The Lodger (39 page)

She felt guilty on her way back. She was late, after all. But the discussion with her friend had been so stimulating that she'd overstayed. It was well after nine when the tram reached Manor Place, and dusk had arrived. Nicholas was there, waiting. She smiled brightly as she alighted.

‘Thank goodness I'm not late,' she said, seeing his grim look.

‘You're late all right, and you know it,' he said. He had spent the evening at the police station, going through all the latest reports from the uniformed branch.

‘What's the time, then?' she asked, as she crossed the Walworth Road with him.

‘Nine-thirty.'

‘Oh, dear.'

‘Never mind oh dear, Emma, you're under arrest.'

They entered Browning Street.

‘I'm what?' said Emma.

‘Just a case of locking you up until we've caught this man.'

‘Locking me up? You're joking.'

‘It's no joke,' he said, ‘I ought to lock you up.'

‘But we were talking about our next rally,' said Emma, ‘and about the suffragettes who broke windows in Whitehall yesterday. Of course, although broken windows aren't terribly militant – '

‘Don't let me catch you at it,' said Nicholas, ‘the women concerned were arrested.'

‘Yes, poor things. You're very hard on them.'

‘They wanted to be arrested.'

‘Yes, it's necessary publicity. Nicholas, I'm really very sorry I was later than I promised, but when two suffragettes get together to solve the problems caused by envious men – '

‘Envious?'

‘Well, yes,' said Emma sweetly, ‘we don't have hairy legs or bald heads, but we do have many virtues. We don't bully old ladies or weak widows, and – '

‘What weak widows?'

‘Me, for one,' said Emma, and Nicholas was hard put not to pick her up and run off with her. ‘And you know very well our home-made biscuits and fruit cakes are the products of kitchen genius. Oh, did I tell you I've a little contract for supplying biscuits to the teashop near Camberwell Green? What do you think of that?'

‘Triumph of kitchen genius.'

‘Yes, I'm glad you believe in women.' They turned into King and Queen Street. A house curtain fluttered. Emma smiled.
Who was that gent I saw yer walkin' 'ome with last night, Emma?
A policeman.
Lord 'elp yer, love, you don't go out with a policeman, do yer?
I wouldn't mind occasionally.
Gawd save yer, ducks, watch out for 'is 'ands, every copper's got 'eavy ones
. ‘Nicholas, you must come to our next rally and speak your mind to Christabel.'

‘And get eaten alive?' said Nicholas. ‘Is that what you'd like?'

‘Actually, I think you could surprise her. You're quite a nice policeman, and a quite reasonable man. And you don't have horns.' They reached her door. ‘Thank you for meeting me, I do understand your concern.'

‘Take care,' he said. ‘Goodnight.'

‘Goodnight? Shame on you. Come in, and I'll make a pot of tea. And you can talk to me about this awful murder case. Well, as much as you're allowed to. I can be a good listener, really.'

What he told her over the pot of tea was not of any great account, since the whole case had become enveloped in fog. Not a single person in South London had been able to point a finger at the right man. Inspector Greaves was beginning to believe he came from north of the river. Nicholas still stuck to his conviction that the answer lay in Walworth, that Mabel Shipman had visited the man there. There was one difference about the second murder. The maniac had strangled his victim with a stocking, not a length of cord.

‘Why would he have done that?' asked Emma.

‘He used a length of cord on the young woman he attacked in Manor Place. She was positive about that. The cord failed him on that occasion. I can imagine him brooding on that failure.'

‘So he used a stocking instead?' said Emma. ‘Then he's probably a married man, isn't he? He probably used one of his wife's stockings.'

‘Emma, you're a clever girl,' said Nicholas.

‘Oh, you're not so bad yourself, you know.'

‘I'm not a clever girl.'

‘Yes, how very nice that you happen to be a man,' said Emma.

‘Nice for whom?' asked Nicholas.

‘Oh, for all women who don't think every man is a gorilla,' said Emma.

She awoke at midnight. She sat up with a start. What had woken her? Either a noise or a bad dream? What had she been dreaming about? A gallows, a noose and a hanging body. A woman's body. And the noose had been a stocking.

