Nursery Crimes Part 3

Graham, who regarded Dolly as an unpredictable time-bomb, had toyed with the idea of not having her present at the interview. But the police would probably want to talk to her anyway and on balance it was better to have her as one of a group and within earshot. G.o.d knows what she might say in a private interrogation.

Interrogation?

What rubbis.h.!.+

A gentle talk to a couple of babies.

He realised he had begun to sweat.

Sam Humphreys took a bag of toffees out of his pocket. "h.e.l.lo, Susannah," he said, "would you like a sweetie?"

Zanny, torn between desire and a deep and almost adult knowledge that she must tread with a great deal of care and always say the right thing, hesitated. Bad men gave children sweets. They were bad men because you didn't know them. She didn't know this man. He had white hair and he was very old. His jaws sagged. Sergeant Pritchard was a good man. He rode a bicycle and waved when he saw her out for a walk. Had he proffered her a sweet she would have taken one. '

"No, thank you," she said.

The inspector, surprised, offered the bag to the other child.

"Ta," said Dolly, taking two, "ta very much."

The preliminaries over, Humphreys went to sit again. He looked consideringly at Zanny. Zanny, aware that he would have liked her better had she taken a sweet and intensely jealous that Dolly had two and was chewing away with greedy enjoyment, looked back at him cautiously.

"I like sweets," she said, "from people I know."

Mummy and Daddy froze a little.

"I know Sergeant Pritchard," she expanded it. "He is a good, kind policeman. He tells me the time. He finds me when I'm lost."

Sam Humphreys handed the sweets to his sergeant and Pritchard handed the bag to Zanny.

"Thank you," Zanny said, taking one. "You are most kind."

"And you," said Humphreys, "are a carefully brought up little girl. Mrs. Moncrief, I congratulate you."

Clare smiled wanly. She wondered if she should explain that it wasn't a deliberate snub and then decided that the smile was enough.

Graham said, "The gentleman who offered you a sweet, Zanny, is Detective Inspector Humphreys. He is a good man. A good, kind policeman."

"Not a bad man in a field who wants to take yer knickers orf," said Dolly thickly through her toffee.

Clare blushed.

Zanny noticed and was deeply indignant. "Knickers is rude."

"S'ruder without." Dolly who had arrived knickerless from Birmingham spoke with feeling.

Zanny felt a nibble of fear in her stomach. She wondered if the sweet were poisoned and then decided it wasn't. Retribution was by the rope and the knife. In any case, Dolly was eating her sweets with impunity.

All four adults, in an effort to channel the conversation back into sanity, spoke together and then stopped.

"We are here," Detective Inspector Humphreys said in his lay-preacher tone, "to find out how the little Morton child came to die. There will, of course, be an inquest, but it is necessary to know of the events leading up to his death." As well as taking the occasional service on a Sunday when there was a dearth of local preachers, Sam also took a Sunday School cla.s.s. His role for this was different. He a.s.sumed it now.

"There is nothing nicer," he said, "than the innocent play of little children. What were you playing with Willie, Susannah, just before he died?"

Zanny was silent, in deep thought. What was a good game to play? What was a safe, nice game to play? In the reception cla.s.s which Willie attended there was a game about buns in a baker's shop. Six little boy buns were bought by six little girl shoppers. It was a nice way of learning to count. Did it have to be a game?

"You were playing tag," Daddy said firmly. "You and Willie were having a game of tag. You were standing near the pool and Willie came charging at you. You ran away from him and he fell in. You told me. Don't you remember?"

"No," said Zanny.

"Then you told me," said Mummy.

"You didn't tell me," said Dolly.

"Tag is rough," Zanny said. "I don't play rough games."

A gentle game was pus.h.i.+ng Monkey in her lovely doll's pram. The pram that Dolly might soon acquire. She looked at her contemplatively whilst awaiting inspiration.

"You was sittin' on the gra.s.s, all quiet like, teachin' 'im to read," Dolly said. "And I was sittin' in the buddly bush watchin' yer."

"Buddleia - the b.u.t.terfly bush," Zanny corrected her, but without any show of superiority. Dolly despite her many faults was a quick thinker.

The older policeman looked at Dolly with a sharpening of interest. He hadn't been told she was in the vicinity. "So you saw what happened, Dolly?"

"In between readin' me book."

In the few months Dolly had been in Wales she had learnt to read remarkably quickly.

"About Winnie the Pooh," she added, guessing at the Inspector's scepticism. "It's a silly book," she added. Most middle-cla.s.s books were.

"It isn't," Zanny dismissed the criticism with the contempt it deserved.

"It is. So's the Alice one. Fancy fallin' down a rabbit 'ole."

"People fall," Zanny pointed out. "Willie fell." It was a defence of literature, not a neat return to the subject matter.

The inspector addressed her again. "You like books, Susannah?"

"Sometimes." (Was it wrong to like books?) "And you were teaching Willie to read?"

"Yes." (Words with an "h" - like hang?) "You were sitting on the gra.s.s on a warm summer's day teaching him to read?"

"Yes."

"What made him get up and run into the pool?"

Zanny considered it. "He didn't like learning to read."

"So you played tag instead," Daddy interposed desperately.