To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(67)
The young woman shrugged. “I dunno.” Another glance at her watch. Another sip of tea and bite of the sandwich.
“What do you know about a man named Jimmy Robertson.”
Her color heightened, Joe Coombes’ sister picked up her cup again, and took another sip. She lifted her wrist to look at her watch.
“I only know what’s in the papers—if that’s the Jimmy Robertson you mean. From the Robertson family.” She set down the cup. “I’ve got to get back now—my supervisor will be after me if I’m late.”
“I’ll walk with you. I’ve a couple more things you can help me with.”
“All right. If you want.”
They emerged from the coffee shop and, almost by instinct, both looked up at the barrage balloon floating above their heads.
“I don’t think them things are going to stop old Hitler, do you?” said Coombes.
“Fortunately, there’s the air force, the army and the navy between him and us,” said Maisie.
“Not much army and they’re keeping back the air force because they’ll need every man they’ve got up there when the invasion starts—you should have my job, you’d know what’s going on.”
“Yes, I suppose I would.” The two women fell into step toward the Faraday Buildings. Maisie took the opportunity to ask another question. “You must hear quite a lot, and you have a weight of information on your shoulders that you have to keep secret. It can’t be easy, can it?”
“You just have to forget it and connect the next call. I’m on the government exchanges, and I’m younger than others in my room, so I have to do as well or better than them. Or I’ll be back connecting women crying about their husbands to their sisters.”
“I’m sure you must be privy to some quite emotional revelations. Oh, and of course here you’re not far from the Bank of England too—I expect those calls come through your exchange, money being so important to the country, to the government.”
“We get all sorts of calls, like I said.”
They had reached the entrance to the Faraday Buildings. Maisie looked up at the structure, and then at Vivian Coombes.
“You’ve done well to secure a good position here, Vivian.”
“I had to work for it, Miss Dobbs. The civil service exams, memorizing exchanges, learning correct enunciation, all that sort of thing—and then you have to be tall. They only take you if you’re over five feet six, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to reach the top jacks on the board.” She looked at the top of Maisie’s head, as if to assess her height. “You’d be all right for this job, being as you’re tall too.”
Maisie smiled. “Perhaps we can talk again, Vivian—you probably know so much about Joe that would be helpful, and I know it’s difficult to discuss it because the shock of his death is still very raw.”
Coombes’ eyes filled with tears. “I just never thought it would come to this, that’s all.”
“What do you mean, Vivian? That it would never come to what?”
She shrugged, composing herself. “That it would never come to it that Joe would be the first of us to go. That’s all. Because he was the youngest. He shouldn’t have been first. Now then—I’ve got to get back to work. Bye.”
Maisie watched the telephonist vanish into a snake of young women making their way back through the sandbagged entrance to the Faraday Buildings. Returning to a place where they were sworn to keep all manner of secrets—between husbands and wives, between lovers, government departments, long-lost friends. And even, she thought, secrets concerning the movement of money.
It was as Maisie walked away, toward the underground station, that she realized she had forgotten to impart an important piece of information to Vivian Coombes. She would have liked to let her know that young Private Billy Beale was home safe from the shores of Dunkirk. But perhaps it was best she hadn’t. For as they’d walked away from the coffee house, along streets flanked by sandbagged buildings, Maisie had taken a moment to mirror the way Vivian Coombes carried herself. So much was revealed in the way a person walked—and it was a simple technique, a means of understanding something of a person without their knowledge. But it was important to be distinct in the interpretation. By the time she made her way through the turnstiles at the underground station, Maisie was wondering how best to describe the waves of fear and regret she felt emanating from Vivian Coombes as she walked alongside her.
“Billy, look at this,” said Maisie, pointing to the case map. She had been back in the office for only twenty minutes when Billy came in, his footfall heavy on the stairs before he entered.
“Aren’t you even going to ask where I’ve been?” said Billy. “Any other employer would.”
“I know where you’ve been, Billy—your son is at home now, probably on a few days’ leave before he has to report for duty again, and you wanted to see a bit more of him.”
“He says I’m the only one he can talk to, that he can’t talk to his mum about it, or his brother. And he definitely can’t talk to his little sister—won’t even let her near him when she wants to give him a cuddle to make it all better. That’s what she keeps saying. ‘Let’s make Billy all better, Daddy.’”