Frances couldn’t answer. With a sense almost of despair she saw the family from the house, then made a start on the bedtime chores. Her mother was anxious that the windows be properly fastened; she had to go from one to another, making a display of checking the bolts. When she climbed the stairs at last, and found Lilian’s bedroom door still shut, she paused, and considered tapping on it; only the thought of having to speak before Vera made her move on. But the sound of her step must have carried. As she crossed the landing she heard Lilian’s voice, strained but clear – ‘There’s Frances, isn’t it? Go on!’ – and a moment later the door was opened and Vera’s sharp face appeared around it. Did Miss Wray mind? She wanted the lavatory. She ought to have gone while the others were here. She wouldn’t be a minute, but didn’t like to leave Lil on her own…
She took a lamp with her, and the room was left lighted only by a single shaded candle. Lilian was in the bed: she pushed herself up when she saw Frances, and they went into each other’s arms, clinging breathily together until the steps had faded from the stairs.
‘Oh, Frances, it’s been so dreadful!’
Frances drew free, to look at her properly, to take her white face in her hands. ‘Are you all right? I’ve been out of my mind! You aren’t still bleeding?’
‘Only a bit. It isn’t that. It’s just, they won’t leave me, not for a minute. I just want you! They keep on at me to go to the shop. You don’t want me to go, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘They said you’d rather it.’
‘How could you think that?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. They gave me something to make me sleep, but it – it’s left me muddled.’
They had given her Chlorodyne, Frances remembered. She turned her face to the candlelight and saw the glassiness of her gaze. The fear in her eyes, though, was as sharp as ever. She caught at Frances’s hands and spoke in an urgent whisper. ‘What do you think is happening, Frances? What they said – the police, I mean – They know, don’t they? That Len didn’t fall? That somebody hit him?’
Frances squeezed her fingers. ‘They don’t know that for certain. And they don’t know who hit him.’
‘But they’re bound to work it out! They must be talking to other people. They must have spoken to Charlie by now. They’ll know that Len wasn’t with him last night. They’ll start to put it all together. That Inspector – he’ll figure it out, I know he will.’
‘No. Why would he? They’re just – just trying out ideas. We know what happened. We’re the only people who do. Remember that. It makes us strong. But you’ve got to be careful, when you talk to them again. You’ve got to take care. We both have. Lilian? Do you understand me?’
Lilian’s gaze had loosened. She was like Frances’s mother now, looking not at Frances but into the depths of her own misery. But she blinked, and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be careful.’
‘At least you got the doctor on your side.’
She started. ‘The doctor? No, there mustn’t be a doctor!’
‘At the police station, Lily.’
Her gaze refocused properly. ‘Oh, it feels like a lifetime ago! The matron saw that I was bleeding, so I had to say something about it. I pretended it had all come out in a rush, right there. I thought for a while they wouldn’t believe me. The doctor kept saying how pale I was. But he must have believed me, mustn’t he? Or they wouldn’t have let me come home?’
‘Yes, he must have believed you,’ said Frances. ‘Yes, I’m sure he did.’
She wasn’t sure. How could she be? And the uncertainty had crept into her voice. Lilian’s grip on her hands grew tighter, and for a moment that electric panic was back – or, anyhow, the possibility of it – Frances could feel it like a threat, ready to race between them.
But they were too worn out to sustain it. Lilian closed her swollen eyes, and her shoulders slumped. When she spoke again, her voice was small.
‘It was so awful seeing Len’s parents. They wanted to talk about the baby. They wanted to know why Len hadn’t said anything. I had to pretend we were keeping it quiet, because of what happened last time. The way his mother looked at me, though. She hates me worse than ever now. She blames me for this. I knew she would. Oh, I wish I could sleep for a hundred years!’
She looked so ill that Frances almost feared to take hold of her again. But they couldn’t be apart: they moved back into an embrace, their arms tight around each other – as if, she thought, by love, by passion, they could make everything all right.
‘You won’t leave me?’ Lilian whispered.
‘No! How could I?’
