Chapter Four
“I promise, I won’t be home quite so late this evening, Maisie.” James Compton cut into a slice of toast, spreading it liberally with butter and marmalade. “It was that meeting with Tom Hollingford, you know, the architect working on those houses we’re building in Bromley. It just went on and on, and at the end of the day, it was all about apple trees.”
Maisie placed her table napkin beside her plate and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. She wanted to leave for the office and prepare for the meeting with Usha Pramal’s brother. “Apple trees, James?”
“Well, you know the entire area was once apple orchards—all down to Henry the Eighth and his desire for an abundant supply of fresh fruit in days of yore. Anyway, what we are trying to do is retain at least one apple tree in each garden. Keep a bit of the past lurking in the present. And it’s proving to be a bit of a pain in the neck. Hollingford wants to just plough the whole lot in, though I believe we should keep as much as we can—it’s good for public opinion. We don’t want to be seen as a raze-and-build firm, and there are some very big contracts, here and overseas, that will come our way if we get it right. It’s always so much easier when permission to build goes through the local council without too much ado, and that’s more likely to happen if people are happy about what’s going in.”
Maisie stood up, leaned forward, and kissed James on the forehead. “Keep the apple trees. People will thank you for them.”
“Shade in summer and fruit in September,” said James.
“Yes,” said Maisie. “And a tree is always handy for tying one end of the washing line.”
James laughed. “I never thought of that.”
“No, James, you would never have thought of that. Now then, I must go. Stick to your guns, James.”
As she left the room, Maisie reached out and took an apple from the bowl on the sideboard buffet. “A cox’s orange pippin is so much nicer than apples from foreign parts,” she added, closing the door behind her.
“Mr. Pramal, you must be quite busy, with the various arrangements that have to be made. I didn’t think of that when I asked you to come back so soon.” Maisie held out her hand to the chair made ready for Pramal. She nodded to Billy and Sandra to join her; Pramal waited until the women were seated before taking his place.
“Finding the truth of my sister’s death is the most important thing I have to do at the moment,” said the man, his head bending forward as a mark of respect.
“May I ask what arrangements have been made for her . . . for her funeral?”
“We have had to do our best to honor her in our way, Miss Dobbs. So, as soon as her body is released to me by the authorities, Usha will be cremated. I will take her ashes back to India with me, and a ceremony will follow. It is most important that she is laid to rest in a proper way.”
“Of course.” Maisie nodded to Sandra, who was to take notes. “Now then, let’s get down to work. “We asked you some questions yesterday, but I feel it might have at first been difficult for you to speak in front of Detective Inspector Caldwell.”
“He is a prejudiced man. He does not like the color of my skin, the sound of my voice, or the fact that I know he has not done his job. So much for the illustrious Scotland Yard. He wants me on a ship. Gone. And with my sister poured into a glass jar, safely in my suitcase.”
Maisie looked at Pramal, and felt the power of his grief and anger.
“Major Pramal—”
“Miss Dobbs, as I pointed out yesterday, I am no longer a member of His Majesty’s Imperial Armies, so I do not deserve to be addressed as any sort of major. I do not seek to be known in this way. I have enough memories of the war, so would rather be the mister I was before I first came to this country.”
“Of course, Mr. Pramal. I also served in the war, so it is a habit of acknowledgment I am given to slipping into when I see medals worn with pride.” She paused, glancing at Billy. “But I understand the importance of leaving the past behind, and your reasons for wearing your medals in front of Caldwell.”
Maisie thought Pramal had an attractive face, with a hint of European expression, though he moved his head as he spoke with the light cadence of his fellow countrymen. His hair was neat and oiled, combed back with a parting to one side. His eyes were like his sister’s—the shape of almonds and the color of dark chocolate. His skin was clear, barely lined, yet his hands were the hands of one familiar with manual work. She imagined him overseeing construction, physically moving iron and brick, clambering over the site of a new dam or bridge, demonstrating to workers exactly how he wanted a job done. She saw him talking to his foreman, and never giving in to the urge to remove his jacket, or open his stiff collar and loosen a tie from its perfect position. It was as if he were intent on being the perfect King’s subject.
“It was clear from our conversation yesterday that you made a request for the case to be referred to me. I should have asked at the time, but—where did you hear of my services?”
“From Dr. Basil Khan. Of Hampstead. I knew of Dr. Khan from my great-uncle. They were young men together.”
