The Mapping of Love and Death (17 page)

They turned to leave, and as the trio made their way to the front door, Maisie turned to Gilbert. “I know you said that you don’t remember everyone, but you must have become somewhat familiar with that unit; you mentioned that for a short time you lived alongside some of the soldiers you filmed.”

“As I said, you try not to get too close, for the sake of objectivity. But
yes, I sort of took to that little group, though the American is the one who sticks out most.”

“Do you recall any conversations between the men?”

“That would be a tall order, Maisie,” Sutton interjected.

“I know, but—”

“The boys teased the American, but he could give it back to them, and it was all in good heart, from what I can recall. There was one sapper who mentioned that he—the American—was a man of some extensive property, out in California. And he teased him about his girl—she’d broken it off, but he was convinced the American wasn’t wanting for female company when he was on leave. He’d not long returned from a few days away. Mind you, a handsome young fellow like that—can’t imagine him spending much time alone when he was off duty.” He laughed. “Anyway, as I said, it was all a long time ago now. I might have it wrong, and it could have been the other way around—you know, the other fellow on leave, that sort of thing. I’m really interested in the image in front of the camera, not the subject’s private life.”

Maisie nodded.

After more good-byes, and some final conversation, Maisie and Sutton left and stood outside the house.

“Ready for a bite to eat?”

“Ben.” Maisie smiled. “Would you forgive me if I decline your offer of lunch? It’s a bit early for me in any case—that didn’t take as long as I thought, and I have so much to do today. Watching your friend’s films has given me a lot of food for thought.”

Sutton nodded. “I’ll hold you to our lunch another time—or perhaps you’d come with me to the theater, and supper afterward?”

“What a lovely idea, thank you. And I do appreciate your understanding, especially as it was so good of you to cash in a favor on my behalf. Oh, and Ben, may I trust you to keep what we have seen today to yourself—just for a while.”

“I’ll not tell a soul, and I’ll make sure Henry knows too. And cashing in the favor was my pleasure, Maisie.” He smiled. “There weren’t that many men doing what Henry was doing out in France, so I had an idea you might be in luck with his film. Serendipity, eh?” He smiled. “Anyway, I hope I’ll see you again soon. May I walk you to the tube, madam?”

They said good-bye at the underground station, and Maisie waved as she made her way down the steps and around a corner out of view. She waited a few moments until she was sure Sutton had left, then retraced her steps to Henry Gilbert’s house and knocked on the door. When his assistant opened the door, Maisie asked if she could see Mr. Gilbert for just a moment.

“Maisie, back so soon! What can I do for you—did you leave something behind?” Gilbert took off a pair of spectacles as he walked towards her.

“I am sorry to bother you, but I have one quick question—do you mind?”

“Of course not. Fire away!”

“Is it possible to make a photograph of part of your cine film? I am sure there are appropriate words to describe this, but what I’d like is a picture from the last few seconds on that final piece we watched; something I can hold in my hand to study.”

“You mean the nasty ogre rushing at my camera?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“It’s not a simple task, but it can be done.”

“I would be most willing to pay for your time.”

“First things first. I’ll have the frame printed and sent to you. Roland here can take down the details.”

Maisie smiled. “Thank you very much.” She paused. “And if we could keep this between ourselves, I would appreciate it.”

Gilbert smiled. “Absolutely. We don’t want Ben to know you want a picture of another man, do we?”

Maisie blushed. “No, we don’t.”

L
ater, as she left the house for the second time, Maisie could not recall any part of the conversation with Ben Sutton either before they viewed the film, or on the way to the underground station. In fact, she could barely remember any interaction with him at all. But an image continued to flash into her mind’s eye, of a man brandishing a baton as he reached towards the camera that was filming his every move.

M
aisie stopped at a pie and mash shop on her way to Shoreditch, and had a large helping of meat pie with mashed potato and gravy, followed by a cup of strong tea. It was the sort of place she rather liked to frequent; the service was quick and the repast plain yet hearty, better described as fodder than as food. Though she never stayed long, she liked to watch the customers coming and going, an assortment of men and women, all of whom were working class and valued a good meal. And as Maisie would not bother to cook a meat pie just for herself, and she rarely stopped for a proper lunch, the break was a welcome one—even though the Clifton case remained uppermost in her mind.

She was thinking about lies. About the many times in the course of her work she had been lied to. It was a hazard of her occupation. She rarely missed a lie, seldom overlooked the sense of doubt that assailed her when she had been offered less than the truth. Indeed, she thought it was the presence of doubt—rather than certainty, perhaps—that led to cracking open many a case.
Doubt.
Was it an emotion? A sense? Or
was it just a short, stubby word to describe a response that could diminish a person in a finger snap? When she felt doubt, she asked more questions of herself, though she also knew those questions were no guarantee that her attention would be pointed in the right direction.
There’s a lot of ifs.
Yes, Billy had it right, there were a lot of ifs.
What if.
Without that question, she would not have decided to make a detour back towards the British Library. What if a librarian could identify the verse she’d found tucked into Michael Clifton’s journal? And would such information have any meaning, any relevance to her search for the truth about Michael Clifton’s death and the attack on his parents? As she walked along, she planned to spend only a short time in the reading room, which might allow her the opportunity to drop into Bourne and Hollingsworth on Oxford Street before dashing over to Shoreditch. She wanted to go to the shoe department to see if someone there remembered something of the Clifton story. It was an important London shop, so the buyer might have more detailed knowledge about the company in its final years than Billy had managed to uncover, or he might have remembered something after being questioned. She thought she could accomplish those two things and still be in Shoreditch at a reasonable hour.

