“She?” asked Sandra.
Maisie slid another sheet of paper towards Billy and Sandra. “I’ve worked with Dr. Francesca Thomas in the past—she is a formidable woman, and trustworthy in every regard.”
“Where do we start?”
“The first element of the investigation to underline is that we must move with utmost respect for the safety of Dr. Thomas. It is not something she has had to request of me—she assumes our confidence, which of course we accord all our clients. But I would like us to be even more vigilant than usual. Dr. Thomas was a member of La Dame Blanche during the war, and—”
“La what?” Billy interrupted.
“La Dame Blanche was a Belgian resistance movement supported by the British government, comprised almost entirely of women—from schoolgirls to grandmothers. But with regard to Dr. Thomas, I should add that she is more than capable of taking care of herself. We can assume she’s not currently sitting on her hands waiting for something to happen.”
“Best not to get on the wrong side of her, then,” said Billy.
“Not if you value your throat, I would say.” Maisie reached into the jar of crayons. “Anyway, as I said, I just wanted to mention that we need to be even more careful than ever. Right, let’s get started on the case map, shall we? I’m expecting a packet of additional documents from Dr. Thomas this morning—it should arrive at any moment, I would imagine. That will help.”
Maisie wrote the name of the deceased on the paper, using a thick red crayon, and drew a circle around the words “Frederick Addens.” There was something childlike in the process, as if they were in primary school, beginning an innocent drawing. She smiled.
“What is it?” asked Billy.
Maisie looked up. “I was just thinking of Maurice,” she said. “He always comes to mind when I start work on a new case. Not just because he was my teacher, but almost everything he said contained a lesson.”
“He taught you about case maps, didn’t he?” said Sandra.
“Yes, when I first became his assistant. And it’s such a simple thing, really. Putting down every thought, every consideration, on a large sheet of paper to better see threads of connection. But he always used thick wax crayons in many colors—he said color stirs the mind, that work on even the most difficult of cases becomes akin to playing. And because a case map is an act of creation, we bring the full breadth of our curiosity to the task.”
“Instead of being old and stuck in our ways.”
“Something like that, Billy.”
“We’ll have to get used to seeing nothing but stuffy old grown-ups, won’t we?” Sandra reached for a green crayon. “I walked down the street this morning to catch the bus, and it was so quiet—no children playing as I passed the school, no girls out with the long skipping rope, no boys kicking a ball about. It was as if the Pied Piper had been through and taken the lot of them—and the army were moving into the school! But no children in the streets.” She looked at Billy. “What’s happening with yours, Billy?”
Billy shrugged. “It’s not so much Margaret I’m worried about, but the boys. Our little Billy’s not so little anymore—eighteen soon, he is. And Bobby, he’s sixteen, doing well in his apprenticeship at the garage, and full of himself—I sometimes wish we’d never named him after my brother; he’s all hotheaded and knows everything. And look where that got his uncle.” He turned to face Sandra. “My brother lied about his age to enlist after a girl shoved a white feather in his hand, and he ended up under a few feet of soil in a French field. That’s where it got him—and to think he could have just walked away and ignored the stupid girl.”
The bell above the door to the office began to ring, cutting into the mood of melancholy seeping into the conversation.
“Not a moment too soon. Sandra, that will be the messenger we’re waiting for. Would you—”
“Right away, miss.”
Sandra stepped out of the office. As her footsteps echoed away to the front door, Maisie reached out to lay her hand on Billy’s arm. “You’re the father to two young men now, Billy. Love them as you’ve always loved them, be the good father you’ve always been.”
“It’s Doreen I worry about more than anything—she’s all right now, been on an even keel for a few years. But if something happens to one of those boys . . . I dread to think of it, really I do, miss. I don’t want her to lose her mind again—terrible thought, that is.”