Shane had risen in panic to his feet,

knocking his chair over behind him and losing in an instant the smart-alec assurance. I never did, he said.
We all watched him with interest, and his gaze traveled fast from one face to another, seeing only assessment and disbelief and nowhere admiration.
I didn't kill her, he said, his voice hoarse and rising. I didn't. Straight up, I didn't. It was him. He did it.
Who? I said.
Calder. Mr. Jackson. He did it. It was him, not me. He looked across us at all again with desperation. Look, I'm telling you the truth, straight up I am. I never killed her, it was him.
Wyfold began telling him in a flat voice that he had a right to remain silent and that anything he said might be written down and used in evidence, but Shane wasn't clever and fright had too firm a hold. His fantasy world had vanished in the face of unimaginable reality, and I found myself believing every word he said.
We didn't know she was there, see. She heard us talking, but we didn't know. And when I carried the stuff back to the hostel he saw her moving so he hit her. I didn't see him do it, I didn't, but when I went back there he was with Ginnie on the ground and I said she was the boss's daughter, which he didn't even know, see, but he said all the worse if she was the boss's daughter because she must have been standing there in the shadow listening and she would have gone straight off and told everybody.
The words, explanations, excuses came tumbling out in self-righteous urgency and Wyfold thankfully showed no signs of regulating the flow into the careful officialese of a formal state¬ment. The uniformed policeman, now sitting behind Shane, was writing at speed in a notebook, recording, I imagined, the gist.
I don't believe you, Wyfold said impatiently. What did he hit her with?
Shane redoubled his efforts to convince, and from then on I admired Wyfold's slyly effective interrogatory technique.