Free The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear Page A

inclined his head in return, and walked towards the door that Maisie knew led to Khan’s inner sanctum.
    Maisie could not disguise her fluster, and engaged in dialogue with herself all the way to collect her MG. What on earth was he doing there? He was nothing but a dilettante, a light, party-bound…She opened the door of the motor car and sat down in the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her. It occurred to her that she didn’t know James Compton very well at all; though she had accepted an assignment from him of late, her understanding of his character was based on her memory of a young man referred to as “Master James” in his parents’ household. He was the happy-go-lucky wartime aviator who some eighteen years earlier had been in love with her friend Enid. He had seemed to lose his way after the war, as a result of both his wounds and the loss of Enid, who was killed in a munitions factory explosion. A round of parties would often be followed by self-imposed exile, as if James were trying to find a place where he might belong in a changed world. In sending him to work for the family corporation in Canada, his parents had hoped he would regain some sense of himself and his responsibilities—or as his father was heard to say, “He’s got to get a grip!”
    No, Maisie clearly did not know James Compton as well as she thought, and found herself a little unsettled to learn that he, too, wasa visitor to Khan. She started the engine, and as she drove away, her thoughts moved to her conversation with Khan, and she reflected upon his words.
    A map is a conduit for wonder, a tool for adventure. But it is also an instrument of power—and like all things, power has two faces.
     
    B illy had gone home by the time Maisie returned to the office in Fitzroy Square. The thick smog of winter, encroaching to envelop the square and barely lifting all day, had given way to a thin fog with just a tinge of yellow as town dwellers began to do without coal fires with the onset of spring. Maisie looked out at the cloudy swirls and thought about the Beale family, about the challenges they had faced, and those still before them with Doreen’s homecoming from the psychiatric hospital. She had heard the tension in Billy’s voice as he spoke of his concern, especially for young Billy and Bobby, who had borne the slings and arrows of their mother’s distress. And Maisie knew that now, with Doreen at home, and with the family used to a new rhythm to their days, every moment, every word spoken, would represent a step into the unknown through a blanket of fog, with Billy and the boys haunted by the specter of Doreen’s damaged mind. She wondered how she might help the family, but realized that this part of their journey was theirs alone, that they had to come together to regain the ground lost—only then could Billy lead them forward into his dream of a new life in Canada.
    She sat down in a chair set alongside the fireplace, and leaned forward to turn on the gas jets, but as she sat back in the chair once again, she became restless, and moved instead to her desk, where she picked up the telephone and dialed Scotland Yard.
    “Detective Inspector Caldwell, please.”
    There was crackling on the telephone line, and soon a voice boomed into the receiver.
    “Caldwell!”
    “Maisie Dobbs here, Detective Inspector Caldwell.” The words felt like glue in her throat. Detective Inspector Caldwell. She needed an ally at Scotland Yard, and her interactions with Caldwell had always been far from cordial.
    “Miss Dobbs—to what do I owe the pleasure?”
    “I was wondering—how are Mr. and Mrs. Clifton?”
    “Mr. Clifton is much improved. Sadly, Mrs. Clifton has not made progress and is still in a very poor state. It would not be over-egging the pudding to say that she might not last the night, though I am told that each hour she’s alive gives the doctors some level of hope.”
    “I see.”
    “Anything else, Miss Dobbs? I am a very