Yet once Maud had lit the gas light in the kitchen, he was surprised by its cleanliness – a clean cloth on the table, a dresser crammed with well-dusted china and ornaments, a well-scrubbed draining board and gleaming white sink.
Maud staggered to a chair, sat down and drew both the little girls on to her knee. ‘Where’s my Reg?’ she asked, looking up at Hewitt with tear-filled eyes.
A lump came up in his throat. He’d met her breed of woman so many times, hard as nails because of what life had thrown at them, but fiercely protective of their children, even if they were now grown men. She looked so vulnerable in her nightgown, she hadn’t even realized yet she hadn’t got her teeth in. Judging by the pride she took in her home, she’d be horrified when she did remember.
‘He’s being questioned down at the station,’ Hewitt replied. ‘You can see him tomorrow morning, I expect, but for now we just had to get the children settled.’
Maud looked from one to the other of them, perhaps noting May’s puzzlement and Dulcie’s tense frown. ‘You two go upstairs and get into Granny’s bed,’ she said. ‘As soon as I’ve talked to the policeman I’ll be right up to you.’
May got up off her knee immediately, but Dulcie clung to the old woman. ‘I want to tell you about it,’ she whispered.
‘You can in just a little while. I’ll bring you up some cocoa. Just go on up now, I won’t be long.’ She lit a candle for Dulcie to take with her and nudged her towards the door.
Hewitt noticed the agonized look on the child’s face and guessed she could tell him a great deal. But the fatherly side of him couldn’t bring himself to insist on questioning an eight-year-old at three in the morning. It could wait a few hours.
‘Thank you,’ he said, once Maud had watched the girls go up the stairs. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about it in front of them, it’s been enough of a shock for them already tonight.’
He went on to tell Maud what the police found when they answered the emergency call. ‘I’m afraid your daughter-in-law was dead on our arrival, we won’t of course know the exact cause of death until the post mortem. Your son admitted they’d had a bitter quarrel, but he claimed her fall was an accident.’
‘Well it would be, my Reg ain’t a wife beater,’ Maud said stoutly. ‘Though ‘eaven knows that little floozy was enough to drive any man to it.’
‘Would you know what they might have been quarrelling about?’ he asked gently.
‘She were a slut and a spendthrift,’ Maud spat out. ‘But Reg never slagged ‘er off to me, ‘e adored ‘er. I tried to put ‘er straight many’s the time, but she’d stick ‘er nose in the air and tell me to mind my own business. She thought she was too good for the likes of me, she were from a snotty ‘ome up in Eltham.’
‘Would you have her parents’ address?’ Hewitt asked. ‘We’ll have to inform them of her death.’
‘She ain’t got none now,’ Maud said. ‘’Er ma was killed in the Blitz and ’er dad a few years later. There was an uncle, but she didn’t ’ave no truck wif ’im ’cos her dad left everything to ’im instead of ‘er.’
Hewitt was very relieved he hadn’t got to call on any more relatives, and he was instantly curious as to why Anne’s father should disinherit her. After sitting down and making the customary sympathetic remarks about Maud’s shock, and attempting to reassure her that anything she chose to tell him about her daughter-in-law would be off the record at this stage, he probed deeper.
‘Did she quarrel with her father too?’
‘I dunno. Anne said ‘e cut ‘er off ‘cos she didn’t stay wif ‘im after her ma was killed. I always reckoned there were more to it than that though. Still, we ain’t gonna find out now, are we?’
Hewitt agreed they weren’t and suggested he made them both a cup of tea.
‘I’ll do it,’ Maud said and got up from her chair. As she filled the kettle she explained that Reg was one of eight, the fifth child, and how he’d always been different from the others. ‘I’ll tell you now, because I know you’ll soon find out, all my boys ‘cept Reg ‘ave got themselves in trouble before now. They’re like their dad, boozers, without a brain between them. But Reg was always different. He used to look after me when the old man beat me, supported me and the younger ones once ‘e was dead. See it’s all decorated nice in ‘ere? Reg done that an’ all. ‘E’s always trying to get me to move somewhere nicer, but me old chums and me memories are ‘ere. Reg’s one in a million, ‘ard-working, sober, kind and generous. You can ask who you bleedin’ likes and you’ll ‘ear the same. Right good dad to the girls an’ all. So don’t you go thinking ‘e’s a murderer.’
