Leaving Everything Most Loved (5 page)

Sandra half-raised her hand again, but put it down as she asked another question. “Mr. Pramal—what do you think might have been the reason for your sister's death?”

Pramal shrugged and sighed. For the first time his military bearing seemed to have abandoned him. “If I was to guess, I would say that you have a point with each of your suppositions, but I believe Usha was killed because someone was afraid of her.”

Maisie, Billy, and Sandra were all silent, waiting.

“Yes,
afraid
.” Pramal went on. The previously tear-filled eyes now seemed calm, but resolute. “Usha had a power inside her—it is almost beyond me to explain it. A goddess on earth, that's what people said about her, even when she was a small child. You see, Miss Dobbs—” He looked at Sandra and then Billy, acknowledging them. “You only had to watch her walk. She did not take small steps. No, my sister could stride. Everywhere she went, it was with some purpose.”

B
illy returned to the office following Pramal's departure, joining Maisie at the table by the window, where the case map was spread out.

“Billy, Sandra's taken the cups along the hall. Before she gets back, I wanted to talk about the meeting with Pramal—you were very quiet, and then you snapped at him. It was a fair observation, to a point—but what caused you to speak in that tone? The man came here for help, not to be addressed in such a manner.”

Billy shrugged and slid down in the chair. Maisie thought he resembled a recalcitrant schoolboy.

He shook his head. “I dunno, Miss. He just sort of started to get on my nerves—all this business about her being some sort of fairy godmother. All mysterious. I just didn't believe him, that's all.”

“Go on—that's not enough.”

Billy looked at Maisie. “There's something not right about all of this. I'm not like you, Miss—not your sort that gets lots of feelings about things. I take it all as I see it, as a rule. But I just started to feel like I was listening to someone stringing me along.”

Maisie nodded.

“What do you think, Miss?”

“Again, I think you have a point, but I think there's more to it than that. I think—and we may all be well off the mark here—I think he's floundering. I think there might have been some serious discord in his dealings with his sister, even at a great distance. We can't prove that, but we can find out more.”

“Aw gawd, Miss, I can't understand half of what them people say—I can't go out there and talk to Indians.”

“Don't worry. I have the names of the boys now—that's your job. Find out all you can about the boys who discovered the body.”

Billy took a sheet of paper from Maisie. “I feel like the Pied Piper, what with that other boy on the loose.”

Maisie looked up. Billy had returned to work following a serious injury while investigating the death of another man earlier in the year, and she felt he needed some sort of encouragement to inspire him. So to underscore her confidence in him, she had handed him the most recent case to supervise. The opportunity was presented when a man named Jesmond Martin came to see Maisie with a view to retaining her services in the search for his missing son. Fourteen-year-old Robert had walked away from his school—Dulwich College—in early July and had not been seen since. Asked about the delay in contacting Maisie and his reason for not previously alerting the police, Martin explained that the son was well able to look after himself, that he did not want his son to fall afoul of the police, and that he had also wanted to give the boy a chance to come home on his own. To deter the school from approaching the police, Martin had informed them that the son was now at home and he had withdrawn him from the school's roster of pupils.

After the meeting, Maisie decided that it would be good for Billy to be in charge of an investigation—especially as he was the father of boys. Now she wondered if it was such a good idea.

“When we're done with this, let's talk about that case, shall we? See where we are with it.”

Sandra returned to the office. She placed the tea tray with clean crockery on top of a filing cabinet, and when Maisie beckoned to her, joined them at the table.

“What about the issue of prejudice?” asked Maisie.

“You never know what people will do, do you?” said Sandra. “I mean, when there are lines of men looking for work, people marching on London from up north, thinking we've got it easy down here—and they soon find out Londoners are in the same boat, don't they?—well, it makes it difficult when you find out there's paying work going to people who don't even come from here.”

