Mrs. Keep welcomed Maisie with a cup of tea, home-baked scones and the promise of a room always ready for her whenever she came to the farm. Once refreshed, Maisie set her bag in the room, dropped in to say hello to Doreen’s aunt, and went on her way—this time in the direction of the airfield where she believed Teddy Wickham was stationed. Would she be able to see him? Would her name still be on a list that gave her preferential access? She had not wanted to trouble Lord Julian again, but was now having second thoughts and wished she had.
As before there were two guards stationed at the gatehouse when she drove up. She pulled into a lay-by opposite their station, reached into her handbag and took out her identity card. She wound down the window and held out the card.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant. I wonder if I could speak to the officer in charge, if I may? My name is Maisie Dobbs—here is my calling card.” She took one of the cards from her pocket. She did not wish to appear too confident of her position, but at the same time wanted to get answers to questions as soon as she could. “I believe my name should be on a list here—perhaps it’s with the officer in charge.”
“Right you are, miss. Remain in your motor car, if you don’t mind.” The sergeant returned to the gatehouse and stepped inside. Through the open door Maisie could see him winding up the telephone and placing a call. The conversation seemed to take longer than she had expected, but at last he replaced the receiver and walked back toward the Alvis.
“Sergeant Packham had to go through some papers, Miss Dobbs. He’d remembered seeing your name, but the permission to enter had been filed away. Now then, when I lift the gate you may proceed to the building situated to your right as you drive up there. Do not exceed five miles per hour, and do not stop. You will see where to park your vehicle and a guard will be waiting to escort you to an office where Sergeant Packham will see you.”
Maisie nodded and thanked the guard, who proceeded to lift a barrier, waving her through as she drove on. Taking care to keep the Alvis at the specified speed—tantamount to hardly moving—she followed instructions for parking. An armed guard approached the motor car, opened the door and instructed her to “Follow me, madam.”
Upon entering the long, one-storey building, she smelled fresh paint, and could see the job had been finished recently, perhaps in the last fortnight. The guard stopped outside a door, knocked and was given leave to enter. An officer and a sergeant were waiting in the room and returned the guard’s salute. The room was cool and felt damp, and seemed infused with the vapor of fresh emulsion. It was oppressive, reminding her of an interrogation room at Scotland Yard.
“Miss Dobbs,” said the officer. “Flight Lieutenant Cobb, and this is Sergeant Packham. Please take a seat.” He extended a hand toward a chair opposite a single desk in the room. Cobb took a seat on the other side of the desk, while Packham remained standing. “Now, how might we help you, Miss Dobbs? Is this to do with the painters?”
Maisie looked from Cobb to Packham. “Yes, I’m afraid it is in connection with the death of one of the young apprentices, Joseph Coombes. I’m given to understand that a friend of his brother, named Edward—Teddy—Wickham is stationed here. He visited Mr. Coombes a few weeks before his death, and subsequently told the deceased’s parents that their son had been in ‘top form.’ I would like to see Wickham, if I may. I would like to ask him a few questions about his meeting with Joseph Coombes.”
“Is there a suspicion of foul play in the death of the young apprentice?” asked Cobb.
“The inquest has yet to take place, but in all likelihood the coroner will conclude death by misadventure.”
“Young lad playing fast and loose with fate, eh?” said Cobb.
“Perhaps not,” said Maisie. “Might I see Wickham?”
Cobb turned to Sergeant Packham. “Where is Corporal Wickham at the moment?”
Packham lifted an open ledger from the desk and began to run his finger down the page. “In the hangar, sir,” he replied.
“Ask the guard to fetch him, and bring him to this office.” He turned to Maisie. “I should like to be present during your inquisition, if that’s all right,” said Cobb.
Maisie took account of Cobb’s stance—he had now come to his feet. It occurred to her that, perhaps, in civilian life he had not known much respect from his peers, that he had yearned for a measure of power, some sense of having an edge over others. He had possibly been all but invisible in school days, hence his need to sit while the sergeant stood—affirming his position—and then to stand as soon as the sergeant had left the room. Maisie leaned back in the chair, placing her elbows on the arms and stretching into the space allowed her.
