by Marie Joseph
‘Now this.’ She pointed at the picture of a house, a difficult one this time, and taking his small hand in her own opened her lips to the rounded vowel, then pursed them to the consonant. ‘House . . . house . . . house.’
At twelve o’clock, the time when Beatrice should have called to pick up her son, the hour came and went. Edwin lunched with Harry and Libby, sitting at the table between them, silent and stolid, picking at his food, pathetically oblivious to the conversation going on above his bowed head.
‘There’s something wrong.’ Libby crumbled the bread on her sideplate, her appetite gone. ‘I’ll take him home myself. It’s Nurse Tomkin’s afternoon off, but she’ll see to the baby if I ask her.’
‘It’s time Nurse went back to her own village, anyway.’ Harry’s red face gave nothing of his true feelings away. If the boy couldn’t hear, he could see, and from the look of him he’d had his fill of grown-up battles for a while. ‘You know how I feel.’
‘I’ll take him now.’ Ignoring her husband’s remark, Libby got up from the table and touching Edwin’s arm propelled him towards the door.
‘I’ll run him back,’ Harry offered, but she shook her head.
‘I need to get out of the house,’ she said, leaving Harry sitting at the table with a troubled expression darkening his pleasant face.
Used to silence, the small boy trotted along at her side, down the wide road, past the park, his cap pulled low over his forehead and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his tweed overcoat. Libby’s coat with its high fur collar kept her neck warm, but left her legs prey to the cold, blustery wind. The curling feather on her cloche hat blew across her face, gently stroking her lipstick, and now and again she pushed it back with an impatient hand.
When they reached the house she saw that the big front door was open. As Edwin turned the knob on the vestibule door and stepped inside, she stood irresolute, wanting to hand him over properly before leaving.
Feeling embarrassed and a little silly, she called out, ‘Mrs McDermot? It’s me, Mrs Brandwood. I’ve brought Edwin back. Is anyone there?’
Edwin turned a questioning face up to her as Libby, making up her mind, pushed him in front of her down the narrow lobby and into the living room at the back of the house. ‘Mrs McDermot?’ she called out again, then the words tailed away into an awful silence as she stared down at the man lying face downwards on the carpet, a pool of blood seeping from a gash on his head and running down his white starched collar.
The silence was broken horribly by the low gutteral sounds coming from Edwin’s mouth. Harsh, animal-like noises, all his careful tuition forgotten as he communicated in the only way he knew.
Before Libby could move he was down on his knees, his fingers bloodied as they touched his father’s hair, his face a mask of horror as he stared over to where his mother crouched in a corner, her fat face working convulsively, a breadknife clutched in her hand.
Beatrice McDermot was drunk. As the woman pulled herself up slowly by the edge of a chair, Libby moved to pull the boy away from the still figure on the floor. ‘Upstairs!’ She mouthed the word, her face on a level with Edwin’s staring eyes. ‘Go upstairs! Now!’
Then as he obeyed, Libby ran back down the lobby, her legs turned to water, to throw herself into the surprised arms of a sober-coated man letting himself out of the house next door.
‘Have you got a telephone?’ She gripped the lapels of his coat, staring wildly into the astonished face beneath the bowler hat. ‘Yes? Oh, thank God! Telephone for the police! Quickly! There’s been a murder next door.’
She wanted to run. All she wanted to do was to run as fast as she could, away from the street, to put as much distance as possible between her and the scene she had left. But there was the boy . . . With her hands held to her trembling mouth Libby recalled the sodden, drunken expression on Beatrice McDermot’s bloated face, the insane gloating in the small eyes as she had advanced towards her son with the knife held in her hand.
With her heart beating like a tomtom, choking her throat with its pounding, Libby forced herself to turn and go back into the house, hearing the ruby-red panels of glass in the vestibule door shiver in protest as it swung to behind her.
With a small sigh of thankfulness she saw that Beatrice was still in the living room, too stupefied by drink to climb the stairs after her son.
