The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear (the best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

a product of MauriceBlanche’s teaching methods. First, I was a doctor at a casualty clearing station, and then later a field hospital during thelast war. For the most part the soldiers under my supervision—my patients—were British, but we had a number of French, Australian,Canadian, South African men—and even the odd German brought in. In time, I didn’t even need to be told the nationality—I justknew. Ask the other doctors and they would say the same. I expect you would have known too—after all, you were a nurse inthe last war, if my memory services me well.”

Maisie nodded. “Go on.”

“And the other thing is that I found myself speaking to him in French before you arrived. Obviously not because he could haveanswered; it was a matter of instinct. That probably sounds frightfully strange, but as you know, it makes the job so mucheasier if you have a word or two for the poor bastard in front of you.”

Maisie put down the scalpel and picked up the clipboard. She noted a couple of additional points from their observations ofthe body, making a brief mention that the deceased was believed to have been of French origin.

“I think I can guess why you transferred to forensic pathology,” she said.

Jamieson laughed. It was a hearty laugh, a laugh that Maisie thought seemed to come from the very heart of him.

“I’m sure you can, Maisie. I just didn’t want to lose another patient, another lad screaming for his mother or his sweetheart,or begging me to please end it for him so the pain would go away. At least with the dead I can’t do any worse than has alreadybeen done. I don’t have to live with the screams anymore, or the fear of making the wrong decision and losing someone whohasn’t had enough time to know what life is all about.” He looked down at the body of the man Freddie Hackett had seen murdered.“He may have been a killer, Maisie, but we cannot judge the reason why.”

 

We cannot judge the reason why. Now back in her Fitzroy Square office, Maisie was sitting at her desk letting a pencil run through her thumb and forefingerbefore dropping onto the blotting pad time after time as Duncan Jamieson’s words continued to echo. A professional killer,possibly a Frenchman, was dead and another on the loose. The witness was a boy tasked with running through burning streetsto deliver messages—“doing his bit” and likely becoming as shell-shocked as any soldier she’d seen in the last war. And hewas a boy whose father bore a scar, as had the killer he’d described.

We cannot judge the reason why. She allowed the pencil to drop through her fingers once more and hit the desk, but this time she let it bounce onto the floor as she pushed back her chair. She stood up and walked to the window, folded her arms and looked down at the courtyard below, to the small area where just last year a German spy had grown flowers and vines to disguise the aerial that allowed him to send radio messages to his superiors. Maisie had reported him to Robbie MacFarlane, and as far as she knew he was already dead. Executed. Months later she had rented the downstairs flat so that Billy could use it on those nights when he was not able to return to his family. His wife, Doreen, and daughter, Margaret Rose, were now living in Frankie and Brenda’s bungalow in Chelstone village, while Maisie’s parents had moved full-time to the Dower House. Billy would return to the office before the blackout, and she knew that she, too, should leave soon to go home to her Holland Park flat. But she lingered, pondering her next move. It was like a game of chess.

The telephone began to ring, interrupting her thoughts. She picked up the receiver.

“Fitzroy—”

As always when the caller was Robert MacFarlane, his voice boomed into the receiver before she could finish reciting the number.

“Maisie! There’s a motor car coming over to take you to your abode so you can throw a few necessaries into a suitcase—andmake it a small one, you won’t need much. You’re booked on the sleeper to Edinburgh. Best time of the year in my bonny Scotland.”

“But Robbie . . . it’s Anna’s—”

“Don’t fret, lassie, I’ll have you back by Friday night, and you won’t miss the wee girl’s show-jumping debut on Saturday.And from what I hear, your gentleman friend left today to return to the Colonies, so I know you’re not booked up. Anyway,we’re needed as a matter of some urgency—got a group being pushed through the first part of their assessments, the paramilitarytraining, and we’ve got to get them double-checked, approved for whatever it is we think they’ll be best at, then on to thenext stage as soon as we can. Make sure you bring a pair of trousers and some boots. And a woolen jacket—as you know, it canget a bit nippy up there.”

“We’re both needed?”

“I’ll see you at the station, Maisie—we can have a dram or two over our supper on the train. Thank the good Lord the sleeperis running again.”

“I’d better be back in London by Friday, Robbie—come what may.”

“I promise.”

The continuous tone on the line signaled that Robbie MacFarlane had ended the call in his usual manner, which amounted toslamming the receiver into its cradle.

“First time I’ve heard you promise anything, if my memory serves me well,” said Maisie to the empty room as she placed a fingeron the switch bar, then let go and began to dial. After several rings, Brenda answered the Dower House telephone.

“Good afternoon.”

Maisie smiled when she heard the clipped tone of her stepmother’s “telephone voice.” She knew the woman on the other end ofthe line would always be as protective of her privacy as she had been of Maurice Blanche’s need for seclusion when she washis housekeeper.

“Hello, Brenda—sorry to bother you, but there’s been a couple of changes to my plans this week,” said Maisie, running thetelephone cord through her fingers. “First of