‘What did he do in the war, Mrs Taylor?’ Hewitt asked.
‘Joined the army, didn’t ‘e? Didn’t even wait for ‘is call-up, ‘e reckoned it was every man’s duty to fight for their country. ‘E saw all the action over in France, ‘e was at Dunkirk and at Normandy, a bloody good soldier too, got made a corporal in no time, and then a sergeant.’
‘Anne must have found it difficult in the war, Dulcie would’ve only been a baby when it started and then May born in 1942,’ Hewitt probed. ‘Anne was very young too.’
‘Yeah, she found it ‘ard,’ Maud agreed. ‘It were tough on ‘er when her ma died. But I was around, I ‘ad Dulcie ‘ere any time she needed a break. But she got matey wif a couple of girls soon after she moved into a place in New Cross, and she told me to piss off once when I went round to see ‘ow she was. We never got on after that, I reckon she was ashamed of me.’
Hewitt thought it sounded as if Anne might have been up to something, but he didn’t say so. ‘How were things when Reg came home after the war?’ he asked. ‘Lots of men I know said their kids were scared of them, and it was difficult for a while.’
Maud chuckled. ‘There was a lot of that round ‘ere too. Specially those who had a new kid which couldn’t ‘ave been the old man’s. But it were all ‘earts and flowers with Reg and Anne. ‘E got that place for them up at ‘Ither Green, did it all up, Dulcie went to the school across the road, they was as ‘appy as sandboys for the first year.’
‘But then it changed?’ Hewitt prompted.
Maud didn’t answer for the moment and turned her back to get some cups and saucers from the dresser. Hewitt thought she was struggling not to cry, but at the same time selecting the best cups.
‘I don’t know what got into Anne,’ she said eventually. ‘She ‘ad bleedin’ everything a woman could want. Reg earned good money, ‘e didn’t drink, ‘e made that place like a palace for ‘er. But she just let it go, never washed up, cleaned or anything. Reg used to do it when ‘e got ‘ome. Always spending money on ‘erself, dresses, shoes, having ‘er ‘air done. Never knew where she got the coupons for the clothes, I got a job to scrape together enough for a new skirt.’
Hewitt weighed this up. ‘Do you think there was another man, Mrs Taylor?’
‘That ain’t fer me to say,’ she snapped at him. ‘That’s their private business. But I do know that once she got the job at the pub she got less inclined to do anything for Reg and the kids.’
Hewitt made a mental note to make inquiries at the pub.
‘Could you tell me what Anne was like? I mean her personality, her interests.’
Maud snorted and banged the cups down on the table. ‘Dancing and clothes was her only interests,’ she said tersely, but suddenly her face softened a little. ‘She was a beauty though. I remember the first time Reg brought ‘er ‘ere, I thought ‘e’d got the fairy off the top of the Christmas tree. Big blue eyes, lovely blonde ‘air, the sort that don’t come out of a bottle. And she talked real nice an’ all. She were nice then, used to bring me a few flowers or chocolate, she’d get me to ‘elp her with ‘er knitting for the baby, ask me stuff about ‘ow it was going to be when ‘er time came. I was ‘urt that her folks ‘ad no time for Reg, but I s’pose they was mad ‘cos he got ‘er up the duff. But anyway I was that pleased for Reg, even if it were a shotgun weddin’. Anne ‘ad class, you know w
hat I mean?’
Hewitt nodded. Even dead, with a tear-stained face, Anne Taylor looked beautiful. Perhaps she was just too young and beautiful for Reg, maybe she’d got a better offer from a rich man and was about to take off. If the old woman was to be believed she probably led him a dog’s life, maybe she even deserved what she got. But sadly Reg would pay the price for her death – even if murder couldn’t be proved, he was bound to be charged with manslaughter. By the time he got out, his daughters would be grown women, he’d be too old to find himself another woman as lovely as Anne.
They drank the tea Maud made, while Hewitt asked if the children could stay with her for the time being.
