‘Then it couldn’t have been later than ten past eight when you heard that shot?’
Mrs. Ashley sat back on her heels and stared. Her hands had fallen palm upwards in her lap. She said in a flat voice:
‘No, miss – it would be later than that – a good bit.’
Hilary’s heart gave a jump.
‘It couldn’t be! You couldn’t take more than ten minutes from Oakley Road – nobody could.’
‘Oh no, miss.’
‘Then it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes past eight.’
Mrs. Ashley opened and shut her mouth exactly like a fish. Then she said, ‘It was a good bit later than that,’ in her meek, flat voice.
‘How could it be?’
She moistened her lips again.
‘A good ten minutes out that clock have been ever since I been going to the house.’
‘Which way out?’
Mrs. Ashley blinked.
‘It must have been getting on for the half hour.’
‘You mean the clock was slow?’
‘A good ten minutes out.’
Hilary’s heart sank. The joy went out of her. No wonder Marion had asked this woman to hold her tongue. If she had really heard the shot at twenty past eight, her evidence would just about have finished Geoff. She winced sharply away from the picture of Marion -fine, proud Marion -going down on her knees to this woman to ask her to hold her tongue and give Geoff a chance, a bare chance, of escaping the hangman. She stood for a moment pressing her hands together. Then she said:
‘Mrs. Ashley – you’re quite sure about that clock being ten minutes slow?’
‘A good ten minutes, miss. I used to pass the remark to Mrs. Mercer many and many a time. “Nothing to go by that church clock of yours,” I used to say. “And all very well for you that’s got a watch, but many’s the time it’s given me a turn, and all for nothing.” They’ve put it right since, someone was telling me, but I don’t go that way now so I couldn’t say for sure.’
‘Did you hear anything besides the shot?’ Hilary was dreadfully afraid of this question, but she had to ask it or be a coward. And immediately she knew why she had been afraid. Panic looked at her out of Mrs. Ashley’s eyes and a trembling hand went up and covered her mouth. Hilary shook too. ‘What did you hear? You did hear something – I know you did. Did you hear voices?’
Mrs. Ashley moved her head. Hilary thought the wavering movement said ‘Yes.’
‘You heard voices? What voices?’
‘Mr. Everton’s.’ The words were stifled against the woman’s palm, but Hilary caught them.
‘You heard Mr. Everton’s voice? You’re sure?’
This time the movement of the head was almost a jerk. As far as Mrs. Ashley could be sure of anything she was sure that she had heard James Everton’s voice.
‘Did you hear any other voice?’
Again the wavering movement said ‘Yes.’
‘Whose voice?’
‘I don’t know, miss – not if it was my last word I don’t, and so I told Mrs. Grey when she came and arst me, pore thing. It was only just so I could say there was someone there quarrelling with Mr. Everton.’
Quarrelling… Hilary’s very heart was sick. Damning evidence against Geoff – damning corroboration of Mrs. Mercer’s evidence. And not bought, not cooked up, because this woman had nothing to gain. And she had held her tongue. She had been sorry for Marion, and she had held her tongue.
Hilary drew in her breath and forced herself on.
‘You didn’t hear anything the other person said?’
‘Oh no, miss.’
‘But you recognised Mr. Everton’s voice?’
‘Oh yes, miss.’
‘And you heard what he said?’ Hilary was pressing her hard.
‘Oh yes, miss.’ And at that her voice broke, in choking sobs and her eyes rained down tears.
One bit of Hilary wondered furiously how anyone could produce such a continuous water flow, whilst another bit of her was cold and afraid on the edge of knowing what James Everton had said. She heard herself whisper:
‘What did he say? You must tell me what he said. ’
And then Mrs. Ashley, with her face in her hands, choking out:
‘He said – oh, miss, he said, “My own nephew!” Oh, miss, that’s what I heard him say – “My own nephew!” And then the shot, and I ran for my life, and that’s all. And I promised pore Mrs. Grey – I promised her faithful that I wouldn’t tell.’
Hilary felt perfectly cold and stiff.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said. The case is closed.’
CHAPTER TEN
Hilary walked along Pinman’s Lane with heavy feet and a much, much heavier heart. Poor Marion – poor, poor Marion, coming here with a flickering hope as Hilary had come, and hearing this damning evidence as Hilary had heard it. Only much, much worse for Marion – unbelievably, dreadfully worse. She mustn’t ever know that Hilary knew. She must be able to believe that she had shut Mrs. Ashley’s mouth on the evidence which would certainly have hanged Geoffrey Grey.
She turned the corner of Pinman’s Lane and walked back blindly along the way by which she had come. Was it well to save a man for years, monotonous years, of deadening prison life? Wouldn’t the sharp wrench have been better – better for Geoff, and better for Marion too? But even in retrospect she shrank back from the thought. There are things beyond enduring. She shuddered away from this one, and came back with a start to the outside world.
She must have taken a wrong turning, for she was in a street she did not know at all. Of course she didn’t know any of the streets really, but this one she was sure she had never seen before – little raw houses, barely finished yet already occupied, semi-detached, with one half of a house painted bice green and the other half mustard yellow, red curtains in one family’s windows, and royal blue next door, and roofs tiled in every imaginable shade. The effect was very new and clean, and the houses like bright Christmas toys just unpacked and set out all in a row.
It was when she was thinking they looked like toys that she heard a footstep behind her, and in the moment of hearing it she became conscious that the sound was not a new one. It had been going on for quite a long time, probably ever since she had turned out of Pinman’s Lane. It had been there, but she hadn’t been listening to it. She listened now, walking a little faster. The footsteps quickened too. She looked over her shoulder and saw a man in a Burberry and a brown felt hat. He had a fawn muffler pulled well up round his throat, and between hat brim and muffler she had a glimpse of regular features, a clean-shaven upper lip, and light eyes. She looked away at once, but it was too late. He lifted his hat and came up with her.
‘Excuse me, Miss Carew – ’
The sound of her name startled her so much that she forgot all the rules. If people speak to you in the street, you don’t say anything, you just walk on as if they hadn’t ever been born. If you can manage to look as if you had been brought up in a refrigerator, so much the better, and you simply mustn’t blush or look frightened. Hilary forgot all these things. A bright annoyed colour sprang to her cheeks, and she said:
‘What do you want? I don’t know you.’
‘No, miss, but if you’ll excuse me I should like a word with you. I was on the train with you the other day, and I recognised you at once, but of course you wouldn’t know me unless you happened to notice me in the train.’ His manner was that of an upper servant, civil and respectful. The ‘miss’ was reassuring.
Hilary said, ‘In the train? Do you mean yesterday?’
‘Yes, miss. We were in the carriage with you, me and my wife, yesterday on the Ledlington train. I don’t suppose you noticed me, because I was out of the carriage a good part of the time, but perhaps you noticed my wife.’