Elegy for Eddie (8 page)

“The thing you have to remember about Eddie was that he walked along a very narrow path. He didn’t like surprises, and anything new worried him; took him out of himself—but all the time he was inside himself and knew what was expected of him and how to go about his day, Eddie was a happy lad. He knew his mum, he knew Jennie and—bless his soul—old Wilf. He knew who he trusted at the market, and though he was nervous when someone new asked for him, as soon as he was in with the horse, you wouldn’t’ve known there was any tightness in him—when he was worried or out of sorts, Eddie could get very tight in his body. I remember when he was a boy, he’d get these turns when it seemed as if his whole body had gone like a board, with his little hands clenched. Maudie used to gather him up and hold him like he was in a vise, and soon he’d calm down. She learned how to cope with it, and he learned a bit about what made him unhappy—like I said, it was a narrow road, but as a man he knew not to stray, if you get my meaning.” Frankie sipped his tea, set the mug down, and sighed. Maisie said nothing, and soon her father continued talking.

“With Eddie it was get up in the morning—same time every day—have his bowl of porridge and a cup of tea, always in the same cup. Then he went off to his jobs, one after the other. Maudie would go with him the first couple of times if he had a new customer, just to make sure. But I give the woman her due, she made him stand on his own two feet. I remember her saying to me, ‘Frank, when I’m gone that boy’s got to look after himself, so I can’t mollycoddle him. I know what sets him off, and as long as I don’t push him too far, I reckon he’ll learn enough to do without me when my time comes.’ Poor Maud don’t have to worry about that now. I s’pose there’s a blessing there, because in truth I could never see Eddie getting on without Maud, and that’s a fact. And I feel terrible for saying it.”

Maisie reached out to hold her father’s hand. “I’m sure there are those who’ve thought the same—which is probably one of the reasons Eddie’s death wasn’t investigated properly, as far as I can see.” She paused. “Look, Dad, I hate to have to ask you all these questions about him, but I didn’t know you’d been cutting his hair for most of his life until the men told me about it—which means you must have seen him in the past couple of months.”

Frankie nodded. “Even during the war, when you were over there, I went up every now and again to see him and Maud, and to cut his hair. It was easier when he was younger and I had the old horse, but by the time I’d come down here to live, well, he’d got used to me and trusted me.”

“What happened to Eddie in the war? I always thought he was called up but they took one look at him and let him go.”

“That’s more or less what happened, though he did his bit. He went to work over on Hampstead Heath, just for a while, looking after the horses. The army’d requisitioned thousands of horses—as you know—and the Heath was one of the places where they’d gathered a lot of them. So Eddie ended up as a groom. He never went to France of course—he wouldn’t’ve lasted a minute before he went off his head. But apparently there was one officer who realized that as long as Eddie knew what to do and he did more or less the same thing every day at the same time—and that’s what the army does, anyway—he was a good worker. They kept him nice and peaceful, just working in the makeshift stables, but he was discharged when the regiment left.” Frankie shook his head and smiled. “I heard a story that, one time, there was all these army blokes, supposed to know their horses, and not one of them could make these horses what’d just been brought in pull a gun carriage. Eddie comes along and looks at the horses, then vanishes for a few minutes. He comes back with a bell, and as soon as the horses heard that bell, off they went. See, Eddie knew they were horses what’d pulled the buses—they went on a ring and stopped on a ring, and it was only Eddie who’d tumbled it.”

Maisie smiled back at her father, remembering Eddie at the work he most loved. “So when you last saw Eddie, how was he?” she asked.

“Must’ve been about five or six weeks ago. I went up on the train to Charing Cross, then walked up to the market—you’ll remember, because I popped round to your office afterwards for a cup of tea before I went to catch the train home. Eddie was there, so I sat him down round the back of one of the sheds and cut his hair for him. We had our usual chat—he never was one for a long conversation, Eddie. He’d talk about the same things he always talked about; and if he was looking after a new horse, he’d tell me about it.” Frankie smiled, remembering.

