An Incomplete Revenge E-Book

Jacqueline Winspear

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Maisie Dobbs
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 480

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

With the country in the grip of economic malaise, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment to investigate a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggest a darker criminal element at work. A peculiar secrecy shrouds the village, and ultimately Maisie must draw on her finely-honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases yet.

Leseprobe

AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE

A Maisie Dobbs Novel

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR

Dedicated to my parents,

Albert and Joyce Winspear

With All My Love

“Of all the gifts that people can give to one another, the most meaningful and long lasting are strong but simple love and the gift of story.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What Is Enough

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

––Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

––Josh Billings, U.S. humorist (1818–1885)

Contents

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONEPIGRAPHPROLOGUEONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTNINETENELEVENTWELVETHIRTEENFOURTEENFIFTEENSIXTEENSEVENTEENEIGHTEENNINETEENEPILOGUEACKNOWLEDGMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORBY JACQUELINE WINSPEARCOPYRIGHT

AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE

PROLOGUE

Early September 1931

The old woman rested on the steps of her home, a caravan set apart from those of the rest of her family, her tribe. She pulled a clay pipe from her pocket, inspected the dregs of tobacco in the small barrel, shrugged, and struck a match against the rim of a water butt tied to the side of her travelling home. She lit the pipe with ease, clamping her ridged lips around the end of the long stem to draw vigour from the almost-spent contents. A lurcher lay at the foot of the steps, seeming at first to be asleep, though the old woman knew that one ear was cocked to the wind, one eye open and watching her every move.

Aunt Beulah Webb—that was the name she was known by, for an older gypsy woman was always known as aunt to those younger—sucked on her pipe and squinted as she surveyed the nearby fields, then cast her eyes to the hop-gardens beyond. The hops would be hanging heavy on the bine by now, rows upon rows of dark-green, spice-aroma’d swags, waiting to be harvested, picked by the nimble hands of men, women and children alike, most of whom came from London for a working late-summer holiday. Others were gypsies like herself, and the rest were gorja from the surrounding villages. Gorja. More house dwellers, more who were not gypsies.

Her people kept themselves to themselves, went about their business without inviting trouble. Aunt Beulah hoped the diddakoi families kept away from the farm this year. A Roma would trust anyone before a diddakoi—before the half-bred people who were born of gypsy and gorja. As far as she was concerned, they looked for trouble, expected it. They were forgetting the old ways, and there were those among them who left the dregs of their life behind them when they moved on, their caravans towed by boneshaker lorries, not horses. The woman looked across at the caravan of the one she herself simply called Webb. Her son. Of course, her son’s baby daughter, Boosul, was a diddakoi, by rights, though with her shock of ebony hair and pebble-black eyes, she favoured Roma through and through.

About her business in the morning, Beulah brought four tin bowls from underneath the caravan—underneath the vardo in the gypsy tongue. One bowl was used to wash tools used in the business of eating, one for the laundering of clothes, one for water that touched her body, and another for the cleaning of her vardo. It was only when she had completed those tasks, fetching dead wood from the forest for the fire to heat the water, that she finally placed an enamel kettle among the glowing embers and waited for it to boil for tea. Uneasy unless working, Beulah bound bunches of Michaelmas daisies to sell door to door, then set them in a basket and climbed back into her vardo.

She knew the village gorja, those out about their errands, would turn their backs when they saw her on the street, would glance away from her black eyes and dark skin now rippled with age. They would look aside so as not to stare at her gold hoop earrings, the scarf around her head, and the wide gathered skirt of threadbare deep-purple wool that marked her as a gypsy. Sometimes children would taunt.

“Where are you going, pikey? Can’t you hear, you old gyppo woman?’

But she would only have to stare, perhaps point a charcoal-blackened finger, and utter words in dialect that came from deep in the throat, a low grumble of language that could strike fear into the bravest bully—and they would be gone.

Women were the first to turn away, though there were always a few—enough to make it worth her while—who would come to the door at her knock, press a penny into her outstretched hand, and take a bunch of the daisies with speed lest their fingers touch her skin. Beulah smiled. She would see them again soon enough. When dusk fell, a twig would snap underfoot as a visitor approached her vardo with care. The lurcher would look up, a bottomless growl rumbling in her gullet. Beulah would reach down and place her hand on the dog’s head, whispering, “Shhhh, jook.” She would wait until the steps were closer, until she could hold the lurcher no longer, and then would call out, “Who’s there?” And, after a second or two, a voice, perhaps timid, would reply, “I’ve come for my fortune.”

Beulah would smile as she uncovered the glass sphere she’d brought out and set on the table at eventide, waiting.

Not that a ball made of a bit of glass had anything to do with it, yet that was what was expected. The gypsy might not have been an educated woman, but she knew what sold. She didn’t need glass, or crystal, a bit of amethyst, a cup of still-wet tea leaves, or a rabbit’s foot to see, either. No, those knickknacks were for the customers, for those who needed to witness her using something solid, because the thought of her seeing pictures of what was to come in thin air would be enough to send them running. And you never scared away money.

Beulah heard a squeal from the tent that leaned against her son’s vardo, little Boosul waking from sleep. Her people were stirring, coming out to light fires, to make ready for the day. True gypsies never slept in their spotless vardos, with shining brass and wafer-thin china hanging from the walls. Like Beulah, they lived in tents, hardy canvas tied across a frame of birch or ash. The vardos were kept for best. Beulah looked up to the rising sun, then again at the fields as the steamy mist of warming dew rose to greet the day. She didn’t care for the people of this village, Heronsdene. She saw the dark shadow that enveloped each man and woman and trailed along, weighing them down as they went about their daily round. There were ghosts in this village—ghosts who would allow the neighbours no rest. 

