The Second-last Woman in England (43 page)
‘Of course.’
The policeman waited. For what, it was hard to tell. Questions, perhaps? For her to leave?
Harriet found that she had the envelope in her hand. She looked down at it. Her name was written on the envelope with a cheap biro in Freddie’s flamboyant scribble:
Mrs Harriet Wallis, 83 Athelstan Gardens,
SW1.
And so they had found her, really, with no trouble at all. But how had they found
him
? The policeman had said something about a neighbour. Freddie had lain here, it seemed, since last night. Dead some hours. He must have done it soon after she had left him the previous evening.
She swayed and the room lurched unexpectedly. She felt behind her for a wall, a chair.
‘Here, let me help you,’ said the policeman, springing over with sudden agility to take her elbow. ‘There we are,’ and he lowered her onto a chair. ‘Mullins, where’s that tea? Come on!’
He called out to a young WPC who was moving about in the kitchen. Then he turned back to Harriet and produced a kind and unlikely smile.
‘Takes people this way sometimes,’ he said and patted her hand.
Harriet watched as the police inspector’s hand patted hers and she could see that his fingers touched hers and yet she felt nothing. It was as though he were touching some other person’s hand.
‘I take it the gentleman wasn’t married?’ he asked after a moment.
The room slowly came back into focus and she looked into the enquiring eyes of the policeman with the seedy moustache.
‘No. No, he wasn’t married. He never married.’
And now he never would. Oddly, her voice sounded normal. She didn’t want it to sound normal.
‘And when was it you last saw Mr Paget?’
‘Last night. I was here last night.’
‘Oh.’ The inspector seemed surprised. Had he suspected they weren’t close, she and Freddie? That his family had deserted him? Was that what his look implied? Or was he wondering why she had noticed nothing amiss, had done nothing to prevent this happening? And why
had
she noticed nothing amiss? Why
had
she done nothing to prevent this happening?
The WPC emerged bearing a cup and saucer.
‘Ah, here we are, then,’ observed the inspector approvingly. ‘Good and hot and plenty of sugar.’
The WPC handed Harriet the tea with a sympathetic smile. No doubt they were trained in such things. No doubt this was as routine to them as a dinner party was to her. She held out her hand automatically and let the saucer rest on her lap. They seemed to expect her to drink it, so she put the rim of the cup to her lips and let the hot liquid seep over her tongue. It was sweet and milky and her tongue recoiled, but it was easier to drink than to think or to speak.
‘Ambulance is here,’ called the WPC—Mullins—who had gone to the window and lifted the net curtain. She crossed to the door and opened it and went out.
‘We’ll let them get on with it in peace, shall we?’ said the inspector, and he helped her up and deftly led her through to the tiny kitchenette and pushed the door shut. They sat down on two vinyl-covered stools before a mean-looking table with a cracked yellow Formica surface.
‘Lived alone, did he, Mr Paget?’
She tried to think. ‘Yes, yes, he lived alone.’ She wanted to add, this is not his normal home. This squalid, this horrid little bed-sit is only temporary. But it wasn’t true, this was Freddie’s home. She put the tea cup to her lips and let the revolting liquid scald her tongue and her throat.
The inspector nodded, then stood up, though he had been seated for less than a minute. ‘Well. I’ll leave you to it for a little while. Won’t be long.’
For a moment it seemed that he would actually pat her knee, but he appeared to think better of it and left the room.
There was the letter in the unsealed envelope. Harriet stared at it and what—
what?
—could a note possibly say to explain this, to excuse this? Her fingers reached into the envelope and pulled out a single small sheet of plain, un-headed note paper, the sort one purchased cheaply at a stationer’s and wrote hurried thank-you notes on to the man who had pruned your roses or the lady who had done the flowers at the church.
‘Sorry, old girl. It just didn’t seem worth the bother anymore.’
And that was the explanation, the excuse. The reason. Just this and nothing more.
She felt a moment of fury so intense the room went red and then black. But it faded as abruptly as it had appeared. Of course that was the reason, and what better reason was there?
It just didn’t seem worth the
bother anymore
.