Billy made a sound that drew the attention of both Maisie and Sandra, an exhalation of breath demonstrating his disdain. “Prejudice? Let me tell you, if people here can be prejudiced against their own, you can bet your life they can be prejudiced against someone else.” He leaned forward. “My mate told me what it was like, after the war—he came home at the beginning of 1919. And just because the war had ended, it didn't mean it was suddenly all cushy over there in France. No, a lot of them men were still covered in mud, blood, and rats' you-know-what by the time they stepped off a train at Waterloo.” He shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “Because I'd been wounded in Messines, I was sent back here to Blighty in 1917. But one of my mates was over there until a good three months after the Armistice. He told me that they got off the carriages and were told to stand at ease while they were awaiting orders. So they all sat down on the platform—blimey, they'd been on their pins for long enough and it was obvious where they'd just come back from. Then along came these commuter types, all top hats and creases in their trousers. ‘These men are a disgrace,' said one of the toffs. Then another went on about how the soldiers were nothing more than tramps. Now
that's
discrimination—when you look down your nose at the very men who fought to make sure you could still go to work in your tidy, warm office. That's the trouble with people—they cherish their comforts, but they don't want to know where they come from. The ladies like their cheap Indian cotton bedspreads, but they'd turn their noses up at the women who sit there doing the weaving for next to nothing.” He folded his arms and sat back in his chair.

There was silence for a few seconds, during which Maisie looked at Sandra, and motioned with her head towards the door. Sandra nodded.

“I think I'll just nip across to the dairy. What with all that tea drinking, we've run out of milk.”

“Right you are, Sandra, thank you. Remember to reimburse yourself from the petty cash.”

When Sandra had left the room, Maisie sat for a while, waiting. She watched Billy as he leaned forward, gazing at his feet. During the attack that had led to his absence from work, he had sustained serious head injuries, though they had healed sufficiently for him to return to work. At first it had seemed that all was well—life had calmed down at home for Billy, and their two boys seemed to be putting their mother's difficulties behind them. Doreen Beale had become mentally unstable following the death of her youngest child, a girl named Lizzie. It was a psychiatric condition exacerbated by Billy's ill-health. But in the past few weeks Maisie had noticed a new pattern of behavior in Billy. His moods could change in a matter of seconds, from happy-go-lucky one minute, to morose and argumentative the next. That his war wounds still troubled him on occasion was obvious, but it was rare for Billy to lose his good temper. His respect for Maisie had never been in question—she was the nurse who had helped save his life in the war. Now she felt a confusion at the center of his being—in the way he sat, in his facial expression, and in the moods of melancholy laced with anger that rendered him as volatile as a grenade without a pin.

“Don't think I don't know, Miss. Sandra went out so you could have a word with me.”

“She has been here long enough to know that you're not yourself, and that I would want to talk to you about whatever's troubling you.” Maisie's voice was soft. She was once more careful with her words, as if weighing them for their potential to inflame the situation. Billy was distressed enough already.

“I don't know why you have me here, to be honest.” Billy folded his arms across his chest.

Maisie did not miss the move, knowing he was protecting his heart.

“I have you here because I trust you, Billy. You know that.” She paused. “Now, perhaps you could describe what happened when you became agitated towards the end of our meeting here with Mr. Pramal, and when you became short-tempered with Sandra.”

“I . . . I don't know.” Billy's hands moved, one to either side of his head. “I don't know, Miss and it's—oh, nothing,” He folded his hands in front of his chest again.

“It's not nothing. Your well-being is not nothing.” Another pause. “Do your best, Billy. Try to describe what happens.”

“Oh, Miss, all that describing business. I don't know. I just need to pull up my socks and not let you down. I got a bit angry, that's all it was.”

Maisie was silent, watching Billy. His foot, drawn back against the chair; his heel tapping. Tap-tap-tap-tap. The agitation was mounting again.

“Yes, you got a bit angry. But that's not all it was. What went through your mind?”

“Well, I just want to snap, don't I?” His voice was raised. “I just want to say, ‘Miss, I can't do this job anymore, because I can't keep my thoughts in my head.' ” He pressed his fingers to his temple. “I've hardly done anything on that case about the missing boy, because I don't know what to do next. I can't remember what comes after I've seen people; how I'm supposed to put it all together. I look in my notebook and I panic, because I don't know how to get from here to there. I don't know how to join the dots anymore.” He choked back his tears.

Maisie stood up and, as if by instinct, rubbed his back, as a mother would a child in distress. She stepped away as he regained control.

“And what with Doreen, and the baby—the boys are getting bigger, especially young Billy—who's a bit full of himself. Getting on for twelve he is now, and more like a walking mouth. Knows everything, all of a sudden. And what kind of father am I? Gammy leg, gammy mind.”