“They were?” Maisie leaned forward. “I confess, I sometimes forget Khan was a doctor—I have only ever known him as ‘Khan.’ ”
Pramal smiled. “He is—as you probably know—from Ceylon; however, as far as I know, he came to Bombay in his youth. He was a medical doctor, but it was not his calling. Instead he went to live in the hills, in Sikkim. Then he went away, and it was years before anyone knew where he’d gone. All over the world, everyone said. My uncle is no longer with us, but I remembered his story, and that Dr. Khan now resided in Great Britain. So I came to him in my time of sadness. He told me that you would help me.” Pramal smiled.
“What is it?”
“He said that I must look beyond your youth. But you are not as young as I thought you would be.”
Maisie smiled. “I don’t know how to take that. To be fair, I was very young when I first met Khan—not yet fifteen years of age—so he probably still considers me a girl.”
“No, Miss Dobbs. He said you were a wise woman.”
Maisie blushed, opening the file she had collected from Caldwell. “I only hope I don’t disappoint you, Mr. Pramal. Now then—” She turned over a page. “Can we talk about Usha coming to England? She was a governess, and never employed as a maid, or a nurse to the children?”
“That is correct. There was already an ayah, who looked after a younger child and undertook general housekeeping, though she did not accompany the family to England. The Allisons were very well positioned, you know. They wanted a governess who could teach English, French, who could read with the children and who could also give them lessons in arithmetic.”
“Did they make any promises regarding her future employment?”
“They said that she would be looked after, that she would be with the family until the youngest child had finished her education—then she would have her passage paid to return home. The boy was destined for a boarding school, but I believe it was intended for the young ladies to learn at home and then attend a school in London before being sent to Switzerland. That is the way with these people.”
Maisie looked up. Billy caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, while Sandra held her gaze for a second longer than a glance.
“Mr. Pramal, may I ask—it seems quite common for families to bring an ayah with them from India, but not a governess. Am I right?”
Pramal sighed. “Yes, you are correct, but my sister was a highly regarded young woman, who matriculated from her college with top marks and first-class references. She was well versed in the English language and literature—she was tested many times. And she had learned French as well—not a common language to learn in my country.”
“From my notes here, it seems that she was given notice to leave her employment with no financial assistance, apart from that which was owed her. Can you account for this?”
“Usha did not tell me about what had happened. In her letters she seemed as happy and content as she had ever been.”
“If I may risk overstepping the mark, Mr. Pramal, I would like to return to a point we discussed yesterday—would Usha not have been betrothed to be married at some point?”
Pramal shook his head. “I wish she had, but as I explained, my father indulged her following the death of my mother. My aunts tried to advise him in the most very strong way, but he allowed her to turn up her nose at every suitor. And if I am to be perfectly honest, there were not many suitors—a family soon learns when a girl is too headstrong for their son. It is not desirable, and it comes with a reputation. I believe that if my mother were alive, Usha would have been a different person—but . . .”
“But perhaps not.”
Pramal shrugged. “Perhaps not.”
Sandra held up her pencil, as if she were a student in class.
“Have you thought of something, Sandra?” asked Maisie.
Sandra blushed, and at once Maisie wondered if she felt less than confident in her classes when called upon to speak or to answer a question.
“Well, yes.” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Pramal, I just wondered if any of Miss Pramal’s suitors might have gone away feeling, well, slighted in some way. If they and their family tried to bring about a, um, a betrothal—is that how it is?—well, a boy might have had a bit of a chip on his shoulder when she turned down a proposal.”
Maisie nodded her agreement. “Mr. Pramal?”
Pramal sighed. “My friend, Mr. Singh, he was in love with Usha once. She made it clear to my father that she would not accept any approach from his family. And there was another man who called upon her, though most unsuitable. An Englishman. He came to the house one day. Usha was very furious with him and asked an aunt to send him away. I—”
Maisie looked up from a note she was making. Pramal had stopped speaking, and was now shaking his head.
“Mr. Pramal?” Maisie leaned forward, to catch his eye.
“I—I had a suspicion at the time—though I never proved it, of course. But I wondered if Usha had already been seen out with the Englishman, without a chaperone. He was a young man, not long in India, and I would say he was a very naive boy—a civil servant, working in the shipping office, or perhaps he was some sort of diplomatic person—I can’t remember now. It was soon after he came to our home that she decided to accept the position of governess. She worked for the family for a while before they sailed to England. I never saw the man again, and doubt he ever saw Usha.”