There were noises from the other side of the door—men’s voices, muted, respectful of her presence. A thump, a door banging open against the wall. Freddie, being manhandled out of his flat by strangers. Taken—where?
Simon. Someone needed to tell Simon. Simon was at the Palace. It was the day of the Coronation.
The door opened and the police inspector came in with a sympathetic smile.
‘There now, all done,’ he announced as though talking to a child. ‘They’ll take him to the mortuary. Like I said, there’ll have to be an inquest. Just routine. And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to pop down to the station and do some paperwork.’ He glanced discreetly at his watch. ‘But not today. It can wait till tomorrow.’
Indeed, since today was the day of the Coronation.
‘I’ll get Mullins here to drop you back home. Mr Wallis at home, is he?’
Was he? She tried to think. She nodded.
‘Might be an idea to take Mr Paget’s papers and valuables with you, Mrs Wallis. Once folk see a place is vacant—well, in this area you can’t be too careful, in my experience. I’ll give you a moment or two to gather his things together.’ And he backed discreetly out.
A moment or two? Was that how long it would take to gather Freddie’s papers and valuables? To pack up a man’s life? And what papers did Freddie have? What valuables did you have when you lived in a bed-sit off the Marylebone Road?
She found them in a drawer in the little desk beside the bed, a tangle of old ration books and void clothing coupons and working permits for other countries; his birth certificate, folded and creased; a passport in the name of some other man entirely. Some coins—Canadian and English. A batch of dog-eared photographs of young men in khaki in the desert, with a gun, a tank, seen casually in the background, the names and dates scribbled on the back and beginning to fade. A single payslip from Home Counties Equity. A typed letter with the Home Counties address at the top and Nobby Caruthers’s name at the bottom informing Mr Paget that certain information concerning his past had come to light and that, in view of this, Home Counties regretted they were unable to continue Mr Paget’s employment. And in the margin, written in pencil in angry capitals, the single word, heavily underlined:
WALLIS?
Wallis. Herself? Or Cecil? But the letter of dismissal had come from Nobby.
Certain information had come to light.
How did one check up on a man’s military service record anyway? They had not discussed it. She had never asked Freddie how they, his new employer, could know, had found out his secret. Could one simply enquire at the Ministry of Defence? Did the Ministry give out that sort of information? Surely an employer could only find out if someone informed them?
‘Mrs Wallis?’
The WPC stood respectfully in the doorway. The girl was in uniform, her heavy A-line skirt cruelly unfashionable, the hat flattening her perm. She looked too young to have left school and yet here she was, waiting to drive Harriet home in a police vehicle.
‘We’ll lock up, shall we? Just to be on the safe side,’ and the girl pulled the front door shut behind them and firmly locked it, testing the door handle to make sure. Then she handed Harriet the key. ‘You’d better take charge of this till you decide what to do with it.’
What would she do with it? A squalid bed-sit off the Marylebone Road where Freddie had died. She had no idea who owned the building, who the landlord was. She would give the key to Simon.
Simon. Someone would have to tell Simon.
WALLIS
, written in angry pencil and heavily underlined, over and over again.
‘All right, Mrs Wallis?’
The girl was peering at her, a hand out to help, but reluctant to make contact.
The journey back was long and convoluted. They appeared to be heading west through Paddington and Bayswater in an attempt to avoid the congestion of crowds around Hyde Park and it was a nightmare of stopping and starting and swerving.
‘What a day for it,’ observed the WPC, waiting patiently at the lights as hordes of onlookers swarmed across Bayswater Road and headed into the park. Whether she meant what a day for the Coronation or what a day for a suicide was unclear.
‘This is you, isn’t it?’ she said at last, turning into Athelstan Gardens. Harriet nodded.
‘Number 83. Towards the end.’
Above them the clouds thinned and a faint streak of sunshine crept across the garden and over the strings of bunting.
‘There’s someone home, is there, Mrs Wallis? Your husband?’
Her husband? Yes, he was at home; they were all at home.
She got out of the car, thanked the woman and let herself into the house. The WPC in the car waited outside for a time and Harriet stood in the hallway until she could see the car drive away.
