The Mannequin House (17 page)

And if we choose not to give thanks? If we choose instead to rage against the humiliation of it all, to wrest back some power to ourselves; to declare that it is not through God’s grace but through our own bloody-mindedness that we survive: where does that leave us?

Quinn articulated the conclusion to which he had been led:
it leaves us in a place where we have no one to answer to but ourselves
.

He came out on to the westbound platform of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. The platform was crowded but Quinn had never felt more alone. The isolation that had once seemed a privilege was suddenly a curse.

Quinn inserted his front door key with a frown. He had no memory of making the short walk from Brompton Road tube station to his lodging house, and he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he made no effort to suppress the creak of the front door as he opened it.

The door to the dining room opened almost immediately and his landlady, Mrs Ibbott, bounded out. Her eyes looked upon him with solicitude; her gentle smile beamed a good-hearted welcome. It seemed almost as if she was about to throw open her arms and pull him into her spreading bosom.

At that moment it struck him that the sun setting over the Thames was not nearly as beautiful as this kindly, middle-aged woman.

‘Ah, Mr Quinn, it is
you
! This is fortuitous. We are just about to serve dinner. Would you care to join us? I know you normally prefer to eat in your room, but after what happened today we thought it would be nice if we all sat down together.’

‘How do you mean? What happened?’

‘The disaster at Blackley’s. Did you not hear about it?’

‘Oh, yes. I do beg your pardon. I thought you were perhaps referring to something else. Something to do with you, or Miss Ibbott, perhaps.’

‘I think it is at times like this that we must come together and . . .’ Mrs Ibbott broke off while she sought the right word. ‘
Appreciate
what we have.’

‘What we have?’

‘One another, I mean.’

Quinn was astonished. It had never occurred to him to think of his relationship to the other occupants of the house in such a way. ‘We have one another?’

Mrs Ibbott missed the interrogative tone in Quinn’s words. ‘Very well put, Mr Quinn. We have one another.’

Quinn stared at her in amazement.

‘So you will join us?’

‘I must take off my hat.’ Quinn put this forward as if it represented an insurmountable hurdle.

‘And after that, you will join us.’ Mrs Ibbott returned to the dining room. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.

Whether it was Quinn’s unwonted presence or some other influence, the mood in the dining room was muted. Invariably the voluble banter of the two youngest male residents of the house, Messrs Appleby and Timberley, could be heard through the wall. The braying sound was usually enough to send Quinn tiptoeing upstairs; the only reason he might welcome it was because it distracted attention from his entrance.

Appleby and Timberley both worked in some capacity at the Natural History Museum. The two men shared a room on the first floor of the house. They took delight in baiting some of the other lodgers, especially the older ones. In this, they were vying for the appreciation of Miss Mary Ibbott.

Miss Ibbott pretended to a degree of daintiness and even elegance in her demeanour, which the two young wags constantly set themselves to undo. The weapon they used against her was her own frivolity, the true nature of which had a touch of coarseness to it. If they could provoke her to fits of uncontrollable guffawing, they considered their work well done. An unladylike snort was their most sought-after prize or, failing that, a mock expostulation such as ‘You’re wicked!’ (When they all knew that Miss Ibbott was the wicked one, a willing accomplice in their mischief and her own downfall.)

But it was all done in the most good-natured way. And the high spirits of ‘the young people’ were tolerated, and even enjoyed, by those who sensed themselves to be the butt of the jocularity but had the wisdom not to be offended by it, even when they did not understand it.

Tonight, however, Messrs Appleby and Timberley were subdued, as was their audience, Miss Ibbott.

As Quinn entered the room all eyes turned towards him; he sensed a kind of desperation in the eagerness of this communal glance – not for his presence in particular, but for any kind of relief from the tedium of their own company. In that moment he thought he understood the forced exuberance of the two young men. It was to hide from them all the emptiness of their existences.

It was not quite true to say that all eyes had turned towards him. One pair remained steadfastly averted. A pair of eyes that he had only recently looked into. And although these eyes were hidden from him now, the memory of their colour – the unexpected richness of those pewter-grey discs – still startled him.

The eyes of Miss Dillard.

