To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(56)
Wickham looked away. “Well, I would be, wouldn’t I. My mate’s little brother, dead because no one was looking after him.”
“What do you mean, Teddy? I thought the men he worked with were keeping an eye on him.”
“Well, they weren’t sharp enough, were they? Didn’t stop him ending up dead, did they?”
“Perhaps they didn’t know what he was up to,” said Maisie, her tone remaining modulated.
Wickham looked up at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to get back, Miss . . . Miss Dobbs. Got a shipment coming in, big one—everything from parts for vehicles, parts for aeroplanes, medical supplies, all that sort of thing, right down to tea and Bovril—and I’ve got to check it all through on the ledgers.”
Maisie said nothing, maintaining her gaze upon him so that, when he looked up, he found himself staring straight into her eyes.
“What?” he said.
“What are you afraid to tell me, Teddy?”
The young man shook his head, stood up and moved the chair back to its place behind the desk. He stood as if to attention in front of Maisie, and saluted before opening the door. Maisie heard his stride along a corridor, then a door opening, and as she left the room to greet the guard, she glanced out of a window and saw Wickham walking at speed toward an aircraft hangar, his hands curled into fists by his side.
“This way, ma’am,” said the guard, one hand steadying the rifle slung over his shoulder.
When they reached the motor car, the guard opened the door for Maisie to take her seat. He closed the door behind her and stood to watch as she maneuvered the Alvis around, and began to drive at the same low speed toward the exit. Another guard approached the barrier, lifting it for her to pass, then directed her across into a lay-by of sorts, and held up his hand for her to remain in place. He looked along the lane leading to the airfield, and beckoned a lorry forward, which—Maisie could see—was followed by three similar vehicles. The guard checked the papers handed to him by each driver, and as the lorries moved off, the engines roared and whined. Having secured the gate, the guard waved her forward and on her way.
A mile or so along the road she passed two more lorries, with boxes being loaded from one to the other. The first lorry was similar to those she had passed at the airfield, and the second bore the Yates’ company livery. There were no tins or barrels or anything that might contain paint to be seen.
Making her way back along country lanes, Maisie was thinking about Teddy Wickham, when she heard the low drone of aircraft approaching. She stopped the motor car next to a five-bar gate overlooking the green fields beyond, and stepped out. Leaning on the gate she looked up at the aeroplanes as they flew overhead—two Hurricanes and three Spitfires if she were not mistaken—toward the coast, and in all likelihood bound for France. And she remembered another time, at an airfield outside Munich just two years earlier, when she watched a young aviatrix, Elaine Otterburn, take off on a mission to save the life of a man valuable to Britain’s preparations for war, and her words as she had watched the aircraft disappear into the clouds: “God Speed.” Maisie whispered those same words again as the aircraft became specks in the distance.
The interview with Teddy Wickham troubled Maisie, not simply because she believed—indeed, she knew—that he had lied to her, but also for one other reason. As Teddy Wickham had left her he was fighting back tears. But were they tears of the bereaved? Tears of guilt? Or perhaps an expression of fear? She stopped at a bakery to buy a cheese roll, and then at a grocer’s where she bought a bottle of ginger beer, and considered her next move. She wanted to see Freddie and Len again, the two painters who were working with Joe, and who—as the senior men—were supposed to be training him in his job. In particular Freddie Mayes. Driving back into Whitchurch, she stopped at the telephone kiosk and placed a call to Yates’ yard. As soon as the singsong voice answered, she knew she was in luck.
“Yates Painting and Decorating, how may I help you?” The speaker’s tone seemed to begin on a low note and end on a high one.
“Hello—is this Miss Bright? Charlotte?”
There was a pause before the woman replied with a lowered voice. “That’s Miss Dobbs—I recognize your voice.”
“Charlotte, would you be able to give me some information please?”
“What sort of information?” Her voice was now little more than a whisper.
“Can you tell me where Freddie and Len are today? I’m in Hampshire and I’d like to see them.”
“Hmmm, let me see—just a minute.”
Maisie could hear the turning of pages, then Bright was back on the line. “Yes, I thought so. They moved on from that last airfield, and they’re now at another place. RAF Templeton. Nearer the coast it is—have you got a map?”
“Yes, I have, and I’ve also a list of the RAF stations, so I have everything I need. Is everything all right, Charlotte?”
“Mike Yates gave me my cards this morning—said that seeing as I was leaving anyway, I might as well be gone sooner rather than later, especially as he had another girl coming from the labor exchange with better qualifications than me. Made a point of telling me she was ‘brighter’ than me. I hate that man—and I’d like to know what someone with so-called better qualifications is doing coming here.”