Pardonable Lies

  “I knew it. My competition is an older man!”

  Maisie laughed. The tension had gone. “Yes, didn’t you know that already? I promise I will come to Hastings as soon as this part of my case is complete.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said. Now, I have to leave. Busy day ahead.”

  “Look, I know we have telephones, but would you write?”

  “I promise I’ll put pen to paper—and I’ll telephone as soon as I can.”

  Replacing the receiver, Maisie left the library where she had taken the telephone call, collected her document case and mackintosh, and made her way toward the kitchen. Deep purplish rings under her eyes betrayed her troubled night, when memories and nightmares conspired to tear into her heart and mind. One minute she was on her way to France, the boat pitching amid white-capped waves; the next she was in Kent, trying to reach her father across the orchard, ripe red apples dripping blood as she ran through avenues of branches, which turned to human limbs as they brushed against her face, the spots of red on her woolen dress and white apron expanding so that the garments became heavy and sodden, and all the time her father moving farther away and her legs weaker and weaker, until she woke with a start, hot and feverish.

  Leaving via the kitchen door, Maisie made her way to the mews, where she would collect the MG.

  “Nice mornin’, m’um.” Eric was making a final sweep across the MG’s bonnet with a yellow duster. “Just a cat’s lick and a promise before you leave.”

  “Thank you, Eric. She looks lovely.”

  “My favorite motor, that one.” He tapped the bonnet to indicate a job finished. “Mind you, I’ll want ’er for a good few hours before you go over there to France. Don’t want anything going wrong, now, do we? And I’ll make up a kit for you, some spares, so that if anything does go wrong, you won’t have any of them Frenchies trying to put a Peugeot part where a Peugeot part has no place to be.”

  “Oh, good point, Eric. Mind you, she hasn’t let me down this far, so I doubt if she’ll let me down in France.”

  “Well, the miles you drive, you never know. Better safe than sorry, that’s what I say.”

  Maisie took her seat in the MG, and Eric closed the door. “Yes, better safe than sorry.” She waved and drove carefully from the cobbled mews.

  It was as she pulled out onto the main road that Maisie noticed a man on the corner. A man who at first seemed quite nondescript, with a plain mackintosh buttoned to the top so that neither shirt nor tie could be discerned. He wore brown trousers and a brown felt hat; as she drove past, he pulled out a newspaper and opened it wide. Curious, Maisie doubled back in time to see the man leave Ebury Place. She could see why Teresa might have thought the man was, in fact, a woman, for his steps were shorter than the stride normally taken by a man….

  THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED in a flash, so quickly that afterward she realized that, only twenty minutes before, she was driving along, her mind full of the things she had to accomplish before leaving for France, and now this had happened: the MG nose first into a lamppost and she with a rather nasty cut on her forehead. Her head was throbbing as she answered questions, sitting in the motor car with a handkerchief to her forehead while a police constable stood before her, notebook in hand, assuring her that a doctor was on his way and no, he couldn’t let her just go on without at least being looked at, and he had to make a report in any case.

  “So, you say that a person ran toward the curb, as if they weren’t going to stop, so you took avoiding action—and the person just vanished?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, just so I have it here in your words, what was your avoiding action?”

  “Well, I swerved to miss him….” Maisie frowned. “Yes, him.”

  “So the person who walked out in front of you was a man?”

  Maisie faltered.

  “I think she’s concussed, poor girl. Been knocked silly.” A woman among the group of onlookers voiced an opinion.

  “Please, madam, if you don’t mind.” The police constable moved toward the group, whereupon a police vehicle arrived followed by another motor car with a DOCTOR sign placed on the dashboard. The constable looked around, nodded at his comrades as they alighted from the motor car, and proceeded to speak again to the crowd. “Now then, now then, move back, go on with your shopping, ladies, there’s nothing to see here.”

