Billy was leaning forward in the passenger seat of the Alvis, as if doing so would make the vehicle go faster. His eyes were focused on the road before them, and each time traffic slowed, or a bus pulled out in front of the motor car, he made his complaint known with a shaking of the fist, or a curse directed toward the driver. Errant pedestrians received a loud sigh, with the exception of a woman dawdling, who was treated to a Billy winding down the side window and telling her to get a move on. Maisie knew his impatience reflected fear for his wife’s emotional vulnerability, and terror for his son.
“You know what it does, miss, don’t you?” said Billy, leaning back in the passenger seat. “It brings it all back. That’s the worst thing about being in a war—it’s not the fighting, or the tunneling, or any of the blimmin’ terrible jobs you have to do. No, it’s the waiting. For us sappers, it was waiting for the coast to be clear—laying lines, going into tunnels, putting down explosives. Waiting to get out, waiting to get in. Waiting to go over the top. It’s the waiting that makes a brave lad cave into himself. Once you get going, once you’re doing something, you get this sort of . . . sort of feeling like a bottle of pop just went off inside you. And you get on and do your job, and when it’s done you drop. But waiting’s terrible. Waiting bears down on you. They don’t tell you about that when you’ve just enlisted and you’re square bashing in Blighty. No, you find it out once you’re over there, up to your eyes in it. I saw a bloke go down once, all his insides outside of him—I got to him and said, ‘You’re all right, mate. Stretcher bearers are coming.’ And he looked up and said, ‘Thank God—the waiting’s over.’ And that was him. Gone. And now there’s all them lads over there.”
Billy sighed as he settled in for the journey. Houses, shops and factories were thinning out, and they began to pass fields, farms and woodland. Maisie understood only too well how important it was for her to counter Billy’s intensity with her own modulated breathing, with measured movements and responses. The fire inside her assistant was burning with a fury—she would not fan the flames. Instead she meditated upon her driving, and being safe and secure inside a shell of protection. A temper was akin to a virus, and could so easily graft itself onto another.
“You’re going to have to direct me once we get close to Alton.”
“The last stretch is all winding roads out to the village. It’s a terror to get to—fair wears me out, it does. Doreen says they should come home, what with nothing happening. She found out that a lot of Margaret Rose’s friends who were evacuated have gone home too—and the part of the school not taken over by the army is back in use, with a couple of teachers coming in every day. We don’t like being apart, though I sometimes think Bobby quite likes a bit of freedom when I’m off seeing his mum and sister.” He fell silent, then added, “They’re good boys, my lads. A bit of lip here and there, but they’re a pair of diamonds, both of them.”
“Tell me what happened at Yates’ yard,” said Maisie. Not only was she eager to know, but the conversation would distract Billy. “It’s been a rush since you came back into the office,” she added.
Billy looked at his watch. “Blimey—I can hardly believe it was only this morning. Don’t take long for the world to tip, does it?”
“No, Billy. Sadly, it doesn’t,” said Maisie.
“Well anyway,” said Billy, taking a notebook from his inside pocket. He opened and then closed it again. “I’d better not read while you’re driving, makes me a bit queasy. I can remember it all.”
“Open the window if you’re feeling unsettled, Billy.”
“I’ll be all right.” He paused, ran his fingers through his hair, took one swift glance at his notebook again, and looked ahead at the road. “I got to the works and asked to speak to Mike Yates, but he wasn’t there on account of having to go to visit a site. I should have said—when I got there, I went in through the big gates—cast iron, they are, leading onto a cobblestone yard with drains because they used to have horses and carts to take men and the paints and what have you to the jobs, but it’s all vans and lorries now, with all their tools and paints stored in the old stables. There was a lorry just getting ready to leave—couple of blokes were climbing into the cab. And it was an ordinary lorry, not RAF or army. They’d just delivered paint in big tins. Now, I’m not a painter and decorator, so I don’t know if this is normal, but these tins were more like barrels, and there were blokes from Yates’ in their whites already starting to pour the stuff into smaller containers, then putting them into the back of a van.”
