The Paying Guests(147)
Lilian said, ‘What is it? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘But I don’t know how bad it is. I just don’t know what to think.’
And quickly, quietly, she told Lilian everything: the conversation with Mrs Playfair, the scene with her mother to which it had led, the visit from the inspector… Lilian grew pale again as she listened. By the time Frances had finished she had reached for the newel-post at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against it as if she might faint.
‘Oh, Frances, it’s the end! If your mother’s guessed —’
‘She hasn’t guessed all of it.’
‘And those people in the lane!’
‘They didn’t see anything. Even the inspector admitted that.’
‘But why did he tell you about them at all? Why would he tell you so much?’
‘Yes, that’s the frightening part. He was trying to startle me into confessing something. Something about you and Charlie? Or about you and other men?’
‘Not – Not about you and me?’
‘I don’t know. No, I don’t believe it. But he knows I was at Netta’s party with you, and that I pretended I wasn’t. I wish to God I’d never done that! And I wish I’d never thought to say you were spring-cleaning on the day Leonard died. There’s no going back from that now. It’s in all our statements. Everything he’s turning up looks so damaging! That – That insurance policy.’
She must have sounded odd as she said it. Lilian looked at her in a new way. ‘But that’s nothing. All the married men at the Pearl have them. They get them as part of their job.’
‘Five hundred pounds. It seems such a lot.’
‘But I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘Had you?’
‘Yes! Or —’ She shook her head, confused. ‘I don’t know. Len used to make jokes about it, I suppose. You’re not thinking —?’
‘No,’ said Frances quickly, ‘of course not.’ She wouldn’t allow the thought at all. ‘I’m just trying to look at it as he’ll look at it.’
At the mention of the inspector, Lilian sank on to the lowest step of the staircase. ‘Oh, he frightens me to death! I knew he was thinking things about Charlie and me. I guessed it, from all the questions he asked me on Monday night. If only Charlie would tell the truth! He’ll have to now, won’t he? If that couple were really in the lane? But then, if he does – Oh, Frances, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Every time the doorbell goes I think it’s the police. But if it’s Charlie they’re watching… Betty was here yesterday. I could hardly look her in the eye. I can’t look anyone in the eye, except you. They won’t arrest him or anything, will they?’
Frances squatted down beside her. ‘I don’t know. I think they might.’
She looked terrified. ‘Oh, don’t say that! It’s getting worse and worse! First you’re caught up in it; now him. And all from that stupid, stupid moment —’
It was clear what she was remembering: the swing of the ashtray, the cricket-bat crack, Leonard’s heavy collapse to the floor. Upstairs there were voices in the kitchen, the scrabble of the dog’s claws on the lino; she seemed not to hear them. Instead she hung her head, and spoke levelly and wretchedly.
‘You wanted to go for a doctor, didn’t you? I should have let you, I know it now. Whatever might have happened, it couldn’t have been worse than all this. I’ve started to think —’ She couldn’t say it.
Frances stared at her. ‘What?’
‘I’ve started to wonder whether I shouldn’t just tell the police everything.’
‘What?’
‘I’d say I did it all by myself. That you didn’t know anything about it.’
‘Oh, Lilian, you mustn’t! We’ve left it too long. They’d never believe you.’
‘But it’s the truth. They’d have to believe me.’
‘Believe that you carried him? Down the stairs? Up the garden to the lane? And all without my knowing?’
Lilian’s mouth had begun to tremble. ‘Well, I can’t think what else to do! I’ve got you into all this —’
‘Don’t think about me.’
‘You’ve done so much. You’ve done it all!’
‘You’ve been brave too. You just have to be brave for a little longer.’
‘I don’t know if I can be. It’s more like a nightmare than ever.’
‘I know it feels that way,’ said Frances, ‘but there’s no evidence against anyone. They can’t arrest people with no evidence. They can’t —’
But her voice was wavering now. Her last bit of confidence seemed to be melting away. Lilian looked at her, then caught hold of her hands. ‘Oh, don’t be frightened too! You mustn’t be frightened too! If I know you’re frightened, I’ll die!’
She was wringing Frances’s fingers. That panic was back, that dark electricity. They hung on to one another, but might have been gripping each other’s hands over some great gulf, so horribly fused yet separated were they by their terror.
As it had once or twice before, the panic ran through them, then burned itself out. Lilian drew free and put her head in her hands. ‘I wish I could make it be different,’ she said. ‘I wish I could take it all back. I wish, I wish —’ She stopped, exhausted. ‘But wishing’s no good. It never was, was it?’