AS SHE REACHED down to pour scalding water into the teapot, the old woman’s face concertina’d as a throbbing pain and bright light bore down upon her with no warning, a sensation with which she was well familiar. She dropped the kettle back into the embers and pressed her bony knuckles hard against her skull, squeezing her eyes shut against flames that licked up behind her closed eyelids. Fire. Again. She fought for breath, the heat rising up around her feet to her waist, making her old legs sweat, her hands clammy. And once more she came to Beulah, walking out from the very heart of the inferno, the younger woman she had not yet met but knew would soon come. It would not be long now; the time approached—of that she was sure. The woman was tall and well dressed, with black hair—not long hair, but not as short as she’d seen on some of the gorja womenfolk in recent years. Beulah leaned against the vardo, the lurcher coming to stand at her mistress’s side as if to offer her lean body as buttress. This woman, who walked amid the flames of Beulah’s imagination, had known sadness, had lived with death. And though she now stepped forward alone, the grief was lifting—Beulah could see it ascending like the morning cloud, rising up to leave her in peace. She was strong, this woman of her dreams, and … Beulah shook her head. The vision was fading; the woman had turned away from her, back into the flames, and was gone.

The gypsy matriarch held one hand against her forehead, still leaning against her vardo. She opened her eyes with care and looked about her. Only seconds had passed, yet she had seen enough to know that a time of great trouble was almost upon her. She believed the woman—the woman for whom she waited—would be her ally, though she could not be sure. She was sure of three things, though—that the end of her days drew ever closer, that before she breathed her last, a woman she had never seen in her life would come to her, and that this woman, even though she might think of herself as ordinary, of little account in the wider world, still followed Death as he made his rounds. That was her calling, her work, what she was descended of gorja and gypsy to do. And Beulah Webb knew that here, in this place called Heronsdene, Death would walk among them soon enough, and there was nothing she could do to prevent such fate. She could only do her best to protect her people.

The sun was higher in the sky now. The gypsy folk would bide their time for three more days, then move to a clearing at the edge of the farm, setting their vardos and pitching their tents away from Londoners, who came for the picking to live in whitewashed hopper huts and sing their bawdy songs around the fire at night. And though she would go about her business, Beulah would be waiting—waiting for the woman with her modern clothes and her tidy hair. Waiting for the woman whose sight, she knew, was as powerful as her own.

ONE

Marta Jones surveyed her students, casting her eyes around the studio, with its high ceilings and skeins upon skeins of coloured yarn hanging from laundry racks raised up with pulleys and secured on the wall, and the six wooden looms pressed against one another, for space was at a premium. Her desk—a battered oak table set next to the door—was covered in papers, books and drawings, and to her right, as she faced her class, an ancient chaise longue was draped with an old red velvet counterpane to hide darnings and tears in the upholstery. Several spinning wheels were set against the wall to the left of the room, alongside a box where she kept wool collected on Sunday excursions into the country. Of course, she ordered untreated wool directly from her suppliers, but she liked to collect tufts from the hedgerows, where sheep had pressed against hawthorn or bramble to ease an itch and left behind a goodly pull of their coats.

She had taken on students with some reluctance. Even though the rent on her studio close to the Albert Hall was cheap enough due to an ancient land law that provided for artists, her commissions had diminished and she was forced to look for additional income. So she had placed one small advertisement in the newspaper, and written to those who had purchased her works in the past, to let them know that she was taking in a “small number of students to learn the art and craft of traditional tapestry.” In general, her students were a motley group and definitely better off; the working classes could barely afford to eat, let alone spend money on frivolities. There were two ladies from Belgravia who thought it might be “rather fun” to spend a Saturday afternoon or evening here each week, chatting as they worked their shuttles back and forth, following the sketched cartoon image that lay beneath the lines of warp and weft.

Another two friends, well-funded students from the Slade seeking a class beyond their regular curriculum, had joined, as had a poet who thought that work in colour would enhance the rhythm and pulse of his language. Then there was the woman who spoke little but who had come to Marta’s studio after seeing the advertisement. Watching her now, the artist was fascinated by this particular student, drawn to the changes she had observed since class began. The woman had explained that she had recently been exposed to the world of art—she said it as if it were an unfamiliar country—and that she wanted to do “something artistic,” as her work was far removed from such indulgence. She had smiled and gone on to say that she had never produced a proper painting, even as a child, and she thought she could not sketch at all, but she was drawn to tapestry, attracted to the weaving of colour and texture, to a medium that did not present an immediate image but, when one stood back to regard the day’s endeavor, a picture began to take form. “It’s rather like my work,” she had said. And when Marta asked about the woman’s profession, she paused for a moment and then drew out a card, which she offered to the artist. It said, simply:

MAISIE DOBBS

PSYCHOLOGIST AND INVESTIGATOR

Marta thought that this one evening each week was the woman’s only recreation, but with each class, something about her seemed to change almost imperceptibly, though the artist found the effect to be quite extraordinary. Her clothes had become more colourful, her artistry more bold as she gained confidence. On the evening when they had experimented with dyeing, taking the yarns they had spun during the previous week, pressing them down into buckets of dye, and then pulling them out to hang first over sinks in the studio’s own scullery before looping them over laundry racks to dry, she had rolled up her sleeves and simply laughed when colour splashed across her face. The Belgravia matrons had frowned and the poet appeared shy, but soon this woman, who had appeared so reticent at first, so slow and measured in her interactions with fellow students, had come to be the lynchpin in the class—without saying much at all. And, Marta thought, she was very good at drawing out stories. Why, only today, while Maisie worked at her loom, her fingers nimble as she wove threads of purple, magenta and yellow, she had asked the teacher but two questions and soon knew the entire story of the woman’s coming to England from Poland as a child. In fact, as she answered the questions that Maisie Dobbs put to her, the whole class knew in short order that Marta’s father had insisted that his children learn only English, so that they would fit in and not be marked as foreigners. And her mother had ensured the family dressed in a way that did not set them apart from their new friends, who knew them as the Jones family—that most British of names, adopted as they disembarked from their ship once it had docked at Southampton.

