Sculptress

FIVE

Olive took a cigarette and lit it greedily.

“You’re late. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” She sucked down the smoke.

“I’ve been dying for a bloody fag.” Her hands and shift were ifithy with what looked like dried clay.

“Aren’t you allowed cigarettes?”

“Only what you can buy with your earnