The Paying Guests(121)

‘Just a man on the street, he said.’

‘Do you have any idea who assaulted him?’

She looked at him. ‘Me? No.’

‘And did he describe the man to you?’

But Lilian had begun to tremble. She put her hand to her throat, looking ill, closing her eyes. ‘I – I’m sorry.’

Frances touched her arm and spoke quietly to her. ‘Take your time.’

‘Yes, take your time, Mrs Barber.’

‘It’s just – I feel so giddy.’

‘Perhaps you’d like a glass of water?’

She nodded. The sergeant fetched a jug and tumbler from the matron’s desk. Frances kept her hand on Lilian’s arm as she sipped, and spoke across the table.

‘I don’t think Mr Barber saw the man who hit him, Inspector. An ex-service man, he said; someone perhaps wanting money. He came here and reported the incident, a day or two later.’

The inspector regarded her levelly, then turned back to Lilian. ‘Is that your understanding, Mrs Barber?’ And then, when again she didn’t answer: ‘I am interested, you see, because I believe there might be a link between that other assault and this one.’

He left a pause after the words. Frances felt the muscle of Lilian’s arm tighten under her hand. Her own heart began to rise again. She said, with an effort, ‘You think, then, that this was an assault? Constable Hardy told us —’

‘Constable Hardy hadn’t had the benefit of our surgeon’s preliminary report. I’ve just spoken to the mortuary by telephone, and I’m afraid there are one or two features that make the wound a suspicious one. In fact’ – he put his hands together on the table and looked squarely at Lilian – ‘well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs Barber, but it seems there’s a very real possibility that your husband was murdered.’

Frances was horrified at the bluntness of the word, then horrified all over again to realise that he had said it in just that manner – deliberately, brutally – as a way of gauging Lilian’s response to it.

Did Lilian realise it too? She gazed at the inspector, and her face crumpled.

‘It wasn’t like that!’ she said – making Frances, in fright, grab at her hand. ‘It can’t have been! Don’t say it! Oh!’ She bent forward, her arms across her belly. ‘I need the lavatory. Frances —!’

She got up, staggering a little. Frances supported her on one side, and Sergeant Heath came nimbly around the table to support her on the other. Inspector Kemp went to the door, put out his head and called for the matron; she appeared at once. ‘I have her now,’ she told Frances stoutly, once the two of them had got Lilian out into the passage. And, ‘Yes, Miss Wray,’ called the inspector, ‘Matron Wrigley will look after Mrs Barber now.’

He gestured for Frances to return to the table. She hesitated, watching Lilian being led away. It was terrible, sickening, to see her being taken out of reach like that.

But the men’s eyes were on her. She moved back into the room. The door was closed again by Sergeant Heath, and the inspector held out her chair.

‘A nasty shock for Mrs Barber, all this,’ he said, as she sat. ‘And for you and your neighbours too, of course… A nice couple, were they?’

She was listening out for sounds from the corridor. ‘Mr and Mrs Barber? Yes.’

‘Good tenants, would you call them? They’ve lived in your house for – let’s see, six months or so?’

‘About that, yes.’

‘You weren’t acquainted with them before that?’

‘No.’

‘And what were relations between them like, in your opinion?’

She looked at him properly then. He was still on his feet, standing in a casual sort of way, a hip against the table, his arms folded high across his chest.

She said, ‘All right, I think.’

‘No disagreements? Quarrels? Things like that?’

‘Well, I really couldn’t say.’

‘Did they often spend their evenings separately, as they did last night? I ask, you see, because in a case like this, where a respectable man is assaulted and killed —’

‘You don’t know that for sure, do you?’

‘No, we don’t know it for sure. I’m simply trying to get a sense of Mr Barber’s character, his habits. It seems to me, Miss Wray, that you’re in a position to help us a good deal. You must have seen more of the couple’s comings and goings than most people. You haven’t noticed anything? No one hanging about outside? No curious letters arriving at the house?’

She willed herself to speak coolly. ‘I’m not in the habit of examining my lodgers’ post.’

He gave one of his professional smiles. ‘I’m sure you’re not. But, still, there might have been things you saw, or heard… Yesterday, for example: was Mrs Barber at home all day?’

Frances pretended to consider. But she was losing touch with what she ought to know and not know. And her heart was still beating so horribly hard! She was afraid that he would see it – that he would hear it, even. Finally she nodded. ‘Yes, all day and all evening.’

‘And how did she pass the time, do you know?’

She remembered what she had told her mother. ‘I think she was… spring cleaning.’