Pardonable Lie (12 page)

“So, you say that a person ran toward the curb, as if they weren’t going to stop, so you took avoiding action—and the person just vanished?”

“Yes.”

“And, just so I have it here in your words, what was your avoiding action?”

“Well, I swerved to miss him….” Maisie frowned. “Yes,
him
.”

“So the person who walked out in front of you was a man?”

Maisie faltered.

“I think she’s concussed, poor girl. Been knocked silly.” A woman among the group of onlookers voiced an opinion.

“Please, madam, if you don’t mind.” The police constable moved toward the group, whereupon a police vehicle arrived followed by another motor car with a
DOCTOR
sign placed on the dashboard. The constable looked around, nodded at his comrades as they alighted from the motor car, and proceeded to speak again to the crowd. “Now then, now then, move back, go on with your shopping, ladies, there’s nothing to see here.”

“Well, it’s not a life-or-death case, just giving you a nasty headache, I expect.” The doctor examined the cut on Maisie’s head as she remained in the driver’s seat of the MG, then reached into his bag and began pulling out a tincture and dressings. “I’ve got some brand-new bandage here—it’s only been issued to certain hospitals and in small quantities, but I managed to get my hands on some—it’s got sticky stuff on one side so there’s no need for pins and a swathe of gauze around your head. I’ll be able to give you a nice neat dressing. Don’t get it wet and mind how you take it off, though.” The doctor spoke while attending to the wound, pulling out the brand-new bandage, measuring a short length, then placing it over a square of lint.

“I’ll be able to take care of it. I was a nurse.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll have to double-underline the rest prescription! We’ll get the police here to take you home now. You’re to go to bed for a good twenty-four hours and see your usual doctor tomorrow.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to get to my office.”

The doctor looked at the MG, his forlorn countenance leaving a sick feeling in Maisie’s stomach. “Not in this, you won’t. No doubt the police will have it towed to wherever you want it taken.” He looked at Maisie intently. “You know, you’re very lucky to be alive. If you had hit another motor car or bus, or even the side of that building, it would have been curtains for you. Thank God there was nothing coming in the other direction—and at this time in the morning! No wonder the chappie who ran out in front of you made off. The blithering idiot!”

“You know, I really am all right, though my motor is…not.” Maisie felt a prickling at the corners of her eyes, and her head was still pounding. The MG was more than simply a motor car to her, it was her first big purchase as a business owner. And it represented so much.

The doctor stood up and peered over the crumpled bonnet. “You know, I’m not a mechanical man, but I think someone with a bit of know-how will be able to sort this out for you in no time. So you do as I say, be sure to see your doctor tomorrow, and all will be well. Now then, I’ll just talk to the constable here and ensure that they’ll be taking you back to your home.”

Maisie nodded and pressed her hands against her eyes. As if going back to the starting line at a race, she went through events leading up to the collision again, picturing almost every yard of the journey until the last image when she had gasped, quickly turned the wheel to avoid a disaster, and…. She knew the police would have questions about the person who caused her to swerve, the person who started this awful chain of events. Maisie pressed her fingers against the bandage again, willing her mind to work harder, to recover.

“Ready, miss? Let’s get you home then.”

Maisie stood up, allowing the police constable to support her. “No, take me to Fitzroy Square. Please. My office is there; my assistant will help me.”

“But, miss, the doctor said—”

“It’s all right. I know what I’m doing, constable. I was a nurse.” Maisie’s eyes filled with tears.
Yes, I was a nurse
.

“I
REALLY THINK
you should do what the doctor said, Miss, and take a bit of a rest. You never know with a bang on the ’ead.” Billy placed a mug of strong sweet tea in front of Maisie, who was sitting alongside his own chair at the table where they had pinned out the Ralph Lawton case map.

“I’ll be all right, Billy. Come this afternoon, I’ll be a lot better than the bruise around that gash might suggest. Thank heavens I had my hair cut and now have a fringe to cover it up.”

Billy doodled on the edge of the paper with a red pencil. “So, you say that this fella—if it was a fella—came from the station and sort of rushed at the curb as if to run out and then stopped, by which time you’d swerved.”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“And then the man—or woman, for that matter—just vanished? Into thin air. Like a ghost.”

“Yes.”

Billy pressed his lips together and glanced sideways at Maisie, but she looked up and caught his eye.

“I promise you, Billy, I know what I saw. If you doubt me, then put your cards on the table now!” Maisie scraped her chair back, stood up abruptly, and began to pace, looking at him all the time.