  “Well, it’s not a life-or-death case, just giving you a nasty headache, I expect.” The doctor examined the cut on Maisie’s head as she remained in the driver’s seat of the MG, then reached into his bag and began pulling out a tincture and dressings. “I’ve got some brand-new bandage here—it’s only been issued to certain hospitals and in small quantities, but I managed to get my hands on some—it’s got sticky stuff on one side so there’s no need for pins and a swathe of gauze around your head. I’ll be able to give you a nice neat dressing. Don’t get it wet and mind how you take it off, though.” The doctor spoke while attending to the wound, pulling out the brand-new bandage, measuring a short length, then placing it over a square of lint.

  “I’ll be able to take care of it. I was a nurse.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll have to double-underline the rest prescription! We’ll get the police here to take you home now. You’re to go to bed for a good twenty-four hours and see your usual doctor tomorrow.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to get to my office.”

  The doctor looked at the MG, his forlorn countenance leaving a sick feeling in Maisie’s stomach. “Not in this, you won’t. No doubt the police will have it towed to wherever you want it taken.” He looked at Maisie intently. “You know, you’re very lucky to be alive. If you had hit another motor car or bus, or even the side of that building, it would have been curtains for you. Thank God there was nothing coming in the other direction—and at this time in the morning! No wonder the chappie who ran out in front of you made off. The blithering idiot!”

  “You know, I really am all right, though my motor is…not.” Maisie felt a prickling at the corners of her eyes, and her head was still pounding. The MG was more than simply a motor car to her, it was her first big purchase as a business owner. And it represented so much.

  The doctor stood up and peered over the crumpled bonnet. “You know, I’m not a mechanical man, but I think someone with a bit of know-how will be able to sort this out for you in no time. So you do as I say, be sure to see your doctor tomorrow, and all will be well. Now then, I’ll just talk to the constable here and ensure that they’ll be taking you back to your home.”

  Maisie nodded and pressed her hands against her eyes. As if going back to the starting line at a race, she went through events leading up to the collision again, picturing almost every yard of the journey until the last image when she had gasped, quickly turned the wheel to avoid a disaster, and…. She knew the police would have questions about the person who caused her to swerve, the person who started this awful chain of events. Maisie pressed her fingers against the bandage again, willing her mind to work harder, to recover.

  “Ready, miss? Let’s get you home then.”

  Maisie stood up, allowing the police constable to support her. “No, take me to Fitzroy Square. Please. My office is there; my assistant will help me.”

  “But, miss, the doctor said—”

  “It’s all right. I know what I’m doing, constable. I was a nurse.” Maisie’s eyes filled with tears. Yes, I was a nurse.

  “I REALLY THINK you should do what the doctor said, Miss, and take a bit of a rest. You never know with a bang on the ’ead.” Billy placed a mug of strong sweet tea in front of Maisie, who was sitting alongside his own chair at the table where they had pinned out the Ralph Lawton case map.

  “I’ll be all right, Billy. Come this afternoon, I’ll be a lot better than the bruise around that gash might suggest. Thank heavens I had my hair cut and now have a fringe to cover it up.”

  Billy doodled on the edge of the paper with a red pencil. ??
?So, you say that this fella—if it was a fella—came from the station and sort of rushed at the curb as if to run out and then stopped, by which time you’d swerved.”

  “Yes, that’s about it.”

  “And then the man—or woman, for that matter—just vanished? Into thin air. Like a ghost.”

  “Yes.”

  Billy pressed his lips together and glanced sideways at Maisie, but she looked up and caught his eye.

  “I promise you, Billy, I know what I saw. If you doubt me, then put your cards on the table now!” Maisie scraped her chair back, stood up abruptly, and began to pace, looking at him all the time.

  Billy turned, his elbow resting on the back of the chair. “Miss, you’ve been right busy this past few weeks and, speaking direc’ly, it don’t take the brains of a gnat to work out that you’ve a lot on your plate. It wouldn’t surprise me if—”

  Maisie interjected. “If I hadn’t imagined it? Then what about the person seen at Ebury Place?”