‘Give that knife to me!’ Libby advanced towards her, her teachers voice ringing out so clear that even in her terror its calmness surprised her. ‘Mrs McDermot! Give that knife to me Now! At once!’
The fat jowls quivered, and the small eyes, sunk into cushions of fat, narrowed into evil slits, but the knife dropped to the floor.
Keeping her eyes on the swaying, whimpering woman, Libby picked up the knife and put it on the sideboard. ‘Now we will wait for the police to come,’ she said. Beatrice slid to the floor again, wailing and weeping, rocking herself backwards and forwards, her short arms folded round her body. Libby stood quite still, willing away the next ten minutes, the longest minutes she had ever experienced.
When Libby heard a car draw up outside she closed her eyes for a moment in a fervent prayer of thanks. Now it was all over. The police would take the wailing woman away; they would take the man that had been her husband away, and Libby could go home. And she would take the boy with her. Harry would know what to do next. Oh, Harry . . . At that moment she knew she would have given anything to see his square-set body coming through the door, his face full of concern as he held out his arms to her.
‘She did it! Libby’s eyes flew wide as Beatrice struggled to her feet and faced the two policemen coming in through the door, one in uniform and the other in plain clothes. ‘She’s been carrying on with my husband, and when I threatened to tell her husband she went for me with a knife.’ She pointed to the knife on the sideboard. ‘There it is!’ She took an unsteady step forwards. ‘It was me she went for, but he got in the way.’
Libby shook her head from side to side. It wasn’t possible that the drunken woman could be saying such things. Beatrice was paralytic with drink. For the past fifteen minutes she had been moaning incoherently to herself, crouched on the floor, and yet now her voice held the ring of truth as she pointed to Mungo’s body.
Then, before anyone could move, Beatrice lurched across and with the toe of her shoe turned her husband’s dead body over so that his face, the eyes wide open, the skin a dirty grey, presented itself to them in all its horror.’
‘See! Beatrice pounced. ‘Here’s her photograh! She was trying to snatch it from him when I found them together. See! See for yourself!’
And as Libby looked, she saw Carrie’s face staring at her from the photograph held in Beatrice’s outstretched hand. Carrie, before her hair had been cut, smiling into the camera, wearing the white blouse she had pin-tucked herself, her dark eyes steady in the sweet serenity of her face
‘See for yourself!’ Beatrice said, then was sick on the carpet.
When they put her into a cell down at the police station Libby couldn’t believe it was happening to her. When she heard Beatrice shouting obscenely she asked about the boy and was told that he was being taken care of. When she was told that they were trying to contact her husband but without success, she put her head down in her hands and wept, imagining Harry going about his business, making his prolonged afternoon calls in blissful ignorance of what was happening.
When they brought her into an interview room an hour later and she saw Carrie standing there, Libby went straight into her sister’s arms, all antagonism forgotten as they clung together. Two halves of one, as united as if the shadow of Tom Silver had never come between them.
‘It’s all right, love. Everything will be all right.’ Carrie smoothed Libby’s hair away from her forehead. ‘When Nurse Tomkin couldn’t find Harry she telephoned me. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Hush, hush . . . don’t cry.’
When the plain clothes man coughed discreetly by the door and they moved apart, he aske
d Carrie to go through into the next room. ‘I’ll call you in when I’m ready,’ he said. ‘Just wait till you’re told, lass. Right?’
Libby stood with bowed head as they brought Beatrice in. A cleaned-up though still sour-smelling Beatrice, defiance flaring from her eyes, and only the quivering of her chins betraying her agitation.
‘Are you sure that this is the woman who you say was having an affair with your husband, the deceased?’ The policeman placed the photograph in the middle of the table. ‘This woman?’ He pointed to Libby. ‘This same woman as on this photograph?’
Beatrice nodded firmly. ‘See for yourself. What can’t speak can’t lie, can it? It’s her all right.’
The detective constable made a sign to the uniformed man standing by the door, then as Carrie came in he motioned her to stand beside Libby.