“That’s interesting—were any of the men wearing masks?”
“You mean like doctors? Or crooks?” Billy grinned.
“Glad to see your sense of humor hasn’t completely vanished.” Maisie gave a half-laugh. “No, I meant like doctors—it occurred to me that, if this paint—emulsion, Joe called it—is sufficiently vaporous to cause headaches, I wondered if wearing some sort of mask might help, and if they wore them at the yard, when they’re decanting the bigger containers.”
“No, they weren’t,” Billy paused, thoughtful. “Well, I tell a lie. One bloke had tied an old rag around his face. Over his nose and mouth. And there’s more to tell on that.”
“Go on,” said Maisie.
“I went up to the bloke with the paperwork—he looked like he was ticking off the number of barrels—and first of all I asked him if Mr. Yates was there, and when he said no, I said, ‘Perhaps you can help me then.’ So, I asked him about Joe Coombes, and he said, ‘Oh, he’s not here—he’s on a job outside London.’ I asked him if he could tell me where, and he said he couldn’t, because it was—what did he say?” Billy pressed his lips together as he tried to remember the conversation. “‘Classified.’ That’s what he said. It was classified. He said Joe was working on a special . . . a special . . .” Billy opened his notebook, glanced at the pages, and closed it again, rubbing his eyes. “‘A special government works order.’ Then the bloke clammed up and asked, ‘And who are you?’ So I told him I was there because Joe’s dad was a mate of mine and couldn’t get away from work to come over himself, but him and his missus were a bit worried as they hadn’t heard from young Joe, and they thought he might be poorly, as he’d complained of having a bit of a head a few times. And he says, ‘Oh we all get a bit of that, mate—it’s paint what does it, especially this new stuff. That’s why Bert over there has a towel tied around his face.’ Then he told me it was all right because the lads are mainly working outside, so the fumes get dispersed.”
Maisie was silent, as if the information imparted were a stone found at the beach, a pebble shot through with thin veins of strata, to be traced and considered as she turned the rock in her palm.
“What you think of that, miss?”
“Did he say anything else?” asked Maisie.
“Not much—only that the older men look out for the apprentices, but at that age, they said Joe should have been pretty much able to look after himself.” Billy stared out of the window, then brought his attention back to Maisie. “Trouble is, they all think they’re men, these young lads, and even though I know what he meant—the bloke at Yates’ yard—fifteen and already at work for a year gives you a bit more nous than you had when you left school. But take it from me—there’s still something of the boy there, and without the beard of a man.”
“And Joe was so attached to his family. Yet I have a feeling that he knew he would be able to establish some independence with his work. He was breaking away from Phil and Sally to grow that beard. But this government job is beginning to sound like more and more of a risk.” She paused. “Do I go right here, Billy?”
“Ooops, yes, sorry, miss—I was miles away then, thinking. . . .”
“Anyway, it sounds as if the government wanted the work done as fast as possible, and sent the painters out with the best fire retardant they had to hand. And perhaps they hadn’t gone through a full testing.”
“P’raps they didn’t want to,” said Billy.
“You could be right. Look, as soon as I’ve dropped you at the cottage, I’ll find a room at a local guesthouse—it shouldn’t be too difficult, but still pushing it a bit as it will be getting dark by then. Luckily we’re making good time, but I don’t want to be out after the blackout. Tomorrow I’ll have a look round, find out where Joe was staying, talk to the landlady, that sort of thing. It’s a big county, but at least I know roughly where he was lodging, according to the notes taken when I spoke to Mrs. Coombes. I should telephone Brenda too, find out how Anna is this week. There have been some bugs going round, but so far she’s managed to remain well.”
