Maisie nodded and followed Caldwell as he made his way around the perimeter of the cluster of people gathered, an audience of onlookers who responded with a collective gasp as the crane began the task of lifting the aircraft onto the barge. Water streamed from the fuselage, the cockpit cover open and hanging away from the aircraft. The pilot’s upper body lay slumped across the outside, as if he had tried to climb out but drowned in the attempt. Maisie put her hand to her mouth and felt her eyes sting. A woman screamed. The crowd seemed to huddle closer together.
“Poor bugger,” said a man. “Poor bugger doing his bit for us lot, and he ends up down there.”
Muttering, the crowd nodded heads, many dabbing their eyes with a handkerchief brought from a pocket in haste.
“All right, everyone—let’s give the boy some peace.” Caldwell nodded to a couple of constables to disperse the gathering. “The lad went up there for us, and it’s only right we respect him now. Time to go on your way and get your work done before Goering’s lot come in for another go at us. Move along, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get him out of there and into somewhere dry.”
People began to leave with bowed heads, and as they passed Maisie heard a woman whispering to herself, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .” She turned to watch as men clambered onto the barge and began to remove the young aviator’s body from the cockpit. They carried him as if he were the most precious cargo, lifting him with a gentleness they would bestow upon a newborn babe, before laying him to rest on a stretcher. Maisie recognized the pathologist as he covered the body with a tarpaulin, before two ambulance men loaded the stretcher into a waiting ambulance and drove off, followed by a Royal Air Force chaplain.
“Over here, Miss Dobbs—our bloke is over here,” said Caldwell. “They fished him out before anyone could see what was going on. The audience was more interested in that poor boy in the Spitfire anyway.”
Maisie followed Caldwell, though in truth she wanted nothing more than to go home and try to contact her godson, Tom, a pilot in the Royal Air Force. She loved Priscilla’s sons as if they were her own.
The pathologist was already inspecting the body when Caldwell and Maisie reached his side.
“Caldwell, good day for it. Rain’s holding off.” The pathologist looked up at the detective, and then to Maisie. “Oh, Miss Dobbs—nice to see you again. Keeping well?”
“Yes, thank you, Dr. Jamieson. All’s well—though witnessing a Spitfire being winched out of the water rather took my breath away.”
“Me too. A bit of emotion never hurt anyone in this job—I don’t hold with this idea that you have to be hard. Having a feeling for the dead opens the mind.”
“Blimey,” muttered Caldwell.
“And don’t take any notice of that one.” Jamieson smiled as he nodded toward Caldwell.
“You sounded just like Maurice,” said Maisie, kneeling down beside the pathologist.
“Hardly surprising. The man who trained you also trained me. Now then—let’s get down to business.”
“Oh yes, let’s,” said Caldwell, rolling his eyes as he drew back his sleeve and looked at his watch.
“Right,” said Jamieson. “I’ll be doing a full postmortem back at the lab, but you can see where the blade entered here, and here.” He pointed to two livid serrations of the flesh. “Nasty weapon, make no mistake. And it is a weapon—not your average kitchen knife. One right there to the celiac artery and the next to the heart. The killer was a professional. He knew where to go and he did it fast.”
“Time of death?” asked Caldwell.
Jamieson shook his head. “You should know by now, Detective Superintendent, that being in that murky brine for any length of time messes up the usual indicators, but I’d say his luck ran out a few days ago and he was thrown in the drink within a very short time of death, possibly an hour, maybe two, judging by the decomposition.”
“Identity card? Ration book? Engraved watch? Anything to indicate who he is . . . was?” asked Caldwell.
Jamieson shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Dr. Jamieson, may I assist with the postmortem?” asked Maisie.
“Of course, though I won’t be able to start until later this afternoon—about four? The body will be going to my lab near Victoria station.”
“I know where it is. I’ll see you then,” said Maisie.
