The Paying Guests(116)

They shook their heads. And, ‘No,’ said Frances. ‘No. Out in the lane! You’re quite sure? It seems incredible.’ She stared over at the window, her hand still on Lilian’s shoulder, trying desperately to shrug off the artificiality of her manner – trying, too, to work out what questions she ought to be asking, which bits of knowledge she should and shouldn’t have. ‘I know,’ she said, in the same inauthentic way, ‘that Mr Barber sometimes uses the lane as a short-cut. Do you think he might have done that late last night? But that means – How long do you suppose he’s been out there?’

‘Well, his clothes are soaked right through.’

‘But how on earth did it happen? How did he —?’

‘We think, from an injury to his head.’

The words made Lilian twitch: Frances felt the jump of her shoulder. She tightened her grip on it. Be brave!

But now her mother looked up at her. ‘Oh, this is dreadful. Dreadful! It’s just like that other time, Frances!’

Constable Hardy blinked at them. ‘Other time?’

On slightly safer ground now, her manner more natural, Frances told him about Leonard’s having been assaulted by a stranger back in July. He took down the details, in his arduous way; she had the impression, however, that he was doing it mainly for form’s sake. For it was too early, he said, to determine cause of death. The police surgeon would be able to tell them more, once he’d made his examination. There had been no robbery from Mr Barber’s person, so far as they’d been able to ascertain. His pocket-book still had money in it, and his wristwatch and wedding-band were still in place. That made it very possible that he had simply lost his footing on the wet ground and struck his head. The surface of the lane was covered with stones —

Frances felt Lilian twitch again; again she tightened her grip on her shoulder. She said, to make it be true, ‘A fall, you mean?’ And Constable Hardy answered, ‘Well – yes, that was certainly how it looked.’

Her mother had risen from the sofa and gone over to the French windows. Her face was grey. ‘It doesn’t seem possible! To think of poor Mr Barber out there! And the rain still falling! Mrs Barber, we must bring him inside, surely? Frances —’

Frances felt a wave of nausea at the thought of going anywhere near him. If she had to touch him, if she had to lift him again —! But Constable Hardy said, ‘I’m afraid it would do no good. I’ve already sent a man for an ambulance.’

‘But to think of him out there! Who’s with him now?’

‘PC Edwards is with the body. One of your neighbours at the back gave us a piece of mackintosh for it. It was the man who discovered him, while walking his dog. He supposed him a tramp at first, because he had no hat on him; the hat had gone rolling off, you see. But then he saw that he was respectable, and after he’d had a closer look he thought he knew him for a clerk from one of the houses on Grove Lane. I’ve been over there for half an hour, knocking on doors. We got a doctor in the meantime, to come and confirm that life was extinguished, and it was only then that we found a paper in Mr Barber’s pocket, with this address on it… That looks like the ambulance now,’ he added, as a grey, featureless van went up the street, past the front garden. He turned to Lilian, and drew himself together. ‘Mrs Barber, I’m afraid it’s my duty to have to ask you, as next of kin, to follow us on to the mortuary to make a formal identification.’

Lilian paled further. ‘What do you mean? To look at Len, do you mean?’

‘I’m afraid so. We’ll have a taxi drive you there and bring you back. It won’t take long. The coroner’s officer will want to take a statement from you too, but I expect he’ll call here later for that.’

Lilian had begun to breathe more quickly. She said, ‘I don’t know if I can.’ She raised her hand to Frances’s, looked up into her face. ‘I don’t think I can.’

Her gaze was panicked, unguarded. Alarmed, Frances squeezed her fingers. She didn’t want to look at him, either. She remembered his pink, protruding tongue. But, ‘It’s all right,’ she made herself say. ‘I’ll do it with you. Will that make it easier? I’ll go with you. You won’t be alone.’ She turned to her mother. ‘You’ll manage here, Mother, if I go with Lilian?’

‘Yes, of course,’ answered her mother. ‘No, Mrs Barber mustn’t go alone.’ But she spoke distractedly. She was still peering down the garden. ‘I simply can’t believe it. The idea of us being in our beds while —’

Lilian gazed across at her. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Wray.’

She turned from the glass, shocked. ‘What are you sorry for?’

‘I don’t know.’

Lilian’s voice broke on the words, and she started to cry. She dried her eyes with her handkerchief, but cried again when Constable Hardy asked if there were any persons she would like to be notified – relations of her husband’s, or of her own?

She nodded. ‘Len’s mum and dad. Oh, this’ll kill them, I know it will!’ And in a voice broken up by upset and fear she gave him the Peckham address, along with her own mother’s address on the Walworth Road.

He put his notebook away, then fitted on his helmet, fiddling with the strap under his chin. He would talk to his colleagues at the police station, he said, and call for a taxi at the same time. Did the house have the telephone, by any chance? No? Then he would use the police box down the hill.