Marta smiled, as she watched Maisie Dobbs work at her loom, and picked up her card again. PSYCHOLOGIST AND INVESTIGATOR.

Yes, she must be very good at her trade, this woman who had, without any effort at all, encouraged six people to tell her far more about themselves than they would ever imagine recounting—and all without revealing much about herself, except that she was newly drawn to colour.

JAMES COMPTON WALKED at a brisk pace past the Albert Hall, taking advantage of the warm September evening. As his right-hand man in Toronto would have said, he had a head of steam on him, frustration with a land purchase that had proved to be fraught with problems. He did not even care to be in London again, though the thought of returning had at first seemed filled with promise. But the Compton family mansion at Ebury Place had been mothballed, and staying at his father’s club and spending each evening with crusty old men languishing amid tales of doom regarding the economy and reminiscences that began with “In my day …” was not his idea of fun.

Of course, life in the city of Toronto was not all beer and skittles—after all, he had a corporation with diversified interests to run—but there was sailing on the lake and skiing in Vermont, across the border, to look forward to. And the cold was different—it didn’t seep into his war wounds the way it did here. He thought of men he’d seen at the labour exchanges, or soup kitchens, or simply walking miles across London each day in search of work, many of them limping, wounds nagging their memories each day, like scabs being picked raw.

But Toronto might have to wait for him a bit longer. Lord Julian Compton, his father, wanted to relinquish more responsibility and was already talking of having James step up to replace him as chairman of the Compton Corporation. And that wasn’t all that was bothering him, as he glanced at the scrap of paper upon which he had scribbled the address given to him by Maisie Dobbs during their conversation this morning. His mother, Maisie’s former employer and longtime supporter, had always encouraged her husband and son to direct any suitable business in Maisie’s direction if possible, so she was the first person he’d thought to telephone when a property transaction began showing signs that it might become troublesome.

“Goddammit!” said James, as he thought of his father’s office in the City once again.

“James!”

James Compton looked up, frowning, then smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he saw Maisie waving from the other side of the road. He crumpled the paper and pushed it into his jacket pocket as he walked across to greet her. “Maisie Dobbs! I was so lost in thought I almost walked straight past!” He paused as she offered him her hand. “Maisie, what on earth have you been doing?”

Maisie regarded her hands, then reached into her shoulder bag and brought out her gloves. “It’s dye. I couldn’t get it out of my hands and should have put on my gloves immediately—but I can’t do much about the splashes on my cheek until I get home.” She looked into the eyes of her former employer’s son, then reached out to touch his arm. “How are you, James?”

He shrugged. “Well, the engagement’s off, that’s the first bit of news for you. And as you know, I’m here in England on business—duty calls at the Compton Corporation’s London office.” James consulted his watch. “Look, Maisie, I know I said this wouldn’t take much more time than it would to drink a cup of tea, but I am starving, and I wonder—do you have time for a spot of supper? I’ve been wrangling—”

“Wrangling?”

“Excuse me, I forgot where I was. Let me start again. I’ve been considering—worrying about, to tell you the truth—this business transaction I mentioned, and I’ve not eaten a thing all day.”

“Well, we’d better do something about that, hadn’t we? I’m rather hungry myself.”

James turned and signalled a taxi-cab. “Come on, let’s go to a charming little Italian dining room I know—just around the corner from Exhibition Row.”

“YOU LOOK DIFFERENT, Maisie.” James Compton reached for a bread roll, pulled it apart, and spread one quarter with a thick layer of butter.

“The dye has that effect.” Maisie grinned, looking up from the menu. “You haven’t changed a bit, James.”

“Well, the blond hair has a bit of grey at the sides, but thank heavens it doesn’t show much. If I can still walk as upright as my father when I reach his age, I will be more than grateful.” He poured a glass of Chianti and leaned back. “You seem more … I don’t know, sort of … lighter.”

“I assure you I am not.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s your demeanor. You seem lighter within yourself, as our Mrs. Crawford would have said.” He looked at Maisie, her black hair, cut just above the shoulders to run parallel with the line of her chin, her fringe brushing against black eyebrows that seemed to deepen her violet-blue eyes. She wore a mid-calf-length wool barathea skirt in a rich purple hue, with a red blouse and blue coat—clearly old but well maintained—that draped to mid-thigh. Her shoes, with a single strap buttoned at the side, were of plain black leather. A silver nurse’s watch was pinned to her lapel.

“Oh, Mrs. Crawford. What will you do for gingersnaps, James, now that your favourite cook has retired?”

James laughed, and for some minutes they spoke of the past, neither shying from the loss of Enid, Maisie’s fellow servant at the Compton household so many years past, a young woman who had been in love with James and whom he had loved in return. Enid died in an explosion at the munitions factory where she worked, in 1915.

“So, tell me how I can help you.” Maisie glanced at her watch as she directed the conversation to the reason for their meeting. She did not want to make a late return to her flat in Pimlico, for her day’s work was not yet done.

As they ate supper, James described the business transaction that was giving him so much trouble and for which he had seen an opportunity to seek her help.