It had to be said that her eyes were the only impressive thing about Miss Dillard. And because most people never took the trouble to look into them, they never saw the strength and the humanity that resided there. To the other residents, she was a pitiable figure.
Poor Miss Dillard
, were words that often went together. A woman of a certain age. Her looks, never much to speak of, now on the verge of collapse. Her clothes, long out of fashion and visibly repaired, hung loosely with a wan, threadbare shapelessness. Her breath, stale and possibly sickly – and these days too often tinged with a whiff of sherry.

The smell of alcohol and the looseness of her clothes were connected. The small annuity that had come to her after her parents’ deaths did not always allow her to do all that she wished to do. Once the rent was paid and other expenses taken care of, it was sometimes a choice between regular meals and the occasional consolation of fortified wine.

It was small wonder that no one looked into her eyes. Doubtless they were afraid of what they might see there.

But Quinn had once dared to. At that moment, he had ceased to pity her; he had begun to understand her. For her part, it seemed her gaze was not one of simple neediness, as he might have expected. He saw compassion there, compassion that was directed towards him. It was strangely humbling.

The only spare place at the table was the one next to Miss Dillard. At one time, the prospect of sitting next to her would have filled him with dread. Not so long ago there had been a rumour circulating that she had set her cap for him, after she had been disappointed in love by one of the other male lodgers, since departed.

Despite the fact that she had not turned to look at him, in fact, perhaps because of that reticence on her part, Quinn felt that she was the only friend he had in the room. A part of him still feared the awakening of her emotional interest in him. He knew from that glimpse of her eyes the depth of feeling of which she was capable. It was simply not something that he could afford to encourage.

And yet, as he took his seat, he found he craved a glance from her. He sensed her nervous fidgeting and sought to ease it with a reassuring smile. Her cheeks seemed to have slackened perceptibly in the few days since he had last looked closely at her face. Her mouth sagged weakly. But her eyes shone with that same lustrous colour that he remembered, an almost mercurial luminosity.

Mrs Ibbott ladled mock turtle soup from a tureen. It was white china, decorated with the same blue pattern that was on the bowls and plates. ‘This dinner service came from Blackley’s,’ she was saying. ‘As did the table we’re eating off . . . And the chairs you’re sitting on . . .’ With each bowl of soup she handed out, she enumerated another item bought from Blackley’s. ‘The rug in the front parlour . . . The wallpaper in the hall . . . The armchairs in the back parlour . . .’

‘The antimacassars?’ enquired Mr Appleby as he took his bowl.

Miss Ibbott stifled a snigger.

Mr Timberley gave a warning shake of his head, in all likelihood as satirical as Appleby’s original question had been.

Mrs Ibbott paused to give the question the serious consideration she believed it merited. ‘Yes, I do believe so. The antimacassars. And all our doilies . . . I always get my doilies from Blackley’s.’ She continued ladling. ‘And the curtains . . . Most of the lampshades in the house are Blackley’s.’ Her tone became almost indignant here, as if she believed that this alone should have acted as a restraint on the crowds. ‘Really, I don’t know what the world is coming to!’

This provoked an outburst from a retired army colonel called Berwick. ‘Where were the police? They should have come down on them like a ton of bricks. Round up the ringleaders and hang them. Thrash the rest. That’s how we dealt with riots in my day. Country’s gone to the dogs.’ But it was not clear that Colonel Berwick knew which country he was in.

Quinn sensed a meek flicker of concern from Miss Dillard. For a long time he had believed that no one in the house knew what he did for a living. He certainly had never told anyone. But recently he had realized that his occupation was an open secret. Miss Dillard’s sensitivity on his behalf suggested that she was in on it.

‘I blame Blackley and his ilk,’ said Mr Finch, a lean and rather austere school teacher with a copious beard and socialist leanings. ‘He’s spent his whole life whipping up a frenzy of consumerism. He can hardly complain if he now falls victim to it. He has created a Frankenstein’s monster.’

‘Has he really?’ said Mr Timberley. ‘I would very much like one of those. Which department is it sold in, I wonder? Freakish Experimental Creatures? Or Allegories of Human Arrogance?’

