Chapters (20)
“I’m not sure. I’m not very good at telling the time. It was nearly dinnertime.”
“So you didn’t go down to the beach or on to Ellie’s Head on Saturday morning?”
“No.”
“Did Mary tell you where she was going on Friday night?”
“No.” He hesitated. “She was a bit bossy. I wanted to be on my own for a bit, so I hid in the toilet. I know it wasn’t very nice but she’d been chasing me around all evening. When I came out she’d gone.”
“Had the dancing stopped for the interval when you came out?”
“They were just stopping.”
“Thank you, Ben,” George said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
The boy seemed pleased.
They walked back south down the road. They were almost at the post office when the boy touched George’s arm.
“Mr. Palmer-Jones,” he said, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“When Mary fell,” he said, “ would it have hurt?”
“No,” George said seriously.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all right then. I didn’t like her very much, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to hurt.”
“Did she tell you what her secret was?”
“No, she talked about it a lot, but she didn’t tell me what it was. I did think …”
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing. I’d better go in now.”
He stood briefly in front of George, shook the man’s hand, then ran indoors.
At Kell they had finished dipping. It had turned into something of a party. There were more lambs than anyone had expected. Some of the men had cans of beer. They stood leaning against the sheep pen laughing and gossiping. They were in no hurry to go home. James wished that they would go. He was in no mood for gossip and laughter. Years ago it had been a great day, the Hill Gather. He and Melissa had invited everyone on Kinness into their house, when it was all finished. There had been whisky and fiddle music into the evening. Now he wanted it all to be over. All the people turned Kell into a prison for Melissa. She would not come out while they were there.
At last they began to drift away to their homes and their wives. Sarah was the first to go. She left Jim there, talking to Alec, drinking beer. George met her by the school-house gate.
“I’ve found the scarf,” he said.
She was surprised. She thought that nonsense was all over.
“Where?” she said. “Was it down on the beach?”
“No, it was in Taft, the empty croft near the road.”
“How did it get there?”
“If we knew that we would know who pushed Mary Stennet over Ellie’s Head.”
“So you still think that she was pushed?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Now that I’ve found the scarf there’s no other explanation.”