  “Could’ve ’ad nothin’ to do with you or anyone else at number fifteen. Could’ve been one of them people what works for an estate agent, eyeing up the properties.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  Billy sighed. “Awright, then, let’s look at who else it could’ve been. We ain’t got any really dodgy cases on at the moment, ’ave we? I mean, who would want to do that to you? It’s terrible.”

  Maisie stopped, then paced back to the table, whereupon she took her seat again. “No, let’s ask another question: What is the message?”

  “What d’yer mean, Miss?”

  “The accident could have killed me, but it didn’t. It was a strange accident, made to seem as if it were entirely my fault, with no one able to back me up, no witnesses to the pedestrian’s odd behavior. I couldn’t even tell whether the person was a man or a woman, though at first glance I would have said it was a man. Billy, I don’t think it was an accident that was supposed to be fatal. I think it was a warning. That was the message.”

  Billy held up three fingers and counted them off: “Avril Jarvis, Ralph Lawton, Peter Evernden. Which one?”

  Maisie leaned back in her chair.

  “Miss, what you would ask me, if I were in your shoes, is What do you feel?” Billy placed his hand on his middle. “What do you feel inside about the accident and who caused it?”

  Maisie placed her hand on her waist, mirroring Billy. “My immediate thought is that it is to do with the Lawton case; however, I now have a sense that all is not as it at first seemed with Peter Evernden. His records are missing from the repository.”

  “Is that unusual? Seems like what with all them files and all them relatives, somebody’s papers are bound to go missin’.”

  “On the contrary, they keep excellent records and access is restricted to family members with prior permission to visit. I was able to make my appointment to view only after Priscilla had given her written permission.”

  “But ain’t the brass allowed in there?” Billy was rubbing his chin now. “P’raps one of the higher-ups needed the records.”

  “Or perhaps they have never been there. Perhaps they are somewhere else. Or destroyed. Perhaps, Billy, they are to be kept away from prying eyes.”

  THE REMAINDER OF the day was spent attending to details pertaining to the accident on Tottenham Court Road. After hearing about Maisie’s close shave with disaster, Maurice took over finalizing the arrangements for their passage to France.

  On a normal day, the telephone might ring one, two, or three times; however, it seemed that today, once Maisie had placed the receiver in the cradle, the telephone bell would immediately sound again. Even though she had telephoned ahead to warn that the MG was being towed to Ebury Mews, as soon as the damaged motor car was delivered into Eric’s care, word spread quickly. Frankie Dobbs was the first to telephone as soon as he heard the news. A telephone had been installed in the Groom’s Cottage at Maisie’s expense following his own accident, a serious fall earlier in the year, though Frankie would have preferred not to have such a thing in his home. When it rang he would look at the black machine for some time before answering the call—invariably from Maisie—as if the receiver might explode upon placing it next to his ear. But he lost no time in calling when he learned of her accident.

  “I should come up there right now, my girl, and bring you back to Kent. Runnin’ around in that motor all on your own. I’ve a good mind to go straight to the station now.”

  “Dad, I promise I’m all right.” She placed her fingers on her forehead, which was thumping yet again. “Now you know how it feels, eh, now the boot is on the other foot?”

  Frankie Dobbs was quick to respond. “I’ve always known how it feels, young Maisie!” Frankie had a habit of sounding rather cross when he was most worried about his daughter. “And this ‘going to France’ for a fortnight; can’t do you any good, can it, what with the foreign food they give you over there?”

  Maisie began to laugh, then winced as the pain increased. “Dad, the food is the least of my worries. I promise you, it’s just a bump and a scratch, nothing more than when I fell out of the tree in Granddad’s garden when I was five.”

  Frankie sighed. “I’ll never forget that either—I thought your mother was about to have a heart attack! Well, you mind, my girl. And you’ve to get on the blower to me again tomorrow, just so’s I know you’re all right. When are you coming home?”

  “When I’m back from France, promise.”

  “Right then.”

  “Dad—” Maisie hesitated. Telephone conversations with her father usually ended with the words “Look after yourself,” or perhaps “See you soon.” She swallowed. This time there was more she wanted to say. “Dad—”

  “What is it, Maisie?”