Billy turned, his elbow resting on the back of the chair. “Miss, you’ve been right busy this past few weeks and, speaking direc’ly, it don’t take the brains of a gnat to work out that you’ve a lot on your plate. It wouldn’t surprise me if—”

Maisie interjected. “If I hadn’t imagined it? Then what about the person seen at Ebury Place?”

“Could’ve ’ad nothin’ to do with you or anyone else at number fifteen. Could’ve been one of them people what works for an estate agent, eyeing up the properties.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

Billy sighed. “Awright, then, let’s look at who else it could’ve been. We ain’t got any really dodgy cases on at the moment, ’ave we? I mean, who would want to do that to you? It’s terrible.”

Maisie stopped, then paced back to the table, whereupon she took her seat again. “No, let’s ask another question: What is the message?”

“What d’yer mean, Miss?”

“The accident could have killed me, but it didn’t. It was a strange accident, made to seem as if it were entirely my fault, with no one able to back me up, no witnesses to the pedestrian’s odd behavior. I couldn’t even tell whether the person was a man or a woman, though at first glance I would have said it was a man. Billy, I don’t think it was an accident that was supposed to be fatal. I think it was a warning. That was the message.”

Billy held up three fingers and counted them off: “Avril Jarvis, Ralph Lawton, Peter Evernden. Which one?”

Maisie leaned back in her chair.

“Miss, what you would ask me, if I were in your shoes, is
What do you feel?
” Billy placed his hand on his middle. “What do you feel
inside
about the accident and who caused it?”

Maisie placed her hand on her waist, mirroring Billy. “My immediate thought is that it is to do with the Lawton case; however, I now have a sense that all is not as it at first seemed with Peter Evernden. His records are missing from the repository.”

“Is that unusual? Seems like what with all them files and all them relatives, somebody’s papers are bound to go missin’.”

“On the contrary, they keep excellent records and access is restricted to family members with prior permission to visit. I was able to make my appointment to view only after Priscilla had given her written permission.”

“But ain’t the brass allowed in there?” Billy was rubbing his chin now. “P’raps one of the higher-ups needed the records.”

“Or perhaps they have
never been there
. Perhaps they are somewhere else. Or destroyed.
Perhaps
, Billy, they are to be kept away from prying eyes.”

T
HE REMAINDER OF
the day was spent attending to details pertaining to the accident on Tottenham Court Road. After hearing about Maisie’s close shave with disaster, Maurice took over finalizing the arrangements for their passage to France.

On a normal day, the telephone might ring one, two, or three times; however, it seemed that today, once Maisie had placed the receiver in the cradle, the telephone bell would immediately sound again. Even though she had telephoned ahead to warn that the MG was being towed to Ebury Mews, as soon as the damaged motor car was delivered into Eric’s care, word spread quickly. Frankie Dobbs was the first to telephone as soon as he heard the news. A telephone had been installed in the Groom’s Cottage at Maisie’s expense following his own accident, a serious fall earlier in the year, though Frankie would have preferred not to have such a thing in his home. When it rang he would look at the black machine for some time before answering the call—invariably from Maisie—as if the receiver might explode upon placing it next to his ear. But he lost no time in calling when he learned of her accident.

“I should come up there right now, my girl, and bring you back to Kent. Runnin’ around in that motor all on your own. I’ve a good mind to go straight to the station now.”

“Dad, I promise I’m all right.” She placed her fingers on her forehead, which was thumping yet again. “Now you know how it feels, eh, now the boot is on the other foot?”

Frankie Dobbs was quick to respond. “I’ve
always
known how it feels, young Maisie!” Frankie had a habit of sounding rather cross when he was most worried about his daughter. “And this ‘going to France’ for a fortnight; can’t do you any good, can it, what with the foreign food they give you over there?”

Maisie began to laugh, then winced as the pain increased. “Dad, the food is the least of my worries. I promise you, it’s just a bump and a scratch, nothing more than when I fell out of the tree in Granddad’s garden when I was five.”

Frankie sighed. “I’ll never forget that either—I thought your mother was about to have a heart attack! Well, you mind, my girl. And you’ve to get on the blower to me again tomorrow, just so’s I know you’re all right. When are you coming home?”

“When I’m back from France, promise.”

“Right then.”

“Dad—” Maisie hesitated. Telephone conversations with her father usually ended with the words “Look after yourself,” or perhaps “See you soon.” She swallowed. This time there was more she wanted to say. “Dad—”

“What is it, Maisie?”

