“How did he upset—”
“Sorry, Miss Dobbs. I really have to go, the boys are waiting for me.” He turned and hurried around the perimeter of the room so as not to be waylaid by admirers and was up on the stage with a single leap, taking up his trumpet and coaxing another wail into the rafters, the band joining him as the note changed mid-climb for a slide down the scale. The dancers were up and moving, and as Maisie collected her bag, she felt a pressure on her elbow.
“Oh, no you don’t! You promised one more dance.” Alex Courtman had loosened his tie while sitting at the bar, waiting for Harry Bassington-Hope to depart.
“But—”
“No ‘buts’—come on.”
IT WAS ANOTHER hour before Maisie left the club to make her way through cold, smog-filled streets to her flat. She parked the MG, checked the lock and walked toward the main door of the building. It was as she opened the door that she looked around behind her. A shiver had slithered along her spine, and she closed the door behind her with haste, then hurried to her ground-floor flat. Once inside, she locked the door and, without turning on the lights, went to the window and looked out at the small front lawn and surrounding trees that separated the flats from the street. She stood there for some time, but there was no one there, though she felt, instinctively, that she had been watched.
Clearing her mind, she sat on a pillow, cross-legged in meditation before going to bed, hoping that her practice would leave a path free of conscious thought for some fresh connections to reveal themselves to her. She had not been able to question Harry Bassington-Hope as thoroughly as she had wanted, though she had not come away empty-handed. From a practical perspective, she had procured a list of the clubs where he was employed and knew broadly how and when to find him again—if she needed to continue the conversation that had been so abruptly brought to a close. She had not pressed any point that might have alerted him to her knowledge of his underworld dealings—and she knew already that one of his attackers the previous Sunday was also known to Nick.
The conversation had shed even greater light on the Bassington-Hope family, and though it was not something a well-mannered woman would do, she now planned to drop in without prior notice when she made her way back from Dungeness this week. She suspected she’d be welcomed anyway. Nick alienated members of his family from time to time, and in the weeks before his death it appeared that he had argued with both sisters and his brother—he had had little in common with the latter in any case. He had upset the man who was not only the source of a considerable amount of money, but his sister’s lover. And the dynamics of those relationships seemed as if they were about to give Stig Svenson peptic distress—he had a lot to lose when Nick Bassington-Hope refused to toe the line. Alex Courtman was an interesting case—not as close to Nick as the other two friends and bluntly honest about his ability as an artist. He was also quite forthcoming in terms of sharing information with Maisie. Was he deliberately misleading her? And why did he seem to be on the edge of the “inner circle”?
Maisie decided to push the case to the back of her mind, and instead concentrate her thoughts on Lizzie Beale. Billy might be back at work in the morning—she hoped against hope that the news of his daughter was encouraging. Having lain awake for some time worrying, it distressed her when she tried to summon an image of Lizzie and found that she couldn’t. She could see her little red coat, the lace-up leather boots on her feet, her mop of curls like those of a rag doll and her dimpled hands. But not her face.
Thirteen
Though there was no rain, no sleet, the sky above Fitzroy Square was gunmetal gray, shedding a deep silver light across equally gray flagstones. It was as if all color had been drained from morning’s promise, as if time would be suspended until tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that. As she unlocked the front door, Maisie checked the watch pinned to her jacket pocket. Even though she was a few minutes late, she knew she would be surprised if Billy were at the office. He would not come today. She moved toward the staircase, and stopped. Why am I even going up the stairs? Then she turned, locking the door behind her again, and made her way back to the MG.
Rain had started to fall lightly, that fine mist of a shower that would continue now for the remainder of the day. Maisie did not drive to the hospital in Stockwell, for she knew there was no need. Instead she drove straight to the Beales’ small house in the East End.
She saw that the curtains were drawn as she parked her motor car on the street outside the house, and as she stepped from the driver’s seat, she was aware that the thin, worn fabric at the windows of other houses on the street had flicked back and forth, as neighbors watched the comings and goings. Maisie knocked at the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again, hearing footsteps become louder until the door opened. It was Doreen’s sister. Maisie realized that she had never been introduced to the woman, so did not know her name or how to address her.
“I came…I hope…”
The woman nodded and stepped aside, her eyes red-rimmed, the bulk of her pregnancy weighing upon her, causing her to clutch her back as she made room for Maisie to enter the narrow passageway.
“They’ve been talking about you, miss. They’d want to see you.”
Maisie touched the woman on the shoulder, and walked to the kitchen door, where she closed her eyes and petitioned herself to say and do the right thing. She knocked twice and opened the door.
Billy and Doreen Beale sat at the kitchen table, both with untouched cups of cold tea in front of them. Maisie entered and said nothing but, standing behind them, rested a hand gently on each of their shoulders.
“I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Doreen Beale choked, pulled her pinafore up to her swollen eyes and wept, pushing her chair back as she slumped over. She clutched her arms around her middle, as if trying to stop the pain that came from the very place where she had carried Lizzie before she was born. Billy bit into his lower lip and stood up, allowing Maisie to take the seat he vacated.
“I knew you’d know, Miss. I knew you’d know she was gone.” He could barely form words, his voice cracking as he spoke. “It’s all wrong, all bleedin’ wrong, when something as beautiful as our little Lizzie can be taken. It’s all wrong.”
“Yes, Billy, you’re right, it’s all wrong.” She closed her eyes, silently continuing the plea that she be given words that might soothe, words that would begin the healing of bereaved parents. She had seen, when she entered the kitchen, the chasm of sorrow that divided man and wife already, each deep in their own wretched suffering, neither knowing what to say to the other. She knew that to begin to talk about what had happened was a key to acknowledging their loss, and that such acceptance would in turn be a means to enduring the days and months ahead. Oh, how she wished she could speak to Maurice, seek his counsel.
“When did it happen?”
Billy swallowed as Doreen sat up, wiped her eyes with her pinafore again and reached for the teapot. “We’re not minding our manners, Miss Dobbs. I’m sorry. I’ll put the kettle on.”