Twenty-five Larkin Street, in Fulham, was just beyond the World’s End area of Chelsea. Maisie traveled by underground railway to Walham Green Station, and walked to Larkin Street. Having been born in Lambeth and engaged in work that took her from the poorest streets to the most exclusive crescents in London, Maisie had no fear of a slum. Though now a woman of some wealth, for the most part she dressed in an unassuming manner. Her clothes were good but plain, and it was not her way to flaunt her status in any perceptible fashion. Thus she walked with ease through an area so called because King James II—who rode regularly along the King’s Road in his day—had described the region as being at the end of the world.
For Frederick Addens it had been a world that had saved his life, following his escape from the German army occupying Belgium. According to the notes furnished by Thomas, Addens had entered Britain aboard a fishing boat that came aground just outside Dymchurch. Some twenty people had made the crossing in storms plaguing the English Channel—it was not a long journey by any means, but for refugees fleeing an enemy, it might as well have been a million miles. Addens was almost sixteen when he at last reached safety, the same age as the century. He was married two years later, to an English girl, Enid Parsons, a young woman three years older than her new husband. Her first sweetheart, the boy she had loved since childhood and thought herself destined to marry, had perished in August 1916, in one of the many battles fought along the Somme Valley in France from July to November that year.
Maisie slowed her pace. How had it been for the young couple, both grieving for what had been lost, yet embarking on a new life together? She understood loss, understood how it could leach into every fiber of one’s being; how it could dull the shine on a sunny day, and how it could replace happiness with doubt, giving rise to a lingering fear that good fortune might be snatched back at any time. Yet they had raised a son and a daughter, and now Enid Addens—a woman just a little older than herself—was enduring the brutal death of her husband, and perhaps the departure of her son to another battlefield. Maisie wondered how she would ever be able to speak to the woman, to question her about her husband’s murder. The truth of the matter, that she might stir the woman’s heart with her inquiries, almost made her turn back to the office. And then she remembered the trust placed in her by Francesca Thomas, and she knew she had it within her to gain the widow’s confidence. Detective Chief Inspector Caldwell’s less compassionate approach, on the other hand, might have cost him valuable time and information.
Arriving at the rented terrace house, Maisie appraised the property where Frederick Addens had lived with his family. It was clear they had endeavored to keep a clean home in a grubby area. Unlike those on either side, number 25 had received a fresh coat of paint in recent years, probably work carried out by Addens and his son. What was his name? Ah, yes, Arthur, named for Enid’s brother, who had died on the very same day, in the same battle, as her sweetheart. The girl was named Dorothy, and called “Dottie” by the family. She bore her grandmother’s name. Maisie wondered why there was no hint of Addens’ relatives in the naming of their children.
The path had been swept and the tiled doorstep looked as if it received a generous lick of Cardinal red tile polish every week. Someone had tried to grow flowers in the postage stamp of a front garden, but the blooms were patchy. Maisie approached the front door and lifted the knocker, rapping three times. The drawn curtains at the side of the bay window were tweaked back, indicating someone was at home. She rapped twice more. Footsteps approached, and after a lock was turned and a chain withdrawn, the door opened, but only enough to allow a young woman with fair hair and bloodshot eyes an opportunity to size up the caller.
Maisie smiled, her manner exuding kindness. “Hello, you must be Miss Addens. My name is Maisie Dobbs. One of your late father’s compatriots has asked me to visit you and your mother.”
“I don’t understand,” said Dorothy Addens.
“I’m calling on behalf of someone who knew your father in Belgium. I am an investigator, and I believe Scotland Yard might have missed a few details regarding the circumstances of your father’s death.”
The young woman waited a few seconds, as if considering the request put to her by the unexpected caller. “Just a minute,” she said. “And I have to shut the door on you. Sorry.”
“That’s all ri—” Before Maisie could finish the sentence, the door closed. She heard footsteps receding on the other side, and Dorothy Addens calling, “Mum. Mum, there’s a woman to see you, from Belgium.”