“Fair enough. The Lysander wouldn’t have landed if you hadn’t been important. That thing can swoop down low and drop anything for me; I sometimes wonder if I couldn’t just reach up and take it from the pilot’s hands before he goes up again.” Lawrence sighed and pointed in the direction of fields alongside the road, and then at two cemeteries for war dead in the distance. “Hard to believe how churned up this was after the war. They’ve done a marvelous job of rebuilding their towns and villages, the Belgians. If you hadn’t seen those cemeteries—and keeping them up is down to the British—you wouldn’t know a war had been fought here.”
“I think I would,” said Maisie. “Not only can you feel it, but you can see the ridges across the landscape. Those scars there, as if something had scraped the topsoil—it’s where the trenches were. You can’t just fill in that amount of earth and expect it not to show.” She kept her gaze trained on the fields as they seemed to flash past. “War has left its scars here, Lawrence. And those scars might never heal.”
Conversation between Lawrence and Maisie sputtered, started, ended, and started again throughout the journey, as they each avoided questions that might reveal more than they wanted the other to know. They spoke about the local food, the beautiful lace from Bruges, paintings Lawrence had seen in the museums in different Belgian towns—he admired Bruegel, and wondered aloud what Hieronymus Bosch would have done with scenes from the Great War. Having mentioned the war again, he veered away from the topic and asked if Maisie was hungry, if she needed a cup of coffee. She declined, though she said she would like something to drink when they arrived, but felt it might be best to keep her stomach empty given the possibility of another bumpy flight in just a few hours.
They passed through several small towns and villages, and soon entered the town of their destination. Neither acknowledged the fact, though it was not long before Lawrence parked outside a house that was grander than the others. Maisie was aware that she had reached the home of the bourgmestre, the mayor.
A man in uniform answered the door and addressed Maisie by name. She was relieved to be addressed as “Madame Dobbs” as she feared MacFarlane’s string-pulling had included using her title by marriage.
“M’sieur Martin will see you in the library,” said the uniformed man.
With their tall ceilings and ostentatious moldings, the rooms they passed through might have seemed overwhelming, but curtains of soft velvet and the way light fell across the rich, textured carpets rendered the mayor’s official residence welcoming.
“Madame Dobbs, it is my pleasure.” Martin’s hand was outstretched almost as soon as Maisie entered. He took her hand, then waved to the soldier—if the man was indeed a soldier—and with the same hand indicated a chair next to an unlit fireplace. Every movement seemed to be executed with a flourish. The chair faced another of the same type—its frame carved and gilded, upholstered in rich red and yellow. The coat of arms of the municipality of Liege had been embroidered into the back of each chair.
“Mr. MacFarlane explained that I might be of help to you—you are investigating the unfortunate deaths of former Belgian refugees who remained in England following the war.”
“Yes,” said Maisie. “I thought you might be able to assist me. You see, I know at least two came from this town, and the others from nearby, perhaps a neighboring village. I believe—I suppose I should confess it is more of a guess, at this point—that their connection here is the common denominator and that something happened in the war that has now, years later, triggered the killings.”
“I see. As you know, there was enough death throughout Belgium to affect an impressionable young man or woman, and of course you know our immediate region, along the Meuse, was the scene of some of the most terrible battles. We were particularly vulnerable, given our proximity to Germany.”
“The men concerned were not old enough to fight, they were too young to enlist or be conscripted. I know at least two who left were with family members who perished, either on the journey to the coast, or soon after arrival in England.”
Martin sat back, one leg extended in front of him. He leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair, and rubbed his chin. Maisie suspected he was a veteran of the war, that he had suffered leg wounds—she hadn’t noticed a limp, but she was sure there had been an injury to the limb he was unable to bend.
“When the Kaiser’s army invaded, there was a certain amount of chaos—war is always chaos. Boys who had not enlisted were rounded up—those young enough to still be clutching their mother’s skirts were allowed to return. Older boys, those who would have been in uniform within a year or two, were taken away. Some as prisoners of war, some to be killed. Murdered.”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, I have heard this.”
“But we knew what was coming, and many of those boys, though they did not fight in our uniform, they fought in any other way they could—joining women in acts of sabotage, gathering vital information on the passage of the enemy, and of course, if need be, they were also assassins, though that was rare. We had an invader in our midst and we did all we could to stop him. The Germans had marched into a sovereign nation and tried to take her—it was rape by any other name.”
Maisie watched Martin as he spoke, saw the anger rising. “You must be very worried, M’sieur Martin.”