“I’d like to talk to him in private—if that’s all right,” said Maisie. “It might be easier if Corporal Wickham had no cause to feel intimidated by the presence of an officer in the room. You are, after all, his superior.” She left the word “superior” hanging, suspended in the air between them, a word chosen to stroke an ego as if it were a dog to be calmed.
“Yes, quite,” said Cobb.
A single knock at the door signaled Packham’s entrance, with Teddy Wickham close behind. The young man was of average height, about five feet ten inches, and with reddish-blond hair. His gray eyes held no sparkle, though as soon as he saw Cobb, he snapped to attention, his chest pushed out and his back ramrod straight when he saluted the officer.
“At ease, Wickham,” said Cobb. “This is Miss Dobbs. She has something to discuss with you in private—which I am allowing on this occasion.” He looked at Maisie, again as if to underline his position. “A guard will be waiting outside and will escort you to your motor car directly you’ve finished in here, Miss Dobbs.” He turned back to Wickham. “And, corporal, you will immediately return to your duties.” He pronounced the word “immeejetly.”
“Yes, sir!” Wickham saluted again, his heels snapping together.
“And please don’t do that—you look like a bloody Nazi,” added Cobb as he and Packham left the room.
“You can breathe again and sit down now, Teddy—pull up that chair so you’re on this side of the desk.”
“Are you sure, miss, I mean—”
“Of course. Come on, sit down.”
Wickham picked up his chair and set it down so that it was diagonally situated to Maisie—not opposite and not alongside. She smiled. Whether deliberate or instinctive, he had seated himself in a neutral place.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” asked Wickham.
“Joe Coombes,” said Maisie.
Teddy Wickham nodded and looked down at his hands. “I heard he was dead. Probably the job what did it.”
“Tell me what you mean, Teddy?”
“Being away from home. Joe was a soft one—and all this business, going around painting these buildings, it wasn’t doing him any good at all.” He had leaned forward, his shoulders rounded, his arms now folded.
“But you said he was on ‘top form’—those were your exact words, according to Phil Coombes.”
“Well, he was, in a way—but it was as if he couldn’t get comfortable. On one hand he was having a bit too much fun with the lads, if you ask me. I mean, he wasn’t used to the late nights, that sort of thing. And on the other, he was on his own—the apprentice, not one of the boys.”
“Late nights? That doesn’t sound like the Joe I knew,” said Maisie.
Wickham looked up. “Didn’t know you knew him.”
“Yes, I know Phil and Sally, and I knew Joe. Not Archie though.” She sighed. “What makes you think Joe was having that many late nights? Was he drinking?”
Wickham shrugged. “Might’ve been. He was away from home, away from having the collar round his neck, so he was enjoying himself.”
Maisie folded her arms and leaned forward, mirroring Wickham.
“What do you do here, Teddy?”
“All sorts, but mainly stores, supplies and ordering. Boring really. But it’s steady, and I won’t be out there fighting, or up the
re in the air fighting, or on a ship fighting.”
“Not a bad move,” said Maisie.
“Wasn’t deliberate—luck of the draw. It’s where I ended up.”
“Do you get much leave?”
“More than some, I suppose. More than them going up and over there to fight the Germans.”
“So that’s how you were able to see Joe, make sure he was all right.”
“Saw him a couple of times.”
“How did you manage to get into the stores job? Sounds like a cushy number to me. What did you do before you joined up?” asked Maisie.
“I worked in a warehouse. Same sort of thing—they like to use what you’ve already got, I suppose—and like I said, it’s the luck of the draw. Always is.”
Maisie nodded. “Where was the warehouse—where you worked before the war?”
“Sydenham.”
“Oh, then you weren’t far from Archie then?”
Wickham shrugged. “No, not far, just up the road. He’s got a job that keeps him in civvy street though, jammy whatsit that he is.”
Maisie nodded, and when she spoke it was with a softer voice. “You’re very upset about Joe, aren’t you, Teddy?”
Wickham looked away. “Well, I would be, wouldn’t I. My mate’s little brother, dead because no one was looking after him.”
“What do you mean, Teddy? I thought the men he worked with were keeping an eye on him.”
“Well, they weren’t sharp enough, were they? Didn’t stop him ending up dead, did they?”
