Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs

"You all right, Miss?"

Billy Beale placed a hand on Maisie's shoulder for just a second.

"Yes, yes, I was just thinking about what you said, Billy. So what do you do when you cannot sleep?"

Billy looked down at his hands and began pulling at the lining of his cap, running the seam between the forefinger and thumb of each hand.

"I get up, so's not to wake the missus. Then I go out. Walking the streets. For hours sometimes. And you know what, Miss? It's not only me, Miss. There's a lot of men I see, 'bout my age, walking the streets. And we all know, Miss, we all know who we are. Old soldiers what keep seeing the battle. That's what we are, Miss. I tell you, sometimes I think we're like the waking dead. Livin' our lives during the day, normal like, then trying to forget something what 'appened years ago. It's like going to the picture 'ouse, only the picture's all in me 'ead."

Maisie inclined her head to show understanding, her silence respectful of Billy's terrible memories, and of this confidence shared. And once again she was drawn back, to that year in the wards after her return from France, working to comfort the men whose minds were ravaged by war. Small comfort indeed. Yet for every one who could not bring his mind back from the last vision of a smoke-filled hell, there were probably dozens like Billy, living now as good father, good husband, good son, good man, but who feared the curtains drawn against darkness, and the light extinguished at the end of the day.

"Ready, Billy?" Maisie asked when Billy put the cap firmly back on his head.

"Reckon I am, Miss. Yes, I reckon I am. Do me the world of good will this, Miss. Bein' useful like."

They spoke little on the journey to Kent. Occasionally Maisie asked Billy questions as they drove along the winding country roads. She wanted to make doubly sure that he understood everything that was required of him. Information. She needed more information. A feel for the place. How did it work when you were on the inside? Was anything amiss?

She spoke to him of intuition, abbreviating the teaching she had received from Maurice and Khan many years before.

"You must listen to the voice inside, Billy," said Maisie, placing her hand to her middle. "Remember even the smallest sensation of unease, for it could well be significant."

Billy had been quick to learn, quick to understand that his impressions were important, just as relevant as facts on a page. As Maisie knew from their first meeting, Billy Beale was sharp, an acute observer of circumstances and people. He was just what she needed. And he was willing.

But was it fair to draw Billy into her work? If she thought that Vincent's death was questionable, was it right to involve Billy? Then again, he would not be at The Retreat for long. And they would be in daily contact. She had promised Maurice that as soon as she had gathered enough information, she would refer her findings to the authorities--if what she found required it.

Maisie knew that her curiosity was drawing both Billy and herself deeper into the mystery of Vincent. And even as she drove she closed her eyes briefly and prayed for the confidence and courage to face whatever was hidden in the darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Maisie parked the motorcar outside the dower house and led Billy into Maurice Blanche's home, to introduce her old teacher to her new assistant, and to have lunch together before she and Billy proceeded to The Retreat.

They talked about The Retreat, and Billy added weight to Maisie's earlier deliberations about the naming of this place where the wounded of a war over ten years past still sought refuge.

"O' course, it might not be just The Retreat, you know, as in gettin' away from it all into shelter. There's 'The Retreat,' in't there? You know, the bugle call at sunset. S'pose you'd 'ave to be an army man to know that, eh? Like 'retreating from a position' as well. That's what we should've done many a time--would've saved a few lives, and that's a fact."

Maisie set down her knife and fork and nodded thoughtfully.

The Retreat, the ultimate play on words to describe a place for the wounded. But what happened if someone wanted to retreat, as it were, from The Retreat?

"Maisie, while you are visiting your father, before you and Mr. Beale--or perhaps I should say 'Dobbs' to get him used to the name--anyway, before you depart for The Retreat, I will walk with Mr. Beale in the meadow, just beyond the orchard."

Maisie knew that this was not a chance suggestion, and watched the two men walk toward the meadow, heads together in conversation, the younger man ever so slightly ready to steady the older man lest he falter. If only he knew, she thought, how much the old man feared the faltering of the younger.

As soon as they returned, Maisie took Billy to The Retreat, but before entering, she drove around the perimeter of the estate and parked under the shade of a beech tree.

"It's a retreat all right, innit, Miss? Pity they don't allow visitors for the first month. Wonder what they'll say when I tell them I'm out after two weeks? Prob'ly be a bit upset with me, eh, Miss?"

Billy surveyed the landscape, the fencing, the road, and the distances between landmarks.

"Look, 'ere's what I think. No point trying to get all fancy here, rigging up lines to, y'know, communicate. Why don't I just meet you at the same time every evening, by that bit of fence there, and tell you what I know."

"Well, Billy, it seemed as if we had a good plan, for your safety, that is."

"Don't you worry about me. From what you've said, I don't think I'm that important to the likes of them. I'm just your average bread and butter, aren't I? No big legacies being signed over or anything."

Billy smiled at Maisie and pointed toward the fields between the large house in the distance, and the road.

"Tell you the truth, looking at this landscape now, it's best if we don't mess around with telephone lines coming too near the 'ouse. Draw more attention. No one's goin' to question an old soldier what wants to go off by 'imself for a jaunt of an evenin'. But they might question an old sapper fiddling around with a telephone line in the dark. And you know, Miss, I might be good at that sort of thing, but I never did say I was invisible. And I can't run like I used to, not with the leg 'ere." Billy slapped the side of his leg for emphasis. "But 'ere's what I can do now. I can rig up a line to that telephone box we just passed back there, on the corner as you leave the 'amlet back there. I 'ad a quick look as we drove by--not that I 'ad much time, what with the speed and all--"

Maisie grimaced at Billy, who continued. "It's one of them new ones, a Kiosk Number Four, I think. They 'ave em in places where there ain't no post office--did y'see? It's got a stamp machine on the back, and a pillar-box for letters. Sort of all purpose--mind you, me mate what works on the things says that the stamps get soggy when it rains, and then they all stick together and make a right old mess. So, anyway, getting' back to me and the old lines 'ere, if I need to get 'old of you urgent, like, or if I'm in an 'urry to get out of 'ere, I can always jump through this fence--well, sort of jump, what wiv the leg and all--and use the box and line what I rig up to connect with the outside line at that box up the road. D'you see what I mean, Miss? Then I'll run like a nutter, bad leg an' all!"

Maisie laughed nervously. "Right you are, Billy, I think I follow you. It sounds like a good idea."

Billy opened the car door, pulled himself out of the low seat, and walked around to the luggage compartment. He carefully took out two large old canvas kit bags and placed them on the ground. Taking out spools of cable, "small, so's I can work with them on me own," Billy walked over to the ditch at the base of the perimeter fence.