Dottie Addens pushed back her chair and flounced out to the back garden, where Maisie could see her light her cigarette and inhale deeply. She held her head back and blew out a series of smoke rings.
“I’m sorry about that. She’s normally such a good girl—has some spirit, but she idolized her father. He always said she reminded him of himself, when he was younger—well, it must have been much younger, because he was married to me at eighteen.” Enid Addens rubbed her upper arms, tears welling in her eyes again. “He was so young, really, but a man already. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted a wife and a family, and to be settled—that’s what he wanted, and he chose me, so I was a very lucky woman. I thought I’d lost my chance, and then Frederick came along.”
Maisie brought her attention back to Enid. “Mrs. Addens. I’m used to meeting people in these difficult situations—I would be just like Dorothy if I’d lost my father.” She paused for a second. “Can you tell me what else the detective said?”
“He asked lots of questions—he was like a gun, firing off one shot after the other. He wanted to know if Frederick had friends, who his friends were. He wanted to know about the darts team at the pub—really, that was the only thing Frederick did outside the family; darts practice on a Friday night at eight, and then a match of a Sunday. He’d be back in time for a quick bite to eat and we’d work in the garden—we did that together; we loved the garden, small though it is. We never had our dinner until later in the evening on a Sunday. It was one thing that Frederick was firm about. He said he wanted his Sunday dinner like they did it when he was a boy—in the evening, not in the middle of the day, when afterwards all you do is sleep. No, he liked to have something to show for his day, Frederick. And seeing as he’d left his own country behind to come here, it was the least I could do for him—put a Sunday dinner on the table at the time he liked it, though it wasn’t how I was brought up.”
“Did your husband ever talk about anyone who had upset him in any way—perhaps a fellow engineer, or someone on the darts team? Or someone who he’d disagreed with, something like that?”
The woman shook her head. “No. I mean, there might have been a niggle here and there—we all have them—but nothing serious, nothing lingering.”
“How about friends from Belgium? He came over with others, didn’t he?”
“No, no one that I can remember. I even asked him about it, and he said his wife and family were his best friends, and that his first family—that’s what he called them, his first family—were all gone anyway.” Enid Addens was quiet, kneading her handkerchief. “I know that when he came away from Belgium, he had seen some terrible things. Houses being shelled, people running from their homes, and the Germans coming in. It was as if he wanted to just push everything to the past, where it belonged. He came here to start anew, he said—and what was gone, was gone. You couldn’t bring it back, and he said that he didn’t want to.”
Maisie allowed some seconds to pass before pressing with her next question. “Do you know why your husband was not with the Belgian army, during the war? I know he was young, but he could have passed for older, I would have thought.”
“He said he tried to join, but there was his age, and the doctor said he had a heart murmur into the bargain, though he never had any heart trouble that I was aware of. He never had cause to go to the doctor here about it.”
Maisie could see Enid’s eyes becoming glazed, as if she were unable to focus. And soon the tears returned. “It’s hard, isn’t it, speaking about them as if they’re gone, and then not gone. You just can’t get the words right; they’re here and then they’re not here. And you realize, you’ve just had a day, then a week, and then a few weeks that they are never going to see again, and you can’t talk to them about those weeks because they aren’t here anymore.”
A shadow fell across the floor where a shaft of sunlight had been gleaming.
“I think that’s enough, Miss Dobbs. My mother’s very tired.” Dottie came back into the kitchen and put an arm around Enid’s shoulders. “You should go upstairs, Mum, try to get some shut-eye for a bit. I’ll make something nice for dinner.”
Maisie stood up, put on her straw hat and placed her jacket over her arm. “You’re quite right, Miss Addens. Your mother is very tired and should rest.”
“I’ll see you out,” said Dottie.
Maisie caught the young woman’s eye. “Thank you.”
When they reached the doorstep, Maisie turned to Dottie. “Do you have any idea who might have borne a grudge of some kind against your father? Someone who he could have slighted, even inadvertently?”
She shook her head. “My father was a gentleman and a gentle man, Miss Dobbs. I have gone over this in my mind, because I would love to lay my hands on the throat of whoever killed my father.”