To Die but Once

by Jacqueline Winspear

  Maisie and Billy exchanged glances, then Maisie turned her attention back to the man seated between them.

  “How would someone find out about a contract like this—would the government have come to Mr. Yates? Or would he have his contacts?”

  “Bloke like Mike Yates? It’ll be a bit of both. He’s big enough to be known, and on the other hand, the people he works for are your well-heeled lot, on drinking terms with nobs in high places. And you’ve got to remember—like I said, a job like that won’t come to a one-man band like me, or even a cartload of us—it goes to a business big enough to get the job done. And knowing Mike, he would make sure the customer gets the price they want—but so does he. His boys would be putting away a pretty penny too. I would imagine someone from the government arranged all the lodgings and that sort of thing—Mike Yates wouldn’t take that on.”

  “Do you think Mr. Yates would do or say anything if he thought the emulsion were dangerous?” asked Maisie.

  “I think that unless someone dropped dead in front of him, he would ignore it, hoping that nothing happened that he had to attend to while he was counting the money.” He paused, looked at his hands, shrugged, and brought his gaze back to Maisie. “And to tell you the truth, Miss Dobbs, any of us would do the same thing—if I’m to be perfectly honest with you, we all need work and we’ve all had hard times, especially since the last war. No one can afford to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Maisie nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “And who knows what was causing the lad to have these headaches? It might’ve been something to do with the company he was keeping. He could have been smoking, and not been used to it, or trying to keep up with the older lads at the pub. P’raps that’s why he ended up like he did—Billy told me about the railway line.”

  Billy was about to speak—Maisie heard him start, “But Pete—” when Sands continued.

  “They always say, though, to follow the money, don’t they? Which is why you’re asking me these questions about Yates. But there’s more to the money than where the boy worked.”

  “What do you mean, mate?” asked Billy.

  “Ever seen Phil Coombes when he gets a chance to go out? I mean, you think he doesn’t see the sky but for his walk down the road to the caff every morning, but I’ve seen him go out dressed up, suit and all—not all the time, but every now and again. And they’ve got the telephone—never known the brewery to do that for a publican, so he must be special.” He scratched his head and put his cap back on. “It’s not always the big things you notice—they don’t have a motor car, and Phil and Sally Coombes aren’t flash—but there are a lot of little things.”

  “To be fair, Mr. Coombes works very hard and they’re very friendly, and that brings in a lot of custom,” offered Maisie.

  “So do I work hard, and I’m friendly—got to be, haven’t you?” replied Sands. “But my daughter doesn’t have a new pair of shoes every couple of months, or my wife her hair done regular as clockwork. Sally Coombes might look a bit dowdy at times—but she can get dolled up when she wants to. Her handbags don’t come cheap and they buy quality. No, Phil is doing very well, and it’s coming from somewhere.”

  Maisie came to her feet at the same time as Sands. Billy pushed back his chair and made his way to the door.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sands.” She pressed five shillings into his palm with her handshake. “Your time is appreciated—I hope I didn’t drag you away from your work this morning.”

  Sands touched the peak of his cap. “Much obliged, Miss Dobbs—and no, it’s all right. Like I said, I’m only over in Russell Square. Mind you, I hope my apprentice hasn’t painted the lamps by the time I get back.”

  “I’ll see you out to the street, mate,” said Billy, holding open the door.

  As the door closed behind the men, their voices muffled as they made their way downstairs to the front door, Maisie walked to the window overlooking Fitzroy Square. She watched as Billy shook hands with Pete Sands, and the painter and decorator walked away in the direction of Warren Street. As she was turning away from the window, Maisie glanced back. A black motor car parked on Conway Street. She moved to one side, so that she might see without being seen, for it was as if the driver, silhouetted against light filtering into the vehicle, were looking straight at her.

  Chapter 7

  Maisie and Billy sat in silence in front of the case map, looking at the highways and byways of color expressing each thought and idea that had come to them while considering the case of Joe Coombes—though the exercise seemed at that point to be getting them nowhere.

  “So the air force girl didn’t call back, did she?”

  “She might have, but I had to rush off yesterday evening—ambulance practice, and I was late because it had completely slipped my mind.”

  “They won’t strike you off—you’re a volunteer. Apparently they’ve had to give quite a few of the employed ones their cards, and sent them back down to the labor exchange.”

  “They’ll get their jobs back, and it won’t be long, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “I thought the same thing.” Billy looked down at his hands, rubbing the palm of the right up and down across the knuckles of the left.

  “Everyone holding up at home?” asked Maisie.

  “I’m amazed, really,” said Billy. “They’re keeping their chins up, especially Doreen. She said it won’t get our Billy back any sooner if we all sit around in a state. I don’t like what I’m reading in the papers though. They say there’s going to be a service at Westminster Abbey on Sunday—prayers for the safety of our boys over there. I’m not one for all that, but I reckon it won’t hurt, so we’ll probably come up for it and put our hands together with the rest of them. People say it will be packed.”