“Do you know his name?” Maisie held her pen ready above the index card.
“I really don’t remember—in fact, I am not sure that I ever knew. You see, I was not at home then, and did not visit often, because I was new in my position and working very hard to establish myself. I heard that he was a very ordinary young man with nothing to commend him. It was most discourteous that he should call to see Usha without an invitation from my father, or even one of my aunts, standing in for our mother. Such a lack of respect. He had much to learn about India.”
“Before we leave the subject of Usha and her suitors, do you think there’s anyone else we should know about?” asked Maisie.
“As I mentioned, there was my fellow officer, with whom I stayed for a short while here in London. He is married now. Our mothers were close and our fathers had business together—there was at one time a hope that he and Usha might join the two families. It would have been a source of joy, but she was not to be persuaded.”
“Mr. Pramal. Please, correct me if I am wrong, because I have not been to India and my experience of your way of life is rather limited, but everything you have told me about Usha points to the fact that she very much sailed against the wind, that she—for want of a better phrase—took liberties. How was she not vilified in the community . . . didn’t people talk?”
Pramal smiled as tears rimmed his eyes. “Ah yes, indeed, Miss Dobbs, that should have been the case. But you see, Usha was beautiful and loved, and ever since she was a child—a very precocious child—it was as if there was a young goddess in our midst. She carried with her an eternal sunshine, you know. She was one of those people who walk along the street and everyone notices them; it’s as if they are the source of all brightness.”
There was silence for a half-minute.
“Well, excuse, me, Mr. Pramal,” said Billy. “But someone didn’t like all that brightness, did they? In fact, someone would have had to hate it enough to kill her, or she would still be here. You’ve got to have given someone a right upset, to get a bullet through your skull, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Maisie looked at Billy, shocked at his tone, then turned back to Pramal, her voice modulated to soothe in the wake of her assistant’s words. “Mr. Beale has a point—we are now down to who might have wanted her dead, and we might well get to some answers through asking why rather than via any other route.” She held up her closed palm, opening each finger in turn as she listed possibilities. “Usha was likely killed for one of the following reasons: One—she had offended or upset someone to the extent that they lost their temper, or they premeditated her murder. Two—she knew something about someone that cost her life. Three—it could have been a random attack, possibly the result of prejudice. Four—mistaken identity. A decade ago London saw some of the worst violence, based upon the color of a person’s skin, ever to take place on this soil; that sort of tension can linger, especially in these difficult times. Five—someone loved her too much and wanted to punish her for it.” She held up the opposite forefinger. “Six—envy. Someone was envious of her.”
Sandra half-raised her hand again, but put it down as she asked another question. “Mr. Pramal—what do you think might have been the reason for your sister’s death?”
Pramal shrugged and sighed. For the first time his military bearing seemed to have abandoned him. “If I was to guess, I would say that you have a point with each of your suppositions, but I believe Usha was killed because someone was afraid of her.”
Maisie, Billy, and Sandra were all silent, waiting.
“Yes, afraid.” Pramal went on. The previously tear-filled eyes now seemed calm, but resolute. “Usha had a power inside her—it is almost beyond me to explain it. A goddess on earth, that’s what people said about her, even when she was a small child. You see, Miss Dobbs—” He looked at Sandra and then Billy, acknowledging them. “You only had to watch her walk. She did not take small steps. No, my sister could stride. Everywhere she went, it was with some purpose.”
Billy returned to the office following Pramal’s departure, joining Maisie at the table by the window, where the case map was spread out.
“Billy, Sandra’s taken the cups along the hall. Before she gets back, I wanted to talk about the meeting with Pramal—you were very quiet, and then you snapped at him. It was a fair observation, to a point—but what caused you to speak in that tone? The man came here for help, not to be addressed in such a manner.”
Billy shrugged and slid down in the chair. Maisie thought he resembled a recalcitrant schoolboy.
He shook his head. “I dunno, Miss. He just sort of started to get on my nerves—all this business about her being some sort of fairy godmother. All mysterious. I just didn’t believe him, that’s all.”
“Go on—that’s not enough.”
Billy looked at Maisie. “There’s something not right about all of this. I’m not like you, Miss—not your sort that gets lots of feelings about things. I take it all as I see it, as a rule. But I just started to feel like I was listening to someone stringing me along.”
