The Paying Guests (44 page)

She awoke to more darkness. The rain had stopped – that was something – but a mist hung just beyond the window, like a dirty veil on the world. The Sunday bells rang as usual, but her mother, who had slept badly, didn’t attempt to go to church, and since neither of them could face breakfast they simply sat at the kitchen table with a cooling pot of tea between them, too dazed for conversation, paralysed by the wrongness of things.

Presently they rose to go over to the drawing-room, and as they were crossing the hall Lilian came down to take a bath. She came a step at a time, leaning heavily on her sister’s arm.

Frances darted forward to help. Her mother, hanging back, said, ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Barber?’

She was still ghastly pale, though her gaze, to Frances’s relief, was clearer. ‘I feel so weak,’ she answered.

‘I’m sure you do. I’m glad you have someone here to look after you’ – with the ghost of a smile for Vera. ‘I meant to go to morning service. I should so like to have said a prayer for you there. But I couldn’t quite manage it today. I shall say my prayers for you here instead.’

Lilian dipped her head. ‘Thank you, Mrs Wray. I’m sorry everything’s been so – so awful.’

‘You mustn’t think that. You must keep up your strength. And if there’s anything at all that Frances or I can do to help you, you must tell us – will you?’

Lilian nodded, grateful, her eyes filming with tears.

But there was something, Frances thought, slightly strained about the encounter, an odd lack of warmth on her mother’s part, despite the kindness of her words. And when the two of them had gone through to the drawing-room, her mother sat down and said in an almost querulous way, ‘Mrs Barber looks dreadful! Surely it would make more sense for her to be with her family? Why on earth didn’t her mother take her home with her last night?’

‘She tried to take her,’ said Frances, as she laid kindling in the grate. ‘Lilian doesn’t want to go.’

‘Why not?’

‘She wants to stay here.’

‘But, why?’

She looked up. ‘Well, why do you think? It’s her home.’

Her mother didn’t answer that. She sat with her hands in her lap, her papery fingers fidgeting.

The morning wore on in its off-kilter way. Frances waited for another chance to see Lilian alone, and found none. Outside, the mist thickened until it might have been pressing at the house. Indoors, she seemed to feel the drawing-room steadily filling with her mother’s sighs. When, at around midday, she answered a knock at the front door and saw that Mrs Viney was back, with Netta, Min, baby Siddy and Vera’s little girl, Violet, she felt genuinely pleased to see them. Violet had her doll’s pram with her, and she helped her manoeuvre it into the hall.

But Mrs Viney came in puffing, her colour higher than ever. Had Miss Wray and her mother seen the
News of the World
? No? With a sort of grim pride she fished the paper out of a balding carpet bag on her arm, to show Frances a smudged half-column entitled
MURDER
AT
CHAMPION
HILL
:
CLERK
’
S
MYSTERIOUS
DEATH
.

Frances felt sick. To see the case reported like that – unequivocally like that, as murder; to see the reference to Lilian; to see it all there, between another lurid headline,
BOY
’
S
ESCAPE
, and cheap advertisements for winter woollies and a constipation cure —!

‘“Insurance-clerk”,’ she said. ‘How do they know so much already? And “pitiful results”! Where did they get that from?’

‘Well, not from anyone in our family,’ said Mrs Viney, ‘that’s for sure! There was a chap at the shop yesterday asking questions, my husband told me. He sent him off with a flea in his ear – and I shall do the same, if I see him! But word gets about, that’s the trouble. People will talk; well, it’s human nature. One thing I
am
pleased about: they mention the class of the street. As soon as I saw that I said to Min, “Well, thank heavens for that, if only for Miss Wray’s and her mother’s sake!” – didn’t I, Min? Still,’ she added, in a lower tone, ‘I shan’t show this to Lil. It wouldn’t do her no good, would it? Have you seen her this morning, Miss Wray? Is she any better in herself? It’s a terrible thing to lose your husband. I remember when her poor father died, I didn’t know whether I was on my heels or on my head. I ran out into the street in my petticoat; a man crying brooms had to dash water in my face!’