  Maisie nodded, thoughtful as she picked up a thick red crayon from the table. “Money. Money and war. There’s Yates making money out of the war, and so many others who are doing well out of something terrible—though I don’t begrudge people the opportunity to put more cash in their pockets.”

  “My mate who works over in Fleet Street reckons that crime has gone up, and everyone thought it would go down, what with us being at war. And it’s not only the criminals that are doing well. Look at the landlords who are putting up those workers from Yates—they’re raking it in. And then there’s the fact that prices have gone up on a lot of your basic foods,” added Billy. “Mind you, they went up when war was declared, then they came down when nothing much happened, and now they’re going up again. No wonder that new tenant down in the basement is growing tomatoes out the back! He’ll have a cow in there next, you watch—we can talk him up for a pint of milk!”

  Maisie laughed, tapping the case map.

  “You know, apparently there’s money in Hampshire,” said Maisie. “I’ve heard the Bank of England has moved its operations there for the duration. And it’s also where the paper supplier is located.”

  “Do you think it’s got anything to do with this?” asked Billy.

  Maisie was thoughtful, drawing her attention from Billy and the case map, to the window and the blue sky beyond. “You know, when I first started working for Maurice, I would try to put my discovered information on a given case into a box—not a literal box with six sides, but I would keep notes. And I’d ask myself if the nugget I’d collected was irrelevant, or if it was a distraction. Was it something just to be aware of? Could it be described as important? Finally I put whatever I’d discovered into the categories of significant, crucial, or essential—whatever name I’d come up with. And I would go back to the information daily and ask myself if it still belonged in that particular box—it helped me to sort through what I’d gathered, because I realized I’d been treating everything as really crucial and spent a lot of time like a dog chasing its tail, and not always managing evidence very well. It helped me to grow what Maurice termed my ‘intuitive response,’ though I’m not sure he quite approved of my method.” She smiled, remembering the errors
of her early days as an investigator. “So at first, when I considered the information about how and where money was printed and the coincidental relocation of the Bank of England to the same area as Joe Coombes’ lodgings, I labeled it a distraction—something that would take time we don’t have for nothing much in return. Now I think it’s important—not crucial or essential, but important. Something to keep up our sleeves, something that might prove to be useful.” She brought her attention back to Billy. “I always thought the Bank of England’s printing works was over on Luke Street.”

  “Yeah, but perhaps not everyone knows that—after all, I heard the works down there in Hampshire is where money is printed for all over the world, and that sounds important enough to me.” Billy leaned toward the table, resting his chin on closed fists placed one on top of the other. He studied the map. “I don’t know about this headache business—I mean, I reckon young Joe Coombes had them all right, the headaches, but I don’t think that’s what killed him. Not what made him end up dead on a railway line.”

  “No, neither do I.” Maisie scraped back her chair, and walked to the window. She looked down at the makeshift market garden in the yard, noticing a man’s cardigan draped over a wooden chair. She realized that, apart from the well-tended flowers and vegetables, this was the first sign she had seen of whoever lived in the basement flat. She turned back to Billy.

  “Right, this is what we do next—and we’re limited by the fact that it’s a Friday, but Phil and Sally are at the pub.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll catch the later train now—so I’ll make a quick call to Chelstone, and we’ll go round to the Prince. I’m sure Vivian will not be at work, in the circumstances, and the other son, Archie, might have come home to be with his family—it’s a good time to get them together.”

  “Or p’raps not, what with them grieving.”

  “They know I’ve tried to do the best for them, and we’ll be there just as neighbors—friends—who know what they’ve lost.”

  “Do you think they’re involved?”

  “In the death of their son? I don’t think any parent would knowingly risk the life of their child—you wouldn’t, would you?” She reached for the telephone receiver. “But perhaps . . . perhaps there’s something amiss in that family, and we both know that involvement in a crime can be the result of something seemingly benign.” She began to dial. “Or the family may have no connection to Joe’s death whatsoever. Anyway—let me talk to Brenda, and then we’ll leave.”

  Vivian Coombes looked as if she had slept in her clothes—a dress that was crumpled, stockings twisted so the seams were askew, and a cardigan pulled around her to ward off a chill that no one else would feel on a warm day in late spring. Maisie thought her fine fair hair had not seen a brush that morning, and she wore no shoes. A ladder had started to run from her toe to her ankle, and she had stopped its progress with a dab of red nail enamel. The landlord’s daughter was usually a well turned-out young woman—today, standing in the doorway at the side of the pub, she resembled a slattern.

  “Oh Vivian, I am so terribly sorry,” said Maisie, as she held out her arms.

  Vivian Coombes all but fell into her embrace, weeping. Maisie nodded, a sign for Billy to go up to the family rooms.

  “How are you bearing up, Vivian? I know you and Joe were so very close,” said Maisie.

  “He was my little brother—and he was so . . . so innocent. Not like some of them. Not like other boys. He was good, Miss Dobbs.”

  “I know, I know. Is Archie here?”

