Maisie laughed. “Oh, Pris, I think my idea and your idea of what to drive around in are two entirely different things.”
After viewing two flats in Chelsea and one in Maida Vale, Maisie decided she had had enough. Taking the Underground to Oxford Circus, she walked along Oxford Street toward the café where she had often stopped for a cup of urn-brewed tea and a plate of buttered toast. Though there had been changes along the way, thankfully the café was still there. She ordered tea and an Eccles cake at the counter and settled into a seat by the window. Her old contact at Scotland Yard, the Murder Squad detective Richard Stratton, had always referred to the place as “more caff than café.” She wondered about Stratton, and how he might be faring. He had been promoted to Special Branch, working with Robert MacFarlane, and had over time found his superior to be a difficult man. A widower with a young son, Stratton had—out of the blue, it seemed—decided to return to the profession for which he had trained before he enlisted for service during the war, when he became a military policeman. Much to the surprise of his colleagues, he accepted a position as a teacher of science and mathematics at a boys’ school in the West Country, far from London. His son would receive a free private education, he was given a cottage in the grounds, and—more important—he would be home every day with his boy. Maisie added up the years and decided that the son—what was his name? Had she ever known his name?—of course, he must be fourteen years of age by now. Almost a man himself.
The years spent away from England seemed to render everything around Maisie in sharp relief. Memories came and went as she walked toward Fitzroy Square: of people met, of conversations in the street, of events holding little consequence and others that had taken her breath away. She crossed the road when she approached the place where she had witnessed a young man, disturbed by the war that still raged in his mind, kill himself with a hand grenade, filling the air with the terror of a blood-soaked hell that haunted him.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been in the square, standing at the edge of Conway Street and looking over toward the former mansion that had housed the first-floor office of Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, but she felt her cheeks growing cold and her eyes watering. She pulled her now somewhat unfashionable cloche hat down farther to keep her ears warm, and snuggled into her winter scarf. It was as she began to walk away that she felt the nape of her neck prickle, as if someone had run a feather across her skin. At once she was afraid to look around. She had a distinct feeling that she was being watched. She stopped and half turned her head—was that a footstep behind her? Or was it a ghost from her past, reaching out to pull her in? She shook her head and began walking across the square toward Fitzroy Street, but still a wave of anxiety washed over her. She admonished herself—it was early days still, and she had been so afraid of returning to England, so fearful of how she might face the places she and James had been together before she left—before she accepted his proposal, and before their marriage, which was a happier union than either imagined it could be. As her eyes filled with tears, she stopped to reach into her brown leather satchel for a handkerchief.
“Will this do, lass?” The Scottish burr was unmistakable. Maisie turned to face Robert MacFarlane, the former Special Branch detective who apparently now operated in the undisclosed realm where Scotland Yard and the Secret Service met.
“I might have known.” She took the proffered white cotton handkerchief. “Have I no rest from you, Robbie MacFarlane?”
“You do a pretty good job of escaping my notice, I’ll give you that.”
“I hope this is an accidental meeting,” said Maisie.
MacFarlane inclined his head toward the building that had once housed her office. “Did you know it’s for rent again? The last tenants moved out at the end of the year.”
Maisie blushed. “I didn’t know, but I’m not interested.” She sighed. “How are you, Robbie?”
“Cold. You would think I’d be used to this weather, being a hardy Scot, but that little sojourn in Gibraltar made my blood run thin, so I’m a wee bit on the chilly side.” He turned and pointed toward a black motor car idling at the end of the street. “If you’re not busy—and I don’t think you are—a colleague and I would like to have a quick word.”
“I’m not interested, Robbie.”
“You might be. Could be just what you need. And I think you owe me a favor, after giving me the slip.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I’m not interested in cloak-and-dagger assignments anymore. I’ve had enough.”
“You’re freezing cold, Maisie. Let me give you a lift somewhere. If I stand here a second longer, I’ll turn to stone.”
Maisie looked at the black vehicle again. The driver had emerged and opened the back passenger door, ready to receive them.