The Lodger Read Online Free Page B

‘Did he frighten you?’
    â€˜No, he didn’t.’ A little spark flashed in her eyes. ‘Take more than his kind to frighten me. Objectionable, that’s what he was. He ’ad his eye on Trary as well as me. What with that, and not payin’ no rent for weeks, out he went. I put all his stuff out on the doorstep and locked the door on ’im.’
    â€˜What was his name, Mrs Wilson, and could you describe him?’
    Maggie, eyeing the tall, masculine constable, shook her head at him.
    â€˜Oh, he won’t be the one you want,’ she said. ‘He was a little fat man, with fat fingers and a fat oily smirk, like he was always pleased with ’imself. I was told in the market the police were after a tall and well-built man, not a little fat one. Still, I’ll give you ’is name. Wally Hooper. But I don’t know where he is now.’ Maggie frowned again. ‘Oh, Lord, but just suppose it was ’im, just suppose me an’ the girls had had that kind of man in the house?’
    â€˜We’ll find him, Mrs Wilson, and check on him. I’d like to find him myself and have the pleasure of – ‘ Harry coughed. He had prejudices too. Maggie’s faint smile reappeared.
    â€˜You wouldn’t do that on my account, would you?’ she asked.
    â€˜Wouldn’t do what?’ asked Harry cautiously.
    â€˜Kick ’is backside for me,’ said Maggie forthrightly.
    â€˜Against the regulations,’ said Harry solemnly. He had dark brown hair the same colour as Trary’s, she noticed. ‘Well, thanks very much, Mrs Wilson, sorry I’ve had to bother you.’
    â€˜It’s not been a bother,’ said Maggie. ‘You’ve been kind, specially in not saying anything in front of the younger girls. Little girls get nightmares all too easy.’
    â€˜I hope yours don’t,’ he said.
    Maggie sighed. Born in Peckham, she was in service to a family in Norbury from the age of fourteen. At eighteen, she met Joe Wilson, who worked for the railways and lived in Walworth. Joe was a laughing man, a joke a minute. At nineteen, she married him, and they set up home here in Charleston Street. Two months later, her parents and her sister emigrated to Australia, selling everything they owned to sail all the way Down-Under in the hope of prospering. Maggie stayed to enjoy married life with Joe. Trary was born in 1894, Meg in 1897, Lily in 1899 and Daisy in late 1900. Joe hadn’t minded a bit that they were all girls, he spoiled them as much as he could on his limited wages. But five years ago a shunting accident had cost him his life. The railways paid her a pension as his widow, but it wasn’t very much. She had to struggle. She got temporary jobs now and again, and a year ago the local laundry took her on for four hours a day. She also took a lodger, four months ago. That was the one who was oily and disgusting, a fat drunk who thought he was God’s gift to a widow. He got behind with his rent of five bob a week, he got weeks behind with it. To make matters worse, the laundry said there wasn’t enough work for her and laid her off, six weeks ago. She tried all she could to get some back rent out of the lodger, and he said he’d pay her all of ten bob if she’d be nice to him. She got rid of him, although she was badly in debt, specially with Mr Monks, who’d loaned her a few pounds. She owed him more every week, it seemed, and she was behind with the rent. The girls were having to go short on food and decent clothes, and the workhouse was beginning to stare her in the face. She meant to fight that with every fibre of her being. The one relative she wouldn’t have been too proud to turn to for help was Uncle Henry, a favourite of hers, but he was in South Africa. And down there in Australia, her mum and dad and sister weren’t any better off yet than they’d been in England.
    She came to. The policeman