It was as if they sensed blood. During that long evening, the reporters seemed to be everywhere. Two of them tried to talk to me on my way back to the Dark Hostelry. As I unlocked the garden gate, the photographer raised his camera. While Henry and I were making supper, they rang the back-door bell seven times. Until I drew the kitchen curtains, they crouched down on the pavement of the High Street and peered through the window.
We ate on trays upstairs in the drawing room. None of us said very much, Janet least of all. Her pale, perfect face gave nothing away. At one point David and Henry tried to have a conversation about cricket. I wanted to kick both of them.
Halfway through the meal the phone rang. Henry went to answer it. He’d started answering the phone after David swore at one of the reporters. Janet wouldn’t let us take the phone off the hook because Granny Byfield or Rosie might try to get in touch.
This time it wasn’t one of the journalists, it was the dean. David went to talk to him and came back looking even angrier than before.
‘He suggests we ask the police if we can move out for a while. He feels we’d be happier. And that this sort of attention is bad for the atmosphere of the Close.’
‘It mightn’t be a bad idea.’ I looked from Janet to David. ‘You won’t get any peace here, not for a day or two. You could take the car.’
‘Wouldn’t it cost a lot of money?’ Janet said vaguely, as if she was thinking of something completely different.
‘Blow the money,’ Henry said.
David put down his tray on the carpet and picked up his cigarettes. ‘Perhaps we should go away. It’s like living in a goldfish bowl.’
‘You must let me know if I can help,’ Henry said to David, in the awkward voice he used when he wanted to do someone a good turn.
‘We’ll manage, thanks.’
Janet stood up suddenly, knocking over an empty glass. ‘You all seem to have made up your minds about what we’re doing. I’d better go and think about what needs to be packed.’
She closed the door behind her and we listened to her feet on the stairs.
David cleared his throat. ‘Yes, no time like the present.’
He and Henry continued to talk about cricket. When it comes to burying heads in the sand, a man can out-perform an ostrich any day. I found Janet in Rosie’s room. She was sitting on the bed, her hands clasped together on her lap, staring out of the window. I sat beside her and the bed creaked. When I put my arm around her she felt as cold and stiff as a waxwork.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You know what they say – the darkest hour’s before dawn.’
‘I thought I’d better see if there was anything of Rosie’s we should send on.’
‘I thought you were packing for you and David.’
‘Rosie’s more important.’
‘I’m sure she’s all right.’ I gave Janet’s shoulder a little shake. ‘Ten to one, you’ll find that Granny Byfield’s met her match.’
‘You’re too kind to me. You’ve always been too kind for me. I’m not worth it.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
A door dosed downstairs. The men’s footsteps crossed the hall. They were talking about the last test match in the West Indies.
‘Silly to worry, isn’t it?’ Janet said. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’
‘Would you like a hand with the packing?’
‘I don’t even know if we’re going anywhere yet.’
‘I really think you should.’
She turned her head and smiled at me. ‘You’re right. No point in staying here. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m feeling rather tired.’
I remembered belatedly that she was still coping with the miscarriage. I persuaded her to have a bath and go to bed. I went downstairs and bullied the men into making themselves useful. Half an hour later I took Janet some cocoa. She was already asleep. On impulse, I bent down and kissed her head. Her hair wasn’t as soft as usual. It needed washing.
I went to bed early myself. After a long bath, I got into bed to read. I flicked over the pages of The Voice of Angels. The poems were nasty pretentious rubbish, I thought, sadistic and unnecessarily difficult. But as well as all those things, they were also sad. As I picked my way through the verses, I hardly noticed the rest, only the sadness.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, my stairs, the ones to the second floor. There was a tap on the door and I said, ‘Come in.’
Henry smiled uncertainly at me from the threshold. He had a bottle of brandy under one arm and was carrying a couple of glasses.
‘David’s gone to bed. I saw your light was on. I wondered if you’d fancy a nightcap.’
I nodded and moved my legs so he could sit on the end of the bed. He poured the drinks and passed me a glass.
‘Cheers.’
I said, ‘Not that there’s much to be cheery about,’ and drank.
‘David’s in an awful state.’
‘Is he? I thought he was concentrating on cricket this evening.’
Henry shrugged. ‘It’s what he doesn’t say. I suggested they go to London. They could see Rosie.’
‘That’s assuming Inspector Humphries lets them.’
‘Do you think …?’
I took another sip. ‘I don’t know what to think. But if Humphries is right, Janet’s father didn’t kill himself.’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Do you know, before he died, Mr Treevor was beginning to think he might be Francis Youlgreave?’
‘He was going senile. Wendy?’
I looked at Henry. ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.’
He patted my leg under the bedclothes. We sat there for a moment, as awkward as teenagers. I thought about my schoolgirl passion for David and decided that even though it hadn’t actually come to anything, I didn’t have much to be proud about either. And I also thought about the Byfields and Mr Treevor and Francis Youlgreave. There was too much suffering in the world already. I held out my hand.
Henry took it and kissed it. Then our lips were kissing and we both spilt our glasses of brandy.
‘Phew,’ Henry said, as the bottle rolled off the bed and fell to the rug without breaking. ‘And thank God I put the cork in it.’
In the morning, we were still together, naked in that narrow bed, and the brandy bottle was still where it had fallen. It was like that other morning when Janet came into my room to tell me that Mr Treevor was dead. The light had the same pale, colourless quality.
But it was David, not Janet, in the doorway. He was in his pyjamas, unshaven, his hair tousled.
Henry grunted and turned towards the wall. I looked at David and he looked at me.
‘It’s Janet,’ he said. ‘This time it’s Janet.’