To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(24)
“I’ve already sent a motor car to take you down there. Save your coupons—we’ve got plenty. For now, anyway. By the time you’ve had your toast and marmalade, the motor will be outside your door. Murphy is waiting for you in Basingstoke. All right?”
“Yes. Of course,” said Maisie, rubbing the scar on her neck. “Poor Joe.”
“Poor Joe? He’s out of it now. It’s his poor mum and dad, that’s what’s poor. And you and I should have a chin-wag—the Yard’s involved, which means me—and we both know I don’t exactly have a lot of minutes in the day to spare, not with being short on staff. Never thought I’d see the day when I missed Able—but my able assistant Able is now Able Seaman Able—left just after that business with the Belgian refugees last year. Apparently he’s been posted to HMS Keith. Name like his, I bet he takes a lot of ribbing.”
Maisie sighed, remembering the polite detective constable and the stoic manner with which he tolerated Caldwell’s insistent jokes about his name—and not very funny jokes, in her estimation. “You didn’t exactly give him an easy time. I would bet he wins the respect of his fellow men—you wait and see.”
“And I am sure I will—wait, that is. Right—when you’re finished in Basingstoke, the motor car will bring you back to London and we can go together to see the parents. No good me bothering them before that, just in case it’s not him. I’ll get you a travel warrant to come back to Kent, so you don’t have to pay.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
“Oh, and Your Ladyship—I take it your little investigation will be coming to an end now.”
“I’m sorry, Inspector, there’s some interference on the line—I can’t hear you very well. Hello? Hello? I’ll expect the motor car in a short while then. Goodbye.” She heard Caldwell offer a muffled expletive as she returned the receiver to its cradle.
The journey to Basingstoke offered an opportunity to think about Joe Coombes—and more importantly, the precious little she had uncovered thus far. She knew that in such circumstances it was all too easy to assign importance to discoveries that were insignificant. But at the same time, every stone was worthy of a turn. And if there was nothing untoward in Joe’s death—if indeed she was able to make a positive identification—why had she been followed from Whitchurch to Tunbridge Wells? For there was no doubt in her mind that the black motor car had been on her tail since she left Hampshire and might well have followed her from London. But was the driver interested due to her questioning of Joe’s whereabouts? Or was it in connection with Billy’s visit to Yates’ yard? Then another thought came back to her—might the man following her have been a spy?
The police driver said little to Maisie, apart from the occasional inquiry as to whether she might require a break, a “refreshment stop” perhaps. But there was something about the journey that reminded her of her flight from Gibraltar into Spain, when she traveled alone with the driver who ferried her to the makeshift field hospital where she became a nurse once again. She felt the weight of remembrance bear down upon her as she recalled the young men—and sometimes women—who were brought to the former convent, often under cover of darkness, to have their injuries tended. In those days she became both doctor and nurse, and she saw, again, the wounds of battle. Joe with his headaches was now a victim of a new war. And who would be the other new victims? Yet still there would be the Tims of the world—aching to get to where the action might be, desperate to prove themselves.
She remembered, then, a saying that someone had quoted to her once. Was it her father? It certainly wasn’t Maurice, because she had heard it spoken by a Yorkshireman, someone from northern England, of that she was sure. Where there’s muck, there’s brass. That was it. Was it Joseph Waite, the self-made man who had hired her to find his daughter, years ago? It had been one of her first cases after Maurice retired. Yes, perhaps it was him. Where there’s muck, there’s brass. A simple line, an aphorism that seemed to suggest the selling of manure. But it had a meaning that went so much deeper, alluding to the fact that where you find filth—where you find dirt; where you find the detritus of life—you’ll also discover someone making a profit. Much money can be made from the most dirty jobs. Muck and money go together. That was another one. And it occurred to her that in her lifetime she had seen nothing more filthy than war itself.
“Oh, you’re in the money then!” Lord Julian had said during their telephone conversation. It was a quip, a joke. But two things now came to mind. One, Joe Coombes was working in close proximity to the country’s source of wealth, and secondly, that Yates had accepted a lucrative contract that was potentially harmful to his workers. It wouldn’t be the first time she had seen the hardest working people become enmeshed in a web not of their making.
There’s a reason they call it filthy lucre, Maisie. Maurice’s words, spoken in the early days of her own apprenticeship, echoed in her mind. It was almost as if he were by her side, pushing, testing, guiding her.
Detective Chief Inspector “Spud” Murphy was a jovial man, and—Maisie thought—seemed as if he would be more suited to life as a village butcher. She could imagine him wearing a white cotton coat, a blue-striped apron and a straw boater, his drooping jowls held in place by a starched white collar and blue bow tie. Yet at the same time, it was clear, once he had introduced himself, that Murphy was efficient and businesslike—and she could not envision him wielding a cleaver.