“Don’t mind me, will you?” said Caldwell. “I’m only the copper around here—and I want to be the first and only one to hear what you have to say after you’ve taken off your aprons. Is that clear?”
“Very clear,” said Maisie. “I’ll come right over to the Yard with the notes as soon as Dr. Jamieson releases them—that all right with you both?”
The men nodded.
“Right then—let’s be on our way,” said Caldwell. “Drop you anywhere, Miss Dobbs?”
“Thank you for the offer, Detective Superintendent. I think I’ll walk from here.”
Maisie bid good-bye to the two men and began to walk away, looking back in time to see Jamieson unfurl a tarpaulin across the body of the unknown murder victim, with the same tenderness he had accorded the fallen airman.
The terrace houses on Collington Street in Lambeth were known as “back doubles” and shared walls on three sides, so that only one room had a door and windows. The front row of houses faced the street, and the attached houses behind them looked out upon a shared courtyard, where a series of WCs were lined up against a wall. The first-floor rooms where Freddie Hackett lived with his family were accessed via the courtyard. As the Industrial Age gathered pace, and accommodation was needed for the families who rushed in from the land to find work in the factories, back doubles had been built by the thousands in towns across Britain, using cheap labor and even cheaper materials to house the lowest-paid workers. By the turn of the century, decades before the Hacketts moved into their two rooms, grateful to have a roof over their heads, the back doubles were known to be unsafe, unsanitary and soul-destroying, yet with their low rents they were all the poor could afford.
Even before she stepped out of the taxicab, Maisie knew the geography of Freddie Hackett’s home, because she had grown up in a house almost exactly the same.
She entered the courtyard by a side gate and looked around at the sad dwellings, at doors with paint peeling away and smoke-stained windows. Laundry had been hung on lines across cracked and broken flagstones where even weeds struggled to grow. Maisie could hear women talking, peppering their washhouse conversation with the odd chuckle, the sound of fabric being pushed across corrugated wooden boards as if in defiance of their lot. It seemed a futile task, as layer upon layer of dust settled across every home in London, continuing to fall long after each night’s bombing raids. The women pegged out clean laundry on the washing line, only to bring in clothing and bed linens that could do with another wash.
As she reached the door, Maisie read a note nailed to the frame.
For Hackett, knock three times. For Dunley, knock four times.
There were holes where a door knocker had once been screwed into place—doubtless it had been torn off and sold for scrap. She rapped on the door with her knuckles.
There was no answer, so she knocked again.
“Just coming!” The voice came from within, and Maisie heard someone running down the staircase, which she knew was located just inside the door.
The door opened just as a second voice came from the downstairs dwelling.
“Is that for me, Gracie? I thought I heard four knocks.”
“No, Mrs. Dunley—it was three. Someone for us.”
“Could have sworn I heard four. Is it the police again, after your old man?”
“No, Mrs. Dunley. I’ve got to go, Mrs. Dunley.”
The woman at the door turned to Maisie. She was about Maisie’s height, with hair drawn back in a topknot scarf, and wore a pinafore over a gray dress that was clean and pressed but had seen better days. Her blue eyes seemed to reflect the dress, making th
em appear to change hue as light shafted in through the open door, and she had a warm smile—though neither of those attributes could mask the attention a bruise on her cheek would attract.
“May I help you?” she asked, holding a hand to her cheek.
“Mrs. Hackett?” Maisie didn’t wait for confirmation—Freddie Hackett was his mother’s son. “I wonder if you could spare a few minutes of your time for me—it’s about Freddie.”
The woman gasped, her hand still on her cheek. “Oh, you’re not from the school board, are you? Has he been playing truant? I mean, he’s a good lad, but you know he does important work—he was chosen to run messages, you know.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Hackett—I’m not from the school board, and I know your Freddie is a good lad. I’d like to ask you a few questions because he came to me for help after he’d witnessed something that happened on Friday evening while he was running a message.” Maisie took her professional calling card from her pocket and handed it to the woman. “I knew him before, because he delivered messages to me on a couple of occasions.”
