Among the Mad

Also by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs

Birds of a Feather

Pardonable Lies

Messenger of Truth

An Incomplete Revenge

AMONG THE MAD

AMONG

THE MAD

A Maisie Dobbs Novel

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR

Henry Holt and Company

New York

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since 1866

175 Fifth Avenue

New York
, New York 10010

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of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2009 by Jacqueline Winspear

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winspear, Jacqueline.

Among the mad : a Maisie Dobbs novel / Jacqueline
Winspear.—1st ed.

    p.      cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8216-6

ISBN-10: 0-8050-8216-6

1. Dobbs, Maisie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2.
Women private investigators—England—London—Fiction. 3. World War,
1914–1918—Veterans—Great Britain—Fiction. 4. World War, 1914–1918—Psychological
aspects—Fiction. 5. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.

Henry Holt books are available for special promotions

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First Edition 2009

Designed by Victoria Hartman

Printed in the United States of America

1   3   5   7   9   10   8   6   4   2

Dedicated to my wonderful Godchildren:

Charlotte Sweet McEwan

Charlotte Pye

Greg Belpomme

Alexandra Jones

Keep True to the Dreams of thy Youth

Friedrich von Schiller

1759–1805

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all
mad here.

I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have
come here.”

—LEWIS CARROLL,

Alice
’s Adventures in
Wonderland

A short time ago death was the cruel stranger, the
visitor with

the flannel footsteps . . . today it is the mad dog in
the house.

One eats, one drinks beside the dead, one sleeps in
the midst of

the dying, one laughs and sings in the company of
corpses.

—GEORGES DUHAMEL,

French doctor serving at Verdun in the Great War

AMONG THE MAD

ONE

London
, Christmas
Eve, 1931

Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, picked up
her fountain pen to sign her name at the end of a final report that she and her
assistant, Billy Beale, had worked late to complete the night before. Though
the case was straightforward—a young man fraudulently using his uncle’s
honorable name to acquire all manner of goods and services, and an uncle keen
to bring his nephew back on the straight and narrow without the police being
notified—Maisie felt it was time for Billy to become more involved in the
completion of a significant document and to take more of an active part in the
final interview with a client. She knew how much Billy wanted to emigrate to
Canada, to take his wife and family away from London’s dark depression and the
cloud of grief that still hung over them following the death of their daughter,
Lizzie, almost a year earlier. To gain a decent job in a new country he would
need to build more confidence in his work and himself, and seeing as she had
already made inquiries on his behalf—without his knowledge—she knew greater
dexterity with the written and spoken word would be an important factor in his
success. Now the report was ready to be delivered before the Christmas holiday
began.

“Eleven o’clock, Billy—just in time, eh?” Maisie
placed the cap on her fountain pen and passed the report to her assistant, who
slid it into an envelope and secured it with string. “As soon as this
appointment is over, you should be on your way, so that you can spend the rest
of the day with Doreen and the boys—it’ll be nice to have Christmas Eve at
home.”

“That’s good of you, Miss.” Billy smiled, then went to
the door where he took Maisie’s coat and his own from the hook.

Maisie packed her document case before reaching under
the desk to bring out a wooden orange crate. “You’ll have to come back to the
office first, though.”

“What’s all this, Miss?” Billy’s face was flushed as
he approached her desk.

“A Christmas box for each of the boys, and one for you
and Doreen.” She opened her desk drawer and drew out an envelope. “And this is
for you. We had a bit of a rocky summer, but things picked up and we’ve done
quite well—plus we’ll be busy in the new year—so this is your bonus. It’s all
well earned, I must say.”

Billy reddened. “Oh, that’s very good of you, Miss.
I’m much obliged. This’ll cheer up Doreen.”

Maisie smiled in return. She did not need to inquire
about Billy’s wife, knowing the depth of the woman’s melancholy. There had been
a time, at the end of the summer, when a few weeks spent hop-picking in Kent had put a bloom on the woman’s cheeks, and she seemed to have filled out a little,
looking less gaunt. But, in London again, the routine of caring for her boys
and keeping up with the dressmaking and alterations she took in had not lifted
her spirits in any way. She ached for the milky softness of her daughter’s
small body in her arms.

Maisie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “We’d
better be off.”

They donned coats and hats and wrapped up against the
chill wind that whistled around corners and blew across Fitzroy Square as they
made their way toward Charlotte Street. Dodging behind a horse and cart, they
ran to the other side of the road as a motor car came along in the opposite
direction. The street was busy, with people rushing this way and that, heads
down against the wind, some with parcels under their arms, others simply hoping
to get home early. In the distance, Maisie noticed a man—she could not tell
whether he was young or old—sitting on the pavement, leaning up against the
exterior wall of a shop. Even with some yards between them, she could see the
grayness that enveloped him, the malaise, the drooping shoulders, one leg
outstretched so passers-by had to skirt around him. His damp hair was slicked
against his head and cheeks, his clothes were old, crumpled, and he watched
people go by with a deep red-rimmed sadness in his eyes. One of them stopped to
speak to a policeman, and turned back to point at the man. Though unsettled by
his dark aura, Maisie reached into her bag for some change as they drew closer.

“Poor bloke—out in this, and at Christmas.” Billy
shook his head, and delved down into his coat pocket for a few coins.

“He looks too drained to find his way to a soup
kitchen, or a shelter. Perhaps this will help.” Maisie held her offering ready
to give to the man.

They walked just a few steps and Maisie gasped, for it
was as if she was at once moving in slow motion, as if she were in a dream
where people spoke but she could not hear their words. She saw the man move, put
his hand into the inside pocket of his threadbare greatcoat, and though she
wanted to reach out to him, she was caught in a vacuum of muffled sound and
constrained movement. She could see Billy frowning, his mouth moving, but could
not make him understand what she had seen. Then the sensation, which had lasted
but a second or two, lifted. Maisie looked at the man some twenty or so paces
ahead of them, then at Billy again.

“Billy, go back, turn around and go back along the
street, go back . . . ”

“Miss, what’s wrong? You all right? What do you mean,
Miss?”

Pushing against his shoulder to move him away, Maisie
felt as if she were negotiating her way through a mire. “Go back, Billy, go
back . . . ”

And because she was his employer, and because he had
learned never to doubt her, Billy turned to retrace his steps in the direction
of Fitzroy Square. Frowning, he looked back in time to see Maisie holding out
her hand as she walked toward the man, in the way that a gentle person might
try to bring calm to an enraged dog. Barely four minutes had passed since they
walked past the horse and cart, and now here she was . . .

The explosion pushed up and outward into the Christmas
Eve flurry, and in the seconds following there was silence. Just a crack in the
wall of normal, everyday sound, then nothing. Billy, a soldier in the Great
War, knew that sound, that hiatus. It was as if the earth itself had had the
stuffing knocked out of it, had been throttled into a different day, a day when
a bit of rain, a gust of wind and a few stray leaves had turned into a
blood-soaked hell.