Llunos looked puzzled for a second until he realised what I was talking about. ‘I stopped all that.’
‘You did?’
‘It wasn’t me. It was the detective version of mutton dressed up as lamb. I prefer the old ways, the ones I feel comfortable with.’
‘Abercuawg isn’t the repressed unconscious of Aberystwyth then?’
‘It’s just a lake filled with old prams. Come, I want to show you something.’ He beckoned again and I followed.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Someone’s confessed to killing Arianwen Eglwys Fach – in the interview room at the end.’
My skin prickled. ‘The Witchfinder?’
‘Why him?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t like him.’
‘You would make a good cop.’
It was difficult to know whether he was being ironic or sincere. Most of the cops round here worked on a similar principle to the one I had outlined.
‘It wasn’t him,’ said Llunos. ‘Look.’
I peered through another two-way mirror into the interview goldfish bowl. Meici Jones was sitting at the table across from two cops.
‘He says it was his mum,’ said Llunos. ‘Smashed the girl’s head in with a rounders bat.’ He paused for a second and said, ‘Your name was mentioned. Again.’
A grisly image of Arianwen lying bloodied and face-down in the gutter flashed through my mind. My voice was thick with passion: ‘The guy is in his thirties and wears short trousers; he lives with his mum and she hates him because he smothered his little brother to death when he was three. He’s never had a girl in his life or even a friend and because he took a shine to Arianwen and saw me talking to her this is what happened. He saw me talking to her. Imagine how it makes me feel. She was a lovely kid.’
Llunos put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Sorry, Louie. If you want to go in there and sort him out I’ll turn off the sound.’
‘Back to the old-fashioned ways, huh?’
‘Murder is a pretty old-fashioned sort of crime, isn’t it?’
I went back to Mrs Mochdre and chose another song for the jukebox.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
That’s amore . . .
I sang along softly, Mrs Mochdre stared disconsolately at the table, occasionally looking up at me with the hostility of a cornered beast. I stopped singing and spoke. ‘Who killed the students?’
She said nothing.
‘I think it was the Witchfinder, but what I want to know is why.’
‘If you’re such a clever dick I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
When the stars make you drool just like a pasta fazool
That’s amore . . .
‘I can help you, Mrs Mochdre, but you have to help me.’
She gave me a look that symbolised a silent snort.
‘What would you say if I told you Gethsemane didn’t get eaten by the pigs? If I told you she climbed out of that pig pen and walked away alive?’
Mrs Mochdre forced herself to stare down at the table but it cost her a lot of effort.
‘What would you say if I told you I have proof, that I am the only one who knows? If I say nothing, Llunos throws the book at you. But if you help me, I produce my evidence. You’re a free woman.’
‘You must think I was born yesterday falling for a trick like that. I know how it works, good cop, bad cop; my husband does it too when he’s interviewing witches. Llunos will be out there watching through the mirror.’
‘You watch too many cop shows.’
‘Just don’t try and take me for a fool.’
‘OK, I’ll level with you. This is the truth. I don’t know whether Gethsemane is alive now, but she was back then. She didn’t die. The pigs didn’t eat her and your husband the Witchfinder knew it all along. I’m not saying the pigs wouldn’t eat a human given half the chance but it would take a damn sight longer than—’
She looked up slowly and I sensed in that motion the dropping of a penny. Thirty years of conjugal beastliness and pent-up hatred gleamed as sharp twin points of fire in her eyes.
‘That’s right, Mrs Mochdre, he knew. Of course he knew.’
‘H . . . h . . . how do you know?’
‘Anybody would have known. You were terrified of what they would say if they found out you locked her in with the pigs. My guess is, it wasn’t the first time you had mistreated her. You were worried about what would happen if they found out, so you panicked. You didn’t think clearly. If you had, you would have worked it out too. There wasn’t enough time for them to eat her. Gethsemane just climbed out and the mud caught her shoes. That’s all. The second shoe is probably still there. The Witchfinder just—’
‘He knew? He knew!’ Her jaw gaped and her eyes became wide as saucers as the full implications of his trickery settled in. ‘The bastard!’
‘He just played along to entrap you into marrying him.’
She bit her knuckle.
‘I’m not here to make you suffer. I don’t approve of what you did to your sister, but I can see you’ve paid a price in your own way. I just want to know who killed the students. You tell me that and I promise to tell Llunos what I know.’
‘The Witchfinder killed the students of course. To stop nosey parkers. When they paid that actress to impersonate Gethsemane it got him worried. He thought if he killed them and made it look like what happened to Gomer Barnaby people would think Goldilocks had come back and would be too frightened to start digging up the past.’ When she stopped speaking she collapsed in on herself slightly, as if she had been punctured.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
She looked up at me. ‘He really knew?’
‘I’m sorry.’
She nodded as if only now fully understanding. She spoke in a dream, ‘All those years . . . that bed . . . You know, sometimes he liked to dress up as a wolf; Heaven knows what for. And all along he knew.’
‘If I go and get Llunos you can sign the statement and then go. I don’t think he’ll keep you here.’
Mrs Mochdre pulled herself up and sat erect once more, the flame inside her visibly rekindling. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be signing anything today, Mr Knight. I don’t have time. There is an urgent matter I need to attend to.’ She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘It concerns my husband.’ For a second, before turning away, her eyes bored into me and I saw a repressed fury so intense it made me wince. For most of his adult life the Witchfinder had been exorcising and casting out demons; he had summoned and beaten, so they said, the finest champions of hell. His c.v. listed victories over Belial and Leviathan and Belphegor and Beelzebub and Asmodeus and probably Lucifer too. But that look in his wife’s eye told me nothing in his professional life would have prepared him for what was coming when he got home for tea that evening.
Chapter 24
The real question was, who put her in the cupboard? Who put the corned beef, the dandelion and burdock and the colouring book there? Why go to such trouble? Vanya had worked it out. He had guessed it all because he was smarter than me, worked it all out that day I saw him sitting on the beach with Clip the sheepdog. That’s when he decided there was no purpose carrying on. He found out that there never was a spirit possessing his daughter, no imaginary friend, he found out it was a real girl who had replaced the one he had loved. He worked it out on the same afternoon that he saved Gomer Barnaby’s life. Who did he see? Who told him? Sometimes it takes us a long time to see the obvious. Who would you go and see after saving the young Barnaby’s life? Who would give you a phial of Ampersandium in recognition of your brave deed? Who else but Old Barnaby?
The old lag at the rock foundry told me Ephraim Barnaby was expecting me. He showed me up the stone stairs to the first landing and then to a door in the corner. It led into a tower inside which was a spiral staircase. I climbed; the inside of the tower was dark and cold, almost damp. I wondered if it was like this for Sleeping Beauty. There was a door slightly ajar at the top. I hesitated on the threshold and a voice from inside bade me enter.