Maisie nodded.
“What do you think, Miss?”
“Again, I think you have a point, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think—and we may all be well off the mark here—I think he’s floundering. I think there might have been some serious discord in his dealings with his sister, even at a great distance. We can’t prove that, but we can find out more.”
“Aw gawd, Miss, I can’t understand half of what them people say—I can’t go out there and talk to Indians.”
“Don’t worry. I have the names of the boys now—that’s your job. Find out all you can about the boys who discovered the body.”
Billy took a sheet of paper from Maisie. “I feel like the Pied Piper, what with that other boy on the loose.”
Maisie looked up. Billy had returned to work following a serious injury while investigating the death of another man earlier in the year, and she felt he needed some sort of encouragement to inspire him. So to underscore her confidence in him, she had handed him the most recent case to supervise. The opportunity was presented when a man named Jesmond Martin came to see Maisie with a view to retaining her services in the search for his missing son. Fourteen-year-old Robert had walked away from his school—Dulwich College—in early July and had not been seen since. Asked about the delay in contacting Maisie and his reason for not previously alerting the police, Martin explained that the son was well able to look after himself, that he did not want his son to fall afoul of the police, and that he had also wanted to give the boy a chance to come home on his own. To deter the school from approaching the police, Martin had informed them that the son was now at home and he had withdrawn him from the school’s roster of pupils.
After the meeting, Maisie decided that it would be good for Billy to be in charge of an investigation—especially as he was the father of boys. Now she wondered if it was such a good idea.
“When we’re done with this, let’s talk about that case, shall we? See where we are with it.”
Sandra returned to the office. She placed the tea tray with clean crockery on top of a filing cabinet, and when Maisie beckoned to her, joined them at the table.
“What about the issue of prejudice?” asked Maisie.
“You never know what people will do, do you?” said Sandra. “I mean, when there are lines of men looking for work, people marching on London from up north, thinking we’ve got it easy down here—and they soon find out Londoners are in the same boat, don’t they?—well, it makes it difficult when you find out there’s paying work going to people who don’t even come from here.”
Billy made a sound that drew the attention of both Maisie and Sandra, an exhalation of breath demonstrating his disdain. “Prejudice? Let me tell you, if people here can be prejudiced against their own, you can bet your life they can be prejudiced against someone else.” He leaned forward. “My mate told me what it was like, after the war—he came home at the beginning of 1919. And just because the war had ended, it didn’t mean it was suddenly all cushy over there in France. No, a lot of them men were still covered in mud, blood, and rats’ you-know-what by the time they stepped off a train at Waterloo.” He shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “Because I’d been wounded in Messines, I was sent back here to Blighty in 1917. But one of my mates was over there until a good three months after the Armistice. He told me that they got off the carriages and were told to stand at ease while they were awaiting orders. So they all sat down on the platform—blimey, they’d been on their pins for long enough and it was obvious where they’d just come back from. Then along came these commuter types, all top hats and creases in their trousers. ‘These men are a disgrace,’ said one of the toffs. Then another went on about how the soldiers were nothing more than tramps. Now that’s discrimination—when you look down your nose at the very men who fought to make sure you could still go to work in your tidy, warm office. That’s the trouble with people—they cherish their comforts, but they don’t want to know where they come from. The ladies like their cheap Indian cotton bedspreads, but they’d turn their noses up at the women who sit there doing the weaving for next to nothing.” He folded his arms and sat back in his chair.
There was silence for a few seconds, during which Maisie looked at Sandra, and motioned with her head towards the door. Sandra nodded.
“I think I’ll just nip across to the dairy. What with all that tea drinking, we’ve run out of milk.”
“Right you are, Sandra, thank you. Remember to reimburse yourself from the petty cash.”
When Sandra had left the room, Maisie sat for a while, waiting. She watched Billy as he leaned forward, gazing at his feet. During the attack that had led to his absence from work, he had sustained serious head injuries, though they had healed sufficiently for him to return to work. At first it had seemed that all was well—life had calmed down at home for Billy, and their two boys seemed to be putting their mother’s difficulties behind them. Doreen Beale had become mentally unstable following the death of her youngest child, a girl named Lizzie. It was a psychiatric condition exacerbated by Billy’s ill-health. But in the past few weeks Maisie had noticed a new pattern of behavior in Billy. His moods could change in a matter of seconds, from happy-go-lucky one minute, to morose and argumentative the next. That his war wounds still troubled him on occasion was obvious, but it was rare for Billy to lose his good temper. His respect for Maisie had never been in question—she was the nurse who had helped save his life in the war. Now she felt a confusion at the center of his being—in the way he sat, in his facial expression, and in the moods of melancholy laced with anger that rendered him as volatile as a grenade without a pin.