‘I’ve been so afraid. If I could just have you with me, none of it would be so bad. If I could just —’ But clear across her words there came the sound of the closing back door, and, ‘There’s Len!’ she said, in alarm and excitement, twitching free in the old way.
For a second, Frances, aghast, could see that she believed it. Then she looked into Frances’s face, realised what she had said, and her own face pulled tight. She covered her eyes. By the time Vera returned, she was crying.
Once Frances was in her own room, she didn’t believe that she would sleep. There was so much to think about still. She was reluctant even to undress. Suppose Lilian should give something away? And then, there were the stains on the carpet, the ashtray tucked behind the sofa: oughtn’t she to have another look at it all? Finally, wincing with pain and stiffness, she put on her nightgown, climbed into bed, and rolled herself a cigarette. She’d give it half an hour, she thought, and then go creeping into the sitting-room, just to be sure that everything was all right.
But even before she’d got the cigarette lit, she closed her eyes, leaned back into her pillow – and suddenly she found herself in an unfamiliar house with crumbling walls. How had she got there? She had no idea. She knew only that she had to keep the place from collapsing. But the task was like torture. The moment she got one wall upright, the next would start to tilt; soon she was rushing from room to room, propping up sagging ceilings, hauling back the slithering treads of tumbling staircases. On and on she went, through all the hours of the night; on and on, without pause, staving off one impossible catastrophe after another.
12
She awoke to more darkness. The rain had stopped – that was something – but a mist hung just beyond the window, like a dirty veil on the world. The Sunday bells rang as usual, but her mother, who had slept badly, didn’t attempt to go to church, and since neither of them could face breakfast they simply sat at the kitchen table with a cooling pot of tea between them, too dazed for conversation, paralysed by the wrongness of things.
Presently they rose to go over to the drawing-room, and as they were crossing the hall Lilian came down to take a bath. She came a step at a time, leaning heavily on her sister’s arm.
Frances darted forward to help. Her mother, hanging back, said, ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Barber?’
She was still ghastly pale, though her gaze, to Frances’s relief, was clearer. ‘I feel so weak,’ she answered.
‘I’m sure you do. I’m glad you have someone here to look after you’ – with the ghost of a smile for Vera. ‘I meant to go to morning service. I should so like to have said a prayer for you there. But I couldn’t quite manage it today. I shall say my prayers for you here instead.’
Lilian dipped her head. ‘Thank you, Mrs Wray. I’m sorry everything’s been so – so awful.’
‘You mustn’t think that. You must keep up your strength. And if there’s anything at all that Frances or I can do to help you, you must tell us – will you?’
Lilian nodded, grateful, her eyes filming with tears.
But there was something, Frances thought, slightly strained about the encounter, an odd lack of warmth on her mother’s part, despite the kindness of her words. And when the two of them had gone through to the drawing-room, her mother sat down and said in an almost querulous way, ‘Mrs Barber looks dreadful! Surely it would
make more sense for her to be with her family? Why on earth didn’t her mother take her home with her last night?’
‘She tried to take her,’ said Frances, as she laid kindling in the grate. ‘Lilian doesn’t want to go.’
‘Why not?’
‘She wants to stay here.’
‘But, why?’
She looked up. ‘Well, why do you think? It’s her home.’
Her mother didn’t answer that. She sat with her hands in her lap, her papery fingers fidgeting.
The morning wore on in its off-kilter way. Frances waited for another chance to see Lilian alone, and found none. Outside, the mist thickened until it might have been pressing at the house. Indoors, she seemed to feel the drawing-room steadily filling with her mother’s sighs. When, at around midday, she answered a knock at the front door and saw that Mrs Viney was back, with Netta, Min, baby Siddy and Vera’s little girl, Violet, she felt genuinely pleased to see them. Violet had her doll’s pram with her, and she helped her manoeuvre it into the hall.
