A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [131]
Maisie nodded, understanding. “He’ll be gone all too soon.”
Stratton nodded. “Yes. Another ten years and he’ll be eighteen. My wife always wanted him to have the opportunity to go to university if he wanted; she left some money to pay for his education. I suppose I don’t want to wave him off to university—or wherever it is he’ll go—and think, ‘I hardly know the boy.’ ”
“What will you do?”
“Don’t laugh—but I’ve got a job already, starting in January. Until then, I will have time on my hands to spend with my son—seeing him off to school, taking him fishing on Saturdays, football practice in the evenings, whatever I want.” He sighed and took a sip of the still scalding urn-brewed tea. “Before the war I had wanted to be a teacher, then after university I was more or less in uniform straightaway, and ended up in the military police—which of course led to Scotland Yard when the war was over. I’d been thinking about going into teaching for a long time, and I began applying for positions a few months ago now.”
“You kept that to yourself,” said Maisie.
“Can you imagine what MacFarlane would have said if he had known?”
Maisie laughed. “Yes—I’m afraid I can.”
Stratton went on. “I’ve been offered a position at a boys’ boarding school in Sussex, teaching mathematics and physics. There’s a cottage in the grounds that goes with the job, and a primary school nearby. My son will be able to attend the school where I teach when he turns eleven, and without fees. It works all around.”
“Will you miss the Yard?”
“Some of it, of course. But I have missed my boy so very much, and I want to spend more time with him.”
Maisie glanced out the window, at the melee of shoppers and people of commerce rushing back and forth, the taxi-cabs vying for road space with horses and carts, the buses and the noise. She turned her attention back to Richard Stratton. “You’ve done the best thing, Richard. I wish you well.”
“And I wish you well, too, Maisie.”
They held each other’s gaze longer than either had intended, then Maisie cleared her throat. “Well, this will never do. Time is marching on and I have work waiting for me. When do you leave the Yard?”
“At the end of the week.”
They made their way towards the door, then stood outside in the bustle of the street.
Maisie held out her hand, and as Richard Stratton took hers, he drew her towards him and kissed her cheek. She touched her face with her free hand. “Take care, Richard. I am sure our paths will cross again.”
Stratton smiled. “Yes, Maisie. Our paths will cross, of that I have no doubt.”
With that he raised his hat, and she turned to walk back towards Fitzroy Square. She looked over her shoulder once, but he was lost in the crowd. And as she made her way back to the office, she wondered, just for a moment, where, in time, she might see Richard Stratton.
Maisie stood outside Wandsworth Prison and pulled her scarf up around her neck against the cold smog that lingered above the brick building. From the center, it spanned out into five wings, though it was only in “E Wing” that men were sent to the gallows. She thought that prisons were probably all designed to resemble medieval forts, and she wondered how it felt when the doors clanged behind the condemned once they crossed the threshold. Matthias Roth had been transferred to Wandsworth from Cambridge. He would leave only to stand trial, for which the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Having passed through several corridors, each with clanking iron gates and guards who checked her papers, she was led to a room where Roth awaited her.
He stood when Maisie entered. “Miss Dobbs, how kind of you to come. I confess, I was surprised when I learned I was to have a visitor.”
She took account of Roth’s appearance. He wore plain overalls; his hair was shorter than