“Nothing out of the ordinary then.”

“I suppose not, no—well, there was something that made me wonder a bit at the time because it wasn’t anything he’d ever commented on before.” Frankie looked at his daughter. “I don’t know why it didn’t strike me more at the time, because, now I come to think about it, it wasn’t like Eddie—you know I told you about his narrow path? This was off the path.”

“What did he say?” Maisie poured more tea into the mugs.

“He started off talking about birds, how he sometimes watched them flying. And I could imagine that, you know, him standing by the river, watching birds swooping down. Then all of a sudden, he started talking about aeroplanes. Just a mention, about things that fly.”

“You’re right, that doesn’t sound like Eddie at all to me.”

“He said he’d like to fly, because he’d been drawing aeroplanes.”

“Would he have seen an aeroplane?”

“You do see one go over every now and again, and there’s always something in the papers—them aviator types like Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison; photographs of folk in overalls leaning against the steps going up to their ship. I’ve sometimes been in the village and seen one go over, and everyone comes running out to look, so perhaps he saw one—and you know Eddie, once a thing captured his imagination, he’d keep on about it.”

“And did he—keep on about it?”

Frankie shrugged. “I s’pose that’s another funny thing. He made mention of an aeroplane, and then never said another word about it; just went back to the usual about horses, repeating himself, like he did.” Frankie looked out of the window, as if imagining Eddie Pettit, then turned back to Maisie. “You going to the funeral?”

She nodded. “Of course. Will you come up?”

“I’ll come on the train—in fact, I could come back with you. Thursday morning you reckon you’re going back? Early train? Yes, I’ll come. I wouldn’t miss seeing the boy off, and there’ll be a lot of lads from the market there, paying their respects. And from Lambeth, from the old streets. Gentle soul, Eddie. Loved by a lot of people, he was.”

“Stay with me at the flat, Dad.” Maisie reached out to hold her father’s hand.

“I might do that, love. Let me see how I feel—at my age, you want to sleep in your own bed of a night.”

Maisie moved to clear the mugs and teapot. “Oh, that’s true for all of us, I think.”

With her back to him as she washed the mugs and rinsed the teapot, Maisie wouldn’t have seen her father’s expression. Had she turned, she would have seen a father who wanted to inquire about her comment, but decided it was best to leave well enough alone.

M
aisie remained at Chelstone until early Thursday morning, when father and daughter left the Groom’s Cottage when it was still dark and caught the milk train to Tonbridge, and traveled from there to Charing Cross. Frankie insisted upon going to the market first, so Maisie gave him a key to her flat and went on her way to the office. Sandra was at her desk when Maisie arrived.

“Good morning, Miss Dobbs.” Sandra looked up from her typewriter and smiled. “Nice day again, isn’t it?”

“I only hope it lasts,” said Maisie. She took off her jacket, which she hung over the back of her chair. She placed her hat on the mantelpiece and pushed her gloves into her briefcase, then sat down at her desk. “I came up from Chelstone this morning, with my father, so I’ll be leaving earlier today—tomorrow’s Eddie Pettit’s funeral; it’s in the late morning, so I’ll be out for a few hours. Are there any messages for me? Has Billy been to Camden Lock yet? Or Bookhams?”

“Mr. Beale was at the market for a fair time yesterday, talking to the men again, and he interviewed a few more; then he had a letter about one of the other cases, so he had to attend to that. He went over to Camden Lock this morning to make inquiries, and then he’ll get down to the pub down the road from Bookhams by opening time. I would imagine he’d go home from there rather than come back to the office.” Sandra paused, flipping over a page in her notebook. “And there was a message from Viscount Compton; he asked if you would telephone him.”

Maisie nodded. “Yes. Indeed. Thank you.”

“I’ll make a cup of tea then,” Sandra busied herself with the tea tray and left the room.

