“Or you might simply call on her.”
His mouth worked with what might have been an excuse to put it off until later, then thinned as if it was a physical pain.
I did wonder how many times he had called on other widows in his time with the Metropolitan, forced to maintain a certain demeanor. But now for a friend? I laid my hand at his arm.
We had both experienced painful losses. It was never easy, but this seemed to be especially difficult.
“Aye,” he eventually replied.
“I will go with you.”
I saw his answer in that dark gaze as he laid his hand over mine.
He had Mr. Cavendish wave down a cab and we departed for Braxton Place near Covent Garden where Constable Martin and his wife lived.
The block of flats at Braxton Place was like many throughout London’s working-class areas, with grey stone facades at three-story buildings, the landlord’s flat on the ground floor, and a dozen or more flats on the floors above.
Yet contrary to many residential flats, the building at Number 8 Braxton Place was neat and well maintained, with concrete steps that led from the sidewalk.
Brodie assisted me down from the cab.
The Martins had lived there for several years, and he knew it well.
“Number 4B at the second floor,” he said as we entered the foyer of the building.
The entrance was neat and well-kept, with letter boxes on the wall to the left of the entrance, each with a flat number on the outside.
He went to the door beside those letter boxes and knocked. A short man with grey hair answered the door. Brodie informed him that we were there to see Mrs. Martin. He nodded.
“Sad news this mornin’, Mr. Brodie. The police were round first thing. Constable Martin was a good man. She’s been up there since. Didn’t go to work as usual. Understandable.”
It was obvious the landlord remembered him.
“A man just doing his job and then killed for it. Do the police know who did it?” he asked.
“Not as yet, and I thank ye for yer time, sir,” Brodie replied. He turned then and wrapped a hand around my arm.
We easily found flat 4B on the second floor and Brodie knocked.
It was several moments before Mrs. Martin appeared and I thought she might have decided that she didn’t want to see anyone. Then the door slowly opened.
Maddy Martin was a small woman with a round face, sad blue eyes, and a smile that trembled at the sight of Brodie.
The tears came then as she opened the door further. She reached for the edge of her apron.
“Oh, Angus.”
We sat in the small sitting room beside the kitchen. There, at a narrow side table was a sepia-toned photograph of Constable Martin in uniform when he received one of his commendations. There was a second photograph beside it of a half-dozen uniformed constables, standing shoulder to shoulder, that included Brodie.
We had met after he left the MET and established his inquiry business. I had never seen him in a uniform.
He was quite a bit younger then, handsome to be certain, and with an almost defiant look in those dark eyes.
He had changed, of course, through the years since. Where there had been defiance, there was at times now a certain coldness with faint lines at the corners of his eyes.
Perhaps from things experienced, I thought. Yet in a way that only emphasized the impression that here was a man who knew far more than he let on, and one that others might not want to cross.
“I knew that you had married,” Maddy said, surprising me with a sad smile. “He spoke of it and said that it was a good thing, that a man needed someone in that way. A titled lady, and pretty too. I hear you assist in his inquiry cases.”
