To Die but Once

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “And how about your Billy?” said Maisie. Her tone was measured, knowing that Billy was bursting with news.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute about him—but what about Walter Miles downstairs? He’s been arrested! I came in this morning and bumped into a couple of the students who live upstairs—told me everything. The police came—all on the QT, looking around in his garden, and especially at that thing he has growing up the gutter—and the next minute he was being carted off. Happened that day we went to Scotland Yard.”

  “Oh dear,” said Maisie. “I wonder what he’s done.”

  Billy looked at Maisie, his eyes meeting hers, then he went on. “Anyway, you asked about our Billy. He’s right as rain and gone back to barracks now. He asked me if I’d seen Vivian Coombes, but I said I thought she was walking out with a fellow, and it was serious. I mean, I don’t want to protect him from everything, but that Viv, well, he would need evacuating all over again if he took up with her!”

  Much of the work involved in the final accounting kept Maisie in London. The pub on Warren Street had been closed, with a sign informing regulars that new tenants would be taking over soon, and it would be business as usual. Mike Yates’ yard was also closed, with the tall wooden gates pulled across the cobblestone courtyard where lorries had unloaded the toxic paint that had caused Joe Coombes so much suffering.

  Maisie visited Phil Coombes, who was living temporarily with his sister in Norwood. They talked for only a short while, as Maisie understood that Coombes might still face charges of receiving stolen goods. She wanted, however, to discuss Joe’s final resting place.

  “I thought about having him laid to rest with his mum, but I don’t know,” said Coombes. “I reckon he would like something different, and not be in a cemetery with that side of the family.”

  “His body has been released to you, Phil. May I make a suggestion?”

  Phil Coombes nodded. “My other two only seem to care about themselves at the moment. I reckon Archie will get off light, considering what he has to say about his uncle, and he’s a young man, so they’d like to see him in uniform. Enough were lost at Dunkirk, so they’ve got to make up numbers. But Viv—well, she violated the Official Secrets Act, and no matter how small the crime, they look upon that very seriously. She could be in Holloway for a long time—if she’s lucky. At least she’s not been charged with treason.”

  “I’ve spoken up for her, Phil,” said Maisie. “I think there’s a case for her to receive some leniency, though even leniency can be hard in this situation.”

  “I know.” Coombes nodded, biting his thumbnail. “I know it’s no good wishing it were all different, but I knew what Jimmy was like years ago and I should have put my foot down and taken on a brewery tenancy out of London. We should have gone somewhere else, well away from him.”

  “But Sally was his sister. She was loyal to her family. And I think Jimmy would have put upon you anywhere you ended up.”

  “Sally should have been a bit more loyal to our family, that’s what. And now I’ve lost her too.” Coombes seemed overcome, and turned away for a moment. As he regained control of his emotions, he spoke again. “What shall I do about Joe, Miss Dobbs?”

  Maisie took a deep breath and exhaled. “I think that, when all is said and done, perhaps having Joe cremated might be the better course of action.”

  “Then what? I don’t want him sitting on my sister’s mantelpiece, or coming with me to prison if I’m sent down.”

  “No, that’s not what I had in mind. Phil, Joe wanted to live in the country. From the moment he went down to Hampshire, he loved it there—and he loved the land where the farmer Phineas Hutchins had offered him a job. Mr. Hutchins thought a lot of him, Phil. I can ask him if Joe’s ashes could be scattered across the land.”

  Phil Coombes nodded. “All right. All right. Yes, I reckon that’s the best thing. Then I can go down there to the farm and imagine my Joe working there, on the land—if the old boy lets me.”

  “Oh, I think he will.”

  Maisie made the journey to Whitchurch by train, and walked around the town, stopping on a narrow bridge to look at the old Silk Mill, then wandering farther afield until she was ambling alongside the River Test, following the route Joe was believed to have taken during the last moments of his life. Later, she met Phineas Hutchins in the pub, and afterward he drove her back to the farm in his old van.