The woman nodded, but the frown remained. She studied the card, stepped aside and held the door open. “We’re up the stairs,” she said, closing the door and leading the way.
A dustpan and broom with worn bristles were leaning against the wall at the top of the staircase, and Maisie could see that Mrs. Hackett was a woman who tried to keep her home as clean as she could, even if that home comprised just the two upper rooms of accommodation that had never seen better days. She led the way into the small, damp back room that was both the kitchen and living area. Maisie assumed the other room was a bedroom—and she knew that compared to the accommodation that some had to settle for, this was considered more than adequate. Whole families were now living in one room, as the continued bombing destroyed more and more housing stock.
Freddie’s mother pulled out a chair from the table and, as if she needed to explain her living circumstances, began to speak. “We’re lucky to have this place, you know. We were bombed out of the last house—well, it was only two rooms, a bit bigger than this, I admit. Then we heard of this one through someone I met when I took my youngest to church one Sunday, and as I can give Mrs. Dunley a bit of help now and again when she needs it, we got this place—and a home is a home, however it comes. The children have to bed down on the floor, but you know, kiddies will sleep anywhere, won’t they?” She stopped speaking and rested her hand against her face again. “Would you like a cup of tea? I have to go out again soon—my other cleaning job, across the water—but I’ve time for a quick cup, then I’ll nip down and check on Mrs. Dunley before I go off to work.”
“If you’re brewing up, I’ll join you.” Maisie had learned years ago that a slight change in her diction to suit the moment was often all she needed to relax the person she had come to question. She didn’t have to sound like a local, just meet them halfway, so without realizing it they felt as if she were a friend and not a stranger. But Freddie Hackett’s mother sounded as if she, too, had modified her locution to match that of her neighbors.
“Right then.” Mrs. Hackett smiled, only taking her hand from her face when she turned away from Maisie. The kettle was already coming to the boil on the gas ring atop a small stove.
“Mrs. Hackett, I’m sure you know that Freddie witnessed a man being attacked—it was while he was out running a message.”
“I do, and I told him to go to the police—but they weren’t interested. Said they had enough on their plates without running around after a lad with a big imagination. Apparently they checked the area and found nothing—so now they think my Freddie is either soft in the head or a liar. And I know for the fact that my boy is neither. He’s a good son to me.”
Hackett turned around holding a teapot in one hand and two cups in the other, revealing the full extent of the deep purple bruise. She placed the teapot and cups on the table and reached up to a shelf for saucers and a small jug. Stepping across to the window, she picked up a half-full milk bottle where it was kept in a pail of cold water, decanted some into the jug and set the bottle back in the bucket. There was something about the small, chipped willow-pattern jug that touched Maisie, as if Freddie Hackett’s mother were clinging to a crumb of gentility—perhaps a connection to the past, or a longing for better times.
Studying the woman as she poured tea, Maisie continued. “Has Freddie shown any signs of anxiety since Sunday? For example, have his hands been shaking, or is he scratching his face or rubbing his hands together—any movements you’ve not seen before?”
“Nothing new, no.” The woman shook her head, and Maisie could see tears well up in her eyes. She looked down and placed a cup of tea in front of Maisie.
“Nothing new.” Maisie sipped her tea, thanked the woman, and continued. “Mrs. Hackett, I wonder, has he ever shown such signs? You said ‘Nothing new’—but is there a behavior already established?”
“He’s a brave boy, my Freddie—going out in the dark and running those messages so we have money coming in. Yes, he’s doing his bit, but I think he’s too young for that kind of work, even though he’s always been light on his feet.” A single teardrop ran across her bruised cheek, which she swept away with the back of her hand. She looked up at Maisie. “He scratches his arms. You can’t see the scratches because of his shirt sleeves, but sometimes he does it and draws blood.”