As she spoke, she tucked the newspaper back into her bag, and Frances saw, in the bag’s interior, open packets of black material, along with a jumble of black silk flowers, black threads, ribbons and dye. Yes, said Mrs Viney, noticing the direction of her gaze, they planned to make Lil some mourning costumes this afternoon. They’d gone right through her wardrobe yesterday and, would you believe it, with all those colours of hers she’d barely got a bit of black to her name.

Hearing movement overhead, she stumped forward. ‘Are you there, my darling? It’s only me and your sisters, love!’ She began to haul herself up the stairs.

And so, once again, the house became a muddle of footsteps, creaking floorboards and raised voices. Drawers were opened in Lilian’s bedroom. There were arguments in the little kitchen. Frances heard pans and kettles being filled, then set to heat on the stove; soon lids were rattling above simmering water, and the sourish, briny smell of the black dye began to creep downstairs. She recognised it with a shiver, for it was one of those scents, like the smell of khaki and of certain French cigarettes, forever to be associated with the worst days of the War.

But she couldn’t bear to let all the activity keep her from Lilian; not again. She and her mother ate an unhappy, un-Sunday lunch, and her mother returned to the chair by the fire. But she herself went up and tapped shyly at the sitting-room door – just wanting to know, she said, if the family needed any help.

They had begun sewing already: they all had pools of black silk in their laps. The curtains at the windows were part-way shut – out of respect for Leonard, she supposed – but the lamps were lighted, coals were piled high in the grate, and the stains on the carpet were lost in the general clutter; the room retained its cosiness, in spite of everything that had happened. Vera was at one end of the sofa, a saucer of cigarette stubs by her arm. Min was beside her, sitting with her legs drawn up. Lilian was at the other end, closest to the fire. She was sewing like her sisters, but she let the work fall, and dropped her head against a cushion, to look over at Frances while Netta fetched a kitchen chair.

On Friday evening, Frances thought, she herself had sat where Min was now, holding on to Lilian’s hand. Their future had felt real, close, palpable, just an inch or two beyond their outstretched fingers. Now, returning Lilian’s gaze, she saw her tired dark eyes begin to brim with tears, as if exactly the same vision had occurred to her. They exchanged a tiny shake of the head, a shrug of hopeless regret. If only, if only, if only…

The little girl was at one of the windows, tracing patterns on the steamy glass. She turned to the room. ‘There’s a policeman coming!’

Frances looked at her. ‘Coming to the house?’

She answered as if to a half-wit. ‘
No
, coming to the
moon
.’ And while Vera got up, to smack her, Frances pushed past her and, wiping a pane, saw two men down on the pavement, just lifting the latch of the garden gate. She recognised Sergeant Heath at once. The other man wore an ordinary brown ulster, with a Homburg hiding his face. But as they crossed the front garden he tilted back his head – and then she saw his pink bank-manager’s lips and chin, his steel glasses. It was Inspector Kemp. He spotted her at the window, and raised his hand.

She couldn’t tell anything from their expressions when she let them in. And their tones, when they spoke, were as bland as ever. They apologised for disturbing her. They wanted a word with Mrs Barber, that was all. They were assuming she was at home?

She gestured them up the staircase, looked in on her mother, then followed them up to the sitting-room.

The bits of black sewing had been hastily tidied away. Lilian had shifted to the front of the sofa and was nervously smoothing down her hair. ‘I hope you’re feeling better?’ the inspector asked her, once a few subdued greetings had been exchanged. ‘I don’t mean to keep you too long today. But if you can spare me a few minutes, I’d be grateful. I’d like to tell you about the progress we’re making with the case.’

