The Paying Guests(137)
Frances had seen only that morning’s Times – which, she’d thought, was unsettling enough, the original inaccurate mention expanded now into an account of the opening and adjourning of the inquest and Lilian’s ‘trembling’ attendance at it. So when Vera left she went with her as far as the news-stand on the hill; she bought every paper she could afford, the Mirror, the Mail, the Sketch, the Express, the local papers too. Lilian’s image, she saw, unnerved, was on all the pictorials – she tucked the bundle under her arm, feeling squeamish about looking at them there on the street. She didn’t want her mother to see them, either. Once she was back at the house she took them straight up to her bedroom and spread them out on the floor.
She recalled the man with the camera. The pictures showed Lilian leaving the inquest, leaning on her sister’s arm, nervously lowering her head. They were grainy and unsubtle – mere approximations, really – but, all the same, they had captured something of Lilian, they had got the life and solidity of her, and it was incredible, dizzying, mad! to think of the masses of people who, just that morning, must have studied her face over their breakfast eggs and on their trains and buses; who must be gazing at it right now. The Daily Mirror carried a second picture. Perhaps it had been lent, along with that portrait of Leonard, by helpful Uncle Ted. It showed Lilian and Leonard in what might have been someone’s back garden. Leonard had an arm around Lilian’s waist, her hip was tight against his; they looked like any young couple of the clerk class, smiling into their future in Hammersmith or Forest Hill. The caption read, ‘Mr and Mrs Barber, before the tragedy’.
The tone was the same in the other papers. There was no suggestion anywhere that the marriage had been anything other than happy. There was nothing but sympathy for Lilian, the ‘pitiful young widow’, the ‘pathetic wife’. The accounts of the inquest stressed her bravery, her emotion and her looks; there were careful, approving descriptions of her costume. The murder was condemned as the work of a brute who would soon be apprehended, and the police were said to be ‘pursuing several lines of inquiry’, one of which was that theory, already reported by Charlie, that Leonard’s killer might have marked him out in the City and followed him home. Inspector Kemp was inviting members of the public to come forward if they’d noticed any suspicious behaviour on the streets of Blackfriars or Champion Hill on the fatal night.
Going from article to article, from picture to picture, Frances felt as if something that had, until now, been secure in her hand had dropped, had shattered, had burst into a thousand flying pieces. Then again – well, wasn’t it all just what she and Lilian could have hoped for? Charlie’s lie, whatever was behind it, had been enough to give the police their pointer; it didn’t matter which direction they went in now, so long as it took them away from the house. And for how long would the case attract this sort of interest? Another day or two? A week, at most? Soon, surely, it would become clear that the lines of inquiry were so many dead-ends – that Inspector Kemp, for all his confidence, had failed to deliver his man – and the newspapers would look elsewhere. Some more sensational story would be bound to come along. It’s just a question, she told herself, of doggedly sitting it out… But she looked again at those grainy front-page phantoms, more unsettled than ever to think of all the strangers’ gazes to which they had been exposed. Finally she tore the pictures free, screwed them into a ball, took them down to the kitchen, and stuffed them into the stove.
Then neighbours began to call. They had bought the papers too – or had been shown them, they claimed, by their cooks and parlourmaids – and wanted to discuss the latest developments. Mrs Dawson had heard that Mrs Barber had suffered some sort of seizure at the inquest – was that true? The elder Miss Desborough, from the house next door, understood that a second murder had now been committed, but that the police were keeping the matter quiet for some reason of their own. Mr Lamb and Margaret, on the other hand, had been told on good authority that the police were poised to make an arrest. No, there was absolutely no doubt about it. The man was local – a shop-keeper or trader. He had taken against Mr Barber because of an unpaid bill.
And next came Mrs Playfair. She had just that moment returned from Sussex, having cut short her holiday on the Wrays’ behalf.
‘I simply can’t believe it!’ she said, as Frances let her into the house.
Frances answered thinly. ‘Yes, everyone’s saying that.’
‘I opened The Times and actually yelled. You look ill, Frances.’
‘I’m worn out, that’s all. The last few days have seemed endless.’
‘Oh, why wasn’t I here! I could have done so much. But, tell me, how’s your mother?’
For answer, Frances led the way into the drawing-room. Her mother had heard Mrs Playfair’s voice; now, at the sight of her, she seemed close to tears. Mrs Playfair stepped quickly to her and took hold of her hands.
‘What an ordeal, Emily! You look worse even than Frances. I don’t wonder at it. We thought all our horrors were behind us, didn’t we?’
Frances’s mother nodded, unable to speak. But as she wiped her eyes and put away her handkerchief some of the tension went out of her.
‘It’s such a great relief to see you, Jane.’
‘You ought to have telegraphed to me at once.’
‘I’ve hardly known what I’ve been doing. Frances has taken care of most of it, but – I don’t know. It isn’t like an ordinary death or an illness at all.’