Jacqueline Winspear - The Mapping of Love and Death

Dear Lt. Clifton,

How lovely to receive another letter from you. I am pleased you are well. The farmhouse where you are billeted sounds quite lovely, and you are most fortunate to have fresh butter on your bread. We are lucky if we get drippings.

I fear I may bore you, as my days are not as exciting as yours. We are always busy, always at work, but, if I may be candid with you (and if it is a liberty, as I hardly know you, please forgive me), there is not much to tell in matters of life and death, and that which I could recount, I would rather not, because each day I want to forget.

Please tell me more about America. I am sure Boston is quite thrilling, and I cannot imagine three thousand miles on a train, and that one side of the country is so different from the other. Your letters bring a ray of sunshine to the day. I hope it is not forward to tell you that I read them more than once.

I must close this letter now, as I want to catch our messenger before he leaves.

Yours sincerely,

"T.E.N"

Maisie rubbed her forehead and whispered: "What's your name? Tell me who you are." She sat back and closed her eyes, remembering the letters she had written to Simon. Where were they now? Had they been destroyed? Sent back to his mother with his personal effects? It occurred to her that she had never wondered about them, yet they were so very personal. And she recalled how she became more careful with her signature when Simon was working at the base hospital and she was at the casualty clearing station-their letters were passed along the line, from ambulance driver to supply wagon, and at any time could have been confiscated because they were avoiding the censor. Yes! Michael Clifton and his nurse were doing the same thing! But where was she?

Maisie reached under the pile of letters and brought out Michael Clifton's journal. She turned to the beginning to read, then flicked through the pages, searching for a name, a clue, a hook. She would stop, read a line or two, her eyes scanning each line written in Michael Clifton's distinctive hand-for the most part he wrote in capital letters, and with one of his fine-nib pens. He interspersed words with drawings, sometimes a diagram, or perhaps a sketch of a flower not usually seen in the land of his birth. Maisie could feel herself becoming impatient, so she turned back the pages. She would have to start at his arrival in England.

August 31 st . Well, here I am, olde England. Albion, I've arrived!

She read on, the journal revealing Michael's path from an enlistment office in Southampton to London, where he was interviewed by an officer in the Royal Engineers, a cartographer himself. He spoke of his excitement upon being accepted. "You're British enough, boy," he was told, "might even be enough for the officers' mess-and if I were you, I'd try to sound a bit more like one of us, if you don't mind." Michael wrote of how much he had laughed, later, when he thought about his interviewer's comment-he couldn't wait to tell his family in a letter. Then there was more:

It didn't take long for TL to find me! Received a cable this morning-he's probably worried that the Hun have a bullet with my name on it, and then who will he go to? I only give in because our dear Anna's heart will be broken, and if Teddy finds out…

Maisie arrived at the office with the intention of clearing a few items of correspondence before she embarked upon the drive down to Chelstone. Spring showers had blown across London earlier in the morning, and now gray-tinged cumulus clouds moved heavily across the sky in such a way that the odd patch of blue allowed the sun to filter through, though such moments were fleeting. She turned on the gas fire low, then set to work, but had been reading through some notes for only a few moments when the telephone rang.

"Fitzroy-"

"Miss Dobbs, Detective Inspector Caldwell. I said I would be in touch about the Cliftons."

"Oh, Detective Inspector, how kind of you to remember." Maisie's eyes widened, registering her surprise that Caldwell had kept his word. "May I visit Mr. Clifton?"

"This morning at ten-I'll meet you outside the main entrance to the hospital, it's as good a place as any. By the time you get to his ward, you'll have about ten minutes with him."

"Do you have word on Mrs. Clifton's progress?"

"Or lack thereof, Miss Dobbs-she's not changed since we last spoke. Still in a deep coma. The doctors are hoping that her son's presence, when he arrives, might give her the jolt she needs to regain consciousness. Now then, see you at ten."

"Right you are, Inspector."

Caldwell ended the conversation without a formal "Good-bye," just "See you at ten." Instead Maisie heard only a blunt click as the receiver was hung up, and a long monotonous tone signifying the line was clear for another call. She replaced the black telephone receiver and checked the hour on the mantelpiece clock. There would be little time to finish odds and ends in the office if she were to be at St. George's Hospital at the specified hour.

Maisie had been to St. George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner on several occasions. The main hospital had been built on the site of Lanesborough House-itself constructed in the early 1700s, when it would have been situated among fields instead of a burgeoning metropolis-and was also home to what was considered to be the best medical school in the country. Until recently, Maurice had been an occasional lecturer on the subject of medical jurisprudence, and in her younger days Maisie had attended lectures there. Though she was not a student of the school, a word from Maurice gained entry to selected lectures for the bright Cambridge graduate.

There was a certain austerity about the building, as if the stone itself would have no truck with nonsense, and the only important thing was to advance medical knowledge of the human body and how to make it well when sick. As Maisie paced back and forth at the allotted meeting place, an Invicta police vehicle swung round and came to a halt, at which point the passenger door opened, and Caldwell stepped out onto the curb.

"Good, you're on time."

"I do not think I have ever been late for an appointment with Scotland Yard."

"Hmmph!" Caldwell paused to touch the brim of his hat and lost no time in instructing Maisie to follow him.

With a brisk walk, he led Maisie along the street and in through an entrance she was not familiar with, then down freshly mopped corridors, up stairs and more corridors, until they reached the room where Edward Clifton was recovering from his injuries. A solitary police constable was on duty outside, and as they arrived, a nurse left the room holding a kidney bowl filled with soiled bandages.

"Ugh," uttered Caldwell. "Doesn't that make you want to heave?"

Maisie registered her surprise; Caldwell must have seen his fair share of deceased persons while working for what the press termed the "Murder Squad." "No, not really," she said. "I was once a nurse. There's not much I have to turn away from."

"It's not that I mind them dead. I just can't stand the mess when they're alive and bloody." Caldwell shook his head and approached the constable. "Ten minutes for this lady. And make sure it's ten, all right?"

"Yes, sir." The constable stood to attention when Maisie entered the room, and nodded as she passed him.

"You'll not be in the room with me, Inspector?"

"No, I'll wait. I've already spoken to the doctor, but I want to be here if the nurses need to come in or if the doctor returns. I trust you'll apprise me of any facts you manage to extract from the victim."

Maisie nodded. It seemed that, like her assistant, Detective Inspector Caldwell did not care to risk feeling queasy if he could possibly help it, though it also occurred to her that he assumed she would come out empty-handed. She entered the room, walked to the bed where Edward Clifton lay back on several pillows positioned to keep his head stable, and stood at his side. Slowly he opened his eyes and focused on her face. His head was bound with bandages, as were his palms. The skin under his eyes was black and smudged, and seemed almost blistered as the wounds on his head drained. And though Maisie had seen many much more serious wounds in the war and had stood for hours on floors thick with the blood of the dying, her eyes smarted when she thought of someone inflicting such injuries upon an elderly man who had come to London to discover the truth about the death of his beloved son.