“Dad—I—I love you.”

Frankie seemed to falter. “Just you take care, my girl. Just you take care.”

After Frankie, Maurice telephoned several times, Lady Rowan twice, and then Andrew Dene, who insisted Maisie see a friend at St. Thomas’s. “He’s a skull man, Maisie. I insist!”

Eventually, Maisie agreed to telephone the surgeon for an appointment before she left for France, though it occurred to her that at this moment, with her motor car requiring repairs, new travel expenses, and her ambition to put a down payment on a property of her own, to say nothing of a second excursion to Taunton by Billy, she could ill afford the expense of a medical consultation. Her head throbbed. It was definitely time she went back to Ebury Place.

Later, after a hot bath and a supper of hearty chicken broth with dumplings brought to her room by Sandra, Maisie finally laid her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes. She had rested for only a few moments when she opened her eyes and gazed for a while at the single red rose that Sandra had placed on the tray along with her supper. Frowning, she quickly reached over to her bedside table for the clutch of papers given to her by Priscilla. Maisie reread the letters written before Peter returned to England for what she and Priscilla had assumed was training and promotion, and then she read again the letters sent at a later date, letters so short by comparison. And there it was, the line that intrigued her:
You would love the gardens here, Pris, the roses are gorgeous at this time of year
.

If there was one thing Maisie knew about Priscilla, it was that her friend was no gardener and hated roses in particular. Maisie closed her eyes and recalled Priscilla at Cambridge, pulling a face when a bouquet of scarlet roses from a smitten suitor was brought to her room by the porter.

“I never saw a rose I could trust, Maisie. All very beautiful but with thorns that can rip one’s skin if one isn’t careful. The boys chased me into the rose garden when I was a girl, and I have never forgotten it. My father gave them each the stick for their trouble! Watch a man who sends you roses, Maisie!”

And there was something else. The letter was dated November 1916. Winter. Roses are at their best in June.

THIRTEEN

Maisie woke suddenly, morning light teasing its way through the curtains at an angle that suggested she had overslept.

“Oh, no!” She leaped out of bed, then held on to the back of a chair for support, her head beginning to ache again. “I’ll take a powder, that’ll do it.” There was much to accomplish today, and Maisie did not want to be hampered. With resolve, she told herself that it was time to pull herself together, get affairs in order for her fortnight’s absence, and ensure that her fee from Sir Cecil Lawton was well earned. Today she had to see Sir Cecil, and she had also arranged to meet Detective Inspector Stratton for tea; she wanted to know how the case against Avril Jarvis was progressing. At her instruction, Billy would travel to Taunton again on Saturday in an effort to see the girl’s mother, which might be difficult as Avril’s name was now in the newspapers, along with the news that she had been remanded in custody at Holloway Prison, charged with the crime of murder. Maisie vowed to do all she could to ensure that Avril would not spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Dressing quickly, Maisie added errands to her mental list of tasks that must be completed before the journey to France on Friday and tried to consider only positive aspects of the trip. France in mid-September would be lovely, with city dwellers back in Paris following the summer
vacances
and those making the pilgrimage from overseas to visit military cemeteries now fewer in number. Yes, she would get through her work here, and each day she would see only the new, only the rebirth of a land once decimated. Thus resolved, she tilted her navy cloche in a way that disguised any hint of a cut or bruise, took her black document case, and made her way toward the Victoria underground station. She did not tarry to visit Eric in the mews: she wasn’t up to receiving his prognosis on the health of her MG just yet.

It was as she walked along that Maisie felt a prickly sensation at her neck, akin to the feeling that one gets when one is being observed, perhaps across a room, between the shelves of books in a library, or when one is shopping. It was a trigger that made Maisie instinctively turn around to identify the observer, stopping quickly before looking down the street upon which she had just walked. The street was empty, so she continued on her way, struggling to maintain the determination embraced only ten minutes ago as she left Ebury Place.

Descending into the underground, she was dismayed to find the platform busy, an indication that trains were slow and limited this morning. Though the day had greeted London with an early morning chill, the air around Maisie was already too warm, too humid, and she began to perspire. Taking a white linen handkerchief from her bag, she lifted her hat slightly and pressed it to her brow. She swallowed, the bitter salty taste in her mouth adding to her discomfort. People jostled her as she walked along the platform to a place she thought might be less crowded, but she was pushed and shoved closer to the edge, where warm air rushed from the tunnel.
I wish I had stayed at home. I wish, this once, I had called a taxi-cab. I wish
—suddenly, Maisie was aware of that other sensation again, that someone was watching her, following her every move. She glanced around, first right, then left. The sweat at the nape of her neck dared her to turn, dared her to look behind her.

