A Lesson in Secrets (9 page)

“Oh, I don’t know, Miss, it’s all very nice, but—”

“Billy, it’s got an indoor lav, look at this!” Doreen’s growing excitement was evident in her voice.

“Hold on, love, what I’m trying to say is this, that—”

“And three bedrooms,” added Doreen. “A garden for the boys. And I think we’d rather pay rent to Miss Dobbs than that rotten bloke who—”

Maisie interjected. “And if—when—you want to go to Canada, you won’t be tied to the house. But if . . . if you decide not to go, for any reason, we can talk about the arrangements again, because you’ll have paid money into the house and I would like you to see a return on it. So, all things being equal, it’s a plan that works for both of us—I can invest my money, and you can move with no concerns about a higher rent, or being tied. It’s an easy ride into Charing Cross on the train, or there’s the bus, according to the man I spoke to this afternoon.”

“Miss, this is all very well, but—”

At once, and with soapsuds covering her hands and forearms, Billy’s mother turned to the trio, focusing her attention on Billy.

“Here I am, doing a sinkful of bedclothes—for the second time today—that will go out on that line and be black as soot by the time they come in again; your boys have always got snotty noses, your wife is fit to pop, you’re working yourself silly doing two jobs, and you’ve got the cheek to sit there and say, ‘This is all very well.’ I don’t know where you’ve had your head, Billy Beale, but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not very well—not very well by a long chalk. Miss Dobbs has come here and made you an offer that even to my uneducated mind sounds like a dream come true, and you want to turn it down in case your Canada boat comes in. You’ve got a nerve, son.” She turned away, muttering under her breath, her wet, reddened hands dragging a scrubbing brush back and forth across a sheet laid out on the draining board.

Billy shrugged; his face reddened. “I reckon we can look tomorrow.” He turned to his wife. “You feel up to it, going down there on the train?”

“It’s hardly Brighton, Billy—it’s not that far.” Doreen rubbed her swollen belly and turned to Maisie, her smile more open than it had been for months. “I want to see this house. And thank you, Miss Dobbs, for thinking of us—you know, before you went out and talked to anyone else, or put it up for rent in the paper.”

Billy accompanied Maisie to the door. She turned to him before leaving.

“Two jobs, Billy?”

“I was going to talk to you about it, really I was.”

“You can talk to me about it another time, Billy. In the meantime, get a good night’s sleep and I’ll meet you and Doreen—and your mum—at the building office in Eltham.” She pressed a few coins into his hand. “And don’t let Doreen walk any farther than she has to—here’s a bit of bonus money for the taxi.”

“What bonus money?”

“For listening to your mother.”

A
letter from James Compton was among those waiting for Maisie at the flat, and as she opened the envelope, she took care not to damage the Canadian stamp—Billy’s sons might like it as a keepsake. In the letter James explained that he would be sailing for Southampton later than originally planned, and that it would be a couple of weeks before he arrived home. She read on, then slipped the letter back in the envelope to read again later. As she slid her fingernail under the edge of the stamp to peel it back, she noticed the franking was smudged, but not enough to hide the fact that the letter had been sent not from Toronto, but from London.

Chapter Seven

B
y Saturday afternoon, Maisie had returned to the building company’s office to sign the preliminary required letter of intent to purchase a house in Eltham with three bedrooms, one bathroom, one new-look “fitted” kitchen with an electric cooker, and French doors leading onto a small garden with a shed at the end of a narrow path. The front garden, the builder promised, would be finished with planted flower beds and a willow tree—in fact, on Willow Avenue, all the houses were to have front-garden willow trees as a “feature,” according to the builder’s pamphlet. The only drawback was the wait—the house would not be completed for another month, and with Doreen due to give birth at some point in October, Maisie hoped they would be situated in their new home in a timely fashion.

“And you’re sure it will be all right to rent only until we go to Canada, Miss?” said Billy. They were lingering in what would become the back garden, while his mother and Doreen remained in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors that were yet to be painted and had no fittings. The family had been lost for words upon entering the house, and when they stepped into the drawing room, Doreen had walked across to the broad bow window, looked out at her boys running around at the front of the property, and burst into tears.

“Yes, I’m sure, Billy,” replied Maisie. “This is a big step for both of us, but it’s your home for as long as you want to live here.”

Billy nodded and blushed, rubbing his hands together in a manner that revealed both his excitement and his nervousness. “This is good of you, Miss.”

“You’re a valuable employee, Billy, and if you’re constantly worried about your family, that doesn’t serve either of us. Anyway, it was time, and it’s a good place for my nest egg, too.”

Having settled the arrangements, Maisie could return to Cambridge, knowing that one concern was off her plate, for the moment. In the meantime, though, she just wanted to go back to the flat—to sit in the quiet of her own home, gather her thoughts, and make plans for her next move. True, she was not supposed to be directly involved in the search for Greville Liddicote’s murderer, but she did not see how she could separate one investigation from the other—though she was sure that she, MacFarlane, and Stratton would, at some point, be falling over one another’s feet in their quests to unearth the truth.

