“Are you doing well out of it?” asked Maisie.
“Earning more than we were getting for touching up mansions in Belgravia for snooty women who wanted us to match the paint with the curtains or their frocks. And on this job, Joe was getting a good wad of cash in his pay packet, for an apprentice. Shame he couldn’t take it—he was good at his work. Very precise, had good hands on him. Worker’s hands. Then off he goes, home to his mum.”
Maisie thanked the man, ignoring the tone in his voice. She had no further questions, but watched as he walked to the van, throttled the engine into life and drove at speed back to the decoy airfield, toward empty buildings that reminded Maisie of a still body bereft of a beating human heart.
Chapter 5
The black motor car visible in Maisie’s rearview mirror was not close enough to be overly obvious, but it had been in her wake a little too long for her not to have noticed. The driver had signaled when she had, had braked when she had, and had remained well back when she slowed her speed. Now she would test the driver—she would not return to London. Instead she would detour across country, through Petersfield, and onward beyond Petworth, taking the road on to Uckfield and then Heathfield, across to Tunbridge Wells and—finally—Chelstone. It would be a rare coincidence if a fellow driver were to be undertaking the long, identical journey. For her part, London could wait—she would go to see Anna, and along the way find out if she were being followed.
It was close to Heathfield that Maisie looked into the mirror and saw only a green Morris Eight trailing behind her—she had first spotted it pulling out of a petrol station some two miles away. She breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the tension she had held in her neck ebb away. Already somewhat lighter, she decided to stop in Tunbridge Wells to buy a gift for Anna. Not a doll—Anna was not drawn to dolls, much preferring the company of the giant Alsatian, Emma, or her white pony, Lady. She enjoyed reading, so a book might be a good choice, a story they could read together. But Maisie had to take care and not spend a lot of money—it must be a gift without obvious high value, or she would be taken to task by her father—Frankie Dobbs had never hidden his concern regarding the bond that had grown between Maisie and the evacuee child.
Maisie parked close to the picturesque area known as The Pantiles, walked to the bookshop opposite the bandstand, and chose an illustrated edition of The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. Leaving the shop with her brown paper-wrapped parcel, she realized she was anxious to reach Chelstone, and she thought, then, about how Joe might have felt, far from home, moving from place to place with the painting crew. Such dislocation might well have caused distress, leading to tension, and subsequently, headaches.
She unlocked the door of the Alvis, placed her shoulder bag and the small parcel on the passenger seat and, having started the engine, was about to maneuver out onto the main thoroughfare when she saw a black motor car idling across the road. The driver’s face was obscured by a newspaper, but as she watched, the corner flapped down and the man behind the wheel stole a look at her vehicle. He brought up the newspaper with a sharp snap. Maisie held her breath, but moved off after another motor car had passed, and then turned right, followed by an immediate left. She pulled into a narrow lane of terrace houses to the right of a church on the corner, stopped the vehicle beyond a tree, and looked back at the road she had just left. Only a few seconds elapsed before the black motor car passed by. If she emerged from the lane now, the driver might spot her in his rearview mirror, but at the same time, she did not want to give him time to turn around and come in search of her. She slammed the gear into reverse, pulled back onto the road, and proceeded in the direction of The Pantiles. Beyond the shops was an area of rough ground surrounded by trees—she would wait there a while before making her way to Tonbridge, and then to Chelstone. And during the time spent sitting under the broad canopy of a plane tree, she had time to speculate. Who was following her? What nerve had she touched in her investigation thus far into the whereabouts of Joe Coombes? She could not imagine the landlady in Whitchurch having given her name to another person—but perhaps someone came along with a few choice banknotes and was soon in possession of Maisie’s card. Given the time of day and the encroaching evening, it would have been clear she was staying locally, so the driver had only to wait until the following day to identify her motor car as she drove through Whitchurch, and then wait for her at each stop until she was on her way back to London.
Or could Billy’s visit to Yates’ yard have sparked interest? Perhaps he’d asked one question too many, and had set off an alarm. And now Maisie was being followed. But by whom? A government agent? A Yates employee? Someone from the military department supplying Yates with what could well be a toxic paint?
Another hour passed before Maisie felt a sufficient level of ease to drive off, through Tunbridge Wells, skirting around Tonbridge in the direction of Chelstone, where she arrived late afternoon. When Maisie entered through the kitchen door, Brenda informed her that Anna was asleep in her room, guarded by the ever-watchful Emma.
“How is she?” asked Maisie as her stepmother busied herself making a chicken broth.
“Had a bit of a temperature today, but the fever broke last night and she’s full of spots, poor little mite. I put a pair of cotton gloves on her hands—stops her doing too much damage to her skin if she scratches in her sleep. She has conjunctivitis, so I go in and bathe her eyes of a morning—she smiled this morning and said she liked feeling the warm water. So now we’ve got to get some good bone broth down her—and she does like chicken, so cook over at the house sent a girl round this morning with one already cooked. She said it was roasted last night for the Canadians, but they preferred the beef. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Strapping great men like that, what with all them prairies or whatever it is they have over there.”
“I’ll go up to see her now,” said Maisie. “I can only stay tonight—I have a lot of work on my plate at the moment, but I’ll be back on Thursday.”
Maisie removed her jacket and slipped it over the back of a kitchen chair. She took the wrapped book, and made her way upstairs.
Anna was curled up in her bed, her hands clasped under her chin. Her eyes were closed, but the way Emma—lying down alongside the bed—was looking up at her young mistress, Maisie guessed that Anna was not asleep. She stroked the dog’s head, and knelt by the bed. She placed her hand on the child’s forehead and, without thinking, leaned forward to kiss the place where her fingers had just measured the girl’s temperature.
“Auntie Maisie.” Anna’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“Oh pet, you poor little mite.”
“I’m all right, Miss Maisie. Emma’s here, and Auntie Brenda says she’ll let me have my broth from the pudding basin—Nan always gave me broth in the pudding basin if I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You can have your broth in whatever bowl you want, Anna.” She ran her fingers across the little girl’s forehead again. “I have a present for you—a new book.”
Anna nodded. Maisie set the book down as Brenda came into the room bearing a tray with a small white pudding basin filled with broth, a slice of fresh bread and a glass of Lucozade. “There you are—Anna could do with the extra glucose in the Lucozade,” said Brenda. “It’ll give her more energy to get better.”