Zanny and Dolly had been in the police station waiting room for nearly half an hour before Sergeant Thomas sent for them. Constable Williams had informed him with intense glee that he"d better turn his collar back to front and take instruction from the local priest. "You are wasted on Zion," he said. "You are wasted in the police. A monastery for you, Thomas, and a hair shirt. Two more from the convent out there -- like bees to honey they come."
Thomas had reminded him, rather sharply for him, that he was speaking to a superior officer. Williams had winked cheekily.
"If it"s lost bikes - lost pumps - or lost pedals," Thomas said, "then why pa.s.s it to me?"
Williams made a noose of his fingers and placed them around his neck. He rolled his eyes upwards and pretended to choke. "Murphy," he said.
Mother Benedicta had said one. She hadn"t said three. Thomas told Williams to give him ten minutes and then to knock on his door with a plausible story. It was nearly lunch time.
He had expected two more elderly ladies and was surprised to see a very beautiful young girl with golden hair accompanied by a less beautiful but still quite interesting companion of about the same age. The beautiful one looked as if she had recently been weeping. The less beautiful one was frowning. Thomas told them to sit down. They obeyed in silence.
"Well?" said Thomas.
"I killed Bridget," said the beautiful one. "And I thought you ought to know."
"Well - now," said Thomas, leaning back in his chair.
He looked at the less beautiful one. "And you killed Bridget, too?" he suggested blandly.
"I most certainly did not," said Dolly indignantly.
Zanny, who had spent most of her waking hours visualising this scene, felt as if she had walked into a gla.s.s box. There was nothing in it. No response. No start of horror. No narrowing of the eyes in appraisal. Absolutely nothing. Instead a cool elderly policeman, old enough to be her grandfather, was smiling at her quizzically. It really would not do.
Dolly was the first to understand the situation. She read newspapers whenever she could get hold of them. She read news reviews and books, both fact and fiction.
"It"s quite obvious to me," she said, in what she hoped was a good counsel for the prosecution tone, "that you don"t believe my friend."
"Well now," said Thomas, who had been patient for quite a long time and was getting rather tired of it, "you might well be right."
"Confessions, I suppose," said Dolly, "in a case like this, are thick on the ground."
"Like daisies in summer-time," said Thomas.
"I put it to you," said Dolly, "that amongst the daisies there might be an acorn of truth."
"Unlikely," said Thomas, looking at her with a degree of interest.
"In this particular case," Dolly said, "there is more than an acorn - there is a whole tree." She was sorry she had used the metaphor, but having used it decided to carry on with it. "Felons," she said, "are hanged on trees. In this case the wrong felon."
A conversation of long ago came back into her mind -- and into Zanny"s - something about little Willie and apples hanging on trees.
"My friend," said Dolly, "murdered my brother when she was six -- she murdered Mr. Evans, the breadman, shortly after, by making him crash his van - and now, quite recently, she murdered Bridget O"Hare."
"Friend - is it?" said Thomas.
"For want of a better word," said Dolly.
Thomas began actively to dislike the less "beautiful one. He had seen cases of intimidation in his time and was quite convinced he was seeing one now. Bullying went on in most schools, but this surely was carrying it too far.
"If you have a complaint to make," he said gently to Zanny, "then don"t be afraid to make it to me. It would have been much better to have gone to Mother Benedicta first, but as you haven"t... or have you?" Zanny shook her head. "Then tell me why your -- your -- companion - is bullying you."
"Oh, but she"s not," said Zanny, surprised. "We have to leave the convent in twos - and she"s the only one who knows all about it - I wanted her to come."
"It takes courage," Dolly said, "to confess to murder."
"Any confession this young lady makes," Thomas said, "she will make when you are not around to intimidate her. Go outside."
Dolly, surprised, was about to argue but changed her mind. In days to come men like Thomas would grovel at her feet. If it pleases your Worship, they would say . . .
"Out!" said Thomas, holding the door open for her.
And now for thumb screws, Zanny thought. We are alone. I am at his mercy. The silky, kindly ones were the worst. Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, Murphy, Murphy, I am doing this for you. I feel sick. I need to go to the lavatory. I love you.
"There is no need to be afraid," Thomas said. "Of anyone. When I was a little lad in school, I got pushed around until I learnt to fight. Young ladies don"t fight, but they can be strong in other ways. You don"t have to do everything that other young lady tells you."
Zanny, surprised at the route the conversation was taking, said that Dolly hadn"t told her to do anything. "She left it to my conscience."
Devious, Thomas thought. Nasty. Too much poking around with a conscience left you with a guilt complex which this young girl quite obviously had.
"Whatever you"ve got to tell me," he said, "then tell it to me now -- without fear. You won"t be telling tales about the other young lady. It will just be the truth. If you are afraid of her, tell me -- and tell me why. Everything will be all right. You are not to worry about anything."
Zanny, unable to make sense of the conversation, was beginning to shake. "Oh, but I am worried," she moaned, "so terribly worried. Murphy didn"t kill Bridget. He"s going to be hanged for something he didn"t do."
Thomas didn"t know much about psychology, but he knew that a guilt complex usually focussed on something. Murphy was in the news. A murderer awaiting execution was clothed in the minor sins of the unstable like a scarecrow. Miss Sheldon-Smythe, uncomplicatedly batty, had shone with resolve. This little girl was actually quaking with fright. He wondered what she"d done. Gone too far with a boyfriend, perhaps; she was old enough. And the other one had caught her at it? A little misdemeanour had blown up in her mind into a major catastrophe. The other one had played on her emotions like a flat-footed chapel organist with all the stops out. Of the two, she was the more unbalanced. Fancy saying this one had murdered Evans the Bread! What a cruel accusation! Though it was nine years ago he remembered the death of Evans quite clearly. He was his wife"s cousin. Accident, the coroner had said. Well, obviously.
When people were upset they had to be calmed down. The other s.a.d.i.s.tic little madam had forced her to come here and talk a lot of nonsense. Well, he"d better listen.
"I killed Bridget O"Hare," Zanny said again. "I pushed her over the cliff. Murphy had nothing to do with it. You can"t hang him."
Thomas sat back in his chair, wondering what to say that would make her feel better. "The world is full of bad people," he said, "and people who are not so bad who get caught up in bad situations."
"Bridget was bad," Zanny said. "She enticed Murphy. Murphy is a very good man."
"There is good in all of us," Thomas soothed.
"It was for Murphy"s sake that I did it - that I pushed her over the cliff. He would never have been able to shake her off. She would have been around his neck for ever."
His neck.
Oh, Murphy!
"You"ve got to believe me. Don"t I write a statement, or something? What do I do?" (She said it with a flash of anger and sounded like Miss Sheldon-Smythe.) If it made her happy to write a statement, then she"d better write it. It was supposed to be good therapy to write things down. It was high time Mother Benedicta was told about all this. Not an easy case to handle. Adolescent girls were peculiar. When his own daughter was this one"s age she had run off to go on the stage and got as far as Liverpool. Lied like Lucifer, she had.
"Well, yes," Thomas said, pushing over paper and pen to Zanny"s side of the desk. "Write it down, by all means."
My death warrant, Zanny thought, hesitating only momentarily. Well, it wasn"t, of course. She wasn"t sixteen yet. Her start of a new life, though - not a nice one.
She wrote the date in her rather spidery writing and then headed the paper with the convent address.