It was mid-afternoon when she arrived back at the block of flats in Pimlico, parking the MG close to the path that led from the street up to the front door. Her keys in hand, she made her way along the pavement, but at once felt a cold shiver across her neck. She had been wounded in the war when the casualty clearing station where she was working, close to the front, came under enemy fire. The resulting scar, which ran from her neck into her scalp, no longer ached as much as it once had; yet it came alive with her senses, and if it bothered her, she trusted that there was something to be bothered about.

A man was walking towards her, and she knew it was this pedestrian who had tweaked her senses. He seemed an ordinary man. His suit was neither new nor old; his shoes did not shine, though they were not dirty; and though he wore a clean shirt and a tie, the shirt was not as white as it could have been and the tie was of a color that was not quite black and not quite blue. His face was forgettable, and his hat looked as if it had been steamed over a boiling kettle many times to keep its shape. He was a man who would not be remembered by a passerby. As he approached Maisie he brought out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, opened the top, and without using his fingers, took one between his lips. He returned the packet of cigarettes to his pocket, then patted up and down his jacket as if searching for matches. He looked up at Maisie at the very point when they would have passed each other, and removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth to speak.

“Trouble you for a light, Miss?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I do not smoke, though you might try the gentleman opposite.”

“He doesn’t look like a smoker to me.”

“But sir, he has brown fingertips. Don’t all smokers have that stain?”

He nodded, looking down at the pavement as he made to walk on. They had each spoken their lines in a prearranged script, one of several she’d been tasked to memorize following her meeting with Huntley. The man who had asked for a light was now satisfied that she was the person he was looking for.

“Around the corner. Black motor.” The words were spoken without missing a beat. Then he was gone, pushing his hat back on his head as if it would help him find someone with a light for the cheap Woodbine he now held between two fingers.

Maisie stopped, then went back to the MG. She rummaged behind the front seat of the motor car as if she had forgotten something, locked the door again, and this time walked past the block of flats and around the corner, where a black motor car was parked, with engine idling. The passenger door opened as she walked alongside and she stepped in.

“A delight to see you, Miss Dobbs.” Brian Huntley turned to the driver and knocked on the glass partition. “Scenic tour, if you don’t mind, Archie.”

The driver, with his oversteamed hat back in place, pulled away from the curb and set off down the road. Huntley turned back to Maisie.

“Bring me up to date, Miss Dobbs. I’ve had a full report from Robbie about Liddicote’s murder—a spanner in the works, as far as we’re concerned, I must say—but I want to know what, if anything, you’ve observed thus far; and don’t worry, I appreciate you’ve only been on the job a week.”

Maisie gave Huntley an account of her first days at the college, then asked a question. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about the rumor that Greville Liddicote’s book caused a mutiny during the war?”

“Not important; the information wasn’t required, and it is not exactly true that there was a mutiny—perhaps some rumbling in the ranks, which is why the book’s sale was curtailed.”

“Dare I ask who curtailed it?”

Huntley shook his head. “Classified.”

“I see.” Maisie knew there was little point in pressing Huntley; this was not Scotland Yard, where she could wheedle a piece of information here, a nugget there. This was the Secret Service, and she knew that between walls there were more walls, and every door required a different key—a key held by someone, somewhere, she had never even heard of. And though her association with Huntley’s department was still in its infancy, she was gaining an impression that with so many walls, so many doors, and key holders who were not aware of—let alone able to speak to—one another, details could lie undisturbed for years.

Huntley nodded as she spoke, and it occurred to her that he must have worked quite closely with Maurice, perhaps more so than she’d previously thought, for he had some of her mentor’s distinctive gestures: the slight incline of his head as he listened, or the habit of closing his eyes when she spoke, as if to bring forth an image of a person or situation she was describing. It made her aware, for the first time, that she, too, had probably absorbed much more of Maurice than she had imagined. She knew she had a habit of leaning her head to one side—just a little—when she replied to a difficult question, or when a thought occurred to her that she had yet to give voice to. She wondered how much of himself Maurice had seen in her.

“Robbie has informed me that you will be playing little or no part in the investigation into Liddicote’s death. However, I know you will find it difficult to draw back from the inquiry. Though your work is part of a joint investigation between Special Branch and ourselves, and I have asked you to effectively keep MacFarlane apprised of your progress, do remember that in the first instance, your allegiance is to my department—and if that means keeping an eye on Robbie MacFarlane and his men, then so be it.”

“I can envisage some conflict—”

“Then deal with it in a manner that befits your role.” Huntley turned to Maisie. “This may seem as if it is a light case—a college in Cambridge, a group of eccentric teachers with pacifist leanings—but there are troubling undercurrents in our institutions of tertiary education. Students from abroad, the political leanings of the new generation, and among them a fascination with what is happening in Russia—put that together in a place of ideas, and you have a highly volatile cauldron on hot coals.”

