'Nonsense,' I said. 'It's the girl. Open up, Dave.'
'No,' he cried. 'No. Stand back.'
His gun was pointed at my stomach. He was so strung up I didn't dare move. If I'd moved he'd have fired. 'I didn't tell the Captain,' he whispered. 'But when I was coming here I ran slap into the local bobby. Up on the main road, it was. I came that way because it was quicker than going round by the moors. He was standing quite still fiddling with his bike. I didn't see him until he shone his torch on me.'
The tapping ceased. There was a far-away, distant sound. It might have been water or it might have been somebody calling. The thickness of the rock slabs deadened all sound. It came again. After that there was silence. I looked at Dave, measuring the distance for a sudden spring. I had to get to that girl. But he saw my intention in my eyes and retreated to the far corner, the gun levelled at me. 'Dave,' I said, 'I must speak to that girl.'
'You stay where you are,' he ordered.
'But good God,' I said, 'what makes you think that was the police? I tell you it was the girl. She came to find me, like she did earlier this evening.'
'Indeed, I hope you're right.' He sat down heavily on one of the cases. 'My God, I hope you're right.' He wiped the sweat from his face with a dirty rag of a handkerchief. 'If that was the police—" he didn't finish. 'What makes you think it was the girl?' There was a note of hope in his voice.
'Look,' I said, 'the kid's had a hell of a shock. She's just discovered that old Manack murdered her mother.'
'You don't say?'
I told him the whole story then. It was the only way. I told him everything. And when I had finished, he said 'Jim, bach, that's ter-rible.' It was incredible how emotional he was.