'Oh no. You don't get experiences like I'd been through out of your system overnight. Ever since Alison's death, I'd been noticing girls. Kids, I mean. Standing at bus stops on wet mornings, going to work in some steamy office with loud-mouthed men. So young, so forlorn. You know what I mean. It really broke my heart to see them. We don't let them be kids long enough. We force them to grow up, and there's nothing there when they get there, and they have to change and turn into… well, that's how I felt. I'd started the disco nights at the Club. We had them in Surrey and I remembered how the kids used to enjoy them, just being kids if you follow me. There was no harm in it, despite what the fuddy-duddies like Middlefield said. And they brought in a bit of cash. We needed all the cash we could get if we were to make something decent out of this place. Oh I've got plans, Inspector, such plans… I had plans…
'Anyway, there was this youngster at the discos. I'd seen her a couple of times, I didn't know her name but she was so full of life and fun. Then suddenly she was there one Friday night, flashing an engagement ring. Her boy-friend was a soldier, serving in Belfast. They were to be married on his next leave. I thought of married life in the services. I thought of me and Mary. I thought of Alison. And I felt sick.'
'This was June McCarthy?' interposed Pascoe.
'Yes. I found out later. She wasn't there the next night. She had to go to work.'
'You knew this?' said Pascoe. 'You planned what happened?'
'Oh no,' said Greenall, shocked. 'No plan. It was fate. I hadn't been able to get her out of my mind, but I knew nothing about her. On the Sunday morning I went out for my usual run. Just after five. It's the best time of the day in summer. I felt so strong, I went further than usual. I usually stick to the airport and to the river, but on a Sunday the streets are so quiet, it's pleasant just to run along the pavement for a change. I ended up in Pump Street. To tell the truth I was a bit lost. And as I jogged past the allotments, I saw a girl there, kneeling down. She looked familiar. I went up to her. She gave quite a start when I spoke. What she was doing, I found out, was 'borrowing' some sprigs of mint for the roast lamb she'd be cooking for her dad later in the day. She got quite chatty when she realized who I was, told me how busy they were at the canning plant in the fruit season, shifts every night, but she didn't mind as she was saving hard to get married. I'd recognized her by then, of course. The soldier's fiancee. She looked about thirteen, kneeling there with the mint. I couldn't bear the thought of it. Being spoilt so young. So I put her to rest.'
'You killed her? You strangled her?'
Greenall didn't reply. It was not an uneasy or guilty silence, rather a contemplative one, as though he were carefully examining the proposition.
'Yes,' he said just as Pascoe opened his mouth to prod again. 'Killed her. Strangled her. Saved her.'
'From what?'
'Disappointment. Disillusionment. Dismay. I felt nothing but love and pity. The girl in the bank was the same. I saw her that afternoon. She'd often served me since I took this job on. Only this time, I saw the ring. She saw me looking at it and smiled. You know, proudly. A child. I felt sick but I said 'Congratulations'. She said, 'Thank you, Mr Greenall,' and I left. But I knew I'd see her again.'
'You planned it, you mean?' asked Pascoe once more.
'Oh no. Nothing like that, though I had the feeling there was a plan. But it wasn't mine. No, about half-six the evening rush was over. It's always the same in summer when it's fine. Out of work, down to the Club, can't wait to get into the air. Well, who's to blame them? I went for a stroll, out through the boundary fence, across the waste ground till I reached the path along the river. It was a lovely evening but I didn't see a soul. It's a bit out of the way and eventually it brings you back to the main road just on the edge of the Industrial Estate. And if you follow that you get into Millhill.'
'Yes, I know,' said Pascoe impatiently.