Maisie sighed, picked up the telephone and dialed the number for the Compton Corporation. Upon being put through to James Compton’s secretary, she learned that James was engaged in a meeting with a client but would return her call at the earliest opportunity. She thanked his secretary and placed the receiver in its cradle, whereupon the telephone began to ring.

“Fitzroy—”

“Miss, it’s me.”

“Billy—is everything all right? You sound breathless. Are you calling from Camden?”

“Yes, in a telephone box round the corner from the library.” Billy coughed. “ ’Scuse me, Miss. I thought this weather would make it easier on my chest, but it’s sort of damp and sticky out and it goes straight to my lungs. And what with all these flowers coming out and giving me trouble—that market started me off yesterday, I’m sure of it.” Billy coughed again and Maisie could hear him struggling to breathe; his lungs were damaged by poison gas when he was a soldier during the war. Wheezing, he continued. “I reckon I’ve found out something really interesting, Miss.”

“Go on, Billy, but take another breath—you shouldn’t have been running. You know it strains you.”

“Well, anyway . . .” He dismissed her concern. “I went to a couple of libraries—I told the librarians that I was an old pupil of Mrs. Soames’ from when she was a teacher, and I wanted to talk to her about one of my mates who’d passed on and who she’d remember from the old days. At the second library, they knew her and said she was a regular, and one of them remembered seeing her with a man in his forties, they thought. One of them said he seemed a bit slow, so I reckon that must’ve been Eddie Pettit.”

“Good—did they tell you where she lived?”

“No, they didn’t want to give her address—and wait for this bit.”

“What did they say?”

Billy coughed again, and Maisie wondered if he might be coughing up blood, which she knew could happen at any time, but especially when there were changes in the weather.

“Take your time, Billy,” she added.

“I just need to lean my head over a bowl of scalding hot water with Friar’s Balsam when I get home, that’ll help me out. Anyway, here’s what the second librarian said; she said she didn’t want to give me the address, due to Mrs. Soames being away. Apparently, she’s a widow, so she lives on her own, but here’s the thing—Eddie’s old teacher left London about a couple of weeks ago to stay with a sister who lives in Sussex, on account of the fact that she needed to get away from London because she’s grieving, having lost her son.”

“Her son died? And probably a few weeks ago? That’s—”

“That’s one of them coincidence things, that’s what it is, Miss. But I haven’t finished. Turns out she has two sons, but one went off to Australia about five years ago—he’s an engineer or something like that. It was the other one who died, in an accident. Drowned, he was, in the river.”

Maisie shook her head. “Drowned? Did they have any details?”

“No, just that they’d heard he’d fallen late at night from Lambeth Bridge—might’ve been the worse for wear, by all accounts.”

“Billy—what was his name?”

“Bartholomew Soames. Everyone called him Bart, apparently. He was a newspaperman, a journalist. Only he didn’t work for just one paper, but would write his stories and then sell them to whichever paper was interested.”

Maisie was silent as she considered this new piece of the puzzle.

“Miss?”

“Good work, Billy. Look, your chest sounds awful. I think you should go home for the rest of the day.”

“I’ll be all right, Miss. I just want to try a few of the shops, see if I can find out more about Mrs. Soames, and I’ll pay a visit to the Lighterman over near Bookhams before I go home.”

“Be careful, Billy.”

“Don’t you worry about me, Miss. I’ll be all right.”

Chapter Five

M
aisie!”

Maisie started as she answered the telephone, and held the receiver away from her ear.

“Maisie, I’ve missed you.” James Compton’s voice was so loud, the line echoed. “Did you really have to rush down to Chelstone in such a hurry?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, James, and I’ll be staying at the flat this evening—my father’s in London and we’ve a funeral to attend tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, yes, of course, that man who was good with horses, I remember now.” There was a pause, and James’ voice changed. “When will you come back to Ebury Place, Maisie?”

Maisie coiled the telephone cord around her fingers. He sounded like a wounded child; she felt as if she were being drawn into placating him in some way. “Well, how about Saturday afternoon? We could drive out to Richmond.”