No, there was a noise, a faint metallic noise travelling through the silent house. It sounded like a key being repeatedly turned in the lock of her front door. And the front door was bolted. She had taken to doing that, because a certain sergeant from Scotland Yard would bully her if she didn't.

She slipped from her bed, the linoleum cool to her bare feet as she crossed to her window. Her heart beating a little too fast for her liking, she silently eased the bottom frame up and put her head out. A distant street lamp cast its pool of light, but it did not reach her house, which lay in darkness. But with eyes adjusted to the night, she was able to see there was no-one below, no-one at her door, no-one within vision. Old and dilapidated Walworth was asleep, its resilient men and women, and their boisterous children, wrapped up in their beds.

She closed the window, walked to her bedroom door and opened it. She stood listening. There was complete quiet. Her dreams had played tricks with her ears. She went back to her bed and back to sleep. Emma Carter was not a woman who frightened easily.

The fluttery wife woke up.

‘Herby, where you been?'

‘Downstairs. It's all right.'

‘Haven't you been to bed yet?'

‘For a bit, but I couldn't sleep. I made myself some tea and did some reading. That's a good book of yours,
The Mayor of Casterbridge
.'

‘Was it your back again?'

‘I'm putting up with it.' He settled into the bed. ‘Go to sleep, Maudie.'

‘Yes, all right, Herby.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘You're gettin' quite reliable,' said Trary, as she walked away from the school gate with Bobby. Other girls were watching. Some were giggling. Bobby was a familiar figure now, and she knew that more than one girl had an eye for him. ‘Not many boys are reliable.'

‘Yes, I'm pretty good,' said Bobby.

‘You've said that before.'

‘It's self-confidence,' said Bobby, ‘you need to 'ave a fair bit of that, or you don't get on.'

‘Bless the boy,' said Trary, ‘he's showin' off again.'

‘I've been thinkin' lately about our destiny,' said Bobby.

‘Our what?'

‘Well, you an' me, Trary, we met our destiny, yer know, when I had that Salvation Army box on me loaf of bread.'

‘Our destiny? Oh, you daft thing, destiny's just something that you read about in books.'

‘That's printed in books, Trary. I'm talkin' about the book of life.'

‘You're potty,' said Trary.

‘Well, I've got to admit it,' said Bobby, ‘I'm potty about you. I don't know it's believable, the way a feller can go off 'is chump when he meets a destiny like you. I 'ardly know what I'm eatin' sometimes, and sometimes I don't know if I've eaten or not. D'you feel like that about our destiny?'

‘Oh, you barmy boy, girls don't meet their destiny when they're only fourteen, and I will be fourteen next month. It's June twelve.'

‘I'll make a note,' said Bobby, ‘I'll try an' get a card with words about destiny comin' but once in a lifetime. Incidental, I saw your mum down the market this mornin'. She said she's goin' to buy that house, she an' Mr Bradshaw looked it over yesterday afternoon. She told me she'd been left a bit of money. I told 'er I was downright rapturous for her. Well, I'm fond of your mum, if I'd been older an' she'd been younger – '

‘You've said that before too. I was goin' to tell you about the house, but all this talkin' you keep doin', I know it's goin' to send me deaf and dumb one day.'

‘Well, don't worry, you'll still be my girl. I'm goin' to miss you when you move.'

‘But you're goin' to come and see me, aren't you? Bobby, you promised.'

‘Every day,' he said.

‘Every day?'

‘Well, every week.'

‘Yes, every week sounds more sensible,' said Trary, ‘specially when you start workin' at the
Daily Mail.
I suppose I could get to like you one day, some girls do get to like daft boys.'

‘Yes, I'm fairly likeable,' said Bobby. ‘On Satudays, of course, we'll go roller-skatin'.'

‘Oh, Bobby, yes,' she said. Every time roller-skating was mentioned, Trary fell over her tongue. ‘But you keep payin' for me, and you can't have much money.'

‘I've got what mum pays me, and it's me pleasure to treat you. On Sunday afternoons, we'll go walkin' out round Herne Hill.'

‘Bobby, you cuckoo, people our age don't walk out. We just do walkin', not walkin' out.'

‘It's our destiny,' said Bobby.

‘Well, just don't get any more tonsillitis,' said Trary, ‘or our destiny might finish up under the doctor. Well, yours will.'

