‘I see. You went by bus,’ said Pascoe. There was a wooden garage beside the house and he felt sure he’d glimpsed a car through the partially opened door.
‘It’s Alan’s club night,’ explained Mrs Frostick quickly. ‘He was out with the car. I had a long wait for the next bus, though, and it was well after nine by the time I got there. I rang the bell, he always likes you to ring the bell, he’s that independent. But when he didn’t come, I let myself in with my key. I shouted out to him and had a look downstairs. When I saw what a mess things were in, I began to think something terrible must have happened, I was almost too frightened to go upstairs but I went anyway. I was still shouting though I think that now I was really shouting to warn off anyone who might be up there, if you know what I mean. I went up and up, it’s just a short stair but it seemed to go on forever somehow, and even though I thought I was ready for the worst, when I went into the bathroom and saw him lying there, I…’
The transition from control to collapse was sudden and complete. One moment the voice was firm, the narrative clear and remarkably frank in its analysis of her feelings: the next she was weeping and sobbing convulsively. Frostick patted her shoulders helplessly and glared at Pascoe as if he were to blame. Mrs Gregory returned with a tray set with teacups, which she carefully deposited on an old-fashioned sideboard before sitting next to the weeping woman on the arm of the sofa and taking her in an embrace which completely excluded Frostick.
After a while the sobs declined to an occasional soft-bursting bubble and the narrative resumed.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector. When I saw him, I just stood and shrieked. I tried to lift him out, but even though he weighed next to nothing, he was too much for me. He seemed all slippery and sort of waterlogged and I thought I was likely just to hurt him more by dragging him over the edge of the bath. Or perhaps that’s what I thought I thought later. What I remember vaguely is running down the stairs and into the street and banging on people’s doors and shrieking and shouting. I couldn’t stop. It’s funny. I had this feeling that when I stopped, that’s when it was really going to hurt, so I just went on and on. And then there was the ambulance, and getting to the hospital, and that doctor telling me he was dead, there was nothing they could do. Nothing. Just like that. Nothing. It was all over. All that living, all that worrying. I just couldn’t make any sense of it. No sense at all. It’s not how it should be, is it? It’s not how it should be!’
It was a poignant moment, suddenly and brutally interrupted by a tremendous hammering noise from the other side of the party wall and a high-pitched male alto voice calling what sounded like Teeny! Teeny! Where’s my tea?
‘Oh Dolly, I’m sorry, he must know I’m in here, I don’t know how,’ said Mrs Gregory.
Frostick leapt to his feet and banged his fist against the wall, bellowing, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ And now another voice was heard next door, a hoarse bass, rumbling powerfully but incomprehensibly beneath the alto whose cries of Teeny! only increased in pitch and volume. Then the bass exploded; there was a sharp crack; and silence…till like dimples on a smooth flowing stream there came a little run of soft sobs like a child’s comfortless crying.
‘I’d better go,’ said Mrs Gregory. ‘I’ll be back later, Dolly. I’m sorry, Alan. Goodbye, Inspector.’
She rose and left swiftly. Frostick, looking spent after his outburst, said, ‘She never mashed the tea,’ and went out, presumably to the kitchen.
Pascoe looked inquiringly at the woman on the sofa and after a while she said, ‘It’s Mabel’s father. He’s nearly eighty. He gets very confused. They’ve had to put his bed downstairs now, he’s so awkward on his pins. I don’t think he knows where he is half the time, but he always knows where Mabel is.’
‘What was he calling?’ asked Pascoe, thinking a brief diversion to her friend’s problems might have some therapeutic value. ‘It sounded like Teeny.’
‘That’s right. It’s what he called Mabel’s mother. That’s who he thinks Mabel is most of the time, when he recognizes her at all.’
‘It must be pretty awful,’ said Pascoe.
‘Oh yes.’ To his horror he saw that tears were forming again in her eyes. ‘It’s been like that for three years and more now. I don’t know how she stands it. It’s just about driven her Jeff mad and Andrea, that’s her daughter, up and left home earlier this year. That’s why we didn’t want Dad to stay with us, partly anyway. It was bad enough when he was convalescing after his turn. Him and Alan got on each other’s nerves and, I’ve got to be honest, it got on mine too a bit. But he seemed all right by himself after that, till just recently. He’d been getting more awkward and forgetful and we’d been talking about having him back here to live with us. I’d say it’d just be for a while till he got right again, but Alan’d say no, it’ll be forever, or at least for as long as he lives, and look at him next door, we shouldn’t kid ourselves, it might be a long, long time. So we’ve talked and talked and sometimes I’ve thought there’s no way round it but he’s got to come, and then I’ve seen Mabel, or heard the noise from next door, and I haven’t been able to face it, and that’s the truth, Inspector.
‘And now I know that maybe if I had been able to face it, he’d be here now and alive instead of…instead of…’
She stared unblinkingly at Pascoe through eyes big and bright with tears.
‘It’s not so much him being dead,’ she said. ‘That’s all there was for him, I reckon. But not like that! Not like that!’
Frostick came in with the teapot and Pascoe waited for a new outburst from him for upsetting his wife. But all the man said was, ‘You take milk?’
‘Thank you. No sugar. Mrs Frostick, I’m sorry to bother you when I can see how upset you are, but I have to ask these questions. Did your father keep any money or other valuables around the house?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the woman. ‘No valuables certainly. He never had anything that was worth very much.’
‘But money perhaps?’
‘He used to keep money,’ said Frostick, handing Pascoe his tea. ‘He liked to settle for things in cash. Never had a bank account or a cheque-book. He wasn’t badly off, either. He had a tidy pension from his work as well as the State. About seven or eight months back, Dolly came across a pile of notes he’d stuffed in an old kettle. More than a hundred pounds, wasn’t there?’
‘Yes, but I really got cross with him,’ said Mrs Frostick. ‘I made him go into town with me and I stood over him while he paid most of it into his building society account. I didn’t often lose my rag with him, but when I did, he knew better than to try and outface me.’
‘Do you think you cured him of the habit?’ asked Pascoe.
‘I doubt it,’ said Frostick. ‘He was a wilful old devil. He’d just hide the next lot somewhere that Dolly wouldn’t find it, that’s what I reckon.’
‘Well, perhaps we can check to some degree by looking at his building society pay-in book and seeing if he’s drawn much out recently,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’m afraid we’d very much like it if you could come down to the house as soon as you feel able, Mrs Frostick, and check over everything to see what, if anything, is missing.’
‘Do I have to?’ she said in a low voice.
‘There’s no one else can do it, is there?’ said Pascoe.
‘You’ll have to go some time, Dolly,’ said her husband. ‘Tomorrow morning, Inspector. That suit you?’
Pascoe would have preferred today, but looking at the woman and understanding now something of the burden of self-reproach she was carrying, he didn’t