‘That’s right. Did you stay there a long time?’
‘Where?’
‘In the North Pole.’
‘I had a couple of pints in there,’ he agreed, then frowned. ‘I dunno when that was. Was it Sat’dy?’
‘It was Sunday, when you went to the fair.’
‘The fair was good. It was a big one. Lots of lights. I like the lights. They’re best when it gets dark, though.’
‘So what did you do after the North Pole?’ Ronnie looked blank. ‘Did you go back to the fair?’ Slider tried. ‘To see the lights again?’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed – too easily? ‘I walked about the fair a bit.’
‘Did you see the girl again? The one that screamed?’
‘No, I never see her. Not there.’ He frowned again with effort, and managed, ‘I was hungry. The hot dogs smelled nice, but I didn’t have no more money, after the pub. So I went home.’
Something occurred to Slider. ‘What way do you go home from there, Ronnie?’ He looked bewildered, not understanding the question. ‘Do you go on the bus?’
‘Me mum’s got a bus pass,’ he said vaguely.
‘What about Sunday night? Did you take the bus home?’ Ronnie shook his head vaguely. ‘Did you walk home, maybe? It was a nice night, warm, not raining. Nice for walking.’
‘Yeah, I walked home,’ he agreed. ‘I never had no money left for the bus, so I walked home.’
‘Along the streets?’ Slider offered, trying not to hold his breath. ‘Or did you go over the grass? Across the Scrubs?’
‘Yeah, I went over the Scrubs. It’s quicker that way.’
‘It’s a short-cut,’ Slider said, breathing out with relief. They were back on track. And it was absolutely true. From the fair to Ronnie’s house across the Scrubs cut off a big corner and saved a walker somewhere near a mile. It was the most natural thing in the world for a lad who had lived in the area all his life – and was too thick to be afraid of walking across dark commons at night – to go that way. And it fitted with the witnesses who said they had seen a strange-looking man wandering across the Scrubs. Ronnie was not the sort to yomp along briskly, heel to toe and head up. His natural gait would be as woolly and indefinite as his thought processes. He would have ‘wandered’ all right.
‘Did you see that girl while you were walking over the Scrubs?’ he asked. ‘The one that screamed?’
‘The one with the rude knickers,’ Ronnie said, and chuckled. ‘No, she wasn’t there. She’d gone before I left.’
‘How d’you know that?’
‘Everyone’d gone. They was closing down when I left. I don’t like it when they turn the lights off.’ He frowned, but hadn’t the vocabulary or brainpower to describe why he didn’t like the lights going out. Slider could imagine. The glorious, bright, multicoloured gorgeousness of the fairground depended on its lights. When they went off, there was just wood and canvas, dullness, drabness, blown rubbish, and the dark of night creeping in.
But more importantly, Slider thought, they were getting something like a timing now, which was always difficult with a man like Ronnie, who had neither watch nor sense of time. ‘So you stayed at the fair until it shut down?’ he said. ‘You stayed all the time until they put the lights out?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ronnie. ‘I didn’t like it when they put the lights out. The dodgems man told me to clear off,’ he remembered suddenly. ‘So I cleared.’
What had the fat lady said in Atherton’s report? It was near two o’clock when her son got to bed. So the fair probably shut around one in the morning, maybe half-past. Ronnie was walking across the Scrubs between one and one-thirty-ish, and Zellah died some time before two o’clock. And he had seen her at the fair and thought her a dirty girl, the sort like that Wanda Lempowski who let him do things if he gave them money. But he didn’t have any money. And Zellah was not, in fact, a dirty girl.
‘So when you got across the other side of the Scrubs,’ Slider said, ‘what did you do?’ The blank look again. He couldn’t answer non-specific questions. ‘You didn’t go straight home, did you?’
‘Nah.’ He looked sly again. ‘Sometimes you see people round there. I like to watch ’em. Once this couple broke into the changing rooms, and I watched ’em through the window. And people in cars.’
‘Was there a car there that night? Under the railway bridge?’
‘Nah. There wasn’t nobody. Everyone’d gone home. But I found a thingy there, under the bridge. One of them things you wear on your porker. A fresh one,’ he added with a relish to which Slider managed not to react. Ronnie sat back complacently, and then a vague look of unease came over him. ‘You won’t tell my mum?’
‘We won’t tell her anything,’ Slider said warmly. ‘Promise. We’re all men together here, aren’t we?’
‘Yeah. All men. Women don’t understand. My mum don’t like all that stuff. She gets cross with me if I talk about it.’
‘So what happened then, Ronnie?’ Slider said, easing him back to the scene. ‘After you found the thingy under the bridge. Did you see that girl?’
‘Yeah, I see her.’
‘Was she walking home, like you?’
‘I dunno.’
‘What was she doing when you saw her?’
‘She wasn’t doing nothing.’
‘Did you ask her if she was walking home?’
‘She w’n’t walking,’ he said, as if Slider should have known that. ‘I told you, she was asleep.’
‘Asleep?’
‘Yeah, she was lying in the bushes, asleep.’
‘What were you doing in the bushes?’
‘I went to see if there was any more thingies. People do it in the bushes, and they leave ’em around. I see her lying down. I was gonna show her my porker, but my mum said I mustn’t do that no more. So I come away.’
‘Did you go right up to the girl?’
‘Nah, I never.’
‘How did you know she was sleeping, then?’
‘Well, she was lying down.’
‘If you didn’t go right up to her, how did you get hold of her handbag?’
‘I never,’ he said. ‘I never touched her.’
‘We found her handbag in your room, Ronnie. Under your pillow. A nice pink one. You must have taken it from her.’
He stared at Slider for a long, congested moment, and then another light bulb flickered in his head. ‘I found it.’
‘Found it where?’
‘I dunno. I just found it.’
‘Now, Ronnie,’ Slider said, stern but fatherly, ‘you’ve got to tell me the truth. Otherwise I might have to tell your mother.’
Ronnie looked alarmed. ‘No, don’t tell Mum. I won’t never do it again. I promise.’
‘What did you do to that girl, Ron? You can tell me. Tell me the truth and I won’t tell your mum.’
‘I never done nothing to her.’
‘You squeezed her neck, didn’t you? Like you did to Wanda?’
‘No, I never done that,’ he objected. ‘I just looked a bit. At her legs.’
‘You squeezed her neck until she fell asleep, and then you took her bag.’
‘I never. I found it. Finders keepers, my mum says.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘I dunno. It smelled nice so I took it. I put it under my pillow for in the night.’
Slider had a depressing vision of Oates masturbating over the smell of Zellah’s handbag. But they were no further forward.
‘Tell me about squeezing her neck,’ he said.
Ronnie looked sulky. ‘She told me to. She said I could if I give her money.’
‘No, not Wanda, the other one. After the fair, on Sunday. The one in the bushes. Tell me about squeezing her neck.’
‘I never. I never touched her.’