  “He’ll rest up there, by that stand of trees,” said Hutchins. “You can tell his father that he’ll be looked after. I’ll watch over him, and so will these two—and his pup, when he’s ready.” He pointed to the two dogs—one a seasoned sheepdog, the other a youngster ready to learn the ropes. “They’ll know it’s hallowed ground. Dogs always know.”

  Maisie bent down to stroke the dogs, and when she came to her feet she pressed the small silver disc engraved with the name “Magni” into the farmer’s hand.

  Phineas Hutchins drove Maisie back into the town just in time to meet Sylvia Preston for tea. The young WAAF arrived in her distinctive “air force blue” uniform, a halo of coppery brown curls bubbling from under her peaked cap.

  “This is awfully good of you, Miss Dobbs. I’m starving!” Preston tucked into a scone with jam and clotted cream. “I’m always starving—the food they give us is terrible and what that landlady puts on the table isn’t much better at all. My staple diet these days is toast!” She held up half a scone. “And who knows how long we’ll be able to get this sort of thing.”

  “I’m very grateful for your help, Sylvia,” said Maisie. “The information you gave me was invaluable, and has helped to put those responsible for Joe’s death away for a long time.”

  “That detective from London was a bit sharp, wasn’t he?”

  Maisie laughed. “Detective Chief Inspector Caldwell? Consider his job—I think it would make anyone sharp.”

  “Well, he didn’t keep me for long, but it raised a few eyebrows at the airfield, I must say. I think it might be part of the reason why I’ve been promoted—well, not exactly a promotion, but it feels like it, not to be driving that ambulance. I’m being transferred to a new job—much better.”

  “Oh? That sounds exciting—well done.”

  Preston used her handkerchief to dab her lips, and took a sip of tea. She looked around at others enjoying their afternoon tea, and turned back to Maisie. “I’m sure you don’t know any German spies, so I’ll tell you what it is—sort of.” She looked around again, and leaned toward Maisie. “They’re sending me to one of the Chain Home stations.”

  Maisie moved closer to Preston. “The what?”

  Preston cast her glance around the tea shop again. “Chain Home stations—they’re stations where they have a special early warning system and they’ve been set up all along the coast, so we can tell when there’s an attack coming from over there. It’s using radio signals and I’ll be a plotter for what they call ‘radio detection and ranging.’ We can use this system to instantly know where the enemy aircraft are located and how many of them are coming over here, so we can get our boys up there to intercept them. We’ll be able to give a decent warning if bombers are on their way.” She leaned back and began spreading clotted cream on the remainder of her scone. “That’s all I’d better say. They’re sending me to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, so that’s me—away from the ambulances and that terrible job. And you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “I wouldn’t tell a soul,” said Maisie. “And I don’t think you should tell anyone else—not even your family. I think this information is too important, Sylvia.”

  Maisie met Dr. Clarissa Clark at the hotel in London where she was staying while attending a series of meetings—one in connection with her findings during the postmortem on Joe Coombes.

  “The interesting thing, Maisie, is that—having done more research—we discovered that while the various substances used by Robertson to thin out the fire retardant and to make it go further, were fairly nasty, they were not what was causing the
more serious problems. The paint had been developed and then tested only to discover whether it had the required fire-retardant qualities. The testing was arbitrary, a very basic affair and not conducted by scientists at the level I would like to see—they just wanted the paint on their buildings to protect them, because they were racing against time.”

  “Will they discontinue use?” asked Maisie.

  “I doubt it, not the way they’re constructing new airfields around the country. No, it’s a time of war, so a worker who has a particularly bad reaction—someone like Joe—is only so much concomitant damage along the way.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Maisie.