“Perhaps they didn’t know what he was up to,” said Maisie, her tone remaining modulated.
Wickham looked up at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to get back, Miss . . . Miss Dobbs. Got a shipment coming in, big one—everything from parts for vehicles, parts for aeroplanes, medical supplies, all that sort of thing, right down to tea and Bovril—and I’ve got to check it all through on the ledgers.”
Maisie said nothing, maintaining her gaze upon him so that, when he looked up, he found himself staring straight into her eyes.
“What?” he said.
“What are you afraid to tell me, Teddy?”
The young man shook his head, stood up and moved the chair back to its place behind the desk. He stood as if to attention in front of Maisie, and saluted before opening the door. Maisie heard his stride along a corridor, then a door opening, and as she left the room to greet the guard, she glanced out of a window and saw Wickham walking at speed toward an aircraft hangar, his hands curled into fists by his side.
“This way, ma’am,” said the guard, one hand steadying the rifle slung over his shoulder.
When they reached the motor car, the guard opened the door for Maisie to take her seat. He closed the door behind her and stood to watch as she maneuvered the Alvis around, and began to drive at the same low speed toward the exit. Another guard approached the barrier, lifting it for her to pass, then directed her across into a lay-by of sorts, and held up his hand for her to remain in place. He looked along the lane leading to the airfield, and beckoned a lorry forward, which—Maisie could see—was followed by three similar vehicles. The guard checked the papers handed to him by each driver, and as the lorries moved off, the engines roared and whined. Having secured the gate, the guard waved her forward and on her way.
A mile or so along the road she passed two more lorries, with boxes being loaded from one to the other. The first lorry was similar to those she had passed at the airfield, and the second bore the Yates’ company livery. There were no tins or barrels or anything that might contain paint to be seen.
Making her way back along country lanes, Maisie was thinking about Teddy Wickham, when she heard the low drone of aircraft approaching. She stopped the motor car next to a five-bar gate overlooking the green fields beyond, and stepped out. Leaning on the gate she looked up at the aeroplanes as they flew overhead—two Hurricanes and three Spitfires if she were not mistaken—toward the coast, and in all likelihood bound for France. And she remembered another time, at an airfield outside Munich just two years earlier, when she watched a young aviatrix, Elaine Otterburn, take off on a mission to save the life of a man valuable to Britain’s preparations for war, and her words as she had watched the aircraft disappear into the clouds: “God Speed.” Maisie whispered those same words again as the aircraft became specks in the distance.
The interview with Teddy Wickham troubled Maisie, not simply because she believed—indeed, she knew—that he had lied to her, but also for one other reason. As Teddy Wickham had left her he was fighting back tears. But were they tears of the bereaved? Tears of guilt? Or perhaps an expression of fear? She stopped at a bakery to buy a cheese roll, and then at a grocer’s where she bought a bottle of ginger beer, and considered her next move. She wanted to see Freddie and Len again, the two painters who were working with Joe, and who—as the senior men—were supposed to be training him in his job. In particular Freddie Mayes. Driving back into Whitchurch, she stopped at the telephone kiosk and placed a call to Yates’ yard. As soon as the singsong voice answered, she knew she was in luck.
“Yates Painting and Decorating, how may I help you?” The speaker’s tone seemed to begin on a low note and end on a high one.
“Hello—is this Miss Bright? Charlotte?”
There was a pause before the woman replied with a lowered voice. “That’s Miss Dobbs—I recognize your voice.”
“Charlotte, would you be able to give me some information please?”
“What sort of information?” Her voice was now little more than a whisper.
“Can you tell me where Freddie and Len are today? I’m in Hampshire and I’d like to see them.”
“Hmmm, let me see—just a minute.”
Maisie could hear the turning of pages, then Bright was back on the line. “Yes, I thought so. They moved on from that last airfield, and they’re now at another place. RAF Templeton. Nearer the coast it is—have you got a map?”
“Yes, I have, and I’ve also a list of the RAF stations, so I have everything I need. Is everything all right, Charlotte?”