“There’s a large estate down in Kent that I want to buy, on the outskirts of a village called Heronsdene. It’s about ten or so miles from Tunbridge Wells—and not that far from Chelstone, actually. The estate is pretty similar to many of its kind in Kent—you know what I mean: a large manor house, Georgian in this case, tenant farmers to manage the land, hunting privileges. But this property has something I’m particularly interested in—a brickworks. It’s a small concern. Produces the sort of bricks used in those pseudo-posh neo-Tudor affairs they’re building in the new London suburbia. And they manufacture old-fashioned peg tiles for repair of the older buildings you see all over Kent and Sussex.”

Maisie set down her knife and fork, reaching for her table napkin. “And you’re interested in the brickworks because there’s a building boom despite all indications that the economy isn’t showing signs of improvement.”

“That’s right. Now is the time to buy, ready to make a mint when we’re on an even keel, even sooner if output can be improved.” James pulled a silver cigarette case from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Mind?’

Maisie shook her head.

James continued. “So, despite Ramsay MacDonald being pressed to form a National Government to get us through this mess, and well-founded talk of Britain going off the gold standard any day now, there’s still room for optimism—and I want to move ahead soon.”

“So what’s stopping you, and how can I help?” Maisie waved a hand in front of her face as diplomatically as possible to ward off smoke from James’s cigarette.

“I have my doubts about the landowner, a man called Alfred Sandermere. He’s the younger son but became heir to the estate when his brother, Henry, was killed in the war. I knew Henry, by the way—good chap, excellent man—but the brother has done nothing but draw funds from the estate, leaving it on the verge of bankruptcy—which of course means I get value for my money. It’s essentially a fire sale.”

“And?”

James Compton extinguished his cigarette, pressing it into a glass ashtray which he then set to one side, away from Maisie. “There’s been some funny business going on down there, and if there is one thing the Compton Corporation likes, it’s a clean transaction. We may move fast in circumstances such as these, but we don’t get our hands dirty.”

“What’s been going on?”

“Mainly what appears to be petty crime. There’s been vandalism at the house and at the brickworks. The farmers haven’t reported anything amiss, and the villagers—many of whom are employed at the brickworks—are keeping quiet about it.”

Maisie frowned. “That’s not unusual. You are talking about rural Kent, after all.”

“No, this is different. The locals have been almost silent, no one hurrying to point the finger. And you know how unusual that is, especially when there are diddakoi in the area.”

“Diddakoi or Roma? They’re different, James.”

“Alright, people who travel with caravans. Doesn’t matter what they are, the locals are always pretty quick to blame them for all manner of ills—either them or the Londoners.”

Maisie nodded, understanding. “Hop-pickers?”

“Last year, yes. Of course, the police from Tunbridge Wells couldn’t do much; they tend to let the villages just get on with it. And it’s not as if there was any lasting damage. But I don’t like these reports, Maisie. If we move on this, I have to ensure that the brickworks is at maximum output from the first day of ownership. We’ll expand from there. And given the dependence upon local labour, goodwill and no vandalism are of the essence. Of course, the tenant farmers will remain as such, no plans to change that arrangement.”  

“So what do you want me to do?”  

“I want you to look into matters, find out if there’s anything amiss locally that would affect our purchase of the Sandermere estate. You have three weeks—perhaps a month—to compile your report. That’s all the time I have now, and it’s not much where property of this kind is concerned.” He poured more wine for himself, setting the bottle back on the table when Maisie shook her head and rested her hand to cover the top of her glass. “I know it’s not the sort of case you’re used to,” he continued, “but you were the first person I thought to call.”

Maisie nodded, lifting her glass of Chianti to her lips. She sipped the wine, then put down her glass with one hand as she reached for her shoulder bag and took out a small writing pad with the other. She made several notations, then circled a number before tearing off the sheet and passing it to her supper companion. “I assume my fee is acceptable to you.” It was a statement, not a question.

James Compton smiled. “There’s another thing that’s changed, Miss Maisie Dobbs. I do believe you’ve become a canny business proprietor.”

Maisie inclined her head, as James took a checkbook from his pocket. “An advance against expenses.” He scribbled across the check and passed it to Maisie. “You’ll have your work cut out for you. Hop-picking’s about to start, and the place will be teeming with outsiders.”

The investigator nodded. “Then it’s the perfect time, James, the perfect time. We’ll have your report ready in a month—at the latest.”

LATER, AT HER flat in Pimlico, as Maisie sat in her favourite armchair looking at the check, she breathed a sigh of relief. Business was still ticking along but wasn’t as brisk as it had been. The summer had been slow, and she was grateful that her assistant, Billy Beale, was planning to take two weeks’ holiday to go hop-picking himself—it was, after all, a tradition among East Enders. She wouldn’t have to pay his wages for those weeks, and at least he’d be earning money and taking a break from the Smoke—the streets of London—and getting his wife and boys away to the country. They needed it, for the family was still grieving for young Lizzie Beale, who had been lost to diphtheria at the beginning of the year. Yes, James had come along at the right moment, the answer to a prayer. In fact, one of the reasons she had indulged in Marta Jones’s class, was to do something different and not fret about a certain lack of custom for her business. To balance the expenditure, she’d even minimised use of her MG, understanding the importance of frugality in uncertain times. And she could never forget she had the mortgage on her flat to consider.

Yet, despite the pressures of being a sole proprietor, Maisie knew that the curtain of darkness from her past was lifting. Not that she forgot, not that she didn’t still have nightmares or close her eyes and see images from the war in stark relief. But it was as if she were on firmer ground, and not at the mercy of memory’s quicksand.

She checked her watch, marked the file of notes that now rested on her lap, and made ready to go to bed. As she reached for the cord to close the blinds, she remembered a dream she’d had twice this week. Dreams that came more than once demanded attention, and even though this was not a fearful dream, she reflected on it and wondered what it might mean. She had been walking through a forest and came upon a clearing bathed in shards of light splintering through the trees. As she walked into the clearing, she saw the still-enflamed embers of a fire, yet there was no one there, no traveller or tramp claiming a home for the night. There was only a loosely tied bunch of Michaelmas daisies set aside upon a fallen tree.