“The things they pick up at school. When I was a boy, if anything was going round—mumps, chicken pox, measles—my mum used to say, ‘Go on, get in there and get it and then you’ll be done with it.’ Makes me laugh to think of it. There’s some who take very bad though. My cousin went down with chicken pox and they put her in quarantine because they thought she had smallpox. That’s another nasty one.” Billy seemed to stare into the distance as if the past were on the road in front of him, then sat forward in his seat. “That turning there, miss—with the pillar box at the end of the lane.”
Maisie swung the motor car onto the lane, continuing along the bumpy road until they reached a cottage on the edge of farmland.
“This is it,” said Billy.
“How far is it from the station?” asked Maisie.
“Three or four mile,” said Billy.
“And you walk all the way?”
“Unless I can get a lift from the farmer, if he’s coming this way. Doreen’s aunt’s husband, God rest his soul, was one of the farm workers from the time he was a boy, and the farmer said the tied cottage is hers until she dies.”
“Oh look, there’s Doreen with Margaret Rose now.” Maisie slowed the motor car, bringing it to a halt alongside the cottage. She shut off the engine and stepped out of the Alvis, watching as Billy’s daughter ran and launched herself into his arms while Doreen stood back, watching, smiling, yet with a questioning look in her eyes, until Billy held out a hand to bring her into his embrace. Maisie caught her breath, and for a moment she imagined laughing with James as their child ran to his arms, and then feeling his arms around them both, a family of three, beloved of each other. But James was gone now, along with all hope of motherhood, and at times Maisie thought she might lose the feeling of him, lose the image of his face, of his touch, of him reaching for her. She looked away, but heard Doreen call her name.
“Miss Dobbs—Maisie—would you like to stay for tea? You must be gasping for a cup, and something to eat.”
“Come on in, miss—we’ve been on the road for a few hours now,” added Billy.
Maisie shook her head. If she were to secure accommodation for the night, she should make haste to find her way back to a guesthouse she had noted as they drove through Whitchurch. “I should be getting along—I’ve to settle a room for the night.”
“You can stay here on the farm, Miss Dobbs,” said Doreen’s aunt as she emerged from the house wiping her hands on a tea cloth, and introduced herself as “Aunt Millicent,” as if everyone referred to her as “aunt” whether related or not. “They run a bed-and-breakfast up at the house, you know. The farmer’s wife, Mrs. Keep, puts up a very good spread of a morning.”
Realizing she had little choice—the group’s faces were wreathed in smiles of welcome and all but dictated her next move—Maisie inclined her head and accepted the referral. “I’ll nip along to see Mrs. Keep now.” She consulted her watch. “And then I might have just enough time to go back into Whitchurch before it gets dark.” She turned to Billy. “I want to find out where Joe was staying, have a word with the landlady. I’ve got his last address.”
“Right you are, miss.” Billy nodded, acknowledging Maisie’s tactful decline of tea. By the time she had seen Mrs. Keep, it was likely that Doreen would be in a state of distress, for Billy would have recounted what he knew of the battles raging on the other side of the Channel, and the fact that there were plans being made to evacuate the army. Maisie wondered if being privy to classified information in advance of the general population was as useful as it appeared at first blush. And she found herself wishing she had placed a call to Dr. Elsbeth Masters, the doctor of psychiatry to whom she had referred Doreen years before in the wake of little Lizzie Beale’s death. Although Billy’s wife was stronger, this news of what was happening in France might distress her to the point of relapse. But Billy was with her, so at least she had someone there to share the weight of her deepest fears—and they had come through so much together.
Mrs. Keep was as good as her name. She kept a tidy house, neat accommodation and a fair price for a room, which looked out over the kitchen garden and beyond to a field with cattle grazing, and a hill flanked by a stand of oaks in the far distance. At ease in the small room with sloping beamed ceilings, Maisie closed her eyes as she stood in front of the diamond-paned window. An image of the restful landscape before her seemed etched behind her lids, as if it were a photographic negative. But she could not linger and give way to fatigue. After paying Mrs. Keep for one night, she left the house to search for a Mrs. Digby, who apparently took in lodgers—including the young Joe Coombes.
