A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [73]
Maisie looked at Billy, and saw in his eyes an empathy for Sandra—his own losses were still so close to the surface.
“I’ll call the police.”
“But won’t that make things worse for her?”
“I think Detective Inspector Caldwell owes me a favor or two, don’t you?”
“You reckon he’ll agree to look for her, then?”
“He will when I tell him that there’s a chance Eric was murdered.” She pushed back her chair, and walked back to her desk. “Sandra has been in the abyss, but she’s no fool. Find out what happened, Billy. Uncover enough for me to go to Caldwell with. This is your case. Make sure you do right by Sandra.”
Chapter Twelve
With Billy gone, the office was silent, the square quiet on a Friday afternoon. At once, Maisie felt a fatigue set into her bones, as if there were no marrow, no fuel for what had to be done next. True enough, she had been intent upon her work, trying to be a good teacher to her students. She had been balancing the demands of her assignment for Huntley and MacFarlane with deep concerns about Sandra; and in the back of her mind there was still a certain worry regarding her father’s well-being, and on top of that, a nagging thought—it had begun as if it were a scratch on the skin, a minor irritation, but was now a deep discomfort—a sense that James Compton might not be true to her. It was a question she tried to banish, but at the same time, it was as if a few threads had loosened in the fabric of her heart and now a tear was creeping across, in the way that a crack might appear at the edge of a crystal glass, and spread until at once the glass shatters in a thousand pieces. Might she become as bereft as Sandra again—a woman who had rebuilt her heart, only to see it broken once more?
Tears welled up in her eyes, tears she brushed aside with the back of her hand while picking at a needle of splintered wood along the edge of the desk with the fingers of the other. She imagined Sandra, hurt and alone, channeling anger at losing Eric into discovering the true circumstances of his death. Oh, how she wished she could wave her hand and dispel the dark stone of doubt, of unknowing, that had enveloped Sandra. She had nothing to lose, thought Maisie. And she knew that, though Sandra had shed tears, though she had come to Maisie for help, and though she had established a soothing routine to her days and seemed to be recovering, in her deepest soul the widow had a sense that there was no more to lose, so any risk was worth her quest for truth. Sandra was in a sort of limbo, where a past with meaning and promise was gone, and the future as yet held nothing she truly wanted. It was a feeling that demanded to be controlled; otherwise it would wreak havoc in the soul, a sense of angry pointlessness. Hadn’t that been why Maisie herself leaned on her work to bring a meaning that would ground her days? Her relationship with James, the intimacy of connection, was a spark that caught fire—could it all be gone, now that she doubted him? Priscilla was right—and wrong. Yes, she controlled her feelings, keeping the dragon at bay with a carefully self-chaperoned life, a protected heart. But Priscilla made letting go sound like a simple task, as easy as a yacht slipping away from the harbor with the wind in its sails. Yet there was always a rock upon which to run aground, and Maisie knew it was her habit to keep a keen eye out for the rocks. And what was the smudged London postmark if not a rock scraping her bow?
Maisie pushed the folders she had intended to work on back into her briefcase, put on her linen jacket once more, along with her light felt hat of pale ivory with a matching band, and left the office, locking the door on her way out. She remembered Eric replacing the lock for her after her office had been broken into, remembered the way in which Sandra had brought her then fiancé to the office, knowing he could help, knowing that no job would be beyond him. They had made a good and happy match, Eric and Sandra,