to get him to the station—we’re not buying the ticket and putting him on the train.”
Maisie nodded. “Bob should be the one to get in touch, not me. I’m more than willing to give a reference—it will be a very good one, and completely honest. I think this would be a fine opportunity for Billy. Heaven knows I will miss him terribly, but I have to think of him first, and what’s best for his future and the family.”
“Oh, I think that whether he comes to work for us or someone else, you’ll always make sure his future is bright.”
Maisie shook her head. “That’s something I have come to learn the hard way, James. You can send out your army to stop an invasion on the horizon, but sometimes it comes from a completely different direction. That’s what happened when their little Lizzie died. I tried to help them, tried to keep them from going under, but look what happened—so much befell that family, and most of it came from within: Doreen’s illness, for example.” She sighed. “I don’t want to meddle. I just want them to be settled and content. Working for me is making Billy far from happy, if I am to admit it. He is a man of dutiful intentions and great loyalty. He will do well at the Compton Corporation, of that I am sure.”
“And if you are sure, then I am sure your reference will take him in the right direction.”
Maisie nodded, allowing James to hold her close.
“Let’s make it an early night, shall we? I probably won’t be home until late tomorrow—a meeting with your most unfavorite person.”
“Otterburn?”
James stood back as, resting his arm across her shoulder, he led her towards the door. “I know you’ve told me that the less you know about all this, the better it is all around. But there are some people he wants me to meet in connection with our work in Canada. Scientists. An engineer, a materials man, and a physicist who’s apparently top of his tree when it comes to aerodynamics and speed. He’s a bit of a boffin. I just nod my head like an intemperate donkey when he chimes in, though he is a very good sort indeed. He tries to make it all seem very easy, as if I were one of his less able students.”
Maisie stopped as they reached the door. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, you don’t really want to know that—and it’s more than my life’s worth to say.”
She rolled her eyes, though she felt no sense of humor at his tongue-in-cheek reply. She knew only too well that little stood between Otterburn and the level of security surrounding his interest in the marrying of aviation and defense of the realm.
“I spoke to a couple of those boys, Miss.” Sandra was waiting for Maisie when she came into the office the following morning.
Maisie removed her hat and took a seat at her desk. “Go on, Sandra, I’m all ears.”
“A right pair of ragamuffins they were, too. Freddie Holmes and Sidney Rattle. Both of them nine years old. Freddie had a right shiner on his left eye as well, as if he’d been in a nasty playground scrap.”
“Did they tell you anything?”
“A couple of penny dippers did the trick. Boys that age have a sweet tooth—they’d probably sell their grandmothers’ souls for a bag of toffees. Anyway, there’s this little gang of them—and not all the same age; there’s a couple of older lads, they’re both twelve or so; one of them’s got a job at the market, so he gets home early, and the other one has a habit of sciving off school; eventually they all get together when the younger ones come out of school.”
“And they go along the canal?”
“Oh, they get up to the things that boys will—you know, collecting conkers, playing a game of football in the street, teasing the girls while they’re playing with a long skipping rope, all waiting their turn. But the canal draws them—they throw stones, call out to the men working the boats, sometimes cadge a lift up to the lock. And they poke around with sticks, looking for treasure—their kind of treasure.”
“What did they say about finding Usha Pramal?”
“They said they saw a big silk bubble, so they tried to reach it with sticks and stones, and then eventually it moved closer. And then it turned, and at first they thought it was a log, but suddenly one of them shouted, ‘It’s a