rather poor.”
“Was it?” Maisie said only enough to keep Bassington-Hope speaking.
“I was still in school when he went into the army, so he was very much the big brother, and as for the girls, Georgie and Nolly, well, Georgie was off on her own adventure anyway, and Nolly barely noticed me. I was a sort of fly in the sibling ointment. Mind you, I rather liked Godfrey, Nolly’s husband. He was always up for a game of cricket, you know, much more of a big brother type than Nick, actually.”
“And what about when Nick died?”
“Stupid accident, very stupid accident, wasn’t it?”
“Was it?”
“Of course. Now if he’d just let his pals help him a bit more and hadn’t been so secretive, then it wouldn’t have happened.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t imagine anything but an accident, and it could have been avoided.”
“Hadn’t you and Nick argued over money?”
“Hmmph! I suppose that must be common knowledge.” He paused, checked his watch, then went on. “My brother and I lived different lives. Yes, I had hit a spot of trouble financially, and Nick helped me out, but you know, with Nick there always had to be a bit of a lecture. God knows why, it’s not as if his halo wasn’t a bit tarnished.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing really. He just wasn’t the blue-eyed boy that Georgina would have you believe. Didn’t think twice about who he’d upset with his work, you know, and believe me, he could upset people.”
“Who did he upset?”
He looked away, toward the stage, where the other musicians were taking their places, stood up and drained his drink before replying. “You could start with the family. Had a habit of upsetting everyone at some time or another. Father had to calm Nolly down a couple of times—to think he could upset her so much after all she’d done for him.”
“How did he upset—”
“Sorry, Miss Dobbs. I really have to go, the boys are waiting for me.” He turned and hurried around the perimeter of the room so as not to be waylaid by admirers and was up on the stage with a single leap, taking up his trumpet and coaxing another wail into the rafters, the band joining him as the note changed mid-climb for a slide down the scale. The dancers were up and moving, and as Maisie collected her bag, she felt a pressure on her elbow.
“Oh, no you don’t! You promised one more dance.” Alex Courtman had loosened his tie while sitting at the bar, waiting for Harry Bassington-Hope to depart.
“But—”
“No ‘buts’—come on.”
IT WAS ANOTHER hour before Maisie left the club to make her way through cold, smog-filled streets to her flat. She parked the MG, checked the lock and walked toward the main door of the building. It was as she opened the door that she looked around behind her. A shiver had slithered along her spine, and she closed the door behind her with haste, then hurried to her ground-floor flat. Once inside, she locked the door and, without turning on the lights, went to the window and looked out at the small front lawn and surrounding trees that separated the flats from the street. She stood there for some time, but there was no one there, though she felt, instinctively, that she had been watched.
Clearing her mind, she sat on a pillow, cross-legged in meditation before going to bed, hoping that her practice would leave a path free of conscious thought for some fresh connections to reveal themselves to her. She had not been able to question Harry Bassington-Hope as thoroughly as she had wanted, though she had not come away empty-handed. From a practical perspective, she had procured a list of the clubs where he was employed and knew broadly how and when to find him again—if she needed to continue the conversation that had been so abruptly brought to a close. She had not pressed any point that might have alerted him to her knowledge of his underworld dealings—and she knew already that one of his attackers the previous Sunday was also known to Nick.
The conversation had shed even greater light on the Bassington-Hope family, and though it was not something a well-mannered woman would do, she now planned to drop in without prior notice when she made her way back from Dungeness this week. She suspected she’d be welcomed anyway. Nick alienated members of his family from time to time, and in the weeks before his death it appeared that he had argued with both sisters and his brother— he had had little in common with the latter in any case. He had upset the man who was not only the source of a considerable amount of money, but his sister’s lover. And the dynamics of those relationships seemed as if they were about to give Stig Svenson peptic distress—he had a lot to lose when Nick Bassington-Hope refused to toe the line. Alex Courtman was an interesting case—not as close to Nick as the other two friends and bluntly honest about his ability as an artist. He was also quite forthcoming in terms of sharing information with Maisie. Was he deliberately misleading her? And why did he seem to be on the edge of the “inner circle”?
Maisie decided to push the case to the back of her mind, and instead concentrate her thoughts on Lizzie Beale. Billy might be back at work in the morning—she hoped against hope that the news of his daughter was encouraging. Having lain awake for some time worrying, it distressed her when she tried to summon an image of Lizzie and found that she couldn’t. She
Thirteen
As Maisie packed her suitcase for the journey down to Dungeness the following day, the earthy smell of new leather reminded her of Andrew Dene, from whom the suitcase was a gift just a few months earlier. She fingered the straps, running her hand across its smooth top as she closed it. Today would challenge her, she understood that already, and she knew it would have been heart-warming to think that, at the end of the day, she could turn to someone who loved her, someone who would say, “You’re home now, let me hold you until tomorrow comes.”
Though there was no rain, no sleet, the sky above Fitzroy Square was gunmetal gray, shedding a deep silver light across equally gray flagstones. It was as if all color had been drained from morning’s promise, as if time would be suspended until tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that. As she unlocked the front door, Maisie checked the watch pinned to her jacket pocket. Even though she was a few minutes late, she knew she would be surprised if Billy were at the office. He would not come today. She moved toward the staircase, and stopped.
Rain had started to fall lightly, that fine mist of a shower that would continue now for the remainder of the day.