TWO

Maisie Dobbs sat alongside Billy Beale at the table in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the one-room office in Fitzroy Square. There had been a pause in their conversation, during which documents were passed back and forth, along with a page of notes sent by messenger from the office of James Compton.  

“So, what you want me to do, Miss, is to recce this village to get the lay of the land and let you know what’s going on.”  

“Yes, in the first instance. You’ll fit in nicely, being one of the London hoppers, down for the picking.”  

“Well, that’s all very well, but we’ve been taken on by a farmer a few miles away, not this one. You can’t just up and get work at any old farm, not for the ’oppin’; it don’t work like that.”

Maisie turned to Billy. “Oh, dear. Would you explain to me how it works, then?”  

Billy leaned forward and began to scribble a diagram onto a length of wallpaper pinned to the table. These offcuts, from a painter and decorator friend of Billy’s, were reversed to form a background for each new assignment’s case map, a diagram created with coloured pencils upon which Maisie and Billy set down hunches, clues, information and any other points that might help them usher an investigation to its close. Thus far this length of paper had remained untouched.

“You register with a farmer, one who knows you, usually at the end of pickin’ the year before. My family’s been goin’ down ’oppin’ since before my grandfather was a boy. The farmer knows which families ’e wants back, the good workers. Then, in spring or thereabouts, you get your brown envelope, with a letter telling you to come on such and such a date for the ’oppin’ and that you’ll get your hut to live in. So when you get on the train, with all your family and everything from yer sheets down to the tin kettle, you know you’ve got work and a roof over yer ’ead.”

Maisie was silent for a moment. “Do you know anyone going to”—she paused to consult her notes—“Dickon’s Farm on the Sandermere Estate? Couldn’t you sort of swap with another family?”

Billy shook his head. “No, I don’t know anyone goin’ to Dickon’s Farm, not off the top of me noddle.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “But you know what I’ll do, I’ll ’ave a word with a few blokes I know, see if it can be done. It ain’t normal, though. The farmers don’t like messin’ about with their allocations.”

“Good man.” Maisie smiled and reached for a file. “Look at this, just like the number twelve bus—none for ages, then three, one after the other. It never rains but it pours, and about time too!”

“More work comin’ in?”

“Yes. I came back to the office yesterday evening and there were two postcards and a telegram, all with jobs for us. I’ve set appointments with the new clients already. There’s nothing huge, but it’s a good sign and means that, along with my private clients, the business will go along nicely for us, probably right up to Christmas.”

“You were worried there for a bit, weren’t you, Miss?”

Maisie nodded. “Yes, just a bit.” She flipped open the Compton file again. “Billy, I’m anxious to have my planning for this case settled, so here’s what I’d like you to do today—after you’ve completed the notes on the Jacobsen case so I can send our report and issue an invoice. I want you to find out if you can get onto the Sandermere estate as soon as you can.” She paused. “I won’t have this case eat into your holiday time, and I’ll obviously pay you for the work you do while you’re down there, so keep a good record of your hours. I just want you to give me initial impressions, based on James Compton’s concerns. Then I really want an in for myself—you might find me picking hops with the Beales, if I have to.”

Billy laughed. “Miss, I can’t get over it—you a Londoner and never been down to Kent pickin’ ’ops.”

Once Maisie might have nipped such informality in the bud and not encouraged frivolous repartee on a working morning, but since she had known Billy, they had seen much together—not least during their first brief meeting, when he was brought into the casualty clearing station in France where she was working as a nurse in 1916. Her first love, a young army doctor, Simon Lynch, had saved Billy’s life, and the man who was now her assistant had never forgotten either of them. Billy’s life intersected with Maisie’s again when she rented an office on Warren Street where he was caretaker—he had recognised her immediately. After he’d helped her on a significant case, she asked him to become her assistant, a role he gratefully accepted. Now there was an ease in their relationship, though the occasional joke on Billy’s part never slipped into overfamiliarity.

“No, I never went down ’oppin’, Billy, though my father picked hops when he was a boy. Of course, I’ve seen them growing, seen the men out stringing for the bines to grow up and the women banding-in and training the shoots along the strings in late spring. But I know nothing about the actual business of hop-picking.” She paused, remembering. “Instead, we used to spend a week in the summer with my mother’s parents, when they lived near Marlow. Granddad was a lockkeeper. He’d been a lighterman on the Thames for years, but my grandmother yearned to be out of the city, and because they both wanted to be near the water he went to work on the waterways eventually—you couldn’t keep him away from that river, even when he should have been retired.”

“And your grannie? A Londoner, was she?”

Maisie shook her head. “Oh, no, she was a different kettle of fish altogether.” She changed the subject, taking up a sheet of paper. “Now then, after a bit of a lull, thank heavens we’ve some real work to do.”

BILLY AND HIS family left London at the weekend, on one of the trains known as a Hoppers’ Special. He had managed to effect an exchange of farm employment with another man and his family and, following a swift back-and-forth of postcards and telegrams between the men and the farmers concerned, the Beales were now ensconced in a one-room hopper hut on Dickon’s Farm. For her part, Maisie turned to assessing the case in greater detail.

James Compton’s notes included a map of the estate, a significant acreage set amid the swath of land known as the Weald of Kent. Heronsdene neighboured the estate at its southern edge, where the village met the perimeter of Dickon’s Farm, which Tom Dickon had inherited from his father, and his father before him. And so it went, down through the centuries. Thanks to long leases that were all but untouchable, the farmer considered the land his own, to be kept in the family.