  Vivian stepped back, though remained close to Maisie, as if she needed a strength not present among her family. “He’s been round. He didn’t stay though—said he had to get back to work.” She looked at Maisie and swept the back of her hand across her forehead, her pale blue eyes veined as they filled with tears once more. “I mean, I’m supposed to be at work—and I’ve got important work, especially now, what with everything happening over there, in France—but my supervisor let me have the day off for compassionate reasons. I hate Archie sometimes, really I do.”

  “No you don’t—you’re just grieving, and nothing will seem right for a long time. And perhaps it was too much for him—people deal with these things in different ways, and perhaps getting back to work is his way of trying to come to terms with Joe’s passing.”

  “It’s all he ever does, work—can’t come to see us, because of work. Work, work, work and no one works that hard, not so they can’t come to see their family.”

  “Let’s go up—I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for you all,” said Maisie.

  Vivian led the way upstairs, where a landing opened to several rooms—to the left a kitchen, then a sitting room, followed by the bathroom. The door of one bedroom was open, and pinned on the walls were staged photographs of film stars—Alan Ladd being the most favored. Scarves were draped over the dressing table mirror, and several library books perched next to a hairbrush. Two additional doors to the right of the stairs were closed, though Maisie assumed they led to bedrooms.

  In the kitchen, Phil Coombes and Billy sat at the table, while Sally Coombes stood at the stove, watching the kettle as it came to the boil.

  “Nice of you to come back, Miss Dobbs,” said Coombes. “Eh, isn’t it, Sal?” he continued, turning to his wife.

  Maisie stepped away from Vivian and moved to Sally Coombes’ side. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Coombes—yesterday was very ‘official’ with the police here. I wanted to come back to see how you’re all faring, and if there’s anything I can do.”

  Sally Coombes turned to Maisie, her loss writ large in a raw desolation reflected in her eyes, and in the gray skin drawn across her cheekbones. Her hands shook as she reached for the kettle.

  “Let me,” said Maisie.

  “We’ve fair drunk London out of tea,” said Phil Coombes. “I’m supposed to be opening up today, but I can’t. Can’t face people, can’t face the looks, the questions—if they bother to ask. People are probably too frightened.” He looked at Maisie, who had made the pot of tea and was now setting clean cups on the draining board, ready to pour. “I’m grateful to you, Miss Dobbs—we might never have known, if you hadn’t been down there trying to find Joe.”

  “And thank you for going down—you know—to identify him. We couldn’t’ve done it—none of us,” added his wife, who had taken a seat between her daughter and husband.

  “Archie could have,” said Vivian. “I can see him now, saying ‘Yeah, that’s my brother—now that’s done, I’m off down the pub.’ I can hear him now,” said Vivian.

  “Vivian! That’s not fair! Your brother is a good young man—we brought you all up the same. He just takes it all in a different way.” The girl’s mother held up a finger to make a point. “You would do well to remember that—and remember who looks after you!”

  Vivian scraped back her chair and left the kitchen, running along the landing to her room, and slamming the door behind her.

  Coombes rubbed his forehead as his wife began weeping again. “It’s been like this since the news came—I mean, aren’t we all supposed to pull together? I’ve got two at loggerheads and we can’t seem to get ourselves going—and we’ve got a funeral to get sorted out.”

  Billy nodded to Maisie, and took her place to pour the tea. Maisie sat down and reached across to lay a hand on Coombes’ forearm. “There is no path set for this kind of shock, and for the grief that attends such terrible news. Vivian is in so much distress over losing her brother—that horror inside has to find a way out, so she’s very, very angry. We all have a different way of dealing with loss—and sometimes our ways clash.” She took a breath, knowing her words would cause more pain but had to be given voice. “You don’t have to rush to plan the funeral. Joe won’t be released to you for burial yet—they have more work to do, trying to find out what might have been ailing him.”

  “Do you think he jumped?” asked Coombes. “Do you think it was all this ‘boys will be boys’ business? And if he wa
s alone—why wasn’t he with the other blokes?”

  Maisie nodded to acknowledge Billy as he placed cups of tea in front of each of them, and then took a seat at the table—she had noticed he had remained very quiet.

  “I think the police have good reason to think he was a victim of his own ebullience on the night he died, however . . .” She modulated her speech, choosing her words with care. “However, I think the question of how Joe spent the past couple of weeks should be answered.”

  “The police aren’t going to do any of that answering though, are they?” said Sally Coombes. “That detective—what was his name—Caldwell? He said the coroner would likely say it was either accidental death or death by misadventure.”

  “Detective Chief Inspector Caldwell was being honest about what was discovered, and the conclusions of the pathologist at the scene. They will look very carefully at how Joe was found—please trust that they are continuing to consider each small mite of evidence they can find, to discover what lies behind Joe’s death.” She looked from Phil to Sally Coombes, who were both leaning toward her, as if she had the answers to every one of their questions. “And I want to assure you that I will not cease to investigate Joe’s death myself. I knew Joe—saw him grow up here—and I want to find out the truth of what was behind the accident that led to you losing him.”