease him. “These are hard times.”

  “And Croucher, bless him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s one of those eternal helpers. Don’t know what made him do it, but he saw me—I can’t remember where he saw me, to tell you the truth—but he saw me, and he might have seen Ian, both of us holding out our hands in different places. And he tried to help.” He shook his head from side to side, like a man trying to correct blurred vision. “Oh, yes, that’s where I met Ian. I think Croucher brought him to me, to be my friend. I think he thought we had known each other, years ago.”

  “And were you friends, you and Ian Jennings?”

  He shrugged. “He should have waited.” He pointed to his head. “Not right up here, Jennings. I told him I had a plan, that I’d had enough of waiting, that I could bring this country to its knees. But he got lost in his mind, silly boy.” He shrugged again. “Don’t know why I always called him a boy. I don’t even know if he was younger than me.”

  “And how old are you, sir?”

  The man winced and clutched either side of his head. “I must be nigh on forty now, or thirty-eight, or—” He brought his attention back to Maisie. “I don’t want to talk anymore. I’ve got to get on. In fact, I should do something about you. After all, I don’t want you stopping me, don’t want you—”

  In the distance the ringing of a bell on a police vehicle could be heard, coming closer. Then another from the opposite direction. The man cocked his head this way and that, as if to try to ascertain where the sounds were coming from. Maisie took the opportunity to step back, but the man was quick, and lunged toward her, pulling the flank of his left arm around her throat as he held her from behind. Despite his disability, his strength overpowered her.

  “Oh, no you don’t. You’ve seen too much as it is.”

  “You can’t leave here, sir. I know what you plan to do, I know where you’re going with th
at jar.” She wondered whether to play her trump card, and knew there was no time to take chances. She choked out her words, with the crook of his arm resting against her gullet. “The police know and so do the secret service. So you see, you don’t stand a chance. Don’t leave. I am sure—”

  Maisie gagged and coughed, and with her hands tried to drag his arm away from her throat. She began to feel light-headed, with colored threads of light pulsating across her peripheral vision as she fought for air. With as much strength as she could muster, she pushed back, jabbing the man hard in the ribs with her elbow. She felt him lose his balance. His arm came free of her neck, and he fell against the table. The bells traveled closer; she could hear muffled voices in the distance, as if men were running to and fro, coming closer, then away again.

  Gasping, Maisie turned to face the man she knew to be mad, a man whose thoughts were not tempered by the constraints that brought his behavior within limits considered “normal.” As he used his strength to regain some semblance of balance, the jar rocked and fell to one side on the table, where it rolled back and forth. The man followed the jar with his eyes as if dazed, as if what he could see had no relation to the visions in his mind. Maisie lurched for the jar, and felt its weight in her hands, but when she looked back, it was into the eyes of a killer. He held out a knife toward her.

  “Give that to me.”

  “Sir, this is a dangerous substance. The police will be here soon, and if you give yourself up, there will be leniency, you will be cared for, you will be—”

  “Put away where I belong, eh? Put away where no one can see me and where I can’t be a danger to myself. They always want you put away, until they need you again, until your country needs you.” He mimicked the tone of wartime recruitment posters, and waved the knife in front of her, but she kept the jar clutched close to her body. “And they’ll want what’s up in here, won’t they?” For the second time he pointed to the side of his head. “But I—”