Free Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

new gravestones for unidentified soldiers buried in
France, ‘A Soldier of the Great War, Known unto God.’”
    “Well, we’d better know something soon, or MacFarlane
will be in high dudgeon.”
    “I can imagine.”
     
     
    “OH, FOR PITY’S SAKE! Anyone would think we’d all just
come in off the beat. Two days and we still don’t know that poor bugger’s
name.” MacFarlane made no concessions to the fact that there was a woman in the
room, and gave weight to his voice with a thump on the table with his right
hand.
    Maisie did not flinch, though Stratton moved on his
chair in a way that revealed his discomfort. He’d better get used to this if he
wants to work with MacFarlane by spring, thought Maisie.
    “Miss Dobbs, perhaps you could enlighten me as to your
activities this afternoon?”
    “Of course, Detective Chief Superintendent
MacFarlane.”
    MacFarlane raised an eyebrow as she came to her feet
and pulled out a roll of wallpaper and several tacks from her document case.
She unfurled the paper, held it to the wall and proceeded to pin the paper in
place.
    “If I wanted a decorator, I might have called one in,
Miss Dobbs.”
    “Bear with me, please.” She reached into her case and
removed several thick wax crayons, keeping one and placing the others on the
table, then turned her attention to the men. “My assistant and I use this as
one of several means to follow developments in a case. It provides a map, if
you will, of our progress, and no thought, idea or speculative hunch is ever
considered too foolhardy or insignificant to record. We add to it as we proceed
and it has proven useful in helping us to identify links, clues and
opportunities that might not otherwise have been visible with the usual linear
note-taking.”
    “We tend to prefer facts.”
    “This may sound contradictory,” said Maisie, “but I do
not think we have the time to entertain only firm facts—we have to broaden our
canvas, in the short term at least.”
    MacFarlane acquiesced. “Continue broadening the
canvas, Miss Dobbs.”
    Maisie paused, looking at each man in turn. If she was
to work as part of a crew rather than alone, she would ensure that she was not
only listened to, but heard. And she did not care to be under surveillance.
    “Given our speculation that the Charlotte Street
suicide was a soldier with rather serious wounds, I—”
    “Serious?” queried MacFarlane. “He obviously walked to
the place where he died. Can that be called serious?”
    “Sir, as we believe, the man had an amputation and was
also likely lame in his other leg, plus he might well have suffered exposure to
chlorine or mustard gas. To say nothing of war trauma. I would say those wounds
constitute ‘serious.’ I would add, further, that in becoming used to seeing
those who have suffered in the war, we have also become somewhat immune to
their plight. As we now know, contrary to the belief of military superiors, it
takes more than fresh air and a week in the country to cure a man before we
pack him off again into battle or, in this case, the skirmish of everyday
society.”
    “Point taken. Go on, Miss Dobbs.”
    “Thank you.” Maisie began writing on the strip of
wallpaper. “So, I called on Dr. Anthony Lawrence, one of the country’s leading
experts in the care of those who remain sufficiently unstable as to warrant
remaining in hospital care.”
    “Is that a nice way of saying ‘locked up’?”
    “Having been a nurse in a secure hospital and caring
for men with shell-shock, I try to retain a level of respect, Detective Chief
Superintendent. But yes, they are locked up. They require a degree of
supervision that is not to be found in the home—if, of course, there is a home
to go to. Now then, back to my meeting with Dr. Lawrence—I wanted to discover
more about the habits of those who have been released. In short, I wanted to
know if there was something about either the man in Charlotte Street or the
letter-writer that would