The Consequences of Fear, Jacqueline Winspear [most important books to read TXT] 📗

hurrying and stepped on the brush. The handle popped away fromthe wall, and whack! Straight across my cheekbone! Freddie was here and ran down to the pub to see if they had some ice forit. Bless that boy.”

“That’s just the sort of thing I’d do, Mrs. Hackett,” Maisie said as they made their way down the stairs. “We women are alwaysrushing, and there’s always something in the way.”

“At least you don’t have children to worry about too.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Maisie. “I have a little girl. I just use my maiden name for my work.”

Maisie waited in the taxi while Grace Hackett checked on Mrs. Dunley. Once the vehicle set off, Hackett picked up the conversation.“Is your husband in the services?”

Maisie caught her breath. She had noticed Hackett glancing at the third finger of her left hand as she asked the question.“No. I’m a widow, Mrs. Hackett—but we’re doing well, my daughter and I. Very well indeed. Now, where would you like to bedropped off?”

Later, having given Mrs. Hackett—who had invited her to “call me Grace”—a lift to an address in Belgravia, the location of one of her several jobs, Maisie asked the driver to drop her at Victoria Station. She wanted to walk around for a while to settle her mind before joining Jamieson at his laboratory. She had a few thoughts to dissect before assisting the pathologist. For a start, Maisie was sure the broom handle had not taken a swipe at Grace Hackett’s face. She had seen enough wounds on both the living and the dead to know a bruise sustained as a result of a fist to the cheek and how it might differ from that of an accident. But of greater interest was the image of the man Maisie assumed to be Freddie Hackett’s father. Focusing on the photograph of Grace with her new husband on their wedding day, Maisie could see he had sustained his own facial wound: a long, prominent scar across his right cheek.

Chapter 5

Outfitted in a white laboratory coat, mask, and rubber gloves, her hair fingered back under a white scarf, Maisie scribblednotes on a clipboard as Jamieson spoke. On occasion she stopped him to ask a question, or to point out something for him tolook at again. She liked Jamieson; there was something in his bearing that continued to remind her of Maurice—the way he touchedthe body, even whispering, “Sorry about that, old man,” as if the cadaver before them still held life and warmth.

Every part of the deceased was inspected and condition noted, right down to an ingrown nail on the big toe of the right foot.

“The shrapnel wounds are telling, don’t you think, Dr. Jamieson?” asked Maisie.

“Yes. I saw so many just like this in the last war—and the water has brought more shards to the surface of the skin. I daresayhe picked out a few splinters each week, and the constant reminder probably gave him nightmares about the day he got them.”He sighed. “Trying to look beyond his condition, what age would you peg him, Maisie?”

Maisie looked up. Jamieson had never used her Christian name before. She stared down at the body again. “I’d say he was ayoung soldier during the last war, not too many years on him at the time, and perhaps only a little older than the century.Let’s settle on about forty-two, something of that order.”

“My thoughts exactly.” He looked up at Maisie. “And please, do call me Duncan. It seems silly to stick to formalities in the presence of the dead.”

Maisie could feel her face flushing. On the contrary, she would rather have stuck to the “formalities.”

Jamieson continued. “Anything else you’ve noticed?”

Maisie cleared her throat. “This man had quite a life—or quite a job. Look at these scars here—on the arm, and the thigh.And this one across the palm of his hand. He has been in a few scrapes—fights, I should say, and weapons were involved. Eitherthat or he was terribly accident-prone.” She stood back and began to chew the side of her lip.

“What is it?” asked Jamieson.

She sighed. “Look, this is going to sound incredibly . . . well, it’s speculation, but I believe this man might have beensome sort of fighter. And I don’t mean a boxer or wrestler. This body is like a child’s drawing book—there’s scribble everywhereand every mark looks like the result of a deliberate wound. I suspect he was in combat well beyond the last war, and thathe found himself in some very tight corners.” She set the scalpel and clipboard on a metal trolley alongside the postmortemtable, and folded her arms. “I even wonder if we are dealing with a seasoned killer.”

“The murderer was the one who knew how to kill, Maisie—swiftly and with ease.”

She nodded again. “Oh, I can see that.” Slipping her pencil into a pocket, she picked up a scalpel from the instruments trayand used it to point to the two knife wounds. “This is precision work, as you observed when we first saw the body. But I wonderif the murder could have been the result of two sharks fighting, two trained killers who would go at each other to the death.Or might one of those two killers—this one—have been unsuspecting, with no reason to fear the other man?”

“Now you’re venturing outside my territory, Maisie. I’m strictly the corpse man. I can tell you about the weapon, the trajectory of the knife as it was plunged into the body here and here, and I can tell you that this chap liked a drink or two—or three or four—if I’m not mistaken. Nasty-looking liver—could be the result of too many French aperitifs and a good number of other spirits. More than that is beyond my purview. But it’s always interesting to hear someone like you begin to see the story.”

Maisie frowned. “French aperitifs? Have you assumed he’s French?”

Jamieson shrugged. “That’s where I speculate, I suppose.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I can trust you with my thoughts because you’re