The Lodger (3 page)

‘Daisy.'

‘Daisy what?' asked Harry.

‘Dunno.' Small face was adamant about giving little away. Above her head another face appeared, also with smudged blue eyes and untidy curling hair, except that the hair was yellow.

‘Who's 'e?' demanded second face. ‘What's 'e want?'

‘Our mum,' said Daisy.

‘'E's a copper, 'e can't 'ave 'er.' Second face was also adamant. ‘What d'yer want 'er for, mister?'

Harry knew the score. No father, very little money coming in, and the kids standing shoulder to shoulder to prevent creditors getting a foot inside the door. A policeman to them was on the side of the creditors.

‘I'd just like to talk to her,' he said.

‘She don't 'ave no money,' said second face.

Harry smiled and said, ‘I'm not from the landlord.'

‘What yer come knockin' for, then?'

‘What's your name?' Harry was willing to be patient, and he was pretty sure their mother was in. ‘It's Tulip, I bet.'

‘Tulip?' Second face looked indignant. ‘I'm Lily, I am.'

‘Here, who's 'e?' Of all things, a third face appeared, also from behind the partly opened door, and also with smudged blue eyes. Her tangled hair was auburn. ‘Crikey, 'e's a copper.'

‘'E won't go away,' said Daisy.

‘'E just keeps standin' there,' said Lily.

Third face, above the others, looked defiantly up at Harry.

‘You're not comin' in our house,' she said, ‘we ain't done nothing.'

Harry smiled again. Three young girls who might have been pathetic figures of poverty were bravely challenging instead. There were kids all over Walworth, some a burden to striving parents, some cherishable.

‘Let's see,' he said, ‘she's Daisy, she's Lily, so you must be Buttercup.'

‘Buttercup?' Third face looked outraged. ‘Ugh.'

‘'E's barmy,' whispered Daisy to Lily.

‘We best get Trary to see 'im orf,' whispered Lily.

‘I'm Meg,' said third face.

‘That's nice,' said Harry. ‘Well, Meg, can I talk to your mother?'

‘She ain't in,' said Meg.

‘She's gone away,' said Daisy.

‘To Australia,' said Lily. ‘On a tram,' she added.

‘It's a long way to go, even on a tram,' said Harry and then had a stab at the crux of the matter. ‘Is there a lodger lookin' after you?' Lodgers proliferated in Walworth. They helped with the rent.

‘He ain't 'ere,' said Meg.

‘Gone away,' said Lily.

‘We don't want 'im back, niever,' said Daisy.

Footsteps sounded in the passage.

‘Who you talkin' to, you monkeys?' A hand pulled the door farther open. Another girl appeared. She wore a clean but aged pinafore dress. Her dark brown hair was in no need of a brush or comb, it was dressed in two pigtails. The complexions of the younger girls were pale. Hers was creamy. It had withstood all the assaults of winter murk and summer dust. Her deep brown eyes were quite brilliant, even if they too were slightly ringed. Harry felt he might have seen her before, and probably had during his daily beats. She was one of the phenomena of Walworth, where some girls did blossom into loveliness despite fog, smoke and hardship. She stared at Harry and his uniform.

‘Oh, lor',' she said, and wrinkled her nose and looked wry.

‘It's nothing to worry about,' said Harry. He had to persist now because of the mention of a lodger, a lodger who had gone away and wasn't wanted back. Why not? ‘If I could have a word with your mother?'

‘Has that rotten Mr Monks put the law on Mum?' asked Trary in disgust.

Harry's mouth tightened a little. Mr Ronald Monks was the local moneylender, a far harder and more grasping character than any of the obliging pawnbrokers. It was Harry's ambition to catch Monks overstepping the law.

‘I don't work for Mr Monks, Miss . . ?'

‘I'm Trary.'

‘I like that,' said Harry. ‘Daisy, Lily, Meg and Trary.'

Trary smiled. He looked a nice copper, a nice man, with eyes a clear and manly grey.

‘Trary?' A woman's voice sounded from the kitchen. ‘What's goin' on out there? What're those mischiefs up to?'

Harry, smiling, said, ‘I think that's your mother, just come back from Australia. Could I talk to her? Word of honour, I'm not goin' to ask her for money.'