“We’ve a party on Saturday, an invitation from Duncan and Rose Hartman. Remember? It’s his fortieth birthday, so there will be dancing until the small hours, then breakfast served at four in the morning to round off the night. And don’t forget there’s the Otterburn supper coming up next week too.”

“Oh dear, yes, of course.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

Maisie stood up straighter and smiled. “No, not at all—it’s just that I’d forgotten all about the Hartmans. I’m sure we’ll have a lovely time, James.”

“I think Priscilla and Douglas are going too.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it! Priscilla came back from a visit to Paris a couple of days ago, so she’s bound to have a new gown or two to show off.” Maisie smiled. She looked forward to seeing her friend.

“In my eyes you’ll always be the belle of the ball, Maisie.”

For a second, Maisie didn’t quite know how to respond. “That’s very sweet of you, James.”

“It’s true.”

Maisie glanced at the clock. “So, I’ll see you on Saturday, about lunchtime. Richmond in the afternoon, and the Hartman do in the evening.”

“I’ll see you then, my love.”

“Yes, see you, James.”

Maisie sighed as she replaced the telephone receiver, feeling the call’s tension ease. Though she hated to think about it, she wasn’t sure what had happened in the relationship, but this feeling of suffocation, which began as just a passing sensation, was growing. Now every conversation felt stilted, and she found herself questioning feelings she’d had for James and her own declarations of love. She picked up the telephone and dialed Priscilla’s number.

“Darling, how are you?” Priscilla was effusive in her greeting.

“I’m well—how was your trip to Paris?”

“Absolutely divine! I adore my toads, but sometimes there is simply too much maleness in this house and I have to get away. Mind you, two or three days in Paris on my own and I’ve had enough of that, too, though I had a wonderful time choosing a few more dresses for summer. You should come with me next time—there’s more to a shopping trip than a quick dip into Derry and Tom’s for a new woolly cardigan, you know, or to Debenham and Freebody during the January sale.”

“Shall I pay you a visit? How about later tomorrow afternoon? I’ve a funeral to go to in the morning, but I’d love to see you.”

“Oh, dear Lord, please, don’t come in that black dress again, Maisie. Do promise me you won’t drag out that miserable-looking garment for another airing in company. I swear, if I see that thing again I will scream. Either change before you get here, or buy a new black costume to wear to the funeral.”

“I’ll just change before I come over.”

“And James?”

“What about him?”

“Oh, Maisie, that doesn’t sound very promising.”

“See you tomorrow afternoon, Pris.”

“I’ll have refreshments ready. About four then?”

“Yes, about four. See you then.”

Maisie set down the receiver and sighed, then looked up to see Sandra staring at her.

“Sandra?”

“I just wondered if everything’s all right, Miss Dobbs.”

“Yes, of course it is. Now then, I expect you’ll have to be leaving soon, to go to your job with Mr. Partridge.”

The young woman shook her head. “No, Mr. Partridge has given me time off while he works on something else—and he’s paying me! I don’t mind, because I can catch up with reading for my studies. But it’s really generous of him, not a lot of people would do that.”

“Douglas Partridge is a man of generous spirit—I am sure it’s the quality that attracted Mrs. Partridge.”

“They married after the war, didn’t they? He does well for a man with only one arm, and who can’t walk without a stick.”

“They met in southwest France, actually—both trying to get away from their memories, if truth be told. They were married some thirteen years ago—yes, it was, because their eldest is now twelve. And he and his two brothers are growing like weeds. Anyway, I’m sure Mrs. Partridge will tell me more about her husband’s exciting new job.”

Sandra slipped a sheet of paper into the typewriter and smoothed it against the platen. “Oh, I doubt that, Miss Dobbs. I think it’s something he’s doing on the QT.”

Maisie was about to ask what Sandra meant but could see she had spoken without thinking and was oblivious to the curiosity such a comment might inspire.

