To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(27)
Caldwell nodded, sighing. “Offer you a lift, Miss Dobbs?”
“I think I’ll go to my office, and then get a taxicab home. I have some work to do.”
Caldwell stopped alongside the dark blue motor car parked next to the pub, where the doors were still locked and a Closed sign remained in place. A police driver held the vehicle’s door open, ready for his superior to step inside. The detective inspector turned to Maisie.
“I won’t stop you, you know—investigating the death of Joe Coombes. Just keep in touch and I’ll do the same for you. I reckon you might have more luck than me—I’ve a lot on my plate, and the results of the postmortem are what they call ‘inconclusive,’ so I daresay the coroner will report this one as ‘death by misadventure’ because murder can’t be proven and for all the world it looks like a risky jump on the part of the deceased, who launched himself off a wall the height of a building just for the sheer thrill and high jinks of it.”
“But we know that high jinks is not something someone does alone—even a boy of that age. Joe wasn’t that sort of person anyway.”
“And there’s them who would say that any lad of fifteen or sixteen is a high jinks sort of person.” Caldwell touched the brim of his hat and turned to step inside the vehicle. “I’ll send a motor car around in an hour to take you home—you’ll never get a cab in the blackout. Be in touch, Miss Dobbs—and watch your back. I don’t like this one.”
Maisie raised her hand as the motor car pulled away from the curb, and commenced walking toward her office in Fitzroy Square. It was dark now, so she switched on the light before running up the stairs, then turned it off as she placed her key in the lock—the last thing she wanted was an ARP man admonishing her for breaking the blackout. She could hear music coming from the top floor—having once been servants’ quarters in the days when the mansion had been a private home, the upper floor had been divided into separate bed-sitting rooms, and were let to students from the Slade art institute. There was no noise from the flats during the day, but at night there was often a gramophone playing, or the sound of voices—and sometimes even “high jinks.”
She had not intended to remain in the office long, but she was grateful to Caldwell and his offer of a vehicle to take her home. She unlocked the door and felt her way to the windows to draw the blackout curtains before stepping through to her private office, where she again drew the blackout curtains, and turned on her desk light.
Sandra had left a few messages for her on top of a leather-bound blotting paper book that held a letter to be signed between each leaf. Maisie flicked through the messages, stopping at one in particular. She drew the light down to read.
A woman named Sylvia Preston telephoned, and said she was with the WAAF in Hampshire—apparently she had telephoned the office a couple of times, but there was no answer, so I didn’t speak to her until she tried again on Wednesday afternoon. She says she had been a lodger in the same house as Joe Coombes until he left recently—though she added that she has been sent to a new billet now. She explained that she overheard your conversation with the landlady, and she thought she should telephone, as she would like to speak to you personally. The landlady had left your card on the hall table, so she was able to obtain your telephone number. She is stationed at one of the airfields, but would not say which one. It’s very difficult for her to place a call to you given her hours, however, she said she could wait at the telephone kiosk in Whitchurch on Sunday evening at seven o’clock.
A number was inscribed below the message.
Maisie walked across to the window, and fingered back the curtain just enough to look down through the grainy darkness onto the yard at the back. A sliver of light from the occupant’s not-quite-closed blackout curtains illuminated the fact that nature had finally yielded to the attention of a committed tenant. She could discern the outline of a series of terra-cotta pots holding geraniums, pelargoniums and hydrangeas, and since war had been declared, the tenant had begun to grow vegetables in a series of wooden boxes. It reminded Maisie that she should have done the same and started her own vegetable garden. As an island, Britain depended in part upon its merchant navy to keep the larders stocked, and that merchant navy was now at risk from U-boat attack—the people of Britain understood only too well that men were risking their lives to put food on their tables. In the newspapers and on posters, it had been made clear that if everyone took responsibility for growing some vegetables, it would help keep families fed over the long haul of war.
She admonished herself for not calling earlier to speak to Sandra. Indeed, it was likely that Sandra had telephoned Chelstone to recount the messages, but had missed her. She sighed with frustration—she could have learned something important from Sylvia Preston—why else would the WAAF have made the effort to contact her? Turning away from the window, Maisie ensured the curtains met with no room for light to escape. She knew she would feel a greater control if she worked on a case map—it would give her direction and insight.
Joe Coombes deserved an advocate, someone who would speak for him, someone who would seek out the source of his ill health, and ultimately, his death, so she set to work, taking a length of wallpaper from a basket in the corner. Billy’s friend, a painter and decorator, furnished them with the ends of rolls used in his job, and they had proven perfect for the job. It was as Maisie laid out the paper—patterned side down—on the long table set perpendicular to her desk, that it occurred to her—painter and decorator. What was Billy’s friend’s name? She stepped across to her desk and reached for the telephone. No, Billy would not be at home. But he might walk into Whitchurch to place a call to his younger son, just to check up on him. She began to dial. The telephone rang and when a voice came on the line, for a moment Maisie did not know what to say, for Bobby Beale sounded just like his father.