The Family Upstairs(5)
The cause of death is still to be ascertained, but early blood samples tested appear to suggest that the trio may have poisoned themselves.
Henry Lamb, 48, was the sole beneficiary of the estate of his father, Mr Harry Lamb, of Blackpool, Lancashire. He had suffered from ill health in recent years and was said to be wheelchair-bound.
Police are now trawling the country for sightings of the couple’s son and daughter who are described as roughly fourteen to sixteen years old. Anyone with any information about the whereabouts of the children is invited to contact the Metropolitan Police at the earliest possible juncture. Anyone who may have spent time living at the property with the family in recent years is also of great interest to the police.
She stares at Mr Royle. ‘Is that …? The baby left behind – is that me?’
He nods. She can see genuine sadness in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Such a tragic story, isn’t it? And such a mystery. The children, I mean. The house was in trust for them, too, but neither of them ever came forward. I can only assume, well, that they’re … anyway.’ He leans forward, clutches his tie and smiles, painfully. ‘May I offer you a pen?’
He tips a wooden pot of expensive-looking ballpoint pens towards her and she takes one. It has the name of the firm printed on its barrel in gold script.
Libby stares at it blankly for a moment.
A brother.
A sister.
A suicide pact.
She shakes her head, very slightly; then she clears her throat and says, ‘Thank you.’
Her fingers clutch the solid pen tightly. She can barely remember what her signature is supposed to look like. There are sticky plastic arrows attached to the edges of the pages she is expected to sign, pointing her in the right direction. The sound of the pen against the paper is almost excruciating. Mr Royle watches benignly; he pushes his teacup across the desk a few inches, then back again.
As she signs, she feels very strongly the import of this moment, this invisible turning in her life taking her from here to there. On one side of this pile of papers is careful trolley trips round Lidl, one week away a year and an eleven-year-old Vauxhall Corsa. On the other is the keys to an eight-bedroom house in Chelsea.
‘Good,’ he says, almost with a sigh of relief, as Libby passes him back the paperwork. ‘Good, good, good.’ He flicks through it, casting his gaze over the spaces next to the plastic arrows and then he looks up at Libby and smiles and says, ‘Right. I think it’s time for you to take ownership of the keys.’ He pulls a small white jiffy bag from a drawer in his desk. The label on the packet says ‘16 Cheyne Walk’.
Libby peers inside. Three sets of keys. One with a metal keyring with the Jaguar logo on it. One with a brass keyring with a cigarette lighter built into it. And one set without a keyring.
He gets to his feet. ‘Shall we go?’ he says. ‘We can walk. It’s only just around the corner.’
It’s a violently hot summer’s day. Libby can feel the heat of the paving stones through the soles of her slip-on canvas shoes, the glare of the midday sun burning through the thin film of cloud. They walk down a street filled with restaurants, all open to the pavement, fully laid-up tables set on special platforms and protected from the sun by vast rectangular parasols. Women in oversized sunglasses sit in twos and threes drinking wine. Some of them are as young as her and she marvels at how they can afford to sit drinking wine in a posh restaurant on a Monday afternoon.
‘So,’ says Mr Royle, ‘this could be your new neighbourhood, I suppose. If you decided to live in the house.’
She shakes her head and issues a small nervous laugh. She can’t form a proper reply. It’s all just too silly.
They pass tiny boutiques and antique shops filled with bronzes of foxes and bears, vast twinkling chandeliers the size of her bathtub. Then they are by the river and Libby can smell it before she sees it, the wet-dog tang of it. Wide boats slip by each other; a smaller boat with more rich people on it bubbles past: champagne in a silver cooler, a windswept golden retriever at the prow squinting against the sun.
‘It’s just down here,’ says Mr Royle. ‘Another minute or two.’
Libby’s thighs are chafing and she wishes she’d worn shorts instead of a skirt. She can feel sweat being absorbed by the fabric of her bra where the cups meet in the middle and she can tell that Mr Royle, in his tight-fitting suit and shirt, is finding the heat unbearable too.
‘Here we are,’ he says, turning to face a terrace of five or six red-brick houses, all of differing heights and widths. Libby guesses immediately which is hers, even before she sees the number sixteen painted on the fanlight in a curly script. The house is three floors high, four windows wide. It is beautiful. But it is, just as she’d imagined it would be, boarded up. The chimney pots and gutters are overgrown with weeds. The house is an eyesore.
But such a beautiful eyesore. Libby inhales sharply. ‘It’s very big,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Mr Royle. ‘Twelve rooms in total. Not including the basement.’
The house stands well back from the pavement behind ornate metal railings and an overgrown parterre garden. There is a wrought-iron canopy running towards the front door and to the left is a full-size cannon set on a concrete block.
‘Would you like me to do the honours?’ Mr Royle indicates the padlock securing the board over the front door.