Mrs. Digby resided in a house on the Winchester Road, not far from the River Test and the old silk mill. Billy had told her something of the town during the drive down from London, informing her that the silk mill was built in 1815, but that silk only began to be made two years later, when a silk manufacturer from London bought the property. The mill had garnered some prestigious clients, and more recently Billy had been told by a local that not only was the mill continuing to make silk for shirting and legal gowns, and for the company started by Thomas Burberry, but was also weaving silk for the insulation of electrical cables. It appeared the machine of war was in operation everywhere.
Maisie had been directed to the house by the landlord of a local pub—it seemed there was a pub on almost every corner of the small town—and according to the plaque above the door of the three-storey residence, it had been built in 1790. It appeared somewhat down at heel, and for the time being had probably been saved from complete collapse by ivy leaching into every crevice of the brickwork—though that same ivy could well be the culprit undermining the mortar. Maisie knocked at the door, and when there was no answer, knocked again. No one came. She stood back and looked up at the windows, then back at the door—and only then noticed a bell pull to the right, partially obscured by creeping vine. She took the rusty cast-iron handle and gave it a good tug. This time she did not have to wait long for a response to her summons.
“All right, all right. I’m coming. What’s the rush? That’s what I want to know.” A woman’s voice, husky, interrupted by a throaty cough, grew louder on the other side of the door. “I’m here, just a minute.” The yapping of a small dog inspired a scolding, and another round of coughing before the door was opened. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
Maisie estimated Mrs. Digby to be about fifty years of age, though she appeared to be doing all she could to combat the years. Dressed in a silk kimono over a pair of silk pajamas—both had seen better days, and perhaps not much in the way of laundry soap in recent weeks, or months—Digby was heavily made up, with copious amounts of powder and rouge. Maisie wondered if the woman had been on the stage, for the texture of the cosmetics reminded her of those used by Priscilla’s youngest son, Tarquin, when he had been given the role of Peter Pan in the school pantomime. Regarding Mrs. Digby, Maisie remembered Douglas Partridge looking down at his son and inquiring whether he had put on the makeup with a trowel, it was so thick. The woman’s eyes were bright blue, rimmed by long, thick lashes that could only be false. She held a petite white dog under her arm and jigged it up and down, as if it were a babe on her hip to be soothed. Maisie thought the dog looked more like a powder puff with eyes, nose, tongue and teeth, than something reliably canine.
“Mrs. Digby?”
The woman seemed to assess Maisie from head to toe, then smirked and raised an eyebrow, as if to have found the subject wanting. “And who wants to know?”
Maisie reached into her pocket and brought out a calling card. She handed it to Mrs. Digby, who held out a liver-spotted hand with be-ringed fingers, her nails manicured to show bright red polish to best effect. She took the card.
“Psychologist and investigator, eh? And you want to investigate me?”
Maisie shook her head. “No, Mrs. Digby. I’m here informally on behalf of very good friends of mine—their son was lodging with you, and they haven’t heard from him in a week or so, and of course they are worried.”
“You must mean Freddie. Or was it Len? I’ve only got the ladies now—three WAAFs stationed at the RAF base. Mind you—when the lads were here, it was all above board—men on the top floor, women on the floor just above mine. I don’t want any funny business going on under my roof.”
“Then you didn’t let a room to Joe Coombes?” asked Maisie.
The woman flapped a free hand. “Oh Joe. Little Joey. I almost forgot him—mind you, easy to do as he was a quiet one.”
“Was?”
“They moved on over a week ago—probably why his people haven’t heard from him.”
“I thought the men were still working in the area—at the airfield.”
