Billy reached for the door handle. “I won’t bet against it.”
Maisie shrugged and bit the inside of her lip. “It’s one of those serendipitous things, isn’t it? You talk about someone or they enter your thoughts, and then there they are. And he seemed so troubled. He knows what we do here—to a point—so let’s hope we can help him.”
Billy returned with the caller, who was indeed Phil Coombes. Maisie held out her hand to a chair pulled up by the gas fire. “It might be spring, Mr. Coombes, but I find mornings are still a bit chilly, especially in this old building.”
Coombes nodded, and looked around at Billy.
“Cup of tea for you, mate?”
Coombes shook his head. “Nah, thanks all the same, Bill—just had a cup around the corner.”
“With your usual?” asked Billy.
“I didn’t have the stomach for it, and I look forward to that bacon sandwich, as a rule. I just had a bit of toast and didn’t really fancy that.” He looked at Maisie, who tapped the back of the chair, though she realized Coombes was waiting for her to be seated first.
“Come and sit down, Mr. Coombes. You too, Billy—we can have a cuppa later.” She nodded in the direction of Billy’s desk, reminding him to pick up his notebook and a pencil. Bringing her attention back to Coombes, she leaned forward. “You’re troubled about something, Mr. Coombes—you’re not your usual cheery self, and you haven’t been for a while. How can we help you?”
“I didn’t want to bother you, Miss Dobbs, really I didn’t, but I thought that, what with your line of work, you could help out.”
Billy glanced at Maisie, and raised an eyebrow.
“We’re here to listen, so please go on,” encouraged Maisie.
“I—I don’t have anything to pay you, and I know, Miss Dobbs, that you work for Scotland Yard now and again, and you’ve had all them big cases—missing persons, unexplained deaths and what have you. I don’t miss much. And I’m sure you can charge a pretty penny, but we’ve nothing put by for this sort of thing.”
“Please don’t worry about money, Mr. Coombes. Really—what’s important now is to talk about what’s on your mind. Should Billy nip round to bring Mrs. Coombes to the office? Would you feel better if she were here?”
The man looked up at Maisie and shook his head, his eyes wide, fearful. “Oh no. No, I don’t want her to know how much it’s bothering me. It’s best if she thinks there’s nothing to worry about.”
“So what is bothering you, mate?” said Billy. “Come on, Phil, get it off your chest. You’ll be all the better for it.”
Coombes nodded. “I know this sounds like it’s nothing, but I can’t ignore this terrible ache I’ve got here every time I think about our boy, Joe. He’s the youngest one. We haven’t heard from him for a few days, and it’s unlike him not to get on the blower once on a Wednesday night, and again of a Sunday morning—well, I say it’s not like him, but for the past couple of weeks it’s as if he hasn’t wanted to give us a ring, hasn’t wanted to say much.”
“I didn’t know you had a telephone in there, Phil,” said Billy.
Coombes sighed, as if answering even the most simple question would exhaust him. “The brewery had it put in a year ago now, and it’s come in handy for us, not only for the business, but since the war, with the boys not at home anymore. When Joe picks up the telephone wherever he is, it’s not that he can talk for long—he’s never got enough pennies on him for a start, you know what lads are like—but at least we hear from him, and he knows we like to have a word, even if it’s a quick one, but as I say, something feels off to me.” He looked at Billy as if for affirmation. Billy nodded. Keep going. “Viv’s a different kettle of fish,” continued Coombes. “She started work at the telephone exchange when she left school, as a trainee, so she always gives us a bell when she’s on her way home from a shift, and then we don’t worry. What with soldiers coming in from all over—Australia, Canada, just like it was in the last war—you want to know your daughter’s safe. She’s turned nineteen now, doing well at her job—they’ve promoted her to working on the government exchanges—and she’s a nice-looking girl, which is a father’s worry.”
Billy leaned forward. “Isn’t Joe the same age as my Bobby—about sixteen?”
“Another six months. Archie, the eldest, is going on twenty-one now. Not that we see much of him—different kettle of fish to his sister and brother. Couldn’t wait to get off on his own, though he sometimes comes along to see us after closing time of a Sunday afternoon, for a spot of dinner before we open again. Then he’s off. It’s all I can do to get him to stay and help me change a barrel—I reckon he had enough of pubs when he was a youngster.”
“Tell us about Joe, Mr. Coombes,” said Maisie.
Phil Coombes wiped the back of his hand across one eye and then the other. “I know it’s only a short stretch since we heard from him—last Wednesday, it was—but like I said, something seems off to me. . . .” His voice tapered off, and he looked down at the carpet, as if tracing its paisley patterns with his eyes.
“Go on,” said Maisie. “First tell us what he’s doing and why he’s not living at home—he’s only fifteen.”
“He apprenticed to Yates and Sons, the painters and decorators.” Coombes paused and shook his head, as if not quite believing the turn of events. “One of the regulars got him the job when he was coming up to leaving school, couple of year ago, come October. Seemed a good position, learning a trade, and old Bill Yates was always very good at pushing for the big jobs, and his son, Mike, is even better at it. He gets jobs over in those mansions. Belgravia, Mayfair and the like. So Joe was learning from the ground up—and it’s a job with prospects.” Maisie was about to ask another question when Coombes smiled as he thought about his son. “Very easygoing boy, my Joe. Very solid young bloke—see his hands—” Coombes held out his hands. “Calm. Very precise with his hands, he was—even Yates himself said Joe’s laying out of the wallpaper ready for hanging was perfect, exact, just as it should be. He said he’d known blokes on the job for years who couldn’t lay out paper like that—pasted and folded, ready to hold up and brush out to keep the pattern running right.”
“But does that work take him away from London?” asked Maisie.
Coombes shook his head. “Just before war was declared, it all changed. Yates had a visit from the RAF brass. They wanted him for special war work—it was a big contract, all tied up and a sizeable down payment, according to one of the other lads who works for him, name of Freddie Mayes. Yates has got a big enough business, and what with the war, both Bill and Mike Yates realized that people would probably start pulling in their horns and wouldn’t be having so much painting and decorating done on their big houses, and the council contracts would probably dry up too, so they jumped at the chance. And like I said, they’re being paid a pretty penny—laying out government money for the painters to be in lodgings, the lot.”
“What sort of contract was it, Phil?” asked Billy.
“Joe said he couldn’t talk much about it—that he had to sign some papers to say he wouldn’t let on about his job. But he told me when I promised him I didn’t have any spies in the pub walls, and that it was a father’s right to know his son’s work.” Coombes looked up at Maisie and Billy. “So this is secret, right? Anything I say in this room to you two? I don’t want this getting out, because if it’s supposed to be on the QT, I don’t want my son’s name in the dirt.”