Among the Mad (5 page)

“Stratton, bring in Darby, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Soon the four were seated: Maisie, MacFarlane,
Stratton and Colm Darby, a man who had worked alongside MacFarlane since before
the war and, when the policeman returned from France, joined him once more.
Darby was probably a good five years older than his superior. Maisie knew him
to be an expert in the analysis of personal markers left behind by the
perpetrator of a crime. The nature of one’s handwriting was an area in which he
was said to have great insight. He had been with MacFarlane since the days when
the main roles of the department encompassed intelligence and security to
protect the country from extremist activity known as the “Irish problem.” Now
Special Branch had a broader role, and it seemed as if Colm Darby might never
retire. MacFarlane introduced Maisie, then leaned forward so that his forearms
rested on the desk.

“Miss Dobbs, I am dispensing with protocol
here—because I can, and because I believe we have no time to lose.” He sighed,
looking directly into Maisie’s eyes. “I know Maurice Blanche, I’ve worked with
him in the past, and I remember you from Edinburgh—Blanche sent you there, I
understand.”

“Yes, that’s correct, in preparation for my work with
him, when I was his assistant.”

MacFarlane looked down at an open manila folder,
flipped over a page of notes, then closed the folder before resuming eye
contact with Maisie. “Now, first of all, in your own words, describe the events
of Christmas Eve.”

Maisie drew breath and, as she had for Stratton
before, described approaching the man on Charlotte Street, and witnessing him
take his life with a Mills Bomb.

“Not a pretty sight, I’m sure.”

“I’ve seen some ugly sights in my time, Chief Inspector.”

“I bet you have, Miss Dobbs. And we don’t, any of us,
want to be seeing any more, though I imagine that might be a wee bit of a faint
hope.” MacFarlane cleared his throat. “Can you explain how a man who has made
veiled threats that amount to a risk to our country’s security might know the
name of a little wee lassie like yourself?”

Maisie bristled, but checked herself, aware that the
goading was deliberate, though she knew that, in the circumstances, she might
have employed the same tactic herself. She leaned forward, mirroring
MacFarlane’s position. Darby looked at Stratton, and raised an eyebrow.

“Chief Inspector, to be perfectly honest with you, at
this juncture I have no idea why I was mentioned in such a letter. However,
your line of questioning regarding the tragedy I witnessed on Christmas Eve
would indicate that you see a relationship between the two events, and I am
inclined to veer in that initial direction myself.” She turned to face Stratton
and Darby, bringing them into the conversation. “I was the closest person to
the victim to walk away without significant physical injury—and yes, I see him
as a victim. So if—if—there was an associate of the dead man nearby, I would
have been seen. If the two cases are linked, the person who wrote the letter
could be that same individual, perhaps using my name as leverage to give some
kind of weight to his endeavor. It might also be a means of subverting your
attention, of course.”

MacFarlane leaned back in his chair, as did Maisie in
hers. The policeman smiled. “Just like bloody Blanche! I move, you move, I do
this, you do the same thing. It’s like being followed.” He shook his head.
“Look, Miss Dobbs, I know—know, mind—that you haven’t anything to do with this
tyke, but you might have had some brief contact with him, you might have seen
him, or he might have an interest in you.” He brushed his hand across his
forehead. “I know this could be the work of a bit of a joker, but my nose tells
me this boy is serious, that he means what he says. Now then, we can play a
waiting game, see what happens next, or we can start looking. I favor action,
which is why I’ve asked you here. You’re involved in this whether you like it
or not, Miss Dobbs, and I would rather have you under my nose working for me
than anywhere else.”

“I’m used to working alone, Chief Inspector.”

“Well, for now you can get un-used to it. First of
all, let me apprise you of the work of Special Branch. Even though I am sure
you have some familiarity, if you are going to be reporting to me, then I want
to start us off on the right foot. So, a little lesson, and I’ll make it
snappy. The Special Branch is, technically, part of the Criminal Investigation
Department, but as you may have heard we like to go about our business in our
own fashion. Suffice it to say that we only answer questions when the person
asking has a lot of silver on the epaulettes, or around the peak of his cap.
Our normal work is in connection with the protection of royalty, ministers and
ex-ministers of the Crown, and foreign dignitaries. We also control aliens
entering our country. We are responsible for investigation into acts of
terrorism and anarchy, and to that end have a lot of people to keep an eye on.
Before I go on, I should add—mainly because I can see a bit of a problem looming
here—that on occasion we cross paths with Military Intelligence, Section Five,
for obvious reasons. We try to get along, and they need us, mainly because we
have powers of arrest. There, now I can take off my professoring hat and get
down to business. Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Back to the case in hand. Let’s look at what
we’ve brought together here in the way of information—facts. I want action and
I want the man behind the letter brought in as a matter of urgency. And Miss
Dobbs—whatever you’re doing, I want you to report to Inspector Stratton here
every single day.”

Maisie nodded. “If that’s the case, Chief
Superintendent, before I see the letter, perhaps we can discuss my terms. The
financial terms, that is.”

“Not exactly music to the ears of a Scot, you know.”
The edges of MacFarlane’s mouth twitched into a grin.

“That’s why I didn’t want to leave it any longer,
Chief Superintendent.”

*  *  *

“INSPECTOR DARBY, what do you think about the
downstroke of the pencil, here, where the letter-writer makes his demands? It
seems so thick, almost labored.” Without touching the paper, Maisie used her
forefinger to indicate her observation.

“Yes, I noticed that myself. Very deliberate, isn’t
it?”

“Like a child’s hand—not in presentation, but in the
execution, as if the person writing the letter were moving his hand slowly, so
as not to lose control.” She closed her eyes, her hand moving back and forth on
the wooden desk to describe holding a pen. The three men looked at one another.