“Mike Yates gave me my cards this morning—said that seeing as I was leaving anyway, I might as well be gone sooner rather than later, especially as he had another girl coming from the labor exchange with better qualifications than me. Made a point of telling me she was ‘brighter’ than me. I hate that man—and I’d like to know what someone with so-called better qualifications is doing coming here.”
“You’ll be in uniform soon, anyway,” said Maisie.
“Counting down the hours, Miss Dobbs. Counting down the hours.”
Maisie laughed. “Charlotte, I’ve another question. As I was leaving the other day, a motor car came into the yard—it was a black and green Rover Ten. Do you know who it belongs to?”
There was a brief pause before Bright answered. “I shouldn’t say, you know, what with that form I had to sign, the one about keeping quiet about what I do here—but seeing as this is my last day, I don’t give tuppence ha’apenny for Yates and his secrets. That motor car belongs to a bloke called Jimmy Robertson, but that wasn’t him driving it. No, that was one of his tea boys—that’s what my dad calls them, the blokes down the ladder from the top. Robertson has a finger in a lot of pies, and he comes here because one of the pies he has a finger in is the painting business. He supplies that special paint and helped get Mike Yates that contract. I’m not supposed to know that, but I do—oh, hang on.” There was a pause, then Bright came back on the line. “No, madam, I’m afraid it wasn’t Yates Painting and Decorating—I’ve looked up the records. However, Yates would be more than happy to give you an estimate—shall I get Mr. Yates to telephone you? No? All right. Thank you, madam.”
“Charlotte—could you give me your address quickly, just in case I have any more questions for you.”
The young woman recited her address in a low voice, adding a hurried good-bye.
Maisie left the telephone kiosk and sat in her motor car, staring s
traight ahead, deep in thought, paying no attention to her surroundings. She sighed, shook her head and spoke aloud, as if someone else were in the Alvis, and she had asked for their opinion. “Jimmy Robertson. That’s all I need—Jimmy Robertson.”
Maisie had never met Jimmy Robertson, though she had heard of him. Had not everyone in south London heard of the Robertson family? In the office, where she kept the card file started by Maurice, a resource used throughout her apprenticeship and which she continued to refer to, there was a clutch of cards, each one bearing a Christian name followed by the surname “Robertson.” The family’s tentacles reached into almost every business south of the river, and—she had heard—possibly even into Westminster. No wonder Sergeant Bright worried about his daughter—it beggared belief that he had ever allowed her to work for Mike Yates, if that was the company he kept. Jimmy Robertson was known to be ruthless with those who crossed him. She remembered hearing about one of Robertson’s “tea boys”—a man who had, on the orders of Jimmy Robertson, been dismembered before his body was set in concrete and thrown into the Thames. It was Caldwell who had told her. “The word on the street is that Barney Coleman’s now holding up Rotherhithe Docks. And they say Jimmy Robertson started cutting him before he was dead!” Robertson was not someone to be underestimated—Barney Coleman was his cousin.
She had intended to place a call to Chelstone to ask after Anna’s health, but looked at the single penny left in her purse—she would have to do it later. Instead she started the engine and slipped the motor car into gear, her thoughts on the conversation with Charlotte Bright. An unexpected thread was now running through the web. It happened—though not often. But this time perhaps that single thread might be the one to pull. As she made her way to RAF Templeton, checking the map at every junction, she wondered what counsel Maurice might offer. She remembered a story he had told about a sojourn in Morocco as a young man. He explained that in times past, for the early morning and evening Muslim call to prayer, the muezzin had no means of telling the correct time—the exact moments of dawn and dusk—so from their balcony high up on the minaret, they would hold two threads in the palm of one hand: a black thread and a white thread. When they could see no distinction between white and black at night, that was the time to begin their call. And in the morning, as soon as they could distinguish the white thread, so they would summon the faithful to prayer. Maurice had taken a pencil and paper and drawn a minaret, so that she might know what this tower, part of the mosque, looked like. She knew, then, as she turned off onto another lane, that for all her work on a case map and despite the colors used to follow each thread of evidence collected, she was still at the dawn of her investigation, for she could not distinguish black from white. Indeed, as she followed directions to the airfield, she was reminded of the difficulty of the task—all road signs had been removed. It seemed to be a reflection of her investigation into the death of Joe Coombes.
To Die but Once Page 17