“You're a very good father, Billy. Your boys look up to you—I've seen the respect they have for you.” Maisie paused, thinking. “Billy, I think you came back to work too soon. I think you've overdone it, and it's caught up with you. Here's what I want you to do—go home early today. Take a few weeks rest—the weather is still very nice, why don't you get the family away down to the coast? I'll not expect you back here until next month, or later, if you don't feel up to it.”

“What about the missing lad?”

“I'll deal with it. And the Pramal case. I'll ask Sandra if she can work some extra hours here in the office.” Maisie nodded towards the telephone. “And I think you should see that neurologist again. Are you having headaches?”

Billy nodded.

“I seem to remember you saw Dr. Patchley; he was brought in by Dr. Dene after he examined you. If you like, I could find out his address and telephone number—would you like me to?”

Maisie continued to speak with care, not only because Billy seemed so fragile, but because she had been taken to task in recent months by Priscilla, who suggested she'd overstepped the mark in helping others.

“I'll get in touch, no need for anyone else to help me with that,” said Billy. “I just need to know how to get to see him.”

“I'll find out now, before you leave—you can telephone from here if you like.”

Maisie lifted the telephone's black receiver and dialed Andrew Dene's number at Guy's Hospital, where she spoke to a clerk and scribbled the information on a slip of paper.

“Here you are.” She placed the paper on Billy's desk. “I have to nip down to collect the post. You can telephone now. Sooner rather than later.”

Billy nodded. “Thank you, Miss.”

Maisie stepped towards the door and left the office, but stood outside to listen before making her way downstairs. She heard Billy lift the receiver, heard him dial the number and speak to a secretary. She knew only too well that a Harley Street neurologist would cost a pretty penny. But there were ways to diminish the cost—she would make an important telephone call herself, as soon as he left to go home. And Billy would never have to know.

Chapter Five

A
ddington Square in Camberwell had seen enough years to have housed the gentry, the well-to-do, the less well off, and, indeed, those who were struggling to stay afloat in turbulent times. Its residents over the centuries reflected the shifting fortunes of an area that was once filled with successful merchants, but which nowadays was home to a mix of students, academics, the more successful market traders, the poor, and those seeking to improve their lot. The properties were mainly of Regency and Georgian stock, and the fact that there was no uniformity to the buildings enhanced, rather than diminished, the character of the area. The Grand Surrey Canal, built in the early 1800s, brought with it a flurry of construction, which added Victorian housing and effectively completed the square, which was named after the then Prime Minister, Henry Addington.

Maisie parked her motor car close to the address she had been given for the ayah's hostel where Usha Pramal had been living at the time of her death. She looked around the square before lifting the brass door knocker and rapping three times. Some moments later, the door of the brick Georgian terrace house was opened by a young Indian woman wearing a sari of olive green cotton with a wide border embroidered in a medley of pale green and yellow threads. She wore her long jet-black hair in a single braid, and as she stood on the threshold to greet Maisie, a cluster of thin silver bangles on her wrists jangled when she pushed a stray hair behind her right ear. Maisie noticed that she was wearing a silver crucifix.

“Yes? May I be of assistance to you?” The woman's smile was broad and welcoming.

“I'd like to see Mr. or Mrs. Paige, if I may. Are they home?”

“Mrs. Paige is here. Please come in.” She stepped aside, and held her hand out to one of two ladder-back chairs situated on either side of an umbrella stand in the entrance hall. “Please wait—I will fetch her.” The woman bowed her head and walked on tiptoe towards the door at the end of the passageway. It seemed almost as if she were dancing, so light was her step.

While waiting, Maisie regarded her surroundings. Dark cream wainscoting ran along the bottom half of the walls, above which wallpaper with a design of intertwined red geraniums had been hung without matching the pattern. She thought that if she looked at the wall for long enough, she would become quite dizzy, so strong was the sense that the bricks were moving underneath the paper. She looked at a collection of photographs on one wall, of a series of very British-looking adults clustered together in places other than Britain. In one they were seated at a table under a palm tree, in a second together in front of a series of mud huts. There was one of a church minister holding his hand up to the heavens while talking to a group of dark-skinned children, all seated with legs crossed and each one appearing to hang on his every word. A crucifix hung on the wall.