The reading room of the British Library was pin-drop quiet. A librarian might tiptoe across the floor to replace a book on the shelves, or a reader might begin to cough, then look around and mouth “Sorry” to the person alongside who had looked up, scowling at the interruption. Patrons moved deliberately—whether turning pages or taking notes—as if in a manner of respect, reminding Maisie of churchgoers at evensong. She slipped into a vacant seat, took out an index card and pencil, and closed her eyes, trying to envisage the words written on the notepaper tucked inside Michael Clifton’s journal. She crossed out a line, then another word, and when she was satisfied, wrote the partial verse without error on another index card, then approached the librarian’s desk.

“I wonder if you could help me,” she whispered.

The librarian nodded, and leaned towards her.

“I have a fragment of verse, which I think is part of a longer poem. I know this is rather a shot in the dark, but do you recognize it?”

The man took the card, looked at the words, and shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.” He looked around.

“Do you have a librarian who is more of a poetry buff?” She hoped she had not insulted him, but he seemed to have taken no offense.

“I’m more of a history man, myself.” He turned both ways. “I was looking for old Mrs. Hancock. She comes in almost every day—she’s had a reader’s ticket for years and generally settles down with the newspaper before taking up a book of poetry. She’s getting on, but can still remember many, many poetical works off by heart.” He picked up the index card. “Let me see if she’s over there. She sometimes drops off for the odd forty winks, poor dear. Do you mind waiting?”

Maisie shook her head. “Not at all.” She stepped back as the librarian turned and walked out into the room, then circled the desks searching for Mrs. Hancock. She lost sight of him; then a moment or two later, he was walking towards the stacks with an elderly woman who was using her walking stick to point up to one of the shelves. Maisie smiled, for the woman seemed to enjoy giving orders to the man in charge. She watched as he reached for a book, then handed it to the woman, who sat down at the closest vacant seat and turned the pages, squinting as she brought the book so close to her eyes, it was touching her nose. A moment or two elapsed before she discovered what she was looking for and lifted up the open book for the librarian to read. Her smile was that of one well satisfied with herself, and Maisie was glad she had made the inquiry, for the woman seemed to stand straighter, as if in being asked to share her expertise, she had received a validation of worth.

The librarian returned with the book held open.

“Mrs. Hancock to the rescue!” The librarian kept his voice low, de
spite his enthusiasm for a task successfully completed. “It’s a poem called ‘The Best Thing in the World.’” He passed the book to Maisie.

“Thank you very much.” She took the open book and walked to a desk, careful to make as little noise as possible. She took out another index card and her pencil, and sat down ready to transcribe the poem.

Maisie read the words over twice and sat back in her chair, still engaged by the poem and what it might have meant to Michael Clifton. Sighing, she flipped the book over to look at the spine. It was from a collection of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She sat for a moment longer, then closed the book, collected her bag from alongside her chair, and returned to the librarian.

“Thank you,” she whispered, as she set the book down in front of him.

He nodded in response, and as Maisie walked out of the reading room, she glanced back to see Mrs. Hancock watching her. She raised her hand and nodded acknowledgment, and the woman waved in return, her smile puffed with importance.

Maisie checked the time on the way out of the library. Much as she wanted to try to find someone, somewhere, who could tell her more
about the demise of Clifton’s Shoes, she had promised to visit Doreen Beale, and knew she should be on her way to Shoreditch. In any case, if she was to be honest with herself, what she truly wanted was not so much new information, but to see if one of her what-ifs might be true.

T
o an outsider, the journey from the west end of London to the east end might have seemed like leaving a full buffet dinner with the finest china, for bread and water at a rough-hewn table. The houses on many streets were still without running water, so women gathered at the communal pump to fill their buckets and kettles, then huffed and puffed their way home carrying their burden. But despite such inequities, and a level of poverty that threatened to grind the soul to dust, there was a spirit here that Maisie understood, a language in which she was fluent, and a camaraderie among the likes of the women at the pump that underlined a certain resilience borne of want. And though the communities encompassed within London’s boroughs still retained something of their respective tribal forefathers, there were common threads of experience between the people of Lambeth, where Maisie was born and brought up, and Shoreditch, with the most distinct being poverty.

The people who lived on Billy’s street had done their best to rise above the grayness of life in the East End. Most of the children playing in the street had no shoes and were clad in hand-me-down clothes that were ill fitting and worn. Though the Beales made ends meet and ensured their children wore clean, if not new, clothes, they were among those who just couldn’t make the leap to a better standard of living somewhere else. For Billy there was a comfort to be had from living in the surroundings of his childhood, with his elderly mother nearby, yet Maisie knew that such comfort could not be confused with contentment. The desire to get away burned within Billy Beale, so the plans
had to be grand plans, and the destination not to a better borough in London, but to a land some three thousand miles away.