  Clark pressed her lips together before speaking again. “It is terrible, Maisie—but so is a burning building. To die in a fire is a dreadful death—I’ve seen my fair share of burn victims and I am sure I will see many, many more before this war is done. Will there be more Joes? I don’t know—though certainly there are going to be precautions now. I’ve asked for even the most simple masks to be provided to the workers, especially those apprentices who are still so young. And I have stipulated that they should wear gloves, though they tend to limit the dexterity of the working painter. And a list of guidelines I’ve drawn up will be issued to the companies who are currently taking over the Yates’ contract—that’s what my meetings here in London have been all about.” She paused. “The thing that worries me is not what happens to these workers now, or even in a few months, or a year—it’s what happens when years have passed. This very powerful fire retardant is poison, and such contamination can remain in the body for decades, affecting every part of the human system. I am sure men will suffer in the future and never know it was all due to a job they took on when they were little more than boys.”

  Tim Partridge came home to Chelstone toward the end of June, to a welcome from all but his brother Tom, who was already stationed at RAF Hawkinge, flying Hawker Hurricane aircraft and preparing for whatever might come next in his life. Anna had taken to grabbing Tim by his right hand and insisting he accompany her to the stables to help her groom Lady. And when he objected, maintaining that a person with an arm missing could hardly groom himself, let alone a pony, she replied, “Tim—you’ve got another arm, haven’t you?” And to the delight of all who observed the exchange, Tim agreed to be pulled this way and that wherever Anna wanted his company. His recovery had begun.

  With her routine reestablished, of weekdays in town and toward the week’s end, the journey back to Chelstone, it was toward the end of the month when Maisie persuaded Priscilla to accompany her to Rye.

  “I don’t know if I can bear to go back there,” said Priscilla. “Gordon’s funeral was hard enough on everyone. Tim was so upset that he could not leave the hospital, but I think it was for the best.”

  “You should come,” said Maisie. “You know what you always say about the dragon. Look it in the eye, and then keep it mollified.”

  George checked the amount of petrol in the tank, and decreed that Maisie had enough fuel in the Alvis for one more excursion. They set off mid-morning on the last Friday in June for the drive down to Rye.

  Parking the motor car alongside the harbor, Maisie and Priscilla walked past fishing boats unloading their catch, and stood to remember the day Tim came home from Dunkirk.

  “I still can’t believe he did it, Maisie. I’ve been moaning for the past three years that Tim was the one causing me trouble, and that this sailing lark at least kept him out of the house for a while. Now he’s the one who has surprised me the most—and of whom I am so proud.”

  “They’re good young men, Priscilla,” said Maisie. “Tim was incredibly brave.”

  “I can still see him struggling to bring in the boat—and that fisherman helping him do it on his own, knowing it was only right that he be given the chance.” Priscilla wiped a tear from each eye. “I think this war is going to make a lot of mothers proud—but for the wrong reasons. What was it Churchill said? You know—it was on the wireless. ‘The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.’ It makes my heart so heavy. Young men shouldn’t have to die, and their parents shouldn’t have to go through the rest of their lives making everything seem right by saying, ‘At least my boy was brave.’ Or, ‘We’re proud he did his bit.’”

  A now familiar low rumble of aircraft engines caused Priscilla and Maisie to look up, hands shielding their eyes from the midday sun. Three Hurricanes flew in formation overhead, out toward the Channel.

  Priscilla stood on tiptoe and waved at the departing aircraft, then turned to Maisie. “Just in case that’s my Tom up there.”

  Maisie waved along with her until the aircraft were out of sight. And she wondered, then, how it must feel flying across the Weald of Kent, across Sussex, over ancient woodland and patchwork fields of barley and hops down below; over farms with oast houses, their white cowls like witches’ hats poking through the morning mist, and above market towns and small villages, with children looking up and waving as they passed, until they left the English coast behind.

  “It’s time to drive back to Chelstone, Pris,” said Maisie. “They’ll all be wondering where we’ve got to.”

  “And Anna will be home from school by the time we get there.”

