Evan Madoc laughed. It was a very angry sound. His face was haggard and his eyes burned.
‘Oh, she says she went into the lane? What else does she say?’
‘I’m not here to tell you about other people’s statements – I’m here to ask you what you have to say. There is evidence to show that you were in possession of one of the church keys at the time that Mr Harsch was shot. There is evidence that you quarrelled with Miss Brown about him. Have you anything to say on these two points?’
Madoc drew himself up.
‘If you have all this evidence, what more do you want?’
‘Do you admit that you were in the Church Cut at somewhere around about half-past nine on Tuesday evening?’
‘Why shouldn’t I admit it?’
‘Would you care to make a statement as to what took place there?’
He laughed again.
‘So that you can check it up with your witness and try and catch me in a lie! That’s what you would like to do, isn’t it? But that’s just what you won’t do, because I don’t tell lies – I speak the truth. That’s one thing you don’t reckon on in someone you suspect, is it – that he may tell the truth. That knocks the bottom out of your trap – doesn’t it? Write down what I say and you can have your statement, and every word of it will be true!’
Lamb looked round over his shoulder and nodded. The notebook came out of Frank Abbott’s pocket. He found himself in a chair and wrote upon his knee.
Madoc began to walk up and down, throwing off short, furious sentences, his hands plunged deep in his pockets, every jerky stride, every abrupt turn, full of angry energy.
‘Tuesday evening. I didn’t look at the time. I went out and walked. When I came to the Church Cut I saw Miss Brown. I thought she was going to the church. I thought she was making a fool of herself. I could see she had got something in her hand. Harsch was playing in the church. I told her she could listen to him from where she was. I told her to hand over the key. When she wouldn’t, I twisted her arm. The key fell down. I picked it up and went away. That’s all – make anything you like of it! And get out of here! I’m working!’
No one was in a hurry but Mr Madoc. Sergeant Abbott wrote. Lamb presented his imperturbable front (Impersonation of a Prize Ox at Grass, as his irreverent subordinate had it).
‘Just a moment, Mr Madoc. This business is important for you as well as for us. It can’t be rushed over. I’d like you to take time to think before you speak, and it is my duty to warn you that what you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.’
The words pulled Evan Madoc up short. He checked in the middle of a stride, flung round, and said, ‘Good God! What are you suggesting?’
‘It is not my place to suggest. I am warning you. I’ve got my duty to do, and it would be better for you as well as for me if you would sit down quietly and think before you say anything. All right, it’s just as you like – but I’ve warned you. I’m asking you whether you used the key you took from Miss Brown. I’m asking you whether you went to the church and saw Mr Harsch on Tuesday evening.’
Madoc had already made a violent gesture of dissent. He now repeated it, shaking his head with an energy which shook his whole body too. After which he stood, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched forward, glowering, a lock of black hair tossed up like a ruffled feather accentuating the upward twist of the eyebrow.
‘You deny that you went to the church?’
Madoc said with the extreme of bitterness, ‘If I say no, you’ll be sure I lie. If I say yes, you will ask me whether I shot Michael Harsch, and if I say yes to that, you will believe me with greediness. But if I tell you that I loved him like a brother, and that I would give my right hand to have him back, you will again be very sure that I am lying. Because it is not in you to believe good – you can only believe evil.’
Lamb cleared, his throat.
‘I should like to ask you to clarify those remarks, Mr Madoc. We don’t want any confusion over this. I am not clear whether you are stating that you did go to the church, or that you did not.’
Madoc reduced the volume of his voice, but not the venom.
‘I did not go to the church. I did not shoot Michael Harsch. Is that quite clear?’
‘Oh, yes, quite. You went home, and you took the key with you. When did you return it to Miss Brown?’
Madoc gave a disagreeable laugh.
‘Hasn’t she told you that? I’m surprised! I returned it to her on Thursday night. She seemed to want it back, so I brought it down and handed it over.’
‘Thank you, Mr Madoc. Have you any objection to signing the statements you have just made?’
‘Not in the least. Why should I? I have nothing to hide.’
There was a pause. Frank Abbott wrote, and afterwards read aloud what he had written. Unlike the majority of statements recorded by the police, the words were recognisably Madoc’s own. He listened to them with that black frown dominating his face, snatched the paper, and picking up a pen from his writing-table, drove it deep into the inkpot and scrawled a thick, smudged ‘Evan Madoc’ across the page.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon Janice came hurrying down the track from Prior’s End. She was not conscious of hurrying. She was not really, conscious of her body at all, only of immeasurable disaster and the need she had to find Garth. She was bareheaded, and her white dress was too thin for the day, which had turned suddenly bleak, as days are apt to do in an English September.
She came into the village street, found it alive with children, and remembered with a kind of shock that it was Saturday afternoon. When something violent and abnormal has jolted your world out of focus, it is difficult to realise that life is going on quite normally for other people.
As she crossed the road she almost ran into Mrs Mottram, who immediately clutched her and said, ‘Darling, how dreadful! Don’t tell me it’s true. The baker said so, but I can’t believe it? Have they really arrested Mr Madoc?’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
Mrs Mottram’s blue eyes rolled.
‘Darling, how devastating! Of course you mustn’t stay there a single moment. You must come to me. I’m afraid I’ve only got a most uncomfortable camp bed and no carpet on the floor, because I’ve never really furnished the room, but you must come down at once. I’ll just go straight back and put the sheets to air.’
‘It’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t leave Miss Madoc.’
‘Darling, you must! You can’t possibly stay there! Do you know I always did think there was something peculiar about Mr Madoc. You mustn’t dream of staying.’
Janice shook her head.
‘I can’t leave her, Ida. You couldn’t yourself, so it’s no use asking me. And for goodness sake don’t go about saying Mr Madoc was peculiar, because he didn’t do it.’
Mrs Mottram had quite a pretty mouth except when it fell open. It fell open now, all on one side.
‘Don’t you think so?’
Janice stamped her foot.
‘I know he didn’t! Why should he? Mr Harsch was the one person in this world he never quarrelled with. He thought a lot of him – he really cared for him. When you live in the house with people you can’t make a mistake about that sort of thing.’
Ida Mottram had the happy faculty of always believing what she was told. It made her very popular with men. She gazed confidingly at Janice and said, ‘I suppose you do. But, my dear, how devastating if he’s innocent – and how dreadful for Miss Madoc! Are you sure he didn’t do it?’