‘Corbett? Owen Corbett?’
Cecil Wallis appeared to strain every muscle in an effort to remember. Jean could see the tendons stretched taut in his face, the tiny beads of moisture that had burst out on his forehead and upper lip. His eyes never for a moment left the barrel of the revolver—
his
revolver—that was pointing, at this moment, at his chest. He
had
to remember; his very life depended on it.
‘The foreman?’ he gasped at last. ‘Yes, yes, there
was
a man. Corbett. Welsh. Or came from a Welsh family. Worked at the West India Dock, he was the nightwatchman. There had been looting … We had instructions to step up security.’
He paused, seemingly panic-stricken, staring at the gun, comically cross-eyed.
She could shoot him now, but that wasn’t right. That was not how it must be. She must hear him say it: ‘I’m sorry’
.
He must atone.
This then was her mission. This was His plan for her.
‘
It was you, wasn’t it
? It was
you
who had him sacked.’
The revolver shook wildly in her hands. She gripped it so tightly the butt cut into the flesh of her palms.
Mr Wallis appeared confused. He shook his head as though to clear it, as though to blank her out completely, to make her disappear.
‘But I—Are you—is this man in some way
related
to you? Not your father? Yes, of course. I see. My God.’ He appeared to stagger, reached behind him blindly for the desktop with which to steady himself. ‘But, Miss Corbett.’ He licked his lips, blinking rapidly. ‘Miss Corbett, you
must
understand. It was
imperative
the docks, the warehouse were kept secure … No one could be trusted in those days. You must realise—the convoys
had to get through
—there were so little food reserves it was an issue of national security—’
‘You
destroyed
him! You destroyed
us
!’
Mr Wallis stared at her.
‘But I don’t—’
‘We was
starvin
’! We was all starvin’! Were
you
starvin’, Mr Wallis?’
Mr Wallis opened his mouth, but no words came out.
‘Dad knew it was wrong! Lord knows, we was brought up to fear the Lord, but what’s an orange? A
single orange
to feed his children? And he was so
ashamed
. Do you think he’d have done it if he had thought there was any other way?’
Mr Wallis just stared.
‘We didn’t go to Chapel that mornin’. You see, don’t you, Mr Wallis, what that meant?’
And still Mr Wallis stared.
Downstairs, from a long, long way off, Jean could hear the front door open and slam shut. Mr Wallis’s hands gripped the edge of the desk behind him, shaking.
‘But Miss Corbett. I don’t understand you! I know nothing about an orange.
Nothing
, I
swear
to you! Yes, I remember that night—this incident—quite clearly, of course I do! The man—Corbett, your father—was with a woman, in the office. I found them. A
woman
. Do you understand what I’m saying
?
She was a prostitute, a young girl—no more than sixteen, seventeen, I don’t know—and they were … engaged in a sexual act … Good
God
, if I dismissed the man, it was no more than he deserved. He was in a position of trust and he was carrying on—it was absolutely
untenable
.’
‘
STOP!
That’s a
lie!
A
lie
! How
dare
—’
‘But there were others, not just myself! There were three of us there, myself and two of the docks police. Perkins and—and—oh, I forget the other man’s name. We all saw it. Not just me. Ask them!’
The gun was no longer pointing at his chest, but it seemed that now Mr Wallis had begun talking he couldn’t stop. She wanted him to stop.
‘I’m sorry, so very sorry, Miss Corbett. I don’t know what your father has told you about this incident but clearly … clearly …’
He did stop then, finally, as the gun was now lying on its side on his study desk and the nanny had fled from the room.
Inside the house the level of noise was unexpected. So many voices. Harriet could hear the boom of the BBC presenter’s commentary, the cheers of the crowds. She paused in the hallway and found that she was holding onto the wall, leaning against it. The stairs, the carpet on the floor, the lampshade, the coat cupboard, the telephone on the telephone table spun over and over again before her eyes. Was she going to be sick?
Mullins and her police vehicle had gone. She was alone.
‘Cecil, old man? Where the devil are you? We’re out of champers again!’
She waited, but when the reply came it was Julius, not Cecil, who made it.