Trary looked at him. All Walworth knew about the murder. Trary was intelligent enough to put two and two together. But, of course, it didn't really concern them, not if he was going round asking questions about ‘the man'. There were no men in their house, no father, no husband, no lodger. She could tell him that and save him wasting his time.

‘I'll see,' she said, and opened the door fully. There they were, the three younger ones, seven-year-old Daisy, nine-year-old Lily, and eleven-year-old Meg. They all wore long grey frocks that reached to their patched boots. But the frocks were clean, and so were the faces. It was only their hair that needed attention. Harry thought their stomachs might be in need too.

‘You ain't goin' to put our mum in prison, are yer, please?' begged Lily.

‘Cross my heart, Lily,' said Harry, and Trary didn't know any policeman she'd liked so much at first sight. In her fourteenth year, Trary was the bright light of the family.

‘You can step into our parlour, if you like, and I'll tell mum,' she said. But her mother appeared in the passage then. She wore an apron. Her light brown hair was pinned up, although little wisps had escaped, wisps that had a faint glint of gold to them. Her attractive looks were slightly marred by the small shadows and little hollows consistent with hard times. The high neck of her dress clasped her smooth throat, and her hazel eyes might have been her finest feature in their largeness if they hadn't been ringed by dusty blue. She was thirty-three, and had a woman's worry that the poverty trap would age her well before her time. The worry surfaced as she saw a policeman on her doorstep.

‘Oh, don't say the landlord's sent you, not on a Saturday,' she said.

‘I don't do errands for landlords,' said Harry. He knew his sergeant would have told him to hurry it up ages ago. But there were occasions when one wasn't inclined to. ‘If I could have a few words with you, Mrs . . . ?'

‘I'm Mrs Maggie Wilson. You'd best come through to the kitchen, I expect I'm in trouble with the law.'

‘You're not, Mrs Wilson.'

She brightened visibly with relief.

‘Well, come through, all the same,' she said. ‘I only got back from the market a little while ago, and the kettle's on. I mean, would you like a cup?'

‘Well,' said Harry, ‘I – '

‘Yes, you must give him a cup, Mum,' said Trary, ‘and I'll take the kids in the parlour an' keep them out of your way.'

‘'E's not goin' to put our mum in the police station, is 'e?' asked Daisy anxiously.

‘As if he would, a nice policeman like him,' said Trary.

‘Are you nice?' asked Maggie of the man in blue, a faint smile on her lips.

‘'Orrible ragamuffin when I was a kid,' said Harry, ‘but I'm a bit better now. I hope.'

‘Come in,' said Maggie, and led the way to the kitchen. He noted it was clean and tidy, but there was no fire going in the range, and nor was it laid. No wood or coal, he thought. He wondered about the larder. The shopping bag on the square table didn't seem to contain much. Scarcity of food wasn't uncommon in Southwark. Life was a hand-to-mouth existence for many families, and one's sympathies had to be general, but he couldn't help feeling a particular sympathy for this woman with no husband and four daughters. He supposed Daisy hadn't been telling a fib when she said she'd got no father.

Maggie quickly made the pot of tea. Harry placed his helmet on a chair and advised her he was making enquiries in connection with a certain incident. Maggie caught on at once and said she supposed it was the murder. She'd seen no newspapers, she couldn't afford one, but the cockney grapevine had spread the news hours ago, and the East Street market had buzzed with it.

‘You're lookin' for the man that done it? Well, I . . .' She showed a faint smile again. ‘Well, I don't have any man in this house.' She poured the tea and handed Harry a cup. He thanked her. ‘There hasn't been any man here since me 'usband went.'

‘Your husband left you, Mrs Wilson?'

‘Yes, in his coffin,' said Maggie. ‘Five years ago.'

‘I'm sorry. Hasn't there been a lodger?'

‘A lodger, yes.' Maggie sipped her tea. ‘A man, no. I shut the door on the 'orrible creature two days ago.'

That gave Harry food for thought. ‘Mind tellin' me why you did that, Mrs Wilson?'

‘He was oily, disgustin', and he hadn't paid no rent for weeks. He got to be . . .' Maggie frowned in distaste, ‘well, unpleasant.'

‘Very unpleasant?' Harry put his tea down and picked up his notebook. ‘Did he frighten you?'

