Glebe Road might have been designed by the Romans, it was so straight, so long and so uncompromising. The sand houses had no woodwork about them. Their window frames were of metal and their porch canopies excrescences of pebbly plaster. After every fourth house an arch in the facade led into the back and through these arches sheds, coal bunkers and dustbins could be seen.
The street was numbered from the Kingsbrook Road end and Archery walked nearly half a mile before he found twenty-four. The hot pavements running with melted tar made his feet burn. He pushed open the gate and saw that the canopy covered not one front door but two. The house had been converted into two surely tiny flatlets. He tapped the chromium knocker on the door marked 24A and waited.
When nothing happened he tapped again. There was a grinding trundling sound and a boy on roller skates came out from under the arch. He took no notice at all of the clergyman. Could Mrs Crilling be asleep? It was hot enough for a siesta and Archery felt languid himself.
He stepped back and looked through the arch. Then he heard the door open and slam shut. So somebody was at home. He rounded the sandy wall and came face to face with Elizabeth Crilling.
At once he sensed that she had not answered, nor probably even heard, his knock. Evidently she was going out. The black dress had been changed for a short blue cotton shift that showed the outlines of her prominent hip bones. She wore backless white mules and carried a huge white and gilt handbag.
"What d'you want?" It was obvious she had no idea who he was. He thought she looked old, finished, as if somehow she had been used and wrecked. "If you're selling something," she said, "you've come to the wrong shop."
"I saw your mother in court this morning," Archery said. "She asked me to come and see her."
He thought she had rather a charming smile, for her mouth was well-shaped and her teeth good. But the smile was too brief.
"That," she said, "was this morning."
"Is she at home?" He looked helplessly at the doors. "I—er—which one is it, which flat?"
"Are you kidding? It's bad enough sharing a house with her. Only a stone-deaf paralytic could stick living underneath her."
"I'll go in, shall I?"
"Suit yourself. She's not likely to come out here." The bag strap was hoisted on to the right shoulder, pulling the blue stuff tight across her breasts. Without knowing why, Archery remembered the exquisite woman in the dining room of the Olive and Dove, her petal skin and her easy grace.
Elizabeth Crilling's face was greasy. In the bright afternoon light the skin had the texture of lemon peel. "Well, go on in," she said sharply, unlocking the door. She pushed it open and turned away, her mules flapping and clacking down the path. "She won't bite you," she said over her shoulder. "At least, I shouldn't think so. She bit me once, but there were—well, extenuating circumstances."
Archery went into the hall. Three doors led off it but they were all closed. He coughed and said tentatively, "Mrs. Crilling?' The place was stuffy and silent. He hesitated for a moment, then opened the first part of the doors. Inside was a bedroom divided into two by a hardboard partition. He had been wondering how the two women managed. Now he knew. The middle room must be where they lived. He tapped on the door and opened it.
Although the french windows were ajar the air was thick with smoke and the two ashtrays on a gateleg table were filled with stubs. Every surface was covered with papers and debris and the debris with dust. As he entered a blue budgerigar in a tiny cage broke into a stream of high brittle chatter. The cage swung furiously.
Mrs. Crilling wore a pink nylon dressing gown that looked as if it had once been designed for a bride. The honeymoon, Archery thought, was long over, for the dressing gown was stained and torn and hideous. She was sitting in an armchair looking through the window at a fenced-in piece of land at the back. It could hardly be called a garden for nothing grew in it but nettles, three feet high, rose-pink firewood, and brambles that covered everything with fly-infested tendrils.
"You hadn't forgotten I was coming, Mrs. Crilling?" The face that appeared round the wing of the chair was enough to intimidate anyone. The whites of the eyes showed all the way round the black pupils. Every muscle looked tense, taut and corrugated as if from some inner agony. Her white hair, fringed and styled like a teenager's, curtained the sharp cheekbones.
"Who are you?" She dragged herself up, clinging to the chair arm and came slowly round to face him. The vee at the dressing gown front showed a ridged and withered valley like the bed of a long-dried stream.
"We met in court this morning. You wrote to me..."
He stopped. She had thrust her face within inches of his and seemed to be scrutinising it. Then she stepped back and gave a long chattering laugh which the budgerigar echoed.
"Mrs. Crilling, are you all right? Is there anything I can do?"
She clutched her throat and the laugh died away in a rising wheeze. "Tablets ... asthma..." she gasped. He was puzzled and shocked, but he reached behind him for the bottle of tablets on the littered mantelpiece. "Give me my tablets and then you can ... you can get out!"
"I'm sorry if I've done anything to distress you."
She made no attempt to take a tablet but held the bottle up against her quaking chest. The movement made the tablets rattle and the bird, fluttering its wings and beating against the bars, began a frenzied crescendo, half song and half pain.
"Where's my baby?" Did she mean Elizabeth? She must mean Elizabeth.
"She's gone out. I met her in the porch. Mrs. Crilling, can I get you a glass of water? Can I make you a cup of tea?"
"Tea? What do I want with tea? That's what she said this morning, that police girl. Come and have a cup of tea, Mrs. Crilling." A terrible spasm shook her and she fell back against the chair, fighting for breath. "You ... my baby ... I thought you were my friend ... Aaah!"
Archery was really frightened now. He plunged from the room into the dirty kitchen and filled a cup with water. The window ledge was stacked with empty chemist's bottles and there was a filthy hypodermic beside an equally dirty eye dropper. When he came back she was still wheezing and jerking. Should he make her take the tablets, dare he? On the bottle label were the words: Mrs. J. Crilling. Take two when needed. He rattled two into his hands and, supporting her with his other arm, forced them into her mouth. It was all he could do to suppress the shudder of distaste when she dribbled and choked over the water.
"Filthy ... nasty," she mumbled. He half-eased, half-rolled her into the chair and pulled together the gaping edges of the dressing gown. Moved with pity and with horror, he knelt down beside her.
"I will be your friend if you want me to be," he said soothingly.
The words had the opposite effect. She made a tremendous effort to draw breath. Her lips split open and he could see her tongue rising and quivering against the roof of her mouth.
"Not my friend ... enemy ... police friend! Take my baby away ... I saw you with them ... I watched you come out with them." He drew back from her, rising. Never would he have believed her capable of screaming after that spasm and when the scream came, as clear and ear-splitting as a child's, he felt his hands go up to his face. "...Not let them get her in there! Not in the prison! They'll find it out in there. She'll tell them ... my baby ... She'll have to tell them!" With a sudden galvanic jerk she reared up, her mouth open and her arms flailing. They'll find it all out. I'll kill her first, kill her ... D'you hear?"