‘They ain’t going anywhere else,’ she said sharply. ‘I might be getting on, but I can look after them all right. Don’t you go getting any funny ideas about taking them off me.’
‘Of course not,’ Hewitt said with a reassuring smile. He didn’t think the Welfare people would approve of such an old woman taking care of the girls, but she clearly loved them. ‘Anyway, I’ll be back later on today to talk to Dulcie. She might be able to throw a little more light on what happened.’
Maud took the stairs very slowly after the police were gone. She was shocked to the core that Anne was dead, frightened for her son and for her grand-daughters. All her sons with the exception of Reg were violent men, just as their father had been, and she knew Reg with his brutish looks would be tarred with the same brush. She was certain Anne had another man, and that Reg had found out, and if that came out in court he wouldn’t stand a chance.
She stood on the tiny landing between the two bedrooms, the candle in her hand, tears rolling down her cheeks. This house had once been crammed with children, boys in one room, the girls and her and her husband Albert in the other. At night it quivered with snoring, snuffling and rustling. She could remember nights too when the kids cried with hunger and she sobbed as well in desperation. Eight was a great many children, yet she’d borne eleven, three dying before they were even one.
Reg had been the only one who always gave her joy. It was always he who came home with wood for the fire or a few vegetables left at the end of the market. As young as seven or eight he’d earn a few pennies selling papers or cleaning out stables and bring the money back to her. There were so many times when he bathed her black eyes and split lips, or washed her hair for her when she couldn’t lift her arms for the bruises. He always told her that when he was grown up he’d take her away from here.
She never mourned Albert’s death. How could she? He’d been such a cruel and wicked man. She just wished she’d found a way of leaving him years before he’d made the older boys just like him. But Reg, with his gentle ways, big dreams and the ability to work hard, had cheered her. Thanks to him, Maria and Rose, her two youngest children, had shoes on their feet, food in their bellies and weren’t haunted by the misery their father had inflicted on the others. They were both in Canada now – Maria had gone first at eighteen, and then Rose joined her. They became nurses, got married and had a child each. Maybe they had more than one now, for neither of them wrote home any longer. Alan and Raymond, the two oldest, didn’t keep in touch either – for all she knew she could be a great-grandmother. So many, many children, seventeen grandchildren that she knew of, yet it was only Dulcie and May she had close contact with, Reg had seen to that.
How was she going to comfort them now? Anne might not have been a good mother, but they loved her. And to be deprived of their father as well, that was too great a loss for them.
As she went into the bedroom and saw them huddled together, fast asleep, arms around each other, her tears fell faster, for reason told her she was unlikely to live to see them leaving school.
She sat on the edge of the bed, reached for her rosary and prayed. For Anne to rest in peace, for Reg to be cleared of any crime, and for God to give her the strength and endurance to make a good replacement mother for as long as she was needed.
Blowing out the candle, she slipped into bed. It was warm from the girls’ small bodies, and it gave her a little comfort. Through the gap in the curtains she could see the first rays of daylight creeping into the sky above the roof of the house opposite.
‘Sleep tight, my little loves, Granny’s here,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t you worry either, Reggie, I’ll take care of them for you.’
Maud woke at her usual time of seven, and force of habit made her get up. The girls were still sleeping, May buried in the crook of her sister’s arm. Maud pulled on her dressing-gown and pushed her feet into her slippers. It felt very cold.
Downstairs, she put her teeth in, lit the fire in the parlour, and turned the gas cooker on to make the house warmer. She was sitting sipping a cup of tea when Dulcie came into the kitchen. She was dressed, but with the buttons on her cardigan all askew, and she was ghostly pale.
Maud didn’t speak, just got another cup and poured some tea for the child too. For all her personal experience of death, she didn’t know what to say to her.
‘Did the policeman say what will happen to Daddy?’ Dulcie asked after a little while. Her voice was as pale as her face, flat and toneless.
‘’E couldn’t, sweetheart, not yet. But ‘e’s coming to talk to you later today, maybe ‘e’ll know something then.’
‘Why does he want to talk to me?’
‘Well, because you were there,’ Maud said with a shrug. ‘’E’ll want to know what you ‘eard and saw.’