“Don’t think I don’t know, Miss. Sandra went out so you could have a word with me.”
“She has been here long enough to know that you’re not yourself, and that I would want to talk to you about whatever’s troubling you.” Maisie’s voice was soft. She was once more careful with her words, as if weighing them for their potential to inflame the situation. Billy was distressed enough already.
“I don’t know why you have me here, to be honest.” Billy folded his arms across his chest.
Maisie did not miss the move, knowing he was protecting his heart.
“I have you here because I trust you, Billy. You know that.” She paused. “Now, perhaps you could describe what happened when you became agitated towards the end of our meeting here with Mr. Pramal, and when you became short-tempered with Sandra.”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Billy’s hands moved, one to either side of his head. “I don’t know, Miss and it’s—oh, nothing,” He folded his hands in front of his chest again.
“It’s not nothing. Your well-being is not nothing.” Another pause. “Do your best, Billy. Try to describe what happens.”
“Oh, Miss, all that describing business. I don’t know. I just need to pull up my socks and not let you down. I got a bit angry, that’s all it was.”
Maisie was silent, watching Billy. His foot, drawn back against the chair; his heel tapping. Tap-tap-tap-tap. The agitation was mounting again.
“Yes, you got a bit angry. But that’s not all it was. What went through your mind?”
“Well, I just want to snap, don’t I?” His voice was raised. “I just want to say, ‘Miss, I can’t do this job anymore, because I can’t keep my thoughts in my head.’ ” He pressed his fingers to his temple. “I’ve hardly done anything on that case about the missing boy, because I don’t know what to do next. I can’t remember what comes after I’ve seen people; how I’m supposed to put it all together. I look in my notebook and I panic, because I don’t know how to get from here to there. I don’t know how to join the dots anymore.” He choked back his tears.
Maisie stood up and, as if by instinct, rubbed his back, as a mother would a child in distress. She stepped away as he regained control.
“And what with Doreen, and the baby—the boys are getting bigger, especially young Billy—who’s a bit full of himself. Getting on for twelve he is now, and more like a walking mouth. Knows everything, all of a sudden. And what kind of father am I? Gammy leg, gammy mind.”
“You’re a very good father, Billy. Your boys look up to you—I’ve seen the respect they have for you.” Maisie paused, thinking. “Billy, I think you came back to work too soon. I think you’ve overdone it, and it’s caught up with you. Here’s what I want you to do—go home early today. Take a few weeks rest—the weather is still very nice, why don’t you get the family away down to the coast? I’ll not expect you back here until next month, or later, if you don’t feel up to it.”
“What about the missing lad?”
“I’ll deal with it. And the Pramal case. I’ll ask Sandra if she can work some extra hours here in the office.” Maisie nodded towards the telephone. “And I think you should see that neurologist again. Are you having headaches?”
Billy nodded.
“I seem to remember you saw Dr. Patchley; he was brought in by Dr. Dene after he examined you. If you like, I could find out his address and telephone number—would you like me to?”
Maisie continued to speak with care, not only because Billy seemed so fragile, but because she had been taken to task in recent months by Priscilla, who suggested she’d overstepped the mark in helping others.
“I’ll get in touch, no need for anyone else to help me with that,” said Billy. “I just need to know how to get to see him.”
“I’ll find out now, before you leave—you can telephone from here if you like.”
Maisie lifted the telephone’s black receiver and dialed Andrew Dene’s number at Guy’s Hospital, where she spoke to a clerk and scribbled the information on a slip of paper.
“Here you are.” She placed the paper on Billy’s desk. “I have to nip down to collect the post. You can telephone now. Sooner rather than later.”
Billy nodded. “Thank you, Miss.”
Maisie stepped towards the door and left the office, but stood outside to listen before making her way downstairs. She heard Billy lift the receiver, heard him dial the number and speak to a secretary. She knew only too well that a Harley Street neurologist would cost a pretty penny. But there were ways to diminish the cost—she would make an important telephone call herself, as soon as he left to go home. And Billy would never have to know.