Maisie set down her knife and fork, reaching for her table napkin. “And you’re interested in the brickworks because there’s a building boom despite all indications that the economy isn’t showing signs of improvement.”
“That’s right. Now is the time to buy, ready to make a mint when we’re on an even keel, even sooner if output can be improved.” James pulled a silver cigarette case from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Mind?’
Maisie shook her head.
James continued. “So, despite Ramsay MacDonald being pressed to form a National Government to get us through this mess, and well-founded talk of Britain going off the gold standard any day now, there’s still room for optimism—and I want to move ahead soon.”
“So what’s stopping you, and how can I help?” Maisie waved a hand in front of her face as diplomatically as possible to ward off smoke from James’s cigarette.
“I have my doubts about the landowner, a man called Alfred Sandermere. He’s the younger son but became heir to the estate when his brother, Henry, was killed in the war. I knew Henry, by the way—good chap, excellent man—but the brother has done nothing but draw funds from the estate, leaving it on the verge of bankruptcy—which of course means I get value for my money. It’s essentially a fire sale.”
“And?”
James Compton extinguished his cigarette, pressing it into a glass ashtray which he then set to one side, away from Maisie. “There’s been some funny business going on down there, and if there is one thing the Compton Corporation likes, it’s a clean transaction. We may move fast in circumstances such as these, but we don’t get our hands dirty.”
“What’s been going on?”
“Mainly what appears to be petty crime. There’s been vandalism at the house and at the brickworks. The farmers haven’t reported anything amiss, and the villagers—many of whom are employed at the brickworks—are keeping quiet about it.”
Maisie frowned. “That’s not unusual. You are talking about rural Kent, after all.”
“No, this is different. The locals have been almost silent, no one hurrying to point the finger. And you know how unusual that is, especially when there are diddakoi in the area.”
“Diddakoi or Roma? They’re different, James.”
“Alright, people who travel with caravans. Doesn’t matter what they are, the locals are always pretty quick to blame them for all manner of ills—either them or the Londoners.”
Maisie nodded, understanding. “Hop-pickers?”
“Last year, yes. Of course, the police from Tunbridge Wells couldn’t do much; they tend to let the villages just get on with it. And it’s not as if there was any lasting damage. But I don’t like these reports, Maisie. If we move on this, I have to ensure that the brickworks is at maximum output from the first day of ownership. We’ll expand from there. And given the dependence upon local labor, goodwill and no vandalism are of the essence. Of course, the tenant farmers will remain as such, no plans to change that arrangement.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to look into matters, find out if there’s anything amiss locally that would affect our purchase of the Sandermere estate. You have three weeks—perhaps a month—to compile your report. That’s all the time I have now, and it’s not much where property of this kind is concerned.” He poured more wine for himself, setting the bottle back on the table when Maisie shook her head and rested her hand to cover the top of her glass. “I know it’s not the sort of case you’re used to,” he continued, “but you were the first person I thought to call.”
Maisie nodded, lifting her glass of Chianti to her lips. She sipped the wine, then put down her glass with one hand as she reached for her shoulder bag and took out a small writing pad with the other. She made several notations, then circled a number before tearing off the sheet and passing it to her supper companion. “I assume my fee is acceptable to you.” It was a statement, not a question.
James Compton smiled. “There’s another thing that’s changed, Miss Maisie Dobbs. I do believe you’ve become a canny business proprietor.”
Maisie inclined her head, as James took a checkbook from his pocket. “An advance against expenses.” He scribbled across the check and passed it to Maisie. “You’ll have your work cut out for you. Hop-picking’s about to start, and the place will be teeming with outsiders.”
The investigator nodded. “Then it’s the perfect time, James, the perfect time. We’ll have your report ready in a month—at the latest.”
LATER, AT HER flat in Pimlico, as Maisie sat in her favorite armchair looking at the check, she breathed a sigh of relief. Business was still ticking along but wasn’t as brisk as it had been. The summer had been slow, and she was grateful that her assistant, Billy Beale, was planning to take two weeks’ holiday to go hop-picking himself—it was, after all, a tradition among East Enders. She wouldn’t have to pay his wages for those weeks, and at least he’d be earning money and taking a break from the Smoke—the streets of London—and getting his wife and boys away to the country. They needed it, for the family was still grieving for young Lizzie Beale, who had been lost to diphtheria at the beginning of the year. Yes, James had come along at the right moment, the answer to a prayer. In fact, one of the reasons she had indulged in Marta Jones’s class, was to do something different and not fret about a certain lack of custom for her business. To balance the expenditure, she’d even minimized use of her MG, understanding the importance of frugality in uncertain times. And she could never forget she had the mortgage on her flat to consider.
Yet, despite the pressures of being a sole proprietor, Maisie knew that the curtain of darkness from her past was lifting. Not that she forgot, not that she didn’t still have nightmares or close her eyes and see images from the war in stark relief. But it was as if she were on firmer ground, and not at the mercy of memory’s quicksand.
She checked her watch, marked the file of notes that now rested on her lap, and made ready to go to bed. As she reached for the cord to close the blinds, she remembered a dream she’d had twice this week. Dreams that came more than once demanded attention, and even though this was not a fearful dream, she reflected on it and wondered what it might mean. She had been walking through a forest and came upon a clearing bathed in shards of light splintering through the trees. As she walked into the clearing, she saw the still-enflamed embers of a fire, yet there was no one there, no traveler or tramp claiming a home for the night. There was only a loosely tied bunch of Michaelmas daisies set aside upon a fallen tree.
TWO
Maisie Dobbs sat alongside Billy Beale at the table in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the one-room office in Fitzroy Square. There had been a pause in their conversation, during which documents were passed back and forth, along with a page of notes sent by messenger from the office of James Compton.
“So, what you want me to do, Miss, is to recce this village to get the lay of the land and let you know what’s going on.”
“Yes, in the first instance. You’ll fit in nicely, being one of the London hoppers, down for the picking.”
“Well, that’s all very well, but we’ve been taken on by a farmer a few miles away, not this one. You can’t just up and get work at any old farm, not for the ’oppin’; it don’t work like that.”
Maisie turned to Billy. “Oh, dear. Would you explain to me how it works, then?”
Billy leaned forward and began to scribble a diagram onto a length of wallpaper pinned to the table. These offcuts, from a painter and decorator friend of Billy’s, were reversed to form a background for each new assignment’s case map, a diagram created with colored pencils upon which Maisie and Billy set down hunches, clues, information and any other points that might help them usher an investigation to its close. Thus far this length of paper had remained untouched.