But Mrs Viney came in puffing, her colour higher than ever. Had Miss Wray and her mother seen the News of the World? No? With a sort of grim pride she fished the paper out of a balding carpet bag on her arm, to show Frances a smudged half-column entitled MURDER AT CHAMPION HILL: CLERK’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH.
A frightful discovery was made early yesterday morning at Champion-hill, Camberwell. The body of Mr Leonard Barber, a resident of the good-class street, was found in a secluded spot where it had apparently been lying for many hours. Mr Barber, an insurance-clerk, had plainly received a most ghastly blow to the head. Policemen and a doctor were summoned at once, but life being found to be extinct the body was conveyed to the Camberwell mortuary. Mr Barber’s widow, on being informed of her husband’s death, is said to have plunged into a collapsed condition, with very pitiful results.
Frances felt sick. To see the case reported like that – unequivocally like that, as murder; to see the reference to Lilian; to see it all there, between another lurid headline, BOY’S ESCAPE, and cheap advertisements for winter woollies and a constipation cure —!
‘“Insurance-clerk”,’ she said. ‘How do they know so much already? And “pitiful results”! Where did they get that from?’
‘Well, not from anyone in our family,’ said Mrs Viney, ‘that’s for sure! There was a chap at the shop yesterday asking questions, my husband told me. He sent him off with a flea in his ear – and I shall do the same, if I see him! But word gets about, that’s the trouble. People will talk; well, it’s human nature. One thing I am pleased about: they mention the class of the street. As soon as I saw that I said to Min, “Well, thank heavens for that, if only for Miss Wray’s and her mother’s sake!” – didn’t I, Min? Still,’ she added, in a lower tone, ‘I shan’t show this to Lil. It wouldn’t do her no good, would it? Have you seen her this morning, Miss Wray? Is she any better in herself? It’s a terrible thing to lose your husband. I remember when her poor father died, I didn’t know whether I was on my heels or on my head. I ran out into the street in my petticoat; a man crying brooms had to dash water in my face!’
As she spoke, she tucked the newspaper back into her bag, and Frances saw, in the bag’s interior, open packets of black material, along with a jumble of black silk flowers, black threads, ribbons and dye. Yes, said Mrs Viney, noticing the direction of her gaze, they planned to make Lil some mourning costumes this afternoon. They’d gone right through her wardrobe yesterday and, would you believe it, with all those colours of hers she’d barely got a bit of black to her name.
Hearing movement overhead, she stumped forward. ‘Are you there, my darling? It’s only me and your sisters, love!’ She began to haul herself up the stairs.
And so, once again, the house became a muddle of footsteps, creaking floorboards and raised voices. Drawers were opened in Lilian’s bedroom. There were arguments in the little kitchen. Frances heard pans and kettles being filled, then set to heat on the stove; soon lids were rattling above simmering water, and the sourish, briny smell of the black dye began to creep downstairs. She recognised it with a shiver, for it was one of those scents, like the smell of khaki and of certain French cigarettes, forever to be associated with the worst days of the War.
But she couldn’t bear to let all the activity keep her from Lilian; not again. She and her mother ate an unhappy, un-Sunday lunch, and her mother returned to the chair by the fire. But she herself went up and tapped shyly at the sitting-room door – just wanting to know, she said, if the family needed any help.
They had begun sewing already: they all had pools of black silk in their laps. The curtains at the windows were part-way shut – out of respect for Leonard, she supposed – but the lamps were lighted, coals were piled high in the grate, and the stains on the carpet were lost in the general clutter; the room retained its cosiness, in spite of everything that had happened. Vera was at one end of the sofa, a saucer of cigarette stubs by her arm. Min was beside her, sitting with her legs drawn up. Lilian was at the other end, closest to the fire. She was sewing like her sisters, but she let the work fall, and dropped her head against a cushion, to look over at Frances while Netta fetched a kitchen chair.