Having drawn long looks as she walked from the bus stop—a well-turned-out woman such as Maisie was rare on the streets of Shoreditch—she arrived at Billy’s house and made her way to the front door. Looking in, she saw Doreen sitting in a chair by the window. She appeared to have fallen asleep while keeping vigil, her deceased daughter’s ragged toy lamb held close to her chest, as if she had been breathing in the scent of a childhood gone. Maisie knocked lightly at the door. Standing alongside the window, she could see Doreen waken, rub her eyes, and rest her head on the back of the armchair as she regained full consciousness. Maisie knocked again, and this time Billy’s wife pushed the toy behind her chair, stood up, came to the window, and waved to her before leaving the room to come to the door.

“I’m sorry, Miss Dobbs, I must have dozed off when the boys went round to their nan’s for tea.” She stood aside for Maisie to enter the narrow passageway.

“You deserve a nap, Doreen, what with Billy and Bobby keeping you busy.”

Doreen smiled as she stepped aside for Maisie to enter the narrow passageway. “Please go on into the parlor, Miss Dobbs, and I’ll put the kettle on.”

The Beales’ house was typical of many small terraced houses in their area, but atypical in that only one family lived there, though Doreen’s sister and her family had resided for some time in the house while her husband looked for work in London. The parlor was a small, square room with a fireplace, a picture rail about a foot from the ceiling, and two armchairs that had seen better days. It was a room hardly used by the family, who made the kitchen the center of their home life, keeping the parlor for Sundays, Christmas, and the odd special occasion. Maisie’s visit was a special occasion.

“Here we are, Miss Dobbs. Nice cup of tea does you good, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does—and I am gasping.”

Maisie regarded Doreen as she set the tray on a table positioned along the back wall and proceeded to pour two cups. Just before Doreen was sent away to a psychiatric hospital, some four months earlier, she had lost a good deal of weight and was run down in mind, body, and spirit. The usually meticulous woman had relinquished care of both herself and her children, and had demonstrated a temper never before revealed. The grief at losing her youngest child, a daughter who was dear to everyone whose life she touched, had dragged Doreen into a cavern of darkness that she had neither the strength nor the will to escape. Now she seemed as if she was on her way back to being her old self. She’d regained some weight, and her skirt and blouse were plain, but laundered and pressed.

“How are you keeping?”

“I’m doing much better, Miss Dobbs. Dr. Masters helped me with, you know, how to get on without Lizzie. And now I’m back on the mend, so we’ll be all right, me and Billy and the boys. Yes, we’ll be all right.” She passed a cup of tea to Maisie with two hands, but still managed to spill some in the saucer. “Oh, I am sorry, here—”

“Not to worry. I’m always doing the very same thing. That’s why I get Billy to serve tea to our clients when they visit!” The lie came easily. “Pour yourself a cup and sit down with me, Doreen.”

Doreen Beale brought a second cup of tea, again held with two hands, and sat in the chair in which Maisie had seen her sleeping.

“Are you managing, Doreen?” Maisie thought there was no point in any conversational subterfuge, for she had visited Doreen when she was in hospital, and had seen her after she had been subjected to a violent procedure. Maisie had subsquently pulled strings to have the woman transferred to another, more humane psychiatric institution.

Doreen nodded. “Like I said, Miss Dobbs, I’m doing better. I’m
taking in some needlework again, and I’m managing to finish a dress or alteration without forgetting about it. Billy’s mother comes around every morning after the children go to school, and we have a chat and she helps me. I know it’s not right, a woman of that age helping the likes of me, but she’s very good. She makes sure I eat some of her broth. I don’t always feel like eating, you see, so I forget, and she reminds me. Yes. I’m getting better.”

The neat hair pulled back in a bun and a trace of color in her cheeks, were further evidence of a slow recovery. Maisie remembered her visit at Christmas, when the usually meticulous Doreen—the want of money had never stopped her caring for her appearance—wore clothes in need of repair and laundering; her complexion had been rough and gaunt, and her hair ill-kempt.

“Are you getting out, Doreen? You could do with some fresh air, you know.”

“That’s hard to find here in Shoreditch, Miss Dobbs. I’m a Sussex girl, you know, I didn’t come up to London until I married Billy. I don’t know that the air ever feels fresh to me.”

The conversation went on for another fifteen minutes or so, and when Maisie announced it was time to go, she carried the two teacups into the kitchen while Doreen took the tray with teapot and milk. The kitchen, though small, was spotless, and while they continued talking, Maisie picked up a tea towel and dried the crockery as Doreen placed each washed item on the draining board. She put the things away in a cupboard, and while she was still talking to Maisie—about the boys, about Billy’s dream of going to live in Canada—Maisie noticed her wiping down every surface in the kitchen time and again. Then she washed her already clean hands once more, shook them dry, and wiped the draining boards for the umpteenth time to absorb droplets of water.