Two women, coming up from the subway, encountered a boy and girl going down who were laughing their heads off.

Emma opened the door to Nicholas.

‘That's quick,' she said, ‘I only left the police station half an hour ago.'

‘And I left Detective-Constable Chapman there only five minutes ago,' said Nicholas. ‘We had to call in, and I was given your message.'

‘Come in,' said Emma.

Nicholas, entering, said, ‘Why did you ask to see me again, Emma? Don't tell me you're actually going to give me a lead.'

‘A clue, you mean? I wish I could. It's just that I'm wondering if I shouldn't have treated your concern about me more seriously. I think someone tried to get into the house on Monday night.'

‘Monday night? It's Wednesday afternoon now.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘Well, damn it all,' said Nicholas in exasperation.

‘Oh, dear,' said Emma.

‘Emma, for God's sake, you should have reported it immediately, you know that.'

‘But it was after midnight, and at the time I felt it was my imagination.' Emma recounted the incident. ‘I felt then that I must have imagined it, but it kept coming back into my mind, and now I feel it wasn't my imagination, I feel sure someone was trying to open the door and getting impatient.'

‘It's taken you two whole days to reach that conclusion?' said Nicholas.

‘You're bullying me again,' said Emma, ‘what am I going to do with you?'

‘More to the point, what am I going to do with you? Oh, hell, he's changed the pattern again. First a stocking instead of a cord, now Monday night instead of Friday night, and an attempted entry instead of keeping to the streets.'

‘Nicholas, you don't know it was him.'

‘I'd be a fool if I thought otherwise. Emma, you're absolutely sure you heard the sound of a key in your lock?'

‘The more I think about that sound, the surer I am,' said Emma. ‘Oh, wait!' she exclaimed on a sudden thought. She dashed into her kitchen. She searched a shelf of her dresser. Then all the other shelves. She went back to Nicholas. ‘I think, I only think, that I might be able to point you at the man you want.'

‘What?' Nicholas put his hands on her arms, just below her shoulders. She winced a little at the tightness of his grip. ‘Emma, what did you say?'

‘If you'd stop trying to pull my arms off?' she said. He released her. ‘Look, I keep my spare doorkey on a shelf of my kitchen dresser. I rarely have any need of it, I rarely even notice it. One doesn't, one takes it for granted. But it's not there now, I've searched all the shelves, and it's missing. I know I haven't moved it, but I think I know who did, I think I know who has it. I should have thought about it each time the incident returned to my mind, each time I became surer that someone was using a key. I should have thought about whether or not it was my key, my spare key.'

‘Not necessarily. You might have thought of a bunch of keys, and a man trying them one at a time.' Nicholas was tense. ‘Emma, who is the man?'

Emma sat down, eyes wide and large, the electricity of little shocks attacking her body. The man, the one the police desperately wanted, had he actually been in her house?

She spoke slowly, telling Nicholas of the gas company meter man, a man new to the round, whom she recognized as the husband of a woman customer at Hurlocks. The woman wanted a beige blouse, and while she was in the fitting room, her husband, who was buying it for her as a birthday present, also purchased a pair of silk stockings for her as a surprise extra. When he was emptying her meter, he found something wrong with it.

‘I wonder,' said Nicholas.

Emma wondered too. Anyway, the man promised to get a fitter to call, or to come and do it himself. He did come himself, on Friday evening, just as darkness fell.

‘Friday,' said Nicholas.

‘Yes,' said Emma. ‘I had a friend with me. Amy Wagstaff. I thought it kind of him to come in his own time, that he was doing me a favour because I'd served him that day at Hurlocks.'

‘Emma, didn't you realize it was highly suspicious, calling to fix your meter at that time of night? No gas company would approve that, nor would they except as an emergency, and even then they'd send a fitter, not a collector.'

‘I simply thought he was doing me a good turn,' said Emma. ‘I left him to it. After a little while he said he'd found that a little spring needed replacing. He said he'd get one from the store and call back again, or get a fitter sent. I haven't seen him since. But I'm sure he's the one who's got my spare key, that he saw it and took it while I was talking to Amy. Nicholas, there's another thing I've just thought of. On his way out he said it would be a good thing if Amy didn't leave it too late if she had to walk to the tram stop. “You know what I mean,” he said.'