voice spoke loud and clear. Maisie pulled the kerchief from her head and held it across her nose and mouth, all the time listening.
“You disappointed me, Nick. You just didn’t know when to stop, did you? I pleaded with you, dear boy. I did all I could to prevent this, but you couldn’t draw back, eh?” The can rattled with the dregs of paraffin, and Maisie heard a second can being opened. “Couldn’t believe you wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t believe you just stood there. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Nick, didn’t mean for this…but you couldn’t be allowed to do it, couldn’t be allowed to dishonor your own flesh and blood….” The soliloquy drifted into a whisper, as the man upended the can, then fumbled with a matchbox drawn from his coat pocket.
“Damn!” The match failed to ignite, and as he tried to take out another match, the box fell to the ground, its contents scattered in the pungent liquid. “Damn you, Nick. Even dead you’re trying to save that monstrosity, even dead I cannot stop you.”
Maisie stood up and began to walk toward the man who had come to destroy the work of his beloved son.
“Piers…”
Now partially illuminated in a half shaft of light from the street-lamp outside, the man frowned, as if not quite able to comprehend what was taking place. “What the hell—?”
She could wait no longer; the risk was too great. “Billy, Stratton!”
Soon the gallery was filled with movement as Stratton’s men rushed in with sand-filled fire buckets, and Piers Bassington-Hope searched for anything that could be used to ignite the flammable liquid.
“It was his fault, you know, it was Nick. I didn’t mean it to happen, I didn’t want—”
“You can save that for the station, sir,” instructed Stratton. He nodded to a sergeant, who pulled the older man’s arms behind him, the loud click of a handcuff lock echoing in Maisie’s ears as the killer of Nick Bassington- Hope was led away.
“I—I wanted to talk to him, I—” Maisie looked around. The fire brigade had been summoned to secure the gallery.
“It’s too dangerous here and there’s no need for you to remain anyway, Miss Dobbs. You’ll have to come down to the station, of course.”
“Yes, indeed—but I’ll have to telephone Svenson first, and I want to wait until the gallery is safe before I leave. I don’t think either of us expected this sort of damage.”
Stratton looked up at the painting. “Pity he didn’t get rid of that thing, if you ask me.”
Billy, who had been talking to both the police and fire brigade, joined them at that moment.
“You talking about that valuable work of art there, Inspector?”
“I am indeed.”
Maisie rolled her eyes. “Let us just say, gentlemen, that my endeavors with paint might have saved a great work of art this evening.”
They all turned to look at the six pieces of plywood that Sandra had whitewashed earlier, and that Maisie had proceeded to use as a background for her own masterpiece.
“Thank heavens he came without a torch!”
MAISIE FELT HEAVY in body and soul as she drove slowly back to her flat in Pimlico in the early hours of the morning. Piers Bassington-Hope had trusted that one beloved child would understand the plea he’d made on behalf of another; his actions, borne of a deep disillusionment, had caused the death of his eldest son. Yet he had not considered, as Maisie had, that the child he cared for so deeply might be strong enough to endure any depiction of life or death created by her brother.
Nineteen
As if angels had conspired to clear the heavens for Lizzie Beale, a low, bright winter sun managed to sear through morning fog on the day her body was committed to earth. A service in the local church, its buttresses soiled by smoke and green lichen growing upon damp sandstone, moved all who came. It seemed that the whole neighborhood had turned out to say good-bye to the child whose smile would never be forgotten. Maisie looked on as Billy and Doreen, bearing their daughter’s weight between them, carried the small white coffin topped with a posy of snowdrops into the church.
Later, at the graveside, Billy’s quiet stoicism provided strength for Doreen as she leaned against him for fear her legs would not support her during the final farewell. And cradling her newborn child swaddled in blankets, Ada stood alongside her sister, knowing the warmth of their sisterhood would be sustenance on grief’s barren journey. A clutch of relatives gathered around the Beale family, so Maisie stood to one side, though Billy had beckoned her to come closer. She watched the coffin as it was lowered into the ground and pressed a hand to her mouth as the minister, with a gentleness that can only be borne of strength, said the words, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” and followed with another prayer for the dead child. Then Billy reached down to lift a fistful of cold brown earth. He looked at the dirt in his hand, then took the rose from his lapel and threw it into the chasm that would soon be filled. It was only when the rose sat between the pure white snowdrops that he threw down the first clod to signal his good-bye. Doreen followed, then others stepped forward. Having waited until last, respectful of those closest to the Beale family, Maisie walked slowly to the edge of the grave, remembering, once again, the softness of Lizzie’s head, of the curls that brushed against her chin, and the small dimpled hand that grasped her button. She, too, took up a handful of earth and heard the thud as it splashed across the coffin. Then she bid Godspeed to dear Lizzie Beale.
ON THE PREVIOUS day, instead of driving straight to Scotland Yard following the arrest, Maisie had gone immediately to Georgina Bassington-Hope’s flat, where she broke the news that her father had been taken into police custody in connection with the death of her brother.
“Georgina, I am sure you want to be with him. I will take you now, if you wish.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Georgina placed a hand on her brow, as if not sure what to do next.
“I’ll get your coat, Georgina.” Maisie summoned the housekeeper, who left, then returned with her employer’s coat, hat, gloves and handbag.
“Do you need to inform anyone before we leave?”
“I—I think I will…no, I’ll see him first. No good talking to anyone before I’ve seen Daddy, and Inspector Stratton. Nolly will have a fit if I don’t have every last detail at my fingertips. I think that’s what made me a journalist, you know, having Nolly for a sister!” Georgina gave a half laugh, then looked at Maisie, her eyes dark, her skin ashen. “Fine mess I’ve got the family into, eh? I should have left well enough alone.”