‘Now.’ He spoke firmly. ‘Now, Mrs McDermot. Are you still sure that the lady you accused is the one in the photograph? That she was the one who went for your husband with the knife this morning?’ His voice whispered, silken soft. ‘Because this lady here,’ he pointed to Carrie, ‘has told me that she was the one friendly with your husband and her alibi this morning is as tight as a sealed drum.’ He motioned to the sisters to stand even closer. ‘Now, make up your mind, Mrs McDermot. Do you still stick to your statement?’
Beatrice’s mouth stayed open in a wide startled ‘O’ of amazement. Blinking, she stared as if she could not believe the evidence of her eyes. Identical faces, identical hair, noses, eyes . . . She stared first at the photograph, then at the two faces staring at her silently. She staggered, the sickness rising thick in her throat again, then before her fuddled brain could react coherently, the detective barked at her, ‘You killed your husband, Mrs McDermot! You found him looking at the photograph, and in a frenzy of jealousy you went for the knife and you killed him. You’ve been attacking him for years. Isn’t that true! Isn’t it? Well?’
Before Beatrice could reach the sisters, her arms were pinioned behind her by the policeman standing by the door, but he was too late to stop the spit shooting from her mouth straight into Libby’s face.
‘Yes, I killed him!’ she screamed. ‘He was a nothing! A weak bundle of nowt! He wasn’t a man! He wasn’t even man enough to fight for his country. I hated him. He wasn’t even man to give me a proper son. He deserved to die! I wished he’d died more slowly, but oh no, one slash and he went.’ She fought like a maniac as the policeman dragged her away. ‘He didn’t even put up a fight for himself! He just stood there and let me do it – just stood there, egging me on!’
It was a long time before her cries died away, and even when they had stopped both Libby and Carrie knew that they would be hearing them for a long time to come.
When the detective said they could go, they walked away together as if they were one person, leaving him scratching his head and staring after them, scarcely believing the evidence of his own eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘THERE’S A MAN at the door says he wants to see Miss Carrie.’
Mrs Edwards, wearing a flour-spattered apron, looked flustered. It wasn’t her place to answer the door but what with the new girl being off with the flu, the morning help having gone home and something serious going on in the lounge, she didn’t know whether she was coming or going. Added to which, her deafness had stopped her from hearing the caller’s name properly.
Harry jumped to his feet at the sight of her anxious face. ‘I’ll see to it, Mrs Edwards.’ He turned and nodded at the three worried faces. ‘If it’s a reporter I’ll send him packing. We have nothing to say to the papers, not now or ever.’
He was back in less than a minute with Tom Silver, a grim-faced Tom who, going straight to Carrie, took both her hands in his own.
‘They gave me the brief details to set up at work.’ His eyes searched hers. ‘It merely said that Mungo McDermot had been murdered and his wife is helping the police with their inquiries. But there are rumours, and when I heard them I just put my coat on and came straight out.’ He shook her hands gently. ‘Carrie, love, you mustn’t set foot out of the house. I know what the press can be like when they scent a mystery.’
Then for the first time he seemed to be aware that there were others in the room. ‘Mrs Peel.’ He nodded politely in Ettie’s direction, still keeping hold of Carrie. ‘I apologize for barging in like this, but I couldn’t stay away.’ He gave Libby a cursory glance and a brief nod. ‘Libby . . .’ Then he held out a hand to Harry. ‘You must be Dr Brandwood? My name is Silver, Tom Silver.’
‘Glad to know you.’
Harry shook the outstretched hand, pumping it up and down, his innate good manners not quite good enough to conceal the flash of interest in his eyes. So this was the man Libby had been so scornful about. The man she was convinced was after the Peel money. Well, well . . . Tom Silver might not be old-school-tie material, but neither was he a flat-capped moron. Quite presentable really, Harry decided.
