Chapter 16 No Proof We’re Lying
Jimmy lay on his front on the drawing room rug. His face was in profile, and a thick scarlet cloud expanded over his upper back. His visible eyelid flickered, and his body gently convulsed.
“Oughtn’t we try to stop the bleeding?” said Mina. “Aren’t you meant to apply pressure or something?”
“Is he—is he still alive?” said Robbie. Muscles can keep twitching like that after death, he thought. But Mina was right; they should stanch the wound. So why was he rooted to the spot like a useless bystander?
“I know,” said George, “we’ll check his breathing.” She produced a compact from her handbag and held it to Jimmy’s slackened mouth. “I can’t tell! Honor, can you?”
Honor peered dubiously at the mirror. “I think Robbie’s right. I think he’s dead.”
Saul rolled up his shirtsleeve and lifted Jimmy’s hand, pressing two fingers inside his wrist. “Maybe a faint pulse?” he said. “Difficult to judge.”
The blood continued to bloom across the rug, a flower growing in fast motion. Jimmy’s upper body suddenly lurched. His eye rolled back in his head. Then he was still.
They looked at each other, sensing shared guilt—but also, perhaps, relief.
At length, Honor said, “I don’t know about anyone else. But I can’t help wondering if we should deal with this privately.”
Saul said, “You mean…”
Robbie swallowed and took a step back, away from the body.
“We could telephone the police, of course,” said George. “There’d be a huge kerfuffle. And what good would it do? The police can’t bring him back, can they? And they might completely misinterpret the situation.”
“But the body,” said Mina. “What will we do with his body?”
Saul looked at his wristwatch. “It’s after ten. Soon, everyone in the neighborhood will be in bed. No one will see if we put him in the Anderson shelter. Just while we decide what to do.”
“Honor, your poor rug!” said Mina.
“I know,” said Honor. “I think even Greta will have met her match with this stain.”
“Do you suppose anyone will come looking for him?” Mina looked anxiously at Honor.
She drew on her cigarette. “It’s a good question. I’ll think about how best to handle it.”
George blurted, “You told me he was a criminal, Honor. Does that mean—”
“A criminal?” said Robbie. “What sort of—”
“The worst sort,” said Saul with an air of conclusiveness. “He was in prison, and not for long enough.”
Robbie opened his mouth, but Honor spoke first: “Maybe we’ll get rid of his things and say he moved out. Or simply claim he never came home tonight.”
“You were at the pub with him this evening, weren’t you?” said George. “Does that mean you’ll be considered the last person to see him alive?”
She was surprisingly calm in a crisis, thought Honor. “Well, possibly, yes. But the important thing is that we agree on a version of events, and all back each other up should we ever be required to. That way, there’ll be no proof we’re lying.”
George put her arm around Mina, who rested her head on the taller girl’s shoulder.
“Honor’s right,” she said. “So long as we stick together, everything will be fine.”
Robbie looked at George, then at Jimmy’s feet, which remained neatly shod.
One trouser leg had ridden up, exposing a worn-through sliver of sock where the shoe rubbed against his heel.
“Sorry,” muttered Robbie. “Sorry, I…” As he bolted from the room, George went out after him, asking if he was all right.
Halfway up the staircase, Robbie turned around and started saying yes, he was fine, but then he said, “George, what did he do? What was the crime, I mean?”
They stood there, each with a steadying hand on the banister. “I’ve no idea,” she said. “I take it he didn’t mention anything to you?”
Robbie shook his head and sat down awkwardly. “Nor you? Even though you two were…”
“Were what?” Her voice was sharp.
“Well, I mean, you were…” His brain ached inside his skull, and the right words eluded him. “Having a sort of affair.”
Now George sat down, too, a few steps below him. Frowning, she pulled her knees to her chest and stuck her chin out. “Is that what he claimed?”
“No, I… It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does matter! We were having nothing of the sort. He was kind to me when I was in a tricky spot, and once I spent the night in his bed because… oh, I don’t know, I was feeling insecure and wanted company.
But we just slept, like children.” She wasn’t sure why it seemed so important to convince him.
After all, he didn’t know Jimmy was her brother.
Robbie had the oddest expression on his face, and George went on: “It sounds silly, I know. It’s perfectly true, though.”
He stood up. “Tell the others I’ll be back downstairs in a moment. I just need to…” But he hurried upstairs without finishing his sentence.