She was at the very front of the platform when she saw him and gasped, dropping her case and holding her hands to her mouth. And as the train came from the tunnel, Simon—
Simon
—shouted to her: “Move, Maisie! Move!” And as she moved, pushing her body sideways at the very moment the train came alongside, she saw a hand reach out. A hand that was meant to connect with her body, meant to push her forward onto the rails.

Arriving passengers forced Maisie backward as they surged onto the platform and then to the exits. Maisie faltered, feeling both hot and cold at the same time. Panic was rising within her. She could not get on the train, could not let her body be sucked into the hot mass of humanity as it shuttled onward to the next stop. Instead, as the train pulled out of the station and disappeared into the dark tunnel, Maisie remained on the empty platform, clutching the retrieved black case to her chest. There was no Simon now. She knew Simon would at this moment be sitting in his wheelchair, which would have just been taken to the conservatory, where he would be left to spend the morning alone until he was pushed away to be spoon-fed a meal that his mind had no ability to identify as breakfast, lunch, or supper. With her hands and legs still trembling, Maisie left the underground as quickly as possible. In her heart she knew Simon had saved her. His spirit had reached out to her as surely as the hand had reached forward to push her to her death.

“I
RECKON YOU
should tell Detective Inspector Stratton about this, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“What can he do, Billy? It’s not as if I’m dead!”

“No, but you could’ve been, couldn’t you? Eh? And then where would we be?”

“There’s
nothing
he could do—or
can
do, for that matter. I stand a better chance of getting to the bottom of all this myself.”

Billy was thoughtful. “I’m beginning to get a bit worried about you, Miss.” He sat across the desk from Maisie, who was leaning forward in her oak chair, going through the events of the past hour in her mind while flicking through the morning’s mail. “First there’s someone—man or woman—in a mackintosh at Goodge Street station, and now another someone trying to do away with you on the underground. What’s it all about?”

Maisie looked up. “I do not believe it has anything to do with Avril Jarvis, so the connection is with either Lawton or Peter Evernden—and I have to say that the informal investigation on the part of my old friend is looking more complex every day, especially as we have no military records.”

“And you say the brother’s letters to Mrs. Partridge were a bit strange?”

“Yes, though one has to be careful not to leap to conclusions. As you know, probably more than most, everything is different in a time of war. People do and say things they might never otherwise say. We have to avoid passing judgment on what someone wrote when they were about to go back to the Western Front, probably with more responsibility than they had when they enlisted.
And
with the knowledge that they might very well be taking their last look at home.”

The skin around Billy’s eyes crinkled as he spoke, his face betraying a high level of concern regarding the events of the morning. “But you reckon there’s something in this business of the roses? And as far as you know, ’e wasn’t the gardenin’ type?”

“He knew Priscilla hated roses.”

“If I was playing devil’s advocate, as you would say, Miss, I might point out that ’e could’ve been doin’ that deliberately, pullin’ ’er leg a bit. Or per’aps it was the name of the local pub, you know, and it was another way of sayin’ that ’e’d nipped out for a swift one at the Rose when ’e wasn’t s’posed to. Sounds like a pub to me.”

Maisie smiled. “Nice idea, but I don’t think so.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get on to Lord Julian now.” She reached for the telephone receiver. “I need his help.”

Billy moved to his own desk as the call was placed to Lord Julian’s office in the City.

“Good morning, Lord Julian.”

“And good morning to you, Maisie Dobbs! To what do I owe this telephone call? I hope my friend Lawton is paying you!”

“Yes, of course, Lord Julian. I need some information, and I think you might be able to help.”

“Fire away. Pen at the ready.”

Maisie thought there were times when he sounded remarkably like his wife and reminded herself that it was hardly surprising, given that they had now been married for over forty years.

“It’s about the MP Jeremy Hazleton.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve spoken to him occasionally at Westminster. Quite a firebrand. Could well be prime minister in a few years, wheelchair or no wheelchair—and a man decorated for bravery in a time of war is always apt to be a vote-catcher. But I’m not sure I know more about him than the next man.”

“Probably not, but you do have access to more information than most.”

“My War Office connections?”

“Yes. I am not family, so I have no means of obtaining his service record. I’d like to know more about his military career.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Will you still be in town tomorrow evening?”

