“Yes. Yes, I suppose so. And I take it there were no witnesses—no one saw anyone going into or leaving the property.”
“It’s a quiet village, and the house is on the outskirts. I was lucky a policeman came along when he did. This suggests that the man—if it was a man—came on foot, or parked a vehicle at a distance. I checked at the railway station, and the station manager could not recall seeing a stranger, though he said that there’s often a visitor or two who comes via train just to see the church—it apparently has the oldest weather vane in the country and an impressive series of misericords. He told me he cannot account for everyone. And our one witness was woken by the gunshots.”
“So there was a witness? What does he know?”
“Not terribly much, I’m afraid, even though he was in the house at the time. He’d sustained rather devastating wounds in the war—he is blind and crippled in his lower legs. I suspect his sister—one of the deceased women—did little to encourage him to be even a little more independent. And I believe it would have been possible for him, though he clearly required assistance. I think it assuaged some level of guilt in her to be his keeper and caregiver.”
“Why would she do such a thing?”
“It could have been because she felt distress at having lived—her husband had been killed at Arras, which is why she immersed herself in helping refugees. That’s how she met Addens and Durant. And her guilt deepened when her brother came home from the war wounded.”
“Are you speculating here, Maisie?”
“That’s what my job is about. It’s like sticking pins into anything I touch, until I hear someone scream ‘Ouch.’ Only that scream is something I feel in my heart, as if the dead are letting me know I’m on the right path.” Maisie paused, wrapping the telephone cord around her fingers. “And if that sounds dramatic, let’s just say that if I were tracking an animal in the forest, I’ve only seen a few footprints here and there in different directions. There is no clear path to the killer.” She took another breath. “However, I have a photograph of Addens and—possibly, now I’ve had time to think about it—Durant, taken on a farm somewhere in the southeast of England, I would imagine. After all, most of the refugees came through Folkestone, so it was in this region that a good number were able to find work and a home until the war ended. Of course there were settlements in other parts of the country—Elizabethville in the north, and others in the Midlands. The thing is, in the photograph the dead woman, Rosemary Hartley-Davies, is with them, along with two other men. That’s why I would like us to meet soon. I want to know if you can identify them.”
“Maisie, I didn’t personally know Addens and Durant—I am involved on behalf of the Belgian embassy. I doubt if I’d know anyone in the photograph.”
“I’d like you to look anyway. When and where could you see me?”
Maisie heard Thomas sigh. It was a sigh of forbearance, as if she had no choice but to indulge Maisie.
“Lyons Corner House. Charing Cross. About noon.”
“Right you are. Until then, Francesca.”
Maisie returned the telephone receiver to its cradle and leaned back in her chair before standing up and stepping across to the window. She cast a gaze at the terra-cotta pots in the yard below, wishing she could put her finger on the deep-seated feeling she experienced now whenever she spoke to Dr. Francesca Thomas. Shaking her head, she turned, passing the case map pinned on the table on her way to the concertina doors, which she drew back to call Billy and Sandra into the office. It was time to bring her assistants up to date on the events of the past few days.
“I’ve this photograph, so I’m taking it to Dr. Thomas, to see if she can identify the other people.” Maisie placed the photograph she had taken from the home of Rosemary Hartley-Davies on the table and pushed it towards Billy. She tapped the images of two men with her forefinger. “Those two could be Frederick Addens and Albert Durant, respectively.” She paused, giving him an opportunity to study the photograph. “At first I’d only concentrated on Addens, but later I thought I recognized a younger Durant alongside him, though I could be wrong about both. And the woman in the middle is Rosemary Hartley-Davies. Billy, could you see if you can find out anything of note about her late husband, Rupert Hartley-Davies? Here are the details of his death—he was an infantry officer.”
Billy passed the photograph to Sandra so she could look, and picked up the paper Maisie handed to him.