M
aisie stood at the side of the road with her father to watch the hearse carrying Eddie Pettit pass along streets he’d walked as a child. Drawn by two gleaming jet-black Friesian horses, their manes braided and with black plumes attached to their browbands, the hearse was followed by costermongers driving carts and pushing flower-filled barrows, by a few mounted policemen, and by horse-drawn drays from Starlings Brewery, the leatherwork and brassware of their harnesses polished to a shine. When the cortege passed, Maisie held on to Frankie’s arm, and they stepped out to join the procession to St. Mark’s Church, where Eddie would be laid to rest.

As they stood in the church, Maisie looked at Maud Pettit during the reading of the lesson, and could see grief enveloping her small, vulnerable frame. She leaned on Jennie, who looked tired but stood tall—and while watching, Maisie wondered what those early years of motherhood had been like for a young girl with not two ha’pennies to rub together. How she had worked, and what a struggle it must have been. And how comforting to have her old friends, Jennie and Wilf, to help support the young boy in his early years.

“Best be going now, love.” Frankie waved to another man he’d known in his days at the market, and began to walk away from the churchyard.

Once again Maisie slipped her arm through his. “Will you stay at the flat again this evening?”

“No, love. I should be getting back.”

“All right, but look, I’ll come to the station with you.”

“You’ve no need to—” Frankie looked up as Jennie walked across the churchyard towards them. She was holding something in her hand, waving it as she called out.

“Maisie! Maisie, wait a minute.” Jennie pressed her free hand to her chest as she approached, dressed in an old but well-ironed black skirt and jacket, with a brooch pinned to her lapel. A black cloche was pulled down on her head, with a small patch of black decorative net covering her face. She pushed back the net.

“Nice send-off you gave him, Jennie.” Frankie removed his cap as he spoke.

“No more than he deserved, God love him.” She turned to Maisie. “I found this yesterday. We’d already done a bit of clearing in Eddie’s room, but to tell you the truth, it was too much for both of us, so we sort of left it. I was turning the mattress yesterday and found this underneath. It’s his pay book. Maud always told him he had to try to write down what he’d earned, so he could keep an eye on his money. He wasn’t very good at writing his numbers, but Maudie nagged to get him to keep it all in his little ledger. Anyway, this one has the details for this year so far, and it’s got the money he earned in his last few months. I might be able to find more of these, but as you can see, when he came to the end of a book, he added it all up, then rubbed out everything he’d written and started all over again, with the amounts earned that year listed before the new earnings.” She opened the book. “Look at this first page, it goes back five years, according to the list of numbers, but as you can see—” She flicked the pages in front of Maisie. “As you can see, the pages are all gray now because he kept rubbing out the numbers and names so he could write new ones in.”

Maisie took the notebook and squinted to read the thick, deliberate, but almost illegible hand. She turned page after page. “He didn’t do too badly, with all these jobs, did he? And you’re right about what you said when I came to the house—he was working a bit further out, and for some wealthier people. He’d upped his prices for them, too.” As she turned the pages, Maisie realized she was looking for a particular name, and was somewhat disappointed when she couldn’t find it, though it would have been a surprise all the same. Then several pages before the notations ended, Maisie stopped.

“Oh.”

“What is it, Maisie?” asked Frankie.

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” She turned to the woman beside her, who was now kneading a handkerchief with her fingers and looking down so that no one could see her face.

“Are you all right, Jennie?”

The woman nodded. “I’ll come round. I’ve got to keep my chin up, what with looking after Maudie. But we’re broken without our Eddie. We’d always looked after him, you see. He was the sun in our lives, even though he wasn’t right, and he could be a handful—remember that, Frankie?”

“Oh, yes, I remember, Jen.”

“But we miss him.”

Maisie nodded. “May I keep this?”

“Of course you can, love. If it helps you, then you keep it.” She paused and rubbed her eyes with the handkerchief. “We might have laid our Eddie to rest, but there’ll be no rest for us until we know the truth about what happened to him. Now then, this will never do—I’d better get back to Maudie.”

Father and daughter watched her walk away.