‘I only heard them shouting for a little bit, then the noise of her going down the stairs,’ Dulcie said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
‘What were they shouting about?’ Maud asked. ‘Can you tell me?’
Dulcie dropped her head. ‘If I say it, it might make things worse for Daddy.’
Maud felt her stomach turn over. What had the child heard?
‘Suppose you tell me what you think you ‘eard,’ she said, patting Dulcie on the hand. ‘Telling me don’t count for anything. Maybe you was ‘alf asleep and got it all wrong.’
Dulcie’s head came up slowly. ‘I don’t think so, Granny, it keeps on going round in my head.’
She told what she’d heard all in one gulp, starting from the bit about the court, her mum saying May wasn’t his child, and then on to how Dad roared at her and the sort of scuffling she heard when he screamed Get out or I’ll kill you, then finishing with the noise her mum made as she fell down the stairs.
Maud was severely shaken. She knew if Dulcie was to say all that to the policeman, Reg was as good as hanged. But how could she ask a child to lie? That wasn’t right either.
‘Granny!’ Dulcie exclaimed when the old lady didn’t reply immediately. ‘Are you worried that it makes Daddy sound bad?’
Maud nodded. ‘But I know ‘e ain’t,’ she said. ‘I threatened to kill your grandfather many a time, but I wouldn’t ‘ave done it.’
‘Shall I tell the policeman I woke because they were shouting but I didn’t know what they said?’
Maud just looked at her. ‘I can’t tell you what to do,’ she said wearily. ‘But maybe it would be better if you forgot what you think you ‘eard. That ain’t the same as lying, love. Yer dad’s an ‘onest man, ‘e’ll tell the truth about what went on.’
‘He told me it was an accident and that she just fell. He said whatever people said I was to believe that.’
‘Then you must believe it, because it will be true,’ Maud said.
‘What did Mum mean about May not being his child?’ Dulcie asked, looking perplexed.
Maud forced a laugh. ‘Well, that was plain silliness, she just wanted to get ‘is goat. ‘Course May’s ‘is, look at the pair of you, like two peas in a pod. Now, why don’t yer go in the parlour by the fire, there’s some comics in there. I’ll get us some breakfast.’
Maud sat for a while thinking after Dulcie had gone into the other room. It was the bit about May not being Reg’s child which was eating into her, for she had always suspected that might be the case. Reg had only got leave t
wice in 1941, first in February, just after Anne moved out of her father’s house to New Cross, and then again in October. May was born in early May, named for the month too. Anne claimed she was early, but Maud was too long in the tooth to believe an eight-month pregnancy could result in a seven-and-a-half-pound baby.
But she’d never said a word, not even to Anne. Reg loved that baby from the first time he held her, and she couldn’t bring herself to cause her son any pain. As it happened, May was so like Dulcie that it would never cross anyone’s mind to doubt they were full sisters. Silently she cursed Anne for her revelation, for that would certainly have been enough to push Reg over the edge. He had always idolized May, often making more of her than he did of Dulcie because she was such a little show-off with her giggling and chatting. The trouble was, this was going to be like a sodding time-bomb. Dulcie didn’t understand about how babies were made yet, she probably still imagined the doctor brought them along in his bag. But one day when she did know what was what, she was going to remember what she’d heard, and suddenly all the events of last night would take on a whole new meaning.
Maud caught a bus to Lewisham police station during the afternoon, leaving the girls with her neighbour. On her arrival the duty officer informed her that Reg still hadn’t been charged with anything, because as yet a solicitor hadn’t arrived, so he said she could speak to her son in an interview room alone.
Reg’s eyes looked sunken, his cheeks hollow, as if overnight he’d lost a stone in weight. ‘I didn’t push her, Mum,’ he said immediately he was brought into the room. ‘She fell, I swear it on the girls’ lives.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ she reassured him. ‘But tell me ‘ow it all came about. Get it off yer chest.’
Maud’s heart felt as if it was being squeezed as he explained the events of the previous day. He broke down as he got to the point when he realized Anne was having an affair with another man, and sobbed uncontrollably. ‘I trusted her, Mum, I thought she was all mine. But the way she was last night I saw she’d never really been that, only a part of her, the rest was always waiting for someone better to come along.’