“Good morning. I'm Mrs. Paige.” A short woman with a round face and hair tied back in a bun stood in front of Maisie, her hands clasped in front of her middle. She wore a flower-patterned day dress with the low waist that might have been fashionable some ten years earlier, though the fabric seemed to pull across her middle. Her face was unlined, and her cheeks rosy red, as if she had been sitting in the sunshine without a hat.

“Mrs. Paige, please forgive me for imposing upon you without notice; however, I wanted to see you at the earliest opportunity.” Maisie held out a card. “I have been retained by Mr. Pramal to look into the death of his sister, Miss Usha Pramal, who I believe resided with you.”

The woman appeared agitated, looking at the card without taking it, and wringing her hands together. “Well, yes, but . . . but my husband isn't here, you know.”

Maisie nodded. “I see—but perhaps you could spare me five minutes or so. I have just a few questions for you, Mrs. Paige.”

“Oh, all right then. Come with me.”

Mrs. Paige led the way into a front-room parlor. It was a dark room, revealing a sensibility that was somewhat old-fashioned, even by the standards of those who were slow to change or who had little money to do so. A picture rail painted in maroon gloss that had lost its shine framed the deep-red, embossed wallpaper. A table set next to the bay window had a plant on top with leaves that had grown out to the point of diminishing natural light that might otherwise have illuminated the room. Ornate plasterwork on the ceiling seemed oppressive, as if it were bearing down on one's head, and heavy cloths on tables and across chairs lent the room a funereal feel.

Paige led Maisie to the table, where she pulled out two dining chairs carved in a manner that would have made them at home in a church.

“Please sit down. Would you like tea? I can summon the girl.”

Maisie shook her head. “No, thank you, Mrs. Paige.”

“I've already had the police here, weeks ago. Not very nice at all, what with the neighbors getting nosy. We've had it hard enough, looking after these women, you know. This is a good area, after all.” Paige nodded as she finished the sentence, and Maisie thought this might be a habit.

“You have been most benevolent, Mrs. Paige. I have heard about your work—how you gave room and board to women far from home who have been abandoned by the very people who should have looked out for them.”

“We're doing God's work, Miss Dobbs. The women here have all toiled for those far wealthier than us, you know. We give them a roof over their heads, and we find them jobs so they can earn their way back to their people. We ask only that they work hard, keep themselves and their rooms tidy, their conduct above reproach, and that they follow the word of the Lord.” She nodded again.

“I see. Very commendable, Mrs. Paige.” Maisie paused. “I wonder if I might ask about Usha Pramal. How long was she with you?”

“Let me see. Three years it was, perhaps four. Yes. No, now I come to think about it, it was more like four years ago she came to us—1929. She arrived on the doorstep without a place to go, so we took her in. My husband and I live only on this floor, and we've given over the upper floors to our lodgers. They generally share three to a room, but Usha was one who had her own room, as did a couple of the others, of longer standing. We haven't had as many through as we once had, so there's a bit more space now. More families coming home from India without bringing the ayahs, you see. And fewer families going out there. There's been some trouble over there, you see—uprisings. There isn't the respect that there was, not for us, you know.”

Maisie nodded. Yes, she did know, but didn't want to have a conversation about politics—not yet, anyway. “Did you know that Usha Pramal was not brought here as an ayah, but a governess? She was a well-educated woman.”

“So they said, the police, but she never let on. Of course, I noticed that she had books, and could read English very well. She probably went to an English missionary school.”

Maisie shook her head. “No, she was a graduate of a well-regarded ladies' college in Bombay.”

Paige seemed surprised, but said nothing.

“Where did she work?” asked Maisie. “You said you found work for the women who live here.”

“Mainly as cleaners, maids, that sort of thing. Miss Pramal worked for two employers, as an extra maid for cleaning.”

“May I have the names of her employers?”

“The police didn't ask for all this, you know.”

“But I am working with the police, Mrs. Paige—you can telephone Detective Inspector Caldwell of Scotland Yard if you have any doubts. And I would like to know who Miss Pramal was working for.”

Paige patted the back of her bun, then fingered the crucifix at her neck. “Right you are.” She sighed, and seemed to slump a little. “You see, it's sometimes hard enough to find work for the women here. People are so . . . so . . . so difficult. Of course, I can understand it, looking at it from their point of view. But we vouch for these women, and we teach them to be Christians and not pagans, so that should stand for something. We do our best for them.”