“I don’t want to miss my train, love—look at you, you’re miles away,” said Frankie. “I know that look—there’s something on your mind.”

“What? Oh, sorry, Dad. Yes, let’s get on.”

They turned to walk in the direction of Lambeth underground station; Maisie had every intention of seeing off her father at Charing Cross Station.

“Anything useful in that book?”

Maisie shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I’ll go through it again—I need to know all I can about Eddie.”

“Right you are, love. With a bit of luck we’ll get to the station before that big old cloud over there breaks open.”

Maisie unfurled her umbrella, just in case.

N
ow it was raining hard, a rain that caused a shadow of steam to rise from the path ahead when it struck the warm pavement. As Maisie quickened her step, water splashed into her shoes and up around her ankles, leaving her stockings with black pockmarks at front and back. Stepping across puddles, she entered the square, and as she approached the former mansion house in which her office was situated, she could already see Sandra looking for her from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the first-floor office. She waved as soon as she caught Maisie’s eye, turned from the window and was opening the front door to meet her as Maisie reached the steps.

“Miss!”

“Sandra, whatever is it? You’re white as a sheet—what’s wrong? What on earth is wrong?”

“Oh, Miss Dobbs—it’s Billy.”

Maisie felt a cold sweat envelop her body, and at once it was as if Sandra had spoken to her from within a long tunnel. “What’s wrong with him? Where is he?” Her own words seemed to bounce back to her.

“He’s in St. Thomas’ Hospital. We’ve had the police here this morning already. He was found not far from that pub, The Lighterman, by some workers coming onto the early shift at the factory; he was in a bad way. The police say he’d been set upon, beaten up, sometime last night.”

“What?” Maisie slipped past Sandra and ran up the stairs. “How is he? What about Doreen? Why didn’t she telephone me when he didn’t come home? What—”

Sandra followed Maisie into the office. “Miss Dobbs, if you’ll pardon me for interrupting, but I’ve got answers to almost everything. That Detective Inspector Caldwell was here and told me to tell you this, and—”

“Caldwell? He’s with the Murder Squad.” Maisie picked up the telephone receiver, but realizing she didn’t quite know who to call, she returned it to its cradle.

“That’s what he said. ‘I’m with the Murder Squad, not the Not-Quite-Dead-But-Might-Be-Soon Squad.’ ”

“He can be a sarcastic piece of work, Caldwell.”

“I think he was shocked, to tell you the truth,” said Sandra. “He told me he’d always liked Billy, so when the call came in and he got word of it, he went straight over to St. Thomas’ and sent a driver and a woman police constable to Eltham to collect Mrs. Beale. Then he came here, to see you. Everything’s under control, Miss Dobbs.”

“But what about Billy? What happened to him?”

“He’s still unconscious, but the police are waiting to interview him when he comes round—they had to operate on him as soon as they got him to the hospital. He’s got a nasty concussion, a thick black eye, several broken ribs and they kicked him in the legs—his poor wounded legs.” Sandra put her hand to her mouth.

Maisie gathered up her bag and moved away from her desk. “Right, I’m going to the hospital. And then I’m going to find out who did this to Billy. In the meantime, Sandra, I’d like you to find out everything you can about a man called Jimmy Merton.”

“Miss—I wouldn’t go down to the hospital if I were you.”

“Why ever not? I must go to him—I have to make sure he receives the very best medical care.” Maisie put her hand to her forehead. “And could you telephone Mr. Andrew Dene—he’s a consultant now, so he’s known as ‘Mister’ not ‘Doctor.’ He lectures at St. Thomas’ Medical School several times each week, and he surpasses anyone else in his field when it comes to wounds of this sort—he’s an orthopedic surgeon. He knows Billy, and he’ll bring in a good neurosurgeon and a vascular expert. Tell him what’s happened, tell him I’d like him to see Billy—and tell him that Billy must be well taken care of, and all accounts may be sent to the office, to my attention. Now then, I must go.”