‘Do you mean—an accident?’ she said.
‘Well, that’s the way it looks. Is there something,’ he suggested, made very curious by the tone of her voice, ‘that you’d like to tell me?’
‘They’ll tell you anyway. The people opposite. It wasn’t an accident. I picked up the decanter and hit him with it. He insulted me. Just once too often. He insulted me.’
‘You hit him?’
‘With the decanter. He dodged back, trying to avoid it and then he fell and hit his head, but only a little bit, against the mantelpiece. But I hit him first.’
‘You mean, to—’
‘Oh, yes, to kill him. I might as well admit it.’ She repeated, ‘They’ll tell you anyway.’
‘The people opposite?’
‘They’ll have been watching. They’re always watching. The old woman in her wheel-chair: what else has she got to do? And the Family. Always talking about me. Can’t you hear them?’ said Mrs. Jennings. ‘Talking about me?’
‘Who was she telephoning?’ said the old woman.
>‘Police most likely. She knew we’d tell anyway.’
>‘It began with her putting on all that weight,’ said the daughter.
‘It began with me putting on weight,’ said Mrs. Jennings. ‘That’s what they’re saying. Can’t you hear them? “She knew we’d tell anyway,” they’re saying. Always watching me, always talking about me. But for them, I could have pretended this was an accident, I might have got away with it; but they wouldn’t have that. Better ring the police, they said. It was the daughter’s husband rang you, I heard him, we’ve just seen a murder committed he said, I heard him. I hear them all the time. They watch me and talk about me. Can’t you hear them? Listen!’
‘They’ve stopped now,’ said the policeman.
‘No, they haven’t, they’re chattering on, chattering on….’ A policewoman had arrived and now put an arm lightly about her shoulders. ‘Where is she taking me?’
‘Where you won’t hear them talking. You don’t have to worry, love; you won’t have them watching any more.’
‘They’ll watch you taking me.’
‘No, no, they’ve all gone inside, there’s no one now on the balcony.’
‘You can’t hear them talking? They’ll still be talking.’
‘Well, now you mention it, I think I can,’ he said. ‘But nicely. Sorry to see you go, they’re saying. Such a nice lady, really, they never meant anything against you; be sorry to see you go….’ Tenderly clucking, he urged her gently towards the door, the woman’s arm still about her shoulders. But when she was gone, he said to his sergeant, ‘No Family?’
‘Single-room bed-sitts., sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘One elderly lady on that floor, lives alone. Neighbour calls in, wheels her out on to the balcony with a thermos flask and some sandwiches, for the day.’
‘No one else calls?’
‘No one, sir. No friends, nobody. Sad for her, poor old girl,’ said the sergeant. ‘She’s blind.’
PART FIVE
Black Coffee
Bless This House
THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL; AND even in that first moment, the old woman was to think later, she should have known: should have recognised them for what they were. Standing there so still and quiet in face of her own strident aggression, the boy in the skin-tight, worn blue jeans, with his mac held over his head against the fine drizzle of the evening rain—held over his head like a mantle; the girl with her long hair falling straight as a veil down to the pear-shaped bulge of her pregnancy. But though suspicion died in her, she would not be done out of her grievance. ‘What you doing here? You got no right here, parking outside my window.’
They did not reply that after all the street did not belong to her. The girl said only, apologetically: ‘We got nowhere else to sleep.’
‘Nowhere to sleep?’ She glanced at the ringless hand holding together the edges of the skimpy coat. ‘Can’t you go home?’
‘Our homes aren’t in London,’ said the boy.
‘You slept somewhere last night.’
‘We had to leave. The landlady—Mrs. Mace—she went away and her nephew was coming home and wanted the place. We’ve been hunting and hunting for days. No one else will take us in.’
‘Because of the baby,’ said the girl. ‘In case it comes, you see.’
Suspicion gleamed again. ‘Well, don’t look at me. I got nothing, only my one bed-sit here in the basement—the other rooms are used for storage, all locked up and bolted. And upstairs—well, that’s full.’