“I'm sure you do, Mrs. Paige. The names?” Maisie had an index card and pencil ready.

“The main ones were Mrs. Baxter of Birchington Gardens, in Kensington, and Mrs. Hampton, of Colbourne Street, also in Kensington. I'll find the addresses for you when you leave.” As if to underline her point, she looked at the clock. “There's also been others over the years, but, as I said, those are the ones she worked for most of the time, over the past few years.”

“Well, that's a start. Thank you,” said Maisie. “Now, tell me about Miss Pramal's comings and goings. Did she leave on time? Arrive home on time? Can you tell me about her interests, where she went when she had time off?”

“She went out by seven in the morning. That meant she was at her job in time to wash up after breakfast, clean the stove, scrub the kitchen floor, then work her way up through the house. There was generally a housekeeper and a cook, plus a parlor maid—two maids with Mrs. Hampton—so she wasn't needed until eight, and she was there until three or four, generally, depending upon how much laundry there was to do, and any mending and ironing. She was with Mrs. Baxter on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Mrs. Hampton on Mondays, and of course, they often needed extra help after guests on a Saturday and Sunday—and then on Wednesdays and Saturdays, plus Sunday morning on occasion. If the women didn't have work arranged for a certain day, it seemed that something temporary always came up—an inquiry about tidying a house before or after a party, perhaps, or lending a hand cleaning a sickroom. There's always jobs to do here, or at the church.”

“Like Cinderella, wasn't she?”

Mrs. Paige seemed to swell with self-importance, checking her posture and drawing her shoulders back before answering. “A good day's work for her money. And all the women came to church for Sunday evensong—and we studied the Bible two evenings a week with them, and had prayers before bedtime and lights out, so I can tell you she was always in on time.”

“And what do you think she was doing to be found in the canal? Was it a place she usually walked? Was there anyone locally who had been seen with her?”

Paige reddened. “I'm sure I don't know. We thought her life might have been taken somewhere else and then she floated here—that river has tides, you know.”

Maisie nodded. “My grandfather was a lighterman on the water, so I do know—very well, in fact. Mind you, I think it might be somewhat fanciful to think she floated home to Camberwell.” She paused. “Do you have knowledge of any associations, anyone Miss Pramal might have been seeing?”

“Do you mean men?”

“No, I don't. I mean anyone—men or women.”

Paige shook her head.

“How about the other women living here? Were they all friends? Did they know her well?”

“Well, they're all from India, so I suppose . . .”

“Mrs. Paige, I think Miss Pramal's level of education indicates that she might have been somewhat frustrated by her work. What do you think?”

“I'm sure I don't know—we do our best for the women. As I said, they have a roof over their heads, and meals. And we save their money for them, so they can go home again.”

“You save their money? How? Did you collect wages from them?”

Paige became flustered, patting her bun again, and then picking an imaginary piece of fluff from a sleeve. “I'm sure I mustn't discuss money matters without my husband here. He looks after the accounts.”

“I'll talk to him about it, then. In the meantime, may I see Usha Pramal's room?”

“I—well, it hasn't been touched, you know, not since she was found. We thought it best to wait until the brother arrived from India so he could collect her belongings. The police told us not to move anything, anyway, until further notice.”

“That's very thoughtful of you. I am sure Mr. Pramal would be grateful to you for keeping her personal effects in the order she left them. In any case, I would like to see the room—could you let me have a look?”

The woman sighed. “Come with me, then.”

She led the way towards the staircase, stopping alongside the banister.

“Wait here a minute. We'll need the key.”

She was gone for a couple of minutes, during which time Maisie heard her voice echoing through the house. “If you know what's good for you, you'll get the floor a bit cleaner than that!”

Maisie wondered if this was an example of how the women who had come seeking refuge were generally treated. Soon she heard Mrs. Paige approaching, huffing as if the exertion of collecting the key had taken her breath.

“Follow me,” she instructed, rubbing her chest.

Maisie made her way up two flights of stairs in the woman's wake, until they reached the top-floor attic room.

“Had this all to herself, she did. Here we are.” Mrs. Paige unlocked and opened the door. The room inside was dark and shadowed. She stepped towards the heavy faded velvet drapes and drew them back. At once sunshine streamed in through the window, catching dust motes in broad shafts of light.