“Save the legal wrangling,” Havers spoke up. “Far as I know, this isn’t an episode of The Bill. You lied, you cheated, or you danced the polka. We don’t much care. Let’s get to the facts. I’ll be happy, the DI’ll be happy, and?trust me?you’ll be happy as well.”
Madlyn didn’t look appreciative of this advice. She made a moue of distaste, but it seemed to be an expression that served the purpose of jockeying for position because when she next spoke, she told a completely different tale from the one she’d told earlier. She said, “All right. I broke up with him. I thought he was cheating, so I followed him. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I had to know. When I knew, I ended it. It hurt to do it because I was stupid and I still loved him, but I ended it anyway. That’s the story. And it’s the truth.”
“So far,” Bea said.
“I just told you?”
“Followed him where?” Havers asked, her pencil poised. “Followed him when? And how? On foot, by car, on bicycle, on a pogo stick?”
“What about his cheating on you made you sick?” Bea asked. “Just the fact of it, or was there something else? I think ‘off ’ was your choice of description.”
“I never said?”
“Not to us, no. You never said. That’s part of the current problem. Your problem, that is. When you say one thing to one person and another thing to the coppers, it all comes back to bite you in the end. So I suggest you consider yourself bitten and do something to get the teeth out of your bum, in a matter of speaking.”
“Rabies being rabies and all,” DS Havers murmured. Bea stifled a smile. She was starting to like the disheveled woman.
Madlyn’s jaw tightened. It seemed that the full reality of her situation was beginning to dawn upon her. She could remain obdurate and accept the threats and the ridicule of the other two women, or she could talk. She chose the option that seemed likeliest to effect their imminent departure.
“I think people should stick to their own,” she said.
“And Santo didn’t stick to his own?” Bea asked. “What’s that mean, exactly?”
“Just what I said.”
“What?” Havers asked impatiently. “He was doing altar boys on the side? Goats? Sheep? The occasional vegetable marrow? What?”
“Stop it!” Madlyn cried. “He was doing other women, all right? Older women. I confronted him when I knew about it. And I knew because I followed him.”
“We’re back to that,” Bea said. “You followed him where?”
“To Polcare Cottage.” Her eyes were bright. “He went to Polcare Cove and I followed him. He went inside and…I waited and waited because I was stupid and I wanted to think that…But no. No. So I went to the door after a bit and I banged upon it and…You can work out the bloody rest, can’t you? And that’s all I have to say to you two, so leave me alone. Leave me bloody well alone.”
That said, she pushed between them and stalked back towards the bakery’s door. She rubbed at her cheeks furiously as she walked.
“What’s Polcare Cottage?” DS Havers asked.
“A very nice place to pay a call on,” Bea said.