MacFarlane made an effort to control his voice,
keeping it low while Maisie was thinking. “Stratton, I know you’re not a
tea-boy, but poke your head around that door and tell them that this isn’t the
desert and throats are parched in here.” He turned back to Maisie, who opened
her eyes and spoke again.

“I think he or she has trouble with dexterity and
concentration. Don’t you think so?” She turned to Darby.

Colm Darby nodded agreement. “I do—but what do you
make of this?” He handed her a magnifying glass, then pointed to two places on
the vellum. Stratton entered the room again and sat at the table alongside
Maisie.

“It’s been moistened—by saliva, I would say.” She
looked up, then down at the paper again. “Yes, that’s saliva. The person who
wrote this letter was so intent on the words that his mouth was open and
spittle drooled onto the paper.”

“So what does that tell us? That we have a dribbling
person out there with perfect spelling?” MacFarlane was growing impatient.

The door opened again and a younger man in civilian
clothes entered with four cups of tea on a wooden tray. He set the tray down on
the table and left the room.

“It tells us that the person has trouble with muscular
control, and that concentration is difficult. It tells us that the person is
compromised in some way.”

“That’s if you’re right.”

“Yes, that’s if Inspector Darby and I are right.”

There was silence in the room. Stratton reached for
two cups of tea, placing one in front of Maisie, who was beginning to feel the
stirrings of a headache. She thanked Stratton and touched the bump on the back
of her head.

“All right?”

“Yes, it’s just reminding me, that’s all.”

MacFarlane reached for a cup of tea, as did Darby.
“Well, that’s bloody marvelous,” said the Scotsman. “Thousands of—what did you
say?—compromised people in London and we’ve got to find one of them. Needle in
a bloody haystack.” He scraped back his chair and began to pace the room.

“Do we have an identification on the dead man yet?”
asked Maisie.

Stratton shook his head. “Proving very difficult, as
you can imagine.”

Maisie looked at each man in turn, then up at the
clock above the door. MacFarlane followed her gaze. “Yes, it’s time we got on
with it. Miss Dobbs, a motor car will collect you from your office this
afternoon at four, and we’ll reconvene here to discuss progress—or, heaven
forbid, lack thereof. In the meantime, I’ll allow you to work in the way that
you’ve said is best—alone. But be ready at four, otherwise you’ll have someone
from the Branch at your heels from dawn until dusk until we’ve closed this
case. The forty-eight hours grace our letter-writer has allowed us will be up
by six o’clock tomorrow morning or thereabouts. If we haven’t got him, we’ll
soon find out if we have a practical joker on our hands. And with a bit of
luck, by then we’ll have an identification on the other nutcase in Charlotte
Street.” He held out his hand. “We’ll see you later, Miss Dobbs.”

“Indeed, later.”

“And don’t forget—in all the work you do on this case,
you’re under the jurisdiction of Special Branch.”

“I understand, Chief Superintendent.”

MacFarlane nodded and took up the letter once more.

STRATTON WALKED MAISIE to a waiting Invicta police
motor car.

“He may be a bit of a maverick, but he’s very good.”

“Yes, I know. Maurice has spoken about him in the
past. And I expect the reason I am here is not only because my name was
mentioned in that letter, but because he requested Maurice’s help first.”

“Blanche said to contact you, that you were his
successor in every way. He told Big Robbie to trust your instincts.”

“And does he?”

“He trusts Blanche, so yes, consider yourself
trusted.”

“I must be—his questioning was mild, to say the
least.”

As they reached the motor car, Maisie turned to
Stratton and held out her hand. “I look forward to working with you again,
Inspector.”

“Ditto, Miss Dobbs. But we have to work fast.”

“I know—I’m working already.” She stepped into the
Invicta. “I’ll see you at four.”

Hickory, dickory, dock. Tick tock, tick tock. Clocks
and watches, clocks and watches, time in, time out. Here comes a chopper to
chop off your head!

The pencil began to scrape, so the man shuffled to the
kitchen, took a knife from a drawer and whittled a point to the lead, the chips
of wood hitting a brown stain where the single cold tap dripped water day and
night. He winced at the noise, tested the sharpness with the tip of his finger
as if he were about to tune a string instrument, then shuffled back to the
table again and proceeded to write.

They do not know, do not know which end is up, and
that’s always been the trouble with the brass. I remember, see. Oh, it was all
very well, sending out those watches, so we all had the same time, down to the
second, so that we all, thousands of us, went over the top at the same time,
and . . .

Holding the pencil above the page the man gasped as
memories pushed forward to become fast-moving pictures in his mind—the twisted
grin of death on a uniformed corpse, the silent scream of a man he’d laughed
with just moments past—and the relentless noise of battle reverberating from
inside his skull into the solitude of his room, enveloping him in the fury of
war. He dropped the pencil and pressed his hands to his eyes, hard, so that as
his fingers touched the soft roundness he imagined that he could pluck the
pictures from his head if he could stand the pain. And if he thought he would
be left in peace.

In time the ghosts drew back to the place in his mind
where they were quiet, spent, so he read back over his own words, picked up his
pencil and began again.

So what’s the point of getting the time right, if it’s
all you can get right? Time and consequence, time and consequence. Croucher
knew about time and consequence. Poor Croucher. Very poor Croucher.

The man set down his pencil between the pages of the
leather-bound book, then tied a string around the cover so the pencil would not
be mislaid or clatter to the floor. He stood up and, taking small steps toward
a cupboard, pulled out a large box containing a collection of empty demijohns,
tubes and rubber piping. Another box held a series of bottles filled with
liquids and tins of various sizes, each one labeled with care, in pencil. If
Darby had brought his magnifying glass to the labels, he might have seen the
paper discolored in spots here and there, where it had become soiled by saliva
from the man’s open mouth.