It was Mr Appleby’s turn to shake his head. He added something in Latin – or at least Quinn presumed that was the language. The two young men had a habit of communicating asides to one another in Latin.

The other diners concentrated on their soup, the furious clink of spoons registering their irritation. There was silence as the bowls were taken away by Betsy, the maid.

‘If you had been there, you wouldn’t make jokes about it.’ Quinn looked at no one as he made the remark, his voice a barely audible murmur. He saw Miss Dillard’s hand dart out towards his arm, only to be retracted at the last moment.

Betsy began to bring out the main course, liver and bacon with mashed potatoes.

‘Were you there, Mr Quinn? You speak as if you were,’ said Mrs Ibbott.

‘Are you investigating the murder?’ wondered Mr Timberley.

‘That poor girl!’ cried Miss Dillard.

‘An extremely interesting case, Quinn,’ continued Timberley. ‘I envy you.’

‘I have not said that I am on the case.’ He had not said that he was a policeman. The mashed potato was both watery and lumpy in his mouth.

‘Oh, but you don’t need to. One only has to look at you. Ashen-faced.’ Timberley waved a fork in Quinn’s direction. ‘Shock, that is. That’s the face of a man who’s just seen his murder investigation turn into a public catastrophe. What do you think, Mr Quinn? Would I make a consulting detective? Perhaps you would like to make use of my services?’

‘Perhaps Mr Quinn has had some bad news of his own – of a personal nature,’ suggested Miss Dillard. ‘Into which it is not our business to enquire,’ she added quickly.

Quinn remembered Miss Latterly’s last words to him.
I can’t ever, ever love you!
He chewed a piece of liver. The texture was dry. It became almost impossible to swallow.

‘Of course, my expertise is not in simian behaviour,’ continued Timberley. ‘I have no experience in that area other than a long acquaintance with Mr Appleby. However, in all modesty I would venture to suggest that a scientifically trained mind such as my own could be of use to the police.’

Quinn gulped down the liver with a mouthful of water. A rubbery sinew had lodged in the gap between an upper canine and incisor. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I believe I am,’ said Timberley, his eyes popping slightly as if this realization came as a surprise to him. He gave a high nervous laugh that struck Quinn as feverish.

‘And what of Mr Appleby? Will he be your partner in crime-solving? The Doctor Watson, perhaps, to your Sherlock Holmes?’ Quinn felt a stab of shame, remembering that Blackley had made almost precisely the same joke at his expense.

‘I’m more the Moriarty of the piece,’ said Appleby, twirling a non-existent moustache.

Timberley’s hilarity in reaction to his friend’s quip was strangely overdone. A fit of silent sniggers shook his body. Tears began to trickle from his eyes. His face flushed an unhealthy purple. A sudden explosion of noise from him seemed to leave him gasping for life more than laughing. He slumped in his seat, banging the table so hard that all their plates jumped, provoking the mildest of reprimands from Mrs Ibbott. ‘Mr Timberley!’

‘Timberley, you idiot,’ said Appleby, but his smirk betrayed his pleasure.

‘It wasn’t that funny,’ remarked Miss Ibbott, who at times could be the severest of critics.

But Timberley had gone past the point of registering amusement. His emotions seemed genuinely beyond his control. The tears of laughter were now simply tears. His chair toppled over as he rushed from the room.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Mr Finch bluntly.

‘Highly strung,’ said Colonel Berwick.

Quinn didn’t question the instinct that made him turn to his right, towards Miss Dillard. He wanted to see her eyes, to understand through them what she had made of the scene. And therefore, what he ought to make of it himself.

‘Poor boy,’ she said, and her eyes reinforced the sincerity of her compassion. He knew immediately from her reaction that there was something difficult and serious going on with Timberley. He remembered a time recently when he had crossed the young man on the stairs and thought he had been crying. He had put it down to a decline in his fortunes with Miss Ibbott, or a quarrel with his friend, Appleby. He now saw – or rather Miss Dillard enabled him to see – that there was more to it than that. Whatever had disturbed Mr Timberley was more savage and more destructive than simple unhappiness.

It was only afterwards that it struck him as odd: that she was the one he turned to. And that the act of turning had felt as natural as that of breathing.