He sounded amiable enough. Again, however, Frances had the impression that his friendliness was all surface – or, worse than that, was somehow strategic, designed to put Lilian at her ease, the better, later, to trip her up. In the minute or two that it took to bring in another chair she saw him gazing around the room, clearly taking it all in. When Siddy awoke and began crying, and had to be bounced on Netta’s knee, he stood in a patient way on the hearth-rug, looking politely at the objects on the mantelpiece: the elephants, the Buddha, the tambourine, the china caravan…

Siddy’s howls subsided and the room settled down. Frances remained over by the door, on one of the kitchen chairs; Sergeant Heath had the other, between Netta and Mrs Viney. The inspector took the easy chair, across the hearth from Lilian. He sat at the front of it, still in his overcoat, his elbows on his parted knees, his hat dangling from his pudgy fingers.

‘Well,’ he said, addressing Lilian, ‘I dare say you’ve seen the morning papers. I should like to have spoken to you before we made our statement to the press, but they caught us on the hop a bit last night; I must apologise for that. I’m afraid what they’re saying is true. We’ve had our suspicions from the start, as you know. But there’s no doubt whatever now that this is a case of murder.’

Frances’s heart seemed to lose its footing. All this time, in spite of everything, she’d had a small, persistent hope that there would be too much uncertainty for the police to be able to commit themselves to the idea of the crime, to the
word
. Lilian must have felt the same: she closed her eyes, held herself tensely, as if unable to answer. Min, sitting beside her, gave her an awkward comforting pat. Netta drew Siddy closer. The little girl, cross-legged on the pouffe now, pinning scraps of black material together, sensed the stir and lifted her head.

Only the men were still – still and watchful, Frances thought. And partly to draw their attention from Lilian, who remained in that fixed, incapable pose, she cleared her throat and said, ‘How can you be sure?’

The inspector looked across at her. ‘Our medical examiner, Mr Palmer, has confirmed it.’

‘Yes, but how?’

‘Well, there are certain details. The nature of the injury, and so on… I don’t wish to distress Mrs Barber by saying too much.’

But they had to hear, thought Frances. They had to know what the police had discovered. And, again, Lilian must have been thinking the same thing. She said, ‘You might as well tell me. I’ll have to hear it some time, won’t I?’

So now he looked over at the little girl, in a meaningful sort of way. Vera said smoothly, ‘Vi, take Siddy next door and show him Auntie Lily’s perfume bottles, there’s a good girl.’

Violet pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘You take him right now, or there’ll be trouble! The sergeant’s got his eye on you, look.’

With a glance at Sergeant Heath, half doubtful, half fearful, Violet slid from the pouffe, took Siddy from Netta’s arms, and carried him gracelessly from the room.

‘Well,’ began the inspector, when the door had banged shut behind her, ‘it’s a matter of the different effect of different sorts of blows to the human head. A man taking a tumble, you see, and striking his head: that produces one quite distinct sort of wound. But a man being hit – let’s say, by a hammer – well, that produces quite another. Mr Palmer was alerted right away by the appearance of the fracture, and by the direction in which the blood had run into Mr Barber’s clothes. Once he’d made a full examination he found, from the bruising on Mr Barber’s brain, that – Well, it put the matter quite beyond question.’

He kept his gaze on Lilian as he spoke. She had lowered her eyes, but her breast had begun to rise and fall.
She wants to look at me
, thought Frances, able to feel the tug of her fear, and growing fearful in response. She pleaded with her, silently,
Don’t! Don’t!
The look would give everything away!

But now Mrs Viney leaned forward. Fixing the inspector with a lashless eye, a touch of challenge in the creak of her stays, she said, ‘
How
it was done is one thing. Can you say
who
done it?’

After a second, he sat back. ‘We can’t, just yet. But we’re confident that the killer will be found. You’ll have seen our men, going up and down the street. We’re putting things together, one piece at a time. There’s not much evidence, unfortunately, from the actual scene of the crime. One or two interesting details on Mr Barber’s overcoat, but aside from them, and a fingerprint —’

‘A fingerprint?’ echoed Frances.

He said, ‘A print was discovered in among the blood on Mr Barber’s shirt-front. It’s more or less useless, I’m sorry to say. It was too long in the rain. It might have come from Mr Barber himself, or might have got there in some sort of a struggle. His clothes were pulled about, you see, and his hat was off before the blow came, suggesting to us that he grappled with his attacker before he died.’