Maisie nodded. “Yes, that much is becoming evident. But what can you tell me about a debate among the Cambridge colleges?”

“That’s what you are there to tell us, Miss Dobbs. Debates are a part of university life—you know that from your days at Girton. And an intercollegiate debate would be an event of some proportion, and could be of interest to us—dependent upon the subject to be debated.”

“You should know that Greville Liddicote was against the idea of his college putting forward a team of students to enter a planned debate. And it was causing some friction with his deputy, Matthias Roth.”

“Oh, yes, the German.”

Maisie regarded Huntley for a second or two, then put another question to him. “Mr. Huntley, how much do you already know about the college? In my briefings, I was given to believe that your current information was limited, yet I feel as if I am giving you intelligence you already have to hand.”

Huntley replied without pause. “We have the sketch, Miss Dobbs. Your job is to uncover the masterpiece, so to speak. We could only go so far; you had the background to secure an academic post and work from within. We believe something is going on at that college, and we want to know exactly what it is. If it is simply a cover for bringing refugees—albeit wealthy young refugees—into the country, then that is one thing; but we believe there is more there than meets the eye. Consider no information too small or insignificant to report.”

At that point he opened the glass partition again. “You can double back now, Archie. Find a suitable point where Miss Dobbs can catch a bus to Pimlico.”

The driver nodded.

“Well, thank you for the consideration, Mr. Huntley. At least you didn’t ask me to walk the whole way.” Despite the comment, Maisie smiled as she left Huntley, and made her way back to the flat.

M
aisie spent Sunday preparing for the week ahead and hardly saw Sandra, who left after breakfast to visit her husband’s grave, a weekly pilgrimage of devotion. Maisie left the flat before Sandra emerged from her room on Monday morning, and was grateful for another trouble-free drive on the London–Cambridge road, a route which followed the old coach road, and was marked by ancient milestones at intervals along the way.

Arriving at the college mid-morning, Maisie was informed that an important formal announcement was to be made at noon, when students and staff would gather in the assembly hall—formerly a ballroom in the days when the property was still a private residence. Matthias Roth was to inform the assembly of Greville Liddicote’s passing, though she imagined there would be no mention made as to cause of death. Maisie’s first class was not until after lunch, so she went directly to the staff room, where refreshments were being served. As she waited in line for coffee behind other members of staff—she was becoming accustomed to the bitter brew—she learned another snippet of news: Rosemary Linden had departed the college without notice, leaving only a list of tasks completed and instructions regarding the efficient execution of her duties. Her stated reason—in a brief note penned in her precise copperplate hand, according to staff-room gossip—was that she did not wish to work at the college without Dr. Liddicote at the helm.

Maisie took a cup of coffee and made her way over to speak to Francesca Thomas, who was seated in an armchair, making notes in red pencil on a student’s heavily fingered assignment. She held her coffee cup in her right hand and wrote with her left.

“Dr. Thomas, may I join you?”

“Ah, Miss Dobbs. Of course, do join me.” She cleared a stack of papers from the chair next to hers. “There you are. Did you have a restful break from college?”

“Yes, I returned to London. You?”

“Oh, I seldom venture out of Cambridge. I rent a flat in town, just a small bed-sitting-room really. And I belong to a choir, so there is usually a practice to attend. There is always something to do in the city.”

“Yes, I was here as a student—well, you know that, from my interview here.”

“Indeed.”

“It’s a shame about Miss Linden leaving—and quite suddenly. She seemed so efficient, I cannot imagine her just going off without a by-your-leave.”

Thomas shrugged. “She was young, and of course she was the one who discovered Greville—a lot for her to deal with, I think.”

“Do you know where she lived?”

“I believe she came from Suffolk. She was a country girl who had come to Cambridge for some town life, I would imagine. But of course, the academic world is more insular than it might first appear, and if you are not a student at one of the colleges here, you are considered ‘town’ rather than ‘gown’—and never the twain shall meet.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.” Maisie changed tack. “The college must be very different for you, coming from a larger university.”

Thomas smiled. It was not a broad smile, not an expression that would welcome a long-lost friend, or accompany joy. Rather, it was measured, a smile of knowing as opposed to celebration. “I see you have discovered rather a lot about me, Miss Dobbs.”

Maisie was quick to respond. “I looked up the senior members of staff before I joined the college—it’s quite simple to find out—because I assumed I would be interviewed by a committee, and I decided to hazard a guess as to who would be on that committee. Knowing something about you and Dr. Roth helped me to anticipate some of your questions when we met in the library.”

“And you did very well, Miss Dobbs.” Thomas looked at her watch. “Ah, we should make our way down to the assembly hall. Roth is due to speak from on high.”

Maisie gathered her briefcase and books, and followed other members of staff down the oak staircase and along the corridor in the direction of the assembly hall. She did not acknowledge the sarcastic tone of Thomas’ last comment, though she noted the inflection in the woman’s voice when she referred to her colleague by his surname only, without the respect one might accord the man who was now principal.