The brickworks was to the east of Dickon’s Farm and, as James had said, was doing well. More information on Alfred Sandermere was included, together with a photograph. Not very flattering, thought Maisie, as she sized up a man of perhaps thirty or thirty-one. He seemed quite ordinary, though she did not care for his eyes, which were narrowed, bridged by thin eyebrows and swept-back hair with an overabundance of oil—the photograph revealed an unfortunate shine indicating as much. His lips drew back across his teeth as he smiled for the camera, and Maisie noticed that he held a half-smoked cigar in his hand. Nothing unusual there. However, she thought it unseemly, and there was something about his slouch that suggested arrogance and cynicism. She knew she would have to meet Sandermere at some point and did not look forward to making his acquaintance.

A list of crimes committed in the area during the past three years seemed somewhat long, especially those against the estate’s property. Broken windows at the brickworks, theft of tools, a fire in the stables—fortunately neither horses nor grooms were lost. Maisie noticed that a number of the incidents occurred in mid-September of each year, at the time when villagers were outnumbered by Londoners and, of course, a smaller number of gypsies. Mind you, that didn’t mean a thing. As James himself had noted, visitors were often a convenient scapegoat for locals with crime in mind.

A shorter note pointed to small fires that occurred in the village itself, again during September. There was no indication either of complaints by the villagers or of the source of such events. Billy had commented on the fires, saying, “Perhaps it’s all a coincidence, Miss,” to which they had then said, in unison, “Coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.”

The words of Maisie’s mentor and former employer, the noted psychologist, philosopher and expert in forensic science, Dr. Maurice Blanche, were quoted time and time again, though a serious rent in the fabric of the relationship between Maisie and her teacher was far from healed, despite their occasional brief conversations. It was just one year earlier, in France, that Maisie had come to understand the depth of Maurice’s covert activities during the war. She took his secretiveness, along with his seeming interference in a case, to be evidence of a lack of trust toward her, and a fierce row had taken place. Maisie had suffered a breakdown of sorts during her visit to France, a deep malaise brought on by unacknowledged shell shock. Though the chasm between Maurice and Maisie had caused her to become more independent of him, fashioning the business as she would have it rather than as she inherited it, there were times when she missed his counsel. But the events of last year remained unresolved.

Maisie wrote the word Fire on the case map. There was something about even the smallest fire that was more unsettling than other crimes of a similar calibre. The match idly thrown on tinder can become an all-consuming blaze, while sparks ignored can envelop a mansion if left unchecked. And flame ignited for the sake of malicious damage strikes at the very heart of individual and collective fear, for isn’t fire the place where the devil resides?

TO ADD TO a minor but growing unease concerning the case, Maisie wondered about the commission from James Compton. Was it his mother, Lady Rowan Compton, original supporter and sponsor of her education, who had suggested he contact her regarding this latest purchase of land? Fiercely independent, Maisie had long been both heartened and uncomfortable with the former suffragette’s patronage. Certainly the gulf between their respective stations contributed to her feelings, although people were generally pressed to place Maisie when it came to conversation, for she was more often taken for a clergyman’s daughter than for the offspring of a Lambeth costermonger. But Frankie Dobbs no longer sold vegetables from his horse-drawn barrow. Instead, he had lived at Chelstone since the war, when Lady Rowan’s grooms enlisted and he was brought in to tend the horses, a job that was still his, along with a tied cottage.

Maisie decided simply to get on with the work, rather than troubling herself with considerations of its origin. She pressed on with her notes, disturbed only when the black telephone on her desk began to ring. At first, she looked at the instrument without answering, wondering who might be calling; after all, most people still sent letters, postcards and telegrams with their news, requests and demands. She reached for the receiver.

“Fitzroy five—”

“Oh, Lord, Maisie, I don’t need you to recite the number, I’ve just bloody dialled the thing.”

“Priscilla! Where are you?” Maisie stood up to speak to her old friend.

“I’m in London, having finally settled—and I use that word loosely—my three toads into their new school. We thought long and hard about it, Maisie, and we’re still wondering if we’ve done the right thing—they’ve had such a wild sort of life in Biarritz. But they do need a bit of discipline, or heaven knows what sort of men they’ll become. And having just had a long meeting with the headmaster—my dear eldest has already been in a scrap, coming to the defence of his brother—I am sorely in need of a gin and tonic. Care to join me? I’m at the Dorchester.”

“The Dorchester?”

“Yes, it’s my new quest, to try each new London hotel in turn. This one has been open for six months and is quite spectacular—a telephone in every room, no less. I might well cease my exploration here and now. I’m quite enjoying this, a perfect way to end a day during which I’ve had to bang heads together. Not literally, you understand, though if I’d had five minutes with them on their own….”

Maisie looked at her watch. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I just have to complete a couple of tasks here at the office, and I must nip home and change. Shall I see you at half-past six?”

“Lovely. You do that and I’ll go and complete the task of languishing in a hot bath to ward off the desire for a slug of mother’s ruin.”

“See you then.”

Maisie hurriedly finished her work and was about to leave the office when a postcard arrived via special delivery. It was from Billy.

Dear Miss,

You must come to the farm. Urgent.

Telephone you Tuesday from the kiosk up the road. Eight.

Billy.

Maisie tapped the card against the palm of her left hand. It’s Tuesday today. She looked at her watch. An hour or so with Priscilla would be plenty of time for them to catch up with their news, so she could easily return to the office in time for the telephone call. She knew Billy well enough to understand that he would not be sending such a card unless the situation really was urgent. And according to the map supplied by James Compton, the telephone kiosk was a fair walk from the farm, closer to the next village, and could hardly be described as just up the road. Indeed, it would be a fair jaunt at the end of a hard working day.

