a roof over their heads, I’ll grant you that, but they’ve looked after themselves, too. And I bet this Reverend Griffith doesn’t get as much as they say—probably just a few extra coppers on the collection plate. Or maybe he’s in on it as well, and does all right.”
As they crossed the river, Maisie added another thought to their discussion. “One glaring gap in all this is the Allisons. When did you say they were due back from their holiday?” asked Maisie.
“On Sunday, according to the housekeeper. So you should be able to see them on Monday.”
“Good. And in the meantime, I would like you to visit the two women who employed Usha Pramal: Mrs. Baxter and Mrs. Hampton. Confirm the terms of employment—hours, wage, and so on—and just ask a few more questions to see if they noticed anything out of the ordinary in the weeks before Usha died. Did she turn up for work on time? Was she working to her usual standard? Frankly, Sandra, we both know that most of these employers don’t notice a thing about the staff, so you might see if you can ask a few questions of anyone who worked with Usha. There’s not a moment to lose now. I’m going to try to see Jesmond Martin tomorrow—and wouldn’t it be good news if Billy had found the boy? I have a feeling that not only is he the son we’ve been charged to find, but he’s also this ‘Marty’ the boys have talked about.”
“Two birds with one stone then.”
“Two birds with one stone,” said Maisie. “Just like Usha and Maya—two women killed with one gun. Except that boy might not know as much as we’re hoping he does.”
With Sandra dropped at the office of Douglas Partridge—somewhat later than she was due at her second job—Maisie returned to the office, which was late-afternoon quiet. She pinned out the case map and added some more information, linked a couple of statements she’d penned onto the sheet of paper, and ballooned in a separate color. Like those stones across a river, they would soon lead her across the waters of ignorance to knowledge of Usha Pramal’s killer, she hoped. And there was something else playing on her mind. Now she had made the decision to close her business, to leave London, Kent, and—perhaps only for a while—James, she thought it would probably be best if she began to make firm her plans. If she was going to go, she had better get on with it; rather like tearing a dressing from a wound, she must make her arrangements and simply go, as soon as this case was closed and all ends tied. It seemed as if Billy’s immediate future might be settled, so now she must think of getting Sandra placed in another job, and of talking to Frankie—leaving her father, even for a sojourn of a few months, might be one of the worst decisions she had ever made, at his age. But she knew he would be the first person to say she should follow her dream. He had always, without exception, been her greatest supporter, even considering the part that Maurice had played in her life.
She scribbled a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Allison for Sandra to type the following day, and jotted a plain postcard to Mr. Pramal at his hotel—there was no telephone at such a small establishment—asking him to please get in touch so she could keep him apprised of her work thus far. A telephone call to Detective Inspector Caldwell informed her that, no, the boy they knew as Martin Robertson had not been found, though Caldwell was somewhat more sanguine about the lad’s disappearance, saying it was probably the shock of finding a body and then having to deal with the police. “His sort don’t like the boys in blue much, even when we’re not out to sling them in clink.”
Maisie had sighed, though Caldwell’s droll comments had come to amuse rather than annoy her.
Maisie realized she had been delaying her departure from the office. She had been fiddling with small tasks, pinning papers together that really did not need to be pinned, or filing papers that would usually be put on Sandra’s desk to attend to the following day. But she had made a late commitment to go to the Otterburn house for the supper party, and go to the house she would, no matter how much unfinished business she might have with the man in