The Paying Guests(124)

‘All right, Mum,’ said Vera. She had seen Lilian’s expression.

‘No, I will have my say!’

‘Yes, I know. But you can have it upstairs, can’t you?’

So, puffing, exclaiming, Mrs Viney made her slow way up, with Vera following, supporting Lilian for the climb. Frances helped as far as the turn; after that, Lilian’s arm slid out of her hand like the rope of a boat tugged away on a current of water, and she could only stand and watch the three of them disappear across the landing.

‘Frances?’ Her mother was looking up at her with frightened eyes.

She went back down the stairs, trying to disguise the stiffness of her movements. She said quietly, ‘Yes, the police are saying now that it might be murder.’

‘Murder!’

‘And Lilian —’ She dropped her voice further. ‘It seems she was pregnant. But in the shock of all this —’

‘Oh, no.’

They went together into the drawing-room. She looked around. ‘Where’s Mrs Dawson?’

Her mother lowered herself like an invalid on to the sofa. ‘Oh, I sent her home an hour ago. Another policeman came —’

‘Another policeman?’

‘Wanting to ask more questions. It was too dreadful, somehow, to have to answer in front of her. The men have been up and down the street, and all over the lane. One of them has been in the garden. I think he might be there still. Frances, it can’t be murder – can it?’

Frances didn’t reply. Instead she went quickly to the French windows, to see another mackintoshed constable, dark, bulky, anonymous: they were becoming objects of horror to her. This one had a measure in his hand and was making notes, as best he could in the rain, using his arm to shield his notebook. The door in the wall stood wide open. He must have been sketching a plan of the lane and how it related to the house. Had he spotted anything? Had she and Lilian left any traces of their journey with Leonard’s body? But even if they had, wouldn’t the endless rain have washed it all away?

She heard movement in the kitchen overhead, and thought of the stains on the sitting-room carpet, the greasy clinker in the pail.

But her mother was waiting. ‘Frances? Come and sit down, will you? You’ve told me nothing. You’ve been gone for hours. Why were you away so long?’

Reluctantly, she left the window. She went to the chair beside the hearth. Again she had to disguise the soreness of her legs and arms as she sat. She kept at the front of the chair with her hands held out to the flames; she felt unnaturally cold, she realised. ‘We’ve been at the police station.’

‘The police station?’

‘They drove us there from the mortuary. They wanted to go through Lilian’s statement.’

‘They took a statement from me. They said there’ll have to be an inquest, that we might have to give evidence at it!’

‘Yes, I know. What – What did you tell them?’

‘Well, just exactly what I told Constable Hardy.’

‘They didn’t go upstairs?’

‘No, they didn’t go upstairs. But they asked some very odd things. All about Mr and Mrs Barber, whether there were ever arguments between them, or strange callers at the house. They seemed almost to be suggesting – Oh, it’s too horrible.’ She put her fingers to her temples. ‘It was bad enough to think of poor Mr Barber falling over, hitting his head, then lying there helplessly in the dark. But the idea of someone setting on him, deliberately – Surely it can’t be murder. It can’t be. Do you believe it?’

Frances looked away. ‘I don’t know. Yes, perhaps.’

‘But why? Who could have done it? And so close to the house! Just yards from our garden door! When you were in bed last night did you hear nothing?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘No cries, no —?’

‘The rain. I heard the rain, that’s all.’

Self-conscious, she moved forward, to scrape up a shovelful of coal from the scuttle and tip it on to the grate. But moving back, dusting her hands, she felt her mother’s eyes still on her; and when she met her mother’s gaze she was unnerved to see in it a touch of that oddness, that wariness, that had been there the night before.

With a jerk, she got to her feet. ‘I think I’m too on edge to sit. We’re all at our wits’ end, aren’t we? Have you eaten?’

It took her mother a moment to answer. ‘No. No, I’ve no appetite.’

‘Neither have I. But we must eat. What time is it?’

She looked at the clock, and saw with astonishment that it was nearly one. The morning had passed with the weird pacing – hectic, yet clogged with repetition and reversal – of a bad dream.

Going over to the sofa, she offered her hand.

‘Come out to the kitchen with me, and keep me company. I’ll make some sort of a lunch. Come on. You oughtn’t to sit here fretting.’

Her heart was squirming as she spoke, but her voice was strong again. Her mother looked up at her, hesitating, still with a touch of that oddness about her; then she lowered her eyes, nodded, and let herself be helped from the sofa.



While they were in the kitchen, Vera came down in her hat and coat. Lilian, she said, had been put to bed with a hot water bottle. She had had a mouthful of bread and butter, more tea, and some Chlorodyne, and they hoped now that she would sleep; her mother was sitting in the bedroom with her. She herself was heading off to the post office to telephone to the rest of the family. No, there was nothing else they needed, though it was kind of Miss Wray to offer. She wasn’t to trouble any more. They could look after Lil now.