“That’s a sign of nerves, Mrs. Hackett. How is he progressing at school?”
“Oh, he’s very good. Does his best. I’ve no complaints—and it’s not as if he’s got much longer, is it? He’ll be out to work when he turns fourteen. What with his running job, it’s not surprising he gets a bit anxious, because he goes straight from school to an office across the water, where he has to be ready to take out messages to the other office, so he goes from Baker Street to a building on the Albert Embankment and along to another place near Parliament, from one to the other. Sometimes they have him running a bit further—even back across the water, if need be.”
Maisie remembered how her South London–born father always referred to anything on the other side of the Thames as “across the water”—the famous London river was always known as “the water” to locals.
“Why do you think he’s anxious, Mrs. Hackett?”
“Same reason we’re all a bit nervous, Miss Dobbs—we’ve seen the bodies, haven’t we? We’ve seen our neighbors killed, even the little ones. We’ve got our hearts in our mouths half the time, haven’t we? All scared out of our wits every single night.”
“Yes, of course—I just wondered if there was anything more specific to Freddie.” She took a different tack. “Were your children ever evacuated?”
Hackett shook her head. “I was going to let them go, but I heard such things—terrible things happening, out there in the country. All them children living with strangers, coming home and not knowing which way is up. No, if one of us goes to meet our maker, then we all go together. We’re a family. And being as there are so many children away, the school is only small now, so the children are doing all right. The army is in the other half of the school—the bomb disposal lads. That’s who I feel sorry for.”
“And your husband’s not in the service?”
“No, he’s—he wasn’t fit for service, on account of his wounds from the last war. He gets work where he can, though. You’d think there’d be more for him, what with so many men away, but no, it’s only piecework he can get—you know, a piece here and a piece there, paid by the hour with never a promise of more than that.” Hackett looked at the clock on the shelf above the stove. “Speaking of work, I’d best be getting on.”
Maisie stood up. “Mrs. Hackett, I’ve a taxicab outside and I’m going back across the water. Come on, let me drop you off—save you running to catch a bus.”
“Are you sure? That’s very kind of you, Miss Dobbs, and I’m much obliged. I’ll get my coat.”
Maisie took the cups to the sink, rinsed them under the cold tap and
placed them on the draining board. A single framed photograph hung on the wall by the door, of Freddie’s mother on her wedding day, her hand resting on the arm of her groom. Maisie looked closer and, glancing along the passage to see if she had a moment, reached into her bag for the magnifying glass that was always part of what she thought of as the “kit” she kept with her for use during an investigation. Lifting the glass to the photograph, she leaned toward the image, focusing on the man Grace had married.
“Ready when you are, Miss Dobbs!” Hackett’s voice echoed along the landing.
Maisie put away the magnifying glass and joined Mrs. Hackett on the landing.
“Sorry to keep you, Miss Dobbs. I just had to nip out to the WC, and of course I have to lock the doors up here or Mrs. Dunley comes up for a poke around—she’s a bit nosy. I’ll pop my head around her door to make sure she’s all right, though.” She lowered her voice, leaning in toward Maisie. “She pretends she can’t move very well, but you can rest assured, the minute I leave, she’ll be up these stairs and trying the door handles.”
Maisie smiled, and as she looked at Hackett, she noticed that the woman had applied powder over the bruise, though it was still visible.
“How on earth did you do that to your face?” asked Maisie.
“See that broom there? I tell you, it happened so fast! I was hurrying and stepped on the brush. The handle popped away from the wall, and whack! Straight across my cheekbone! Freddie was here and ran down to the pub to see if they had some ice for it. Bless that boy.”
“That’s just the sort of thing I’d do, Mrs. Hackett,” Maisie said as they made their way down the stairs. “We women are always rushing, and there’s always something in the way.”
“At least you don’t have children to worry about too.”
“Oh, but I do,” said Maisie. “I have a little girl. I just use my maiden name for my work.”
The Consequences of Fear Page 7