'There she was,' said Greenall. 'It had to be planned. She was standing where the buses that come through the estate turn. There was no one else there. I said hello. She was annoyed, I could see. She told me she'd been having her hair done after work quite near the bank, had come out, just missed her bus, knew there wouldn't be another for twenty-five minutes, so thought that she'd be better off taking the ten-minute walk here and catching the estate bus. But it had just pulled off as she arrived. There wouldn't be another of those for at least half an hour. There was all kinds of shopping she had to do in the town centre. I gathered that on Thursdays a lot of the big shops stay open till eight o'clock, but it was now quarter to seven. So I offered her a lift. I explained it meant walking back to the Aero Club, but we could still get there and be in the town centre before the next bus arrived. She said OK and off we set.
'She chattered away. She was having a proper wedding, she said. That was one of the places she wanted to go this evening. She'd made up her mind about her wedding gown and she was going to put the money down. There were other things to get, too. She didn't want a long engagement, she said. There would be too much aggro at home from her father. He didn't understand.
'I understood,' said Greenall. 'Suddenly she stopped and looked up and said. 'Are those your gliders? Aren't they beautiful? Like huge birds. It must be lovely to fly, but I don't think my Tommy would fancy it. It's all cars with him.' That was when I took her throat. She fell backwards, hardly resisting, just staring at me in surprise. I thought she must have died very quickly, but when I let her go, suddenly she jerked and twisted, more a convulsion than anything. We were right at the edge of the river bank, and next thing she was over and in. At the very same moment I heard voices. Children. I knew we were close to the encampment and guessed it would be the gypsy kids. I hated to leave her, but there was nothing else to do. She was deep under the water. I turned and went on my way.'
'You must have expected an outcry immediately,' said Pascoe.
'I suppose so. I never really thought about it,' said Greenall. 'I just got back to the Club, went on as normal. And when I read in the Evening Post the next day about the girl being found in the canal, I was puzzled but somehow not surprised. And I was worried in case people wouldn't understand. So I phoned the paper again.'
'I meant to ask, why did you phone the first time?'
'Just to explain in a way,' said Greenall. 'Just so that it would be understood that these killings weren't meaningless. It seemed important.'
'And Hamlet?'
'It seemed apt. It just came to mind.'
'Why not just go to see the reporters, talk to them, tell your story?' wondered Pascoe ingenuously.
'But that would have meant giving myself up!' exclaimed Greenall. 'I wasn't ready for that.'
'No,' said Pascoe. 'You were quite determined not to be caught. As Pauline Stanhope could testify. If she were alive.'
'Yes,' said Greenall. 'Yes. Her. And the man, Wildgoose; it happened so quickly… both of them… a pilot's trained to make quick decisions you see… but afterwards time isn't so quick.. . not when you think…’
Now his narration once more lost its complacent, reasonable rhythm. Now once more the hesitation and uncertainties became apparent. Pottle had been right. It was here he felt the guilt, here where he had killed to protect himself rather than, as his delusion asserted, to protect the girls. His justification was the immediacy of the need. He had seen the transcript of the seance tape, read in the paper that the medium was Madame Rashid at the Charter Park Fair, driven there instantly with no plan, gone into the tent, asked Pauline if she were Madame Rashid, punched her in the belly and killed her. Now self-preservation had at last made him cunning. Seeing the B ACK S OON sign, he had put it on the chair and pushed it through the flap before removing and putting on the gypsy skirt, shawl and headscarf.
'You also laid the girl out like the others. And made a phone-call,' observed Pascoe.
'Yes, I thought it might confuse things… and I felt I should say something… I wasn't happy… and then it turned out she wasn't the woman at all… Christ. I felt ill.'
'But you didn't try to do anything about the real Madame Rashid after that, did you?' queried Pascoe.
Greenall shook his head almost indignantly.
'I couldn't… not plan it… not cold-bloodedly…'
Dalziel's going to love this, thought Pascoe.
Greenall recovered some of his composure to talk about Andrea Valentine whom he had overheard boasting to her friends at the disco that as soon as Wildgoose got rid of his wife, he was going to marry her.
'Did you follow them back to Danby Row?' asked Pascoe.
'No. I cleared up here and then went later. I had no plan, you understand. Just to look.'