  Maisie linked her arm through Priscilla’s, and nodded. Yes, Anna would be home.

  Acknowledgments

  During the years 1941–43, my late father, Albert Winspear, was the young apprentice who inspired this story. It was only during his final weeks that we talked at length about the job he’d started as a fourteen-year-old apprentice, joining a crew of house painters who were taken from one RAF base to another around the country, applying fire retardant to the buildings. He told me that it was one of his jobs to line up a series of blowtorches close to each wall to test resistance to fire after the emulsion was applied, and described his initial shock when the torches left no mark following four hours of blasting heat. When I asked him what the paint was called and he told me it didn’t have a name, only a number, I knew that in time it would become a story. My father died from a serious blood disorder termed “idiopathic”—there is no known cause—though there is evidence to indicate that his particular incarnation of the illness is associated with exposure to toxic materials. We were fortunate it took so long to catch up with him. My parents left me with many stories of the Second World War, which deepened my appreciation of the ways in which individuals are affected by conflict, with their scars lasting a lifetime.

  My cousin, Larry Iveson, inspired me to use the area around Whitchurch in Hampshire, England, as a backdrop for a novel. From the moment he told me about the town’s connection to the Bank of England and the business of manufacturing paper money, I was hooked! My “research” involved some lovely walks together around the town where he has lived for many years. Coincidentally, my father had worked at some of the airfields in the region during his apprenticeship. In addition, the experiences of one of my late aunts inspired the character of Sylvia Preston, the young WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) in To Die But Once. My aunt drove ambulances across Salisbury Plain, collecting the bodies of soldiers who hadn’t survived their first parachute jump. Of my uncles, two were among the thousands of soldiers who stood for days on the beaches of Dunkirk waiting to be evacuated in the spring of 1940, again rendering To Die But Once personal.

  In our very large extended family, almost all theaters of the Second World War were experienced by at least one of my uncles or aunts, or my parents—from Dunkirk to the Battle of Britain, the war in France, Italy, Asia, the African desert, D-day, the Blitz, and in Germany, plus of course the dark side of childhood evacuation—thus the stories that were retold during my childhood, along with those of my grandparents and their lives during the First World War continue to inspire my writing.

  My thanks, as always, to my literary agent and dear friend, Amy Rennert, along with my amazing editor Jennifer Barth—I am a very fortunate recipient of their wise counsel an
d guidance. I have great admiration for the team at HarperCollins, including marketing wizard Stephanie Cooper, who stuns me with her new ideas, and Katherine Beitner, PR and publicity maven, whose support and encouragement mean so much to me—thank you, Katherine. Deepest thanks to Josh Marwell and his team—Josh, I truly appreciate your enthusiasm and hard work on behalf of the Maisie Dobbs series. And many thanks, as always, to Jonathan Burnham, senior vice-president and publisher of Harper Books. Creative director Archie Ferguson is one of my all-time heroes for his work on the iconic covers for the Maisie Dobbs series. And I am filled with admiration and gratitude for the imagination and skill of Andrew Davidson, artist and craftsman, who has created works of art to grace the cover of each new book—thank you for your attention to detail and for your appreciation of my work, Andrew.

  My husband, John Morell, is my support on the home front, and for that he deserves a medal!

  Finally, having grown up in the Kent countryside, and later living in Sussex, where my parents resided close to Rye for over thirty-five years, I have an abiding love of the area, and equally so for London, where my family’s roots run deep. Thus any geographical wide turns are usually deliberate—sometimes when writing a story, you just have to get everyone from A to B.

  About the Author

  Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times best sellers In This Grave Hour, Journey to Munich, A Dangerous Place, Leaving Everything Most Loved, Elegy for Eddie, and A Lesson in Secrets, as well as seven other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels. Her stand-alone novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was also a New York Times and national best seller, and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She has won numerous awards, including the Agatha, Alex, and Macavity awards, and was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Originally from the United Kingdom, Winspear now lives in California.