were ill. I bet there were quite a few down the years who wanted her to come to them, but that was too much power to give to one person, never mind the money it drew in. I have a good mind to bring in the police to look at your books.”
“They don’t care, Miss Dobbs. It’s only a few destitute Indian women we’ve kept in this house, and if we didn’t look out for them, who would? As far as the police are concerned, they’re off the streets.”
“You may be right, but I have other contacts beyond Scotland Yard—people in high places charged with ensuring nothing goes amiss in our relationship with the Indian subcontinent. And your little charity here is very amiss—unless you clean up your accounts.” Maisie had chosen words to instill fear in the man, and it had worked. All color had drained from his face. “Now then,” she continued. “You can start by going through your ledger and giving me what was truly owed to Usha Pramal and Maya Patel.”
“And what will you do with it?”
“I’ll give Miss Pramal’s money to her brother, and Maya Patel’s along with it, to contribute to a fund that Miss Pramal started.”
“A fund? What fund?”
“For the training of ambitious young goddesses in India. What else?”
“I must ask you to leave.”
Maisie stood up, aware of her mounting anger, which was close to boiling point. “No. I would like to visit Maya Patel’s room one more time, and Usha Pramal’s as well. I will be long enough for you to run your finger down a few lines of numbers and come to a figure acceptable to me, and you will give me the money to take away—or does the Reverend Griffith have it?”
Paige folded his arms and looked away. “I can get it for you.”
“Good.” Maisie turned away, as if to walk towards the staircase. She looked back. “I have never said this in all my years in this job. I am usually very circumspect in my manner with people such as yourself. You haven’t killed someone, Mr. Paige, but you know how to take a life. And you sicken me. You, with your twisted ideas of God, sicken me.”
“You, what do you know of God?”
“I know when He is truly present in someone’s heart.”
As she made her way up the staircase, Maisie did not feel the recrimination she might once have felt for allowing her emotions to gain the better of her. She heard Paige walk towards the back of the house—his heavy footfall echoed up through the stairwell. She knew she would get the arrears in wages due to the dead women. Then she had to find Pramal, to tell him about the money and more about Usha’s personal savings; funds she had earned by mixing spices to cure headaches, or by taking the arthritic hands of the elderly in her own, until her youth and strength rendered them painless, if only for a short time.
Usha Pramal’s room at the top of the house seemed hollow without her books and other personal belongings arranged on shelves—they had been gathered and placed in a box by the door; Maisie would have them collected and given to her brother. There was now barely any sense that she had lived in this room in the eaves of a Georgian house so far from her beloved home. Maisie closed her eyes and at once saw the image of a woman with fine features, her olive-brown skin and almond eyes rimmed with kohl; her stride full as she walked tall along the street, her sari caught by a summer’s breeze.
Maya Patel’s room had also been emptied of her belongings—just her Bible remained in a cupboard by the bed. Maisie took out the leather-bound book, and noted it was a type with each gospel indented. A ribbon had been laid through the book of Exodus. She suspected the room had been cleared with some speed, probably only the day before; perhaps the police had finally given permission. It was interesting that no one else had noticed the marked place and gauged its potential importance. In pencil, lines had been drawn through one of the Commandments, indicating that Maya Patel had considered what it meant to possess graven images of any other deity considered to be at home in heaven above, and had found it wanting. She had circled two others of the Ten Commandments: Though Shalt Not Kill and Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Maisie