Digby repositioned the dog on her hip. “Well, there’s more than one airfield within striking distance, and not many places left to lodge, what with all the WAAFs and they say we’ll have land girls coming in before too long. Not that the young ladies are easier—leaving their knickers and stockings to drip all over the floor when they’ve washed them out in the sink. And the noise they make when they’re getting ready to go out of an evening—I can hardly think. It’s like a herd of elephants above my head.” She paused. “No, there were three of them, the lads, and they moved out. . . .” The woman’s words seemed to fade, and she glanced at the ground, frowning.
“What is it?” said Maisie.
Digby shook her head. “Probably nothing. But that boy was having terrible headaches. I mean, the other boys had headaches too—I put it down to the fact that they liked to go down the pub of an evening. But with young Joe it was bad—he asked me for a powder once or twice, and I could see he was hurting. Then all of a sudden they were giving notice—the big lad, Freddie, came to see me, said they were moving out. And that was that.”
“When was the last time you saw Joe Coombes, Mrs. Digby?”
The woman stared over Maisie’s head and squinted, as if the answer might lie amid the trees on the other side of the road. “I reckon it was the day before they left. They were generally off to work before it’s my time to get up of a morning—they knew how to make themselves a breakfast, and as long as I don’t come down to a pile of dirty plates and cups in the sink, I let my lodgers look after themselves. Then that one came back to say they’d moved on, but he didn’t give an address. He brought the van and collected their belongings. Not that they had much. A small kit bag each, and that was it—I’ve seen evacuees turn up in the town with more. I know the lads were all working for a London firm, painting and decorating, that sort of trade. And I knew it was to do with airfields, so I assume they were doing up the officers’ mess at each place, something like that. I’d been paid up until the end of next month, so I was all right.”
“And they didn’t give you an address for forwarding post?” asked Maisie.
“No. Joe was the only one to get any letters in any case. Just a minute.” Digby held up a finger and walked back into the house. Maisie peered through the open doorway. A staircase swept up from a narrow hall, which had been painted red with a blue border, and a paper chain of dusty Union Jack flags hung in a shallow curve from the picture rail. A mirror was situated above a hall table where post had been spread out. Still holding the white dog on her hip, Digby held each letter up to her face, revealing a need for reading glasses, and a disposition too vain to admit it. Having placed the envelopes back on the table, she looked up into the mirror and squinted to check her reflection before turning back to the door.
“I could have sworn there was post for Joe. Perhaps Freddie took it for him. Anyway, he’ll be about somewhere with those other lads, at an airfield. Now, if you don’t mind, I can’t spend all afternoon jawing away like this.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Digby.” Maisie turned to leave, but held out her hand and pressed it against the door. “Oh—just one more question, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes?” Digby sighed the word, elongating it to signal her impatience.
“Did Joe ever have any visitors?”
“Visitors?” Digby shook her head. “I don’t hold with my lodgers having visitors—I like to know who’s under my roof.” She patted the dog, who was fidgeting, racing his little legs as if running in midair. She leaned down to put him on the ground and began speaking again as she once more stood up to her full height, by which time the dog had run to the back of the house, as if to attempt escape from his mistress. “But it’s funny you should ask, because someone came to the house asking for Joe Coombes. Tall, stringy sort of fellow—about thirty, perhaps younger. He was well turned out, I remember that—very tidy, nice tie, good shoes, well polished. I thought he might be family—not that it was any of my business. I told him that Mr. Coombes had moved on with the rest of the crew.” Digby placed her hand over her mouth, and whispered through her fingers. “There I am telling you all this, and forgetting what I should have remembered when that man was stood where you are now. I was told not to say anything to anyone about the lads. It was part of the contract—not a real contract, not paper, like a solicitor would give you. It was verbal—the man who booked the lodgings said that on no account must I say anything about the lads to anyone who asked, and I was to tell them if anyone came with questions or to visit. He was official, I reckon, from the government. That painting business must be making a pretty penny, if someone up in London is going to that sort of trouble.” The kimono had slipped off one shoulder, revealing more of the woman’s undergarments than modesty might allow. “Oh, now look at me—just as well it’s you standing there, and not Sid Watkins from the ironmongers along the street. All eyes and hands, him.” And with her final comment, she nodded by way of departure and closed the door.