“Yes.”

“Right you are. I will be returning to Chelstone tomorrow, but if you come to my office we can speak in confidence. About four o’clock?”

“Thank you. I’ll see you at four tomorrow, Lord Julian.”

“Good. Until then.”

“Yes, until then.”

Maisie replaced the receiver.

“That man’s really got connections, eh? The old school tie and all that. Fancy bein’ able to just pick up the blower and ’ave everything at your fingertips!”

“At least he’s a good man, Billy. Essentially a good man. He’ll get me what I need.”

“Do you think there’s something off about this Hazleton?”

Maisie pushed some papers into a desk drawer and locked it, placing the key in her document case. “Other than his connection to Ralph Lawton? I don’t know yet. Put it this way; I
wonder
about him…. Now then, I have an appointment. I’ll be back this afternoon; then I have to see both Sir Cecil and Stratton. Could you visit the woman who called this morning regarding her husband? It looks like a case for you while I’m gone.”

“I’ll get to it right away, Miss. Nice to see the work coming in at a steady clip, innit?”

“Very nice, Billy. Very nice indeed!”

M
AISIE LEFT
F
ITZROY
Square and was about to walk up toward Warren Street station, when she thought again. Looking over her shoulder, then both right and left, she turned back into the square and crossed into Charlotte Street. Breathing a sigh of relief, she felt a weariness that seemed to begin in her head and then seep down even into the bones of her feet. She had told Billy about events on the underground platform, keeping calm, speaking in a controlled manner. She had telephoned Lord Julian, making an appointment that would keep the momentum of her investigation moving forward at a time when she had a great desire to curl into a ball on her bed and never move again.

She remembered feeling this same way as a child. She had gone with her mother to visit the doctor. Not the doctor who ran the clinic on Tuesdays over on the corner, where her mother would take a florin from her purse, put it on the table, and go though a doorway that led to the doctor’s office while Maisie waited outside, banging her feet together as she sat on the too-high chair, reading her book, waiting and waiting. No, on this occasion they were going to another doctor, a doctor for whom quite a few pound notes had to be taken from the earthenware jar that stood on the mantelpiece over the stove. It was afterward, as they were leaving, that they saw the young dog, and he must have been young because his paws seemed far too big for his legs. His tongue was hanging out with glee as he ran out in front of one of those new motor cars that came around the corner far too fast, popping and banging on its way to kill a poor little dog. Maisie had squealed in terror and her mother, her mother who had herself winced in pain as she lifted up her beloved daughter, brushed Maisie’s hair back with her hand, speaking gently to her. Then later, as she curled onto her bed in the small house in Lambeth, she had been gentled again by the soft hands at her brow and the voice that told her that there should be no tears because the little dog had gone to heaven, which was the best place to be. Maisie had wept until sleep claimed her, knowing in her very soul that her mother’s words were meant to encompass far more than the sudden death of a poor little dog.

And here she was again, that urge to be soothed clawing at her insides each day, the knowledge that those who would readily calm her—Andrew, her father, Maurice, even Khan—could not.

Traveling to her destination by bus and on foot, Maisie was vigilant, keeping a watchful eye around her. As she reached the tall Georgian house, now converted into an office below with flats above, she thought of Madeleine Hartnell again.
There are two who walk with you
. Should she go to see her again? The thought was quickly countered with another as she recalled her grandmother, the one who could see every bit as well as Madeleine Hartnell and whom they said Maisie took after.
Don’t you ever dabble, young Maisie. The minute you start with the spirits, they’ll never leave you alone
. She shivered as she entered the oak-floored office with furniture that had been polished to a brilliant shine.

“Good morning. Maisie Dobbs to see Mr. Isaacs.”

A short man in late middle age pushed back his chair at the back of the office upon hearing his name given to the secretary.

“Ah, yes. Miss Dobbs.” His hand was extended in greeting as he came toward her. “Charmed, I’m sure. Now, per our telephone conversation, I have several properties that would be perfect for an up-and-coming, if I may say so, young woman such as yourself.” He flicked through some papers. “All by the river, as you indicated in your telephone call, and all in your price range. It’s a very good time to be investing in bricks and mortar. There’s a new block of flats in Pimlico that are particularly interesting…”

Maisie nodded and smiled, as she took the sheet of paper.
Move forward. Do not stop. Keep moving, and the past will be kept at bay
. The trouble was, as Maisie knew only too well, her job demanded that she reside in the past for most of her working life. And the past was a dark abyss into which she was quickly descending.