The Paying Guests(149)

‘It’s all on account of what’s been in the paper. Haven’t you seen? A man and a woman are saying they heard things on the night of the murder, and —’

Frances looked at her in sick dismay. ‘That’s in the papers now?’

‘It was in the Express this morning. But we knew already, from the police, and Lenny’s family have been ever so funny with Charlie over it; they say they don’t know who to believe. He was meant to have helped carry the coffin, but they only told him last night that they didn’t want him to do it. They got one of Lenny’s cousins to do it instead – the Black and Tan one, too! Lil thinks they did that to get at her. They’ve been saying such awful things about her.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘That she wasn’t a proper wife. That she and Charlie have been too friendly. And things about her money. That it’s too much, or —?’

‘Her money?’

‘The money she’s meant to get because of Lenny’s having died.’

That damn insurance policy! If the five hundred pounds had become public knowledge, how long before the papers got hold of it? What would that do to the case?

‘Lil’s been in such a state about it,’ Min was saying now. ‘The Barbers won’t say anything to her face, but none of them will look her in the eye. They wouldn’t let our car go first after the hearse. And now they’ve moved her flowers —’

She was interrupted by Vera and Netta, who had come striding over from the grave. They were furiously brushing yellow pollen from their black silk gloves.

‘Well, Miss Wray,’ said Vera, ‘isn’t this charming? Len would laugh his head off, wouldn’t he? We’re all meant to be going back to Cheveney Avenue now for tea and biscuits. I’m surprised they asked us, aren’t you? You’d think they’d be afraid of Lil putting arsenic in the drinks! I wouldn’t set foot in their house after this, not if they paid me. We’re going home.’ She looked around. ‘Where did Mum go?’

One of the cousins said, ‘She and Auntie Cathy’ve taken Lil to the gate. Lloyd’s gone on with Pat and Jimmy to fetch the cars.’

‘Right.’

The three sisters put down their heads and started off along the narrowish path, with Min’s young man and the cousins following. Frances stood still for a second, then hurried after them – hoping to see Lilian, if only for a moment, before she was whisked away.

But even in the fifty or so minutes that had elapsed since they’d all arrived, news of the funeral must have spread. Back at the cemetery entrance, the scene was chaotic. There were reporters and photographers, and more of the sort of gawpers who had been at the inquest, people who’d materialised on the pavement to watch the mourners emerge. Boys were sticking their heads through the railings; a few were even balanced on top. Two of them caught Frances’s eye and called to her – called in the urgent yet amiable way in which they might have appealed for directions in the street.

‘Hi! Lady! Which is the chap?’

They meant Charlie, she realised. And an instant later she saw him, talking to one of the undertakers; Betty was beside him, holding on to his arm. They both had mortified expressions. Charlie’s face was so peaked it looked waxy. Perhaps he was asking if the cemetery had any other exits to it: the undertaker was nodding, gesturing back towards the graves.

A motor-car blasting its horn made her jump with fright. But she turned her head to it, recognised the car as Lloyd’s – and at last saw Lilian, sitting in the back of it with her mother and her aunt. The car was trying to leave the cemetery, but was being prevented from doing so by another car, which had stopped to open its doors to a harassed-looking Barber party. Lloyd and the Barbers’ driver had let down their windows in order to remonstrate with each other, and a red-haired man, whom Frances had never met before but had seen in the chapel and identified at once as Leonard’s older brother Douglas, had got involved in the argument. He had Leonard’s voice exactly, she noticed with a chill.

Finally the Barbers’ vehicle closed its doors and shuddered into life; Lloyd’s car began to inch forward; and then there was nothing she could do but stand and watch it leave. Its windows reflected the grey and black of the scene: when, at the very last moment, Lilian turned, caught her eye, put up a gloved hand to the glass, she might have been gazing hopelessly out at her, Frances thought, through flowing water; she might have been drowning.



Her expression haunted Frances on the journey back to Champion Hill. She kept remembering what she had said, the last time they had met – that she’d been thinking of going to the police and telling them everything. Suppose she had made up her mind to do it? If only they could have spoken! Was it worth pressing on to Walworth, trying to see her again? But what was the point, if all they could do was stand and murmur in that narrow passage?

By the time she arrived home, to find her mother still unwell, she felt ill herself, her throat gritty, her eyes sore. She went to bed straight after dinner that night, but lay fretful and restless for hours; she felt ill again the next morning, but made herself go down to the news-stand for the papers. Every one of them, now, had picked up the story of the couple in the lane. There were quotes, and pictures, along with descriptions of the funeral. And for the first time, too, there were photographs of Charlie. The Daily Sketch had even got hold of an old snapshot of him and Lilian. It showed them dressed for a party, Lilian with a band across her forehead and drop jewels at her ears; the picture, clearly, was a group one that had been cropped, but cropped in such a way as to make them look almost like sweethearts. The caption identified them as ‘The widow, Mrs Barber, and her friend Mr Wismuth, who is continuing to assist the police with their inquiries.’