The Paying Guests(153)

Frances snatched the paper back again and read the report for herself. But it still didn’t make any sense. All she could see were the unfamiliar names: Spencer Ward, Billie Grey. What on earth did it mean? New information… taking exception… intimacy… the married Mr Barber…

Intimacy… the married Mr Barber…

At last, as if the words were so many things – coins, say – that had been sent spinning up into the air and now, one by one, dropped and settled, the whole thing fell into place.

All this time, Leonard must have been having an affair of his own. He’d been seeing some girl, some girl named Billie. It was the girl’s boy-friend who’d been accused of killing him.

Her first, astonishing feeling was something like betrayal, a spasm of outrage at the thought that Leonard could have done this thing, maintained this lie, while she knew nothing. Then she took in the implications of the boy-friend’s arrest; and she grew sick.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. No. It isn’t possible.’

‘But —’

‘It’s too dreadful, Chrissy!’

‘What? I thought – Well, if the police have got the killer, doesn’t it solve everything?’

‘No! Don’t you see?’

But how could Christina see? How could she possibly understand the utter mess and horror of it? The police had arrested an innocent man! Frances looked into her face. Can I tell you? she thought again. Can I? Dare I?

Then she remembered Lilian. She threw down the paper and picked up her hat. ‘I have to go.’

Christina blinked. ‘What? Where to?’

‘To Lilian. She’ll have seen the papers too.’

‘Well, but don’t go like this. You look demented!’

‘I feel demented,’ said Frances. ‘But I’ll feel worse if I don’t see her.’ She pulled on her gloves. ‘I’ll take a cab.’ Then she thought of her purse, and gave a wail of despair. ‘I haven’t the money!’

‘I can give you the money. But —’

‘Will you? Oh, Chrissy, will you, please?’

So Christina fetched the money-box and emptied its contents into Frances’s hands. But as Frances began to move off she caught hold of her arm. ‘Wait, Frances.’

Frances was pulling away, impatient. ‘I have to go. There isn’t time.’

‘Frances, please. Be careful, will you?’

Frances looked at her properly then, and they moved back together. They embraced, their two hearts thudding like fists on the opposite sides of a bolted door.

Down on the street she picked up a cab almost immediately. The driver made good time to the river, then got caught in a snarl of traffic on Waterloo Bridge. She sat watching the dial as the threepences mounted up, fidgeting about with anxiety, seeing people all around her with ordinary expressions on their faces and unable to believe that they weren’t sharing her panic. But then with the sudden give of liquid coming out of a blocked pipe the traffic ran smoothly again. Another little jam at the Elephant and Castle, and she was on the Walworth Road.

The street was busy with shoppers. Mr Viney’s window was bright this time, and the blind on the door was lifted: she could see him behind the counter, with Min beside him, serving a customer. But again she went to the other door and put her finger to the bell; again it was freckled, unfriendly Lydia who came down to let her in; again the dog was madly yapping as she climbed the narrow staircase. The door at the top was shut, but she could hear women’s voices beyond. She didn’t pause, she didn’t knock. She turned the doorknob and went through.

Gathered around the kitchen table she found Mrs Viney, Vera, Lilian and the little girl, Violet. They looked at her in amazement. Vera had a cigarette halfway to her mouth, her lips parted to receive it. Mrs Viney, clambering to her feet, said, ‘Miss Wray, well I never! We thought it was Lydia’s big sister, come to fetch her home!’

Lilian’s eyes were red with weeping. Frances spoke directly to her. ‘I just saw the paper. I just saw the news.’

She looked frightened. ‘Is it in the papers already? What are they saying?’

‘They’re saying a man’s been charged. They’re saying something about Leonard and a girl —?’

Her expression of fear turned to one of simple misery. She dipped her head and wouldn’t answer.

The dog barked again. Violet caught hold of it by its stub of a tail. Mrs Viney began to recover herself.

‘Oh, Miss Wray, aren’t you kind? To think of you coming all this way!’ She found Frances a chair. ‘We had it all from Sergeant Heath first thing this morning. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! Poor Lil’s quite floored. Who’d have believed it of Lenny? He’d been seeing this girl quite regular, by all accounts, for months and months. And Charlie doing the same with the girl’s married sister! It all come out last night, the sergeant said. They had Charlie in for more questions, and he broke right down and told them the lot. They went straight off, then, and caught the boy – picked him up just like that. He had the weapon on him and everything.’

‘He had the weapon?’ repeated Frances. She looked at Lilian again. ‘But —’

‘He’s one of these rough types,’ Mrs Viney went on. ‘Been in all sorts of trouble before. Well, it was him that had a go at Lenny back in the summer, it turns out. Do you remember? When we was all so worried? And Lenny told us it was a soldier? Well, it was this boy all along! He’d found out about Lenny and his girl and went after him to scare him off. Yes, it’s all come out now. Nineteen, that’s all he is! It’s his poor mother I feel sorry for.’