Free Pardonable Lie by Jacqueline Winspear

she had proven as much. Or had she? Were her comments a shot in the dark? No, she was too close to the target—so much so that Maisie made a mental note to contact Billy with instructions to make inquiries in the villages close to Taunton. She thought of Hartnell’s parting words. Suddenly, Maisie felt her eyes prickle. Oh, Mum, I have missed you so much, so much . But it was as she drove toward the West End that Maisie felt her heart ache and a vision of her former love, Simon, came to her. She imagined him in his wheelchair with a blanket across his knees, a gentle breeze catching the leaves of exotic plants in the nursing home conservatory as he sat alone. Caught in life, yet his spirit wanders ….
    What was it about Madeleine Hartnell that Maisie mistrusted, more so than either Browning or Darby? The latter were both certainly fakes trying to make a living in difficult times. Be careful . The words echoed into Maisie’s mind. Be careful . It was her mother’s voice she heard.
    Something else intrigued Maisie. For all her sophistication, command, and supersensitivity, there was a vulnerability about Madeleine Hartnell that reminded her of Avril Jarvis. As she pressed her foot harder on the accelerator, it occurred to her that she saw a girlishness in Hartnell, though she could not put her finger on the reason for such a thought.

EIGHT
    Maisie was at her desk early on Friday. In preparation for lunch with Priscilla, she had gone through her entire wardrobe and found it wanting. She held up a cream silk blouse, one of three she owned, to see if it might look too dowdy with the burgundy suit she had considered so very stylish several months ago. Instead, the black day dress was chosen again, along with black shoes and the hat with a broad ribbon of claret satin. She would wear the suit jacket over the black dress. There, that will add a bit of something ….
    As she sat at the case map and tapped a red pencil on the broad sheet of white paper, the thought occurred to Maisie that the source of much of her discombobulation was Madeleine Hartnell. Maurice had been of little help—or was it that his answers had not immediately given her rest? It was obvious that he had no intention of providing comfort, though she knew his counsel to be true as she reflected upon the telephone call she had made to him immediately upon returning to her rooms at Ebury Place.
    “Remember, Maisie, that such people come to us on two levels, so to speak.” He had paused during their conversation to draw deeply on his pipe. “On the one hand, yes, you must take great care with the likes of Hartnell. We have seen her sort before, and with due care we have come to no harm. And it is clear that she might be of further use. My advice would be to seek the wisdom of our friend Khan.”
    “I haven’t seen him in a long time, Maurice. I’m amazed he’s still alive, to tell you the truth.”
    “Khan seems to be above such notions as age.” Maurice paused. “He is the one to whom I have turned, Maisie, in times of spiritual darkness.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that I’m—”
    “The second level, Maisie, is the task that we are all sent to accomplish in each other’s lives. It is a task of which we have no conscious awareness, but it is there all the same. Hartnell’s appearance at this time will indubitably require you to address…a conflict, perhaps? It is a rhetorical question. Consider your discomfort and welcome it as the ache necessary for you to become more deeply attuned.”
    Maisie sighed, the sound of her own exhaled breath bringing her back to the present. She looked at the scribbled notes and diagrams on the case map in front of her and began working again. In a circle centered on the paper, she had written RALPH LAWTON ; in another, AGNES LAWTON . Drawing connecting lines between the circled names of each person already identified as someone known to Ralph, she wondered who might be able to shed light on his character and how