On Friday evening, Frances thought, she herself had sat where Min was now, holding on to Lilian’s hand. Their future had felt real, close, palpable, just an inch or two beyond their outstretched fingers. Now, returning Lilian’s gaze, she saw her tired dark eyes begin to brim with tears, as if exactly the same vision had occurred to her. They exchanged a tiny shake of the head, a shrug of hopeless regret. If only, if only, if only…
The little girl was at one of the windows, tracing patterns on the steamy glass. She turned to the room. ‘There’s a policeman coming!’
Frances looked at her. ‘Coming to the house?’
She answered as if to a half-wit. ‘No, coming to the moon.’ And while Vera got up, to smack her, Frances pushed past her and, wiping a pane, saw two men down on the pavement, just lifting the latch of the garden gate. She recognised Sergeant Heath at once. The other man wore an ordinary brown ulster, with a Homburg hiding his face. But as they crossed the front garden he tilted back his head – and then she saw his pink bank-manager’s lips and chin, his steel glasses. It was Inspector Kemp. He spotted her at the window, and raised his hand.
She couldn’t tell anything from their expressions when she let them in. And their tones, when they spoke, were as bland as ever. They apologised for disturbing her. They wanted a word with Mrs Barber, that was all. They were assuming she was at home?
She gestured them up the staircase, looked in on her mother, then followed them up to the sitting-room.
The bits of black sewing had been hastily tidied away. Lilian had shifted to the front of the sofa and was nervously smoothing down her hair. ‘I hope you’re feeling better?’ the inspector asked her, once a few subdued greetings had been exchanged. ‘I don’t mean to keep you too long today. But if you can spare me a few minutes, I’d be grateful. I’d like to tell you about the progress we’re making with the case.’
He sounded amiable enough. Again, however, Frances had the impression that his friendliness was all surface – or, worse than that, was somehow strategic, designed to put Lilian at her ease, the better, later, to trip her up. In the minute or two that it took to bring in another chair she saw him gazing around the room, clearly taking it all in. When Siddy awoke and began crying, and had to be bounced on Netta’s knee, he stood in a patient way on the hearth-rug, looking politely at the objects on the mantelpiece: the elephants, the Buddha, the tambourine, the china caravan…
Siddy’s howls subsided and the room settled down. Frances remained over by the door, on one of the kitchen chairs; Sergeant Heath had the other, between Netta and Mrs Viney. The inspector took the easy chair, across the hearth from Lilian. He sat at the front of it, still in his overcoat, his elbows on his parted knees, his hat dangling from his pudgy fingers.
‘Well,’ he said, addressing Lilian, ?
??I dare say you’ve seen the morning papers. I should like to have spoken to you before we made our statement to the press, but they caught us on the hop a bit last night; I must apologise for that. I’m afraid what they’re saying is true. We’ve had our suspicions from the start, as you know. But there’s no doubt whatever now that this is a case of murder.’
Frances’s heart seemed to lose its footing. All this time, in spite of everything, she’d had a small, persistent hope that there would be too much uncertainty for the police to be able to commit themselves to the idea of the crime, to the word. Lilian must have felt the same: she closed her eyes, held herself tensely, as if unable to answer. Min, sitting beside her, gave her an awkward comforting pat. Netta drew Siddy closer. The little girl, cross-legged on the pouffe now, pinning scraps of black material together, sensed the stir and lifted her head.
Only the men were still – still and watchful, Frances thought. And partly to draw their attention from Lilian, who remained in that fixed, incapable pose, she cleared her throat and said, ‘How can you be sure?’
The inspector looked across at her. ‘Our medical examiner, Mr Palmer, has confirmed it.’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘Well, there are certain details. The nature of the injury, and so on… I don’t wish to distress Mrs Barber by saying too much.’
But they had to hear, thought Frances. They had to know what the police had discovered. And, again, Lilian must have been thinking the same thing. She said, ‘You might as well tell me. I’ll have to hear it some time, won’t I?’
So now he looked over at the little girl, in a meaningful sort of way. Vera said smoothly, ‘Vi, take Siddy next door and show him Auntie Lily’s perfume bottles, there’s a good girl.’
Violet pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘You take him right now, or there’ll be trouble! The sergeant’s got his eye on you, look.’