Maisie remained in front of the door for a moment before walking back out onto the Winchester Road to collect her motor car. She wondered how the men working for Yates fared in the countryside—Hampshire had not been their first stop, and it would not be their last. Most airfields were situated in rural areas, and the painters were, in general, city men who had grown up on the streets, not close to fields and farms. She wondered if, at the end of a long day, perhaps feeling less than well, given the circumstances of the job gleaned so far, the local pubs might have offered the only place for the young men to relax. On the one hand, that might have given Joe a sense of being at home, or it might have presented him with a dilemma—too much like home.
Pulling up alongside a telephone kiosk, Maisie took the opportunity to place a call to Brenda, who would be at the Dower House, the home bequeathed to Maisie years earlier by her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche. Brenda and Maisie’s father stayed during the week to care for Anna, the evacuee girl who had been billeted with them. Maisie drove down from London on a Thursday or Friday, returning to her flat in Holland Park on Monday morning, though if she were not busy it had become easy to linger for one more day. Sometimes two.
“The doctor’s been,” said Brenda. “She came over poorly and was running a temperature and he says it’s definitely measles. The poor little mite is really under the weather. Doctor Stringer says it will run its course, but he said a few of the children locally have gone down with it a lot harder than he’s seen before. He reckons the little ones take on more than we think they do, so they’re—what did he say? Oh yes—vulnerable. Mind you, he’s young—got all these new-fangled ideas. He told me he wanted to join up in the medical corps, but couldn’t on account of his limp—had polio as a boy and reckons he’s a lucky one because he didn’t end up in a wheelchair.”
Maisie knew that when her stepmother began to talk without stopping, it was generally because she was worried.
“I’ll come home as soon as I can—let’s see how she is tomorrow. Is everything else all right?”
“I was getting to everything else—the doctor also says that the outbreak of measles will get worse if they start a second evacuation. There’s all those children who went back to London—like those boys who were here—and what with Germany going into Holland and Belgium, and now France, they’re closer to an invasion, so the boys could come back to us, you never know. The new billeting officer came around today to check on Anna, so I told her she wasn’t to be bringing any more children to the house until little Anna was well over the measles.”
Maisie put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, poor Anna. Do you need any extra help?”
“A child lying quiet in her bed isn’t a nuisance. The Ministry of Health inspector is though.”
“What do you mean?” Maisie knew the Ministry of Health had jurisdiction over orphaned children, and a certain level of influence over where they should be placed. While she had documents signed by Anna’s grandmother before the elderly woman succumbed to a respiratory disease, her guardianship of the child could still be challenged. However, Maisie’s solicitor had considered the guardianship documents to be solid—at least until the war was over.
“She was checking on the evacuees, and knew about Anna’s situation, so she was just asking questions about any plans to place her with a family. She didn’t want to see her—she only found out about the measles outbreak when she arrived at the school, so she wasn’t exactly keen to get close to any children. More’s the pity because I’ve heard a few things about those poor little tykes over at Turner’s Farm. They say old Jim Turner has his evacuees out working at five in the morning, before they go to school, and as soon as they’re home, they’re working again. I told the billeting officer about it, but all she could say was that they were a good family and the children did not seem ill-treated. I felt like telling her to put her glasses on!”
Maisie consulted her watch, and was about to speak when Brenda began again.
“Your father and I take it all in our stride, and Anna is no trouble—even as ill as she is. Emma won’t leave her side, and even Jook has been up the stairs to sit in the room, and you know how that dog is with your father. If dogs could get measles, those two hounds would be down with it too by now. Anyway, one more thing—your friend Priscilla has been on the telephone. Wants to know where you are. She says it’s important.”