‘Oh, Tom.’ Carrie drew him down to sit beside her on the chesterfield. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come. Everything has been so dreadful.’ She caught hold of his jacket sleeve. ‘It was Libby who found the body, not me.’ Then in a low voice, never taking her eyes from his face, she told Tom the whole story. ‘We were going to have the boy brought here but the police told Harry that one of Mungo’s wife’s sisters had already been and taken him away. Libby thinks this will have undone all the progress she was making with his speech. She wouldn’t be surprised if he never tried to speak again. For a child to see his father . . . oh, Tom, Mungo’s wife is insane. He used to tell me she was, but I thought he was exaggerating, and now Libby is involved, and it’s all my fault – oh, Tom . . .’
As though they were entirely alone, Tom took her in his arms, holding her head, stroking her hair, whispering, groping in his pocket for a handkerchief, and then drying her eyes as tenderly as if she were a child.
Libby watched them closely, seeing, with a painful sense of loss, the love of two people belonging together as if they were indeed one person.
‘Harry!’ Her voice was harsh and abrupt. ‘Now that Mr Silver is here I think we can go.’ She reached for the fur-trimmed coat lying across the back of a chair, holding it out for Harry to help her on with it. ‘You will have patients waiting and I have the baby to see to. Mother? You are sure you don’t want to come back with us? Mr Silver will see that Carrie is all right, I’m sure of that.’
‘I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down for a while.’ Ettie, too, got up from her seat by the fire and held out a wavering hand to Harry. ‘Perhaps you will see me to my room, Harry? My head is aching and my back hurts.’ She took a few tottering steps towards the door, sliding out as usual from a situation she found intolerable. ‘Ask Mrs Edwards to have something sent up to me on a tray, will you, Carrie?’
Embarrassed but obedient, Harry took her arm. Libby drew on her gloves. ‘You know where I am if you need me, Carrie.’ The door closed behind them.
‘Ah, well . . .’ Tom’s dark eyes held for a moment their customary twinkle. ‘No one could exactly say that I’m welcome round here, but what does that matter?’ He traced the outline of Carrie’s mouth with a finger. ‘This will blow over, love. Whatever comes out in the paper, the public have short memories.’ He smiled at her with love. ‘Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip wrapping. Always has been and always will be. Right?’ He tightened his arms round her. ‘And when your mother’s settled in her bed I’m going up to talk to her. No, don’t say anything. I’m not going to slink from the house this time like an intruder. Your mother can’t collapse on me twice on the trot. Even your brother-in-law might suspect that she might be malingering this time.’
Suddenly he was very serious. ‘You have to make up your mind, love. You should have come for me before you went along down to the police station. My office is only a minute away, for heaven’s sake. You must understand that from now on we face things together.’ He hugged her tightly. ‘Even murders, lov
e. You’re never going to need to face any kind of trouble alone. Never. You understand?’
‘But it was Libby who suffered, not me.’ Carrie shook her head. ‘Not me. She might have been killed, Tom. She want back into that house alone to protect the boy, and never even said that the photograph wasn’t of her. She was so brave. Far braver than I would have been.’
‘Rubbish!’ Tom held her away from him, looking deep into her troubled eyes. ‘Your sister will always be able to stand on her own two feet; she’s made that way. She might look like you . . .’ He grinned. ‘And seeing you together for the first time gave me a bit of a turn, I might tell you. But I know how completely different you are.’ He took a deep breath: ‘Now! Do you think your mother will be decently in bed and ready for me to go and see her? Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do, and if she faints I’ll just wait till she comes round, then tell her we’re getting married all the same. Ready?’
‘Alone!’ he whispered, as Carrie let him into the big front bedroom where Ettie lay against her pillows, a handkerchief soaked in eau de Cologne pressed to her forehead. ‘You go back downstairs, and leave this to me. Right?’
He walked to the foot of the bed and stood there, his chin up in a gesture that, had the frail woman in the bed known it, spoke more of shyness and reserve than defiance.
‘I would like a word, Mrs Peel,’ he said.
Ettie’s eyes were closed behind the scented handkerchief, but her mind was working feverishly. Like Libby, she had seen the love that shimmered between this man and her daughter, and seeing it had known for certain this time that she had lost.
‘I am not very well, Mr Silver.’ There was a plaintive pleading in her voice. ‘This terrible business has upset me dreadfully. And now I would like to sleep.’