  “Dad—I—I love you.”

  Frankie seemed to falter. “Just you take care, my girl. Just you take care.”

  After Frankie, Maurice telephoned several times, Lady Rowan twice, and then Andrew Dene, who insisted Maisie see a friend at St. Thomas’s. “He’s a skull man, Maisie. I insist!”

  Eventually, Maisie agreed to telephone the surgeon for an appointment before she left for France, though it occurred to her that at this moment, with her motor car requiring repairs, new travel expenses, and her ambition to put a down payment on a property of her own, to say nothing of a second excursion to Taunton by Billy, she could ill afford the expense of a medical consultation. Her head throbbed. It was definitely time she went back to Ebury Place.

  Later, after a hot bath and a supper of hearty chicken broth with dumplings brought to her room by Sandra, Maisie finally laid her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes. She had rested for only a few moments when she opened her eyes and gazed for a while at the single red rose that Sandra had placed on the tray along with her supper. Frowning, she quickly reached over to her bedside table for the clutch of papers given to her by Priscilla. Maisie reread the letters written before Peter returned to England for what she and Priscilla had assumed was training and promotion, and then she read again the letters sent at a later date, letters so short by comparison. And there it was, the line that intrigued her: You would love the gardens here, Pris, the roses are gorgeous at this time of year.

  If there was one thing Maisie knew about Priscilla, it was that her friend was no gardener and hated roses in particular. Maisie closed her eyes and recalled Priscilla at Cambridge, pulling a face when a bouquet of scarlet roses from a smitten suitor was brought to her room by the porter.

  “I never saw a rose I could trust, Maisie. All very beautiful but with thorns that can rip one’s skin if one isn’t careful. The boys chased me into the rose garden when I was a girl, and I have never forgotten it. My father gave them each the stick for their trouble! Watch a man who sends you roses, Maisie!”

  And there was something else. The letter was dated November 1916. Winter. Roses are at their best in June.

  THIRTEEN

  Maisie woke suddenly, morning light teasing its way
through the curtains at an angle that suggested she had overslept.

  “Oh, no!” She leaped out of bed, then held on to the back of a chair for support, her head beginning to ache again. “I’ll take a powder, that’ll do it.” There was much to accomplish today, and Maisie did not want to be hampered. With resolve, she told herself that it was time to pull herself together, get affairs in order for her fortnight’s absence, and ensure that her fee from Sir Cecil Lawton was well earned. Today she had to see Sir Cecil, and she had also arranged to meet Detective Inspector Stratton for tea; she wanted to know how the case against Avril Jarvis was progressing. At her instruction, Billy would travel to Taunton again on Saturday in an effort to see the girl’s mother, which might be difficult as Avril’s name was now in the newspapers, along with the news that she had been remanded in custody at Holloway Prison, charged with the crime of murder. Maisie vowed to do all she could to ensure that Avril would not spend the rest of her life behind bars.

  Dressing quickly, Maisie added errands to her mental list of tasks that must be completed before the journey to France on Friday and tried to consider only positive aspects of the trip. France in mid-September would be lovely, with city dwellers back in Paris following the summer vacances and those making the pilgrimage from overseas to visit military cemeteries now fewer in number. Yes, she would get through her work here, and each day she would see only the new, only the rebirth of a land once decimated. Thus resolved, she tilted her navy cloche in a way that disguised any hint of a cut or bruise, took her black document case, and made her way toward the Victoria underground station. She did not tarry to visit Eric in the mews: she wasn’t up to receiving his prognosis on the health of her MG just yet.

  It was as she walked along that Maisie felt a prickly sensation at her neck, akin to the feeling that one gets when one is being observed, perhaps across a room, between the shelves of books in a library, or when one is shopping. It was a trigger that made Maisie instinctively turn around to identify the observer, stopping quickly before looking down the street upon which she had just walked. The street was empty, so she continued on her way, struggling to maintain the determination embraced only ten minutes ago as she left Ebury Place.