‘No, he didn't.' A little spark flashed in her eyes. ‘Take more than his kind to frighten me. Objectionable, that's what he was. He 'ad his eye on Trary as well as me. What with that, and not payin' no rent for weeks, out he went. I put all his stuff out on the doorstep and locked the door on 'im.'

‘What was his name, Mrs Wilson, and could you describe him?'

Maggie, eyeing the tall, masculine constable, shook her head at him.

‘Oh, he won't be the one you want,' she said. ‘He was a little fat man, with fat fingers and a fat oily smirk, like he was always pleased with 'imself. I was told in the market the police were after a tall and well-built man, not a little fat one. Still, I'll give you 'is name. Wally Hooper. But I don't know where he is now.' Maggie frowned again. ‘Oh, Lord, but just suppose it was 'im, just suppose me an' the girls had had that kind of man in the house?'

‘We'll find him, Mrs Wilson, and check on him. I'd like to find him myself and have the pleasure of – ‘ Harry coughed. He had prejudices too. Maggie's faint smile reappeared.

‘You wouldn't do that on my account, would you?' she asked.

‘Wouldn't do what?' asked Harry cautiously.

‘Kick 'is backside for me,' said Maggie forthrightly.

‘Against the regulations,' said Harry solemnly. He had dark brown hair the same colour as Trary's, she noticed. ‘Well, thanks very much, Mrs Wilson, sorry I've had to bother you.'

‘It's not been a bother,' said Maggie. ‘You've been kind, specially in not saying anything in front of the younger girls. Little girls get nightmares all too easy.'

‘I hope yours don't,' he said.

Maggie sighed. Born in Peckham, she was in service to a family in Norbury from the age of fourteen. At eighteen, she met Joe Wilson, who worked for the railways and lived in Walworth. Joe was a laughing man, a joke a minute. At nineteen, she married him, and they set up home here in Charleston Street. Two months later, her parents and her sister emigrated to Australia, selling everything they owned to sail all the way Down-Under in the hope of prospering. Maggie stayed to enjoy married life with Joe. Trary was born in 1894, Meg in 1897, Lily in 1899 and Daisy in late 1900. Joe hadn't minded a bit that they were all girls, he spoiled them as much as he could on his limited wages. But five years ago a shunting accident had cost him his life. The railways paid her a pension as his widow, but it wasn't very much. She had to struggle. She got temporary jobs now and again, and a year ago the local laundry took her on for four hours a day. She also took a lodger, four months ago. That was the one who was oily and disgusting, a fat drunk who thought he was God's gift to a widow. He got behind with his rent of five bob a week, he got weeks behind with it. To make matters worse, the laundry said there wasn't enough work for her and laid her off, six weeks ago. She tried all she could to get some back rent out of the lodger, and he said he'd pay her all of ten bob if she'd be nice to him. She got rid of him, although she was badly in debt, specially with Mr Monks, who'd loaned her a few pounds. She owed him more every week, it seemed, and she was behind with the rent. The girls were having to go short on food and decent clothes, and the workhouse was beginning to stare her in the face. She meant to fight that with every fibre of her being. The one relative she wouldn't have been too proud to turn to for help was Uncle Henry, a favourite of hers, but he was in South Africa. And down there in Australia, her mum and dad and sister weren't any better off yet than they'd been in England.

She came to. The policeman was saying something about her girls being little angels. She noted how stalwart he was and not unlike Joe in his looks. Without any man of her own, her future prospects made her silently wince. Somehow, she had to get a new lodger, and a decent one this time.

‘Angels still need feedin', you know,' she said, and Harry felt her tired little smile covered a multitude of worries. He knew he ought to go on his way, but he still lingered.

‘Look, I know it's none of my business,' he said, ‘but have you got yourself into a bad fix with that moneylender?'

‘Some moneylender,' said Maggie, ‘chronic bloodsucker more like.'

‘And you've not got much comin' in?' Harry remembered the years when his parents had had to struggle.

‘I've got a small pension from the railways,' said Maggie, ‘and I did have a bit of a job round at the laundry, but they laid me off six weeks ago. I need another job and a decent lodger. But I don't want to burden you with me worries, everyone's got their share, and I manage to get parish relief now and again.'

‘Well, I wish you luck,' said Harry. ‘Thanks for the tea and for being so helpful.'

‘Me? What've I done?'