WHENEVER MAISIE WENT anywhere to meet Priscilla, she only had to find a knot of people to locate her friend’s exact whereabouts. It wasn’t that Priscilla invited conversation, or even knew those around her, but people gravitated toward her, perhaps standing close while speaking with a colleague or waiting for a guest. This evening was no exception, with Priscilla seated in the bar sipping a cocktail and a clutch of guests close to her, each one stealing an occasional glance in her direction.

Priscilla was wearing evening dress, a garment possibly more suited to an al fresco dinner at her home in France. A cream tunic with a wide sash at the hip drew attention to her fashionably tanned skin, and wide navy blue silk trousers with turned-up cuffs enhanced a slender figure. She wore navy shoes of the softest leather and a long white scarf edged with navy around her neck. Though the late summer weather supported lighter clothing, Priscilla was the only guest who would have looked at home on a ship in tropical climes.

“Good Lord, Maisie, darling, you look like Christmas. I don’t think I have ever seen you in a colour—well, not unless it’s something I’ve insisted you wear. A red dress? I must say, it rather suits you.” She was effusive in her affection for Maisie, whom she loved dearly, and was loved in return, though such regard did not prevent Priscilla from giving advice without her counsel being sought. “Now all you need is a black hat with a red band, some daring red shoes, and—if I were you—a black belt to enhance your waist. Waists, Maisie, are coming back in, despite what you see before you.”

Maisie rolled her eyes. “I suit myself, Pris. It’s so lovely to see you. Please don’t start trying to sort out my wardrobe.”

“What wardrobe? I don’t know how you manage with such a meagre collection. By the way, did you dye that yourself?”

Maisie blushed. “Frankly, I couldn’t justify a new dress, so, yes, I simply dyed an old one—I’ve learned how to do it.”

“Hmmm, thought I’d seen that cut before. You’ve made a good job of it, you know.”

A waiter approached and Maisie requested a cream sherry, while Priscilla ordered another gin and tonic.

“Tell me about the boys. Which school did you settle on? In your last letter, you said it was St. Anselm’s—did you change your mind?”

“No, I didn’t change my mind, but I may yet. We’ll have to see how they get on.” She sipped her cocktail and shook her head as she placed her glass on the low table alongside them. “Three boys—triple trouble. Mind you, I’d take those toads over three girls any day. My parents had three boys, and one girl, and they always said I caused more angst than my brothers put together.”

Maisie smiled. There was a time when Priscilla could not speak of her brothers, for they were all lost to the Great War. Priscilla, like Maisie, had also served, though she had been an ambulance driver. That role, along with her loss, had marked her for years.

“As you know, we—Douglas and I both—dragged our feet when it came to the boys’ education. They’ve been so happy in Biarritz; you saw yourself. School in the morning and the beach in the afternoon. It made for all manner of adventures and more than a little freedom. Of course, they mind their manners and can be perfect gentlemen, but any academic or intellectual gifts they may be harbouring are definitely still hidden.” She reached for her drink again, swirling a single cube of ice around in the cool liquid without lifting the glass to her lips. “Part of it was me wanting them to have the education and upbringing that my brothers had. You know, the rough-and-tumble world of little men, coming home to the country at weekends, lots of friends over for big old-fashioned bread-and-jam nursery teas. But since last week’s little fiasco—”

“What happened?”

Priscilla sighed. “They are very much the new boys. Plus, even though they live with two rather English parents and a Welsh nanny—yes, we still have Elinor, though she’s in Brecon with her family at the moment—they do have these quasi-French accents, and they are apt to speak in French when they’re telling each other secrets, as if they have their own exclusive club. Needless to say, this hasn’t gone down terribly well with the other boys, and there’s been more than a bit of bullying.” She paused to sip her drink. “Now, I’ll concede that having to chart the waters of ill feeling can be character building; however, there’s a limit. Tarquin Patrick was subjected to a pasting after shooting to the top of the class in French conversation. He was pushed, he ignored it, pushed again, ignored it, then once more, at which point he blacked the other boy’s eye—his left hook comes courtesy of some behind-the-scenes training from Elinor’s ex, a Basque stevedore and occasional pugilist. Three of the tykes had pounced on him, calling him a filthy frog, a yellow-bellied Frenchie, when along came Timothy Peter, who is equally gifted thanks to the Basque chappie. On the one hand, just as well—big brothers can be handy when you’re being beaten—on the other, three boys are now in the sick bay, one with a broken snout.”

Maisie nodded. She had come to know the boys well and was always so touched when she heard Priscilla call her boys by both their first and middle names, for each son was also named for one of her brothers. But she was alarmed at the nature of their exploits.

“What will you do?”

“I’m not sure yet. Douglas is in the process of closing the villa but will be coming back to Evernden Place as soon as he can—we’ve opened up the old house. I’ve been so terribly excited at the thought of seeing the boys romping across the meadows, building tree forts, and generally getting up to the sort of adventures that my brothers and I embarked upon that this has put a pall on my enthusiasm, and things aren’t looking terribly promising. How can children be so beastly?”

“People are often threatened by the unfamiliar, Priscilla, and children are no exception. As you said, they are little men. The fact that Tarquin did not immediately rush to defend himself—the expected response—inflamed the situation. Mind you, subsequent events might have elevated your sons’ position now. Fisticuffs are a universally accepted path to schoolroom power, I’m sorry to say.” Maisie was aware that she lacked experience in the bringing up of children, so her comments were drawn from an understanding of what it was to be different, treated with suspicion, and regarded with unease, due as much to her work as to her background.

Priscilla looked at Maisie again. “Actually, while I’m on the boil here, there’s something else I wanted to talk about too—and not to do with the boys. It’s to do with you.”

“Me? Whatever are you talking about?” Maisie noticed the change in her friend’s demeanor, a squaring of the shoulders, a slight leaning back, as if she was both preparing to break bad news and trying to draw herself apart from the outcome.

“I made a few telephone calls to various friends before coming down to the bar. One of those friends was Margaret Lynch.”

Maisie pressed her lips together and found herself mirroring Priscilla’s position. Yes, Priscilla needed to garner strength to broach the subject with me, thought Maisie, as much as I need backbone to hear what she has to say. The Honourable Margaret Lynch was the mother of her beloved Simon, who had been in a special clinic in Richmond since the war, his mind no more than an empty shell following an attack on the casualty clearing station where they had been working together. Maisie was wounded alongside him, though one of her scars was hidden by her hair. The others, no longer aching and livid, remained incarcerated in her soul.

“Mrs. Lynch?”

“She wants to see you. You’ve managed to avoid seeing her for years—and she you. It was all too much for you both to bear, wasn’t it? But I think it’s her age now, and …”

“And what?”

“Simon is failing. God only knows what’s kept him alive since the war. But now the doctors are seeing changes for the first time in eons, and they think it’s only a matter of time.”

“Oh … I … Priscilla, I only saw him two weeks ago. Nothing had changed; I looked at him carefully. I was a nurse…. I saw nothing to suggest—”

“That was two weeks ago.” She reached out and took her friend’s hands in her own. “I realise you think me light, Maisie, but hear what I have to say: You can’t hold on forever. Yes, I know you didn’t visit for a long, long time—Margaret understands completely—but you’ve gone to the hospital religiously for two years now, to see a man who neither recognises you nor with whom you can have a conversation. A man who is not alive, except to breathe and take food—just.” She rubbed Maisie’s hands as she spoke. “See Margaret soon, Maisie. She doesn’t think ill of you, you know. I concede you are usually the clever one who understands what people are really thinking, but I’m not above the odd bit of empathy myself. She needs to know someone who loves her son as much as she loves him herself. You were the last person to speak to him before he was lost to us all. You are the connection between Simon then and now. Simply being in contact with you will help her—help you both—to weather his passing.”

“His passing? Priscilla, I—”

“Maisie. Look at me. He’s dying. There’s no clean or kind way to say it. Simon is dying. His father is dead; his mother is alone. You are the only other person who visits, and you have burned a torch for him since the evening you met, even though you have courted other men. And much as she might have wanted better—” Priscilla closed her eyes for just a second and then began to plead. “I … oh, God, I didn’t mean to say that, Maisie. I know how that must have sounded. What I meant was—”

But Maisie was already on her feet, her stance made more bold by the red dress and her dark eyes as she looked down at Priscilla, who remained seated. “She accepted me into her house because it was wartime. She was kind, courteous, but don’t you think I knew that at any other time my background would have been a point of contention in the family? What would have happened at war’s end, eh, Priscilla? I could never accept Simon’s proposal because I couldn’t see a future.” She took a breath. “Not only because I knew in my heart that something terrible would happen, but because I could feel her dissent, though her words indicated acceptance.” Maisie gathered up her coat. “I will write to Mrs. Lynch, Priscilla. And I will go to the hospital as soon as I can. But I am under no illusions as to what was said about me behind my back years ago.”

Maisie turned and left the hotel. Priscilla ordered another drink, holding the cool glass to the side of her forehead as she bit her lip and wished she had said nothing. It was unlike Maisie to be so hot-tempered, unlike her to reveal an emotion. She considered her friend’s outburst and thought that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing, though she hoped they would be reconciled soon. “Definitely touched a nerve there,” she said to herself, as she placed her glass on the table, gathered her clutch bag, and made her way to her room.

Later, wearing a long silk robe, she sat by the window looking out onto Park Lane, and it occurred to her that she should have known something had changed. After all, that red dress was a dead giveaway. And another thing: When Maisie said that she couldn’t see a future, that she knew something terrible would happen, she had lifted her hand but did not touch her eye, as one might expect if one were to predict a reflex action. Instead, Maisie touched the middle of her forehead.

UPON RETURNING TO the office, Maisie threw her coat across her desk, dragged a cushion from the one armchair, pulled her dress up above her knees, and sat cross-legged on the floor. Calm down, calm down, calm…. She repeated the mantra over and over again. She was appalled at herself, disgusted by her outburst. She might occasionally speak stridently where her work was concerned, and of course there was the argument with Maurice last year, but she had never, ever, taken a comment with such passion. Clearly Priscilla did not mean to insult her. Her friend’s confidence in their friendship allowed her to speak honestly, though she knew her error and apologised immediately. Why did she affect me so? Maisie breathed deeply, keen to compose herself before taking Billy’s telephone call.

As if on cue, the telephone rang. Maisie came to her feet, brushed down her dress, and reached for the receiver.

“Billy?”

“That you, Miss?” The line crackled.

“Of course it’s me.”

“Sorry, only you didn’t say the number—took me by surprise, it did.”

“What’s happening?”

“I wish I could tell you all of it, but the cat’s been put among the pigeons down ’ere, and if this goes on—”

“If what goes on?”

“Two lads from Shoreditch—’op pickers—’ave been nicked for burglary and vandalism up at the big house on the estate. They say they were just outside the gates trying to get at conkers to get a game going, but there were broken windows and some silver’s missing so they’ve been taken into custody. All the Londoners are up in arms about it, Mr. Dickon just wants the ’ops picked, and everyone reckons it was them bleedin’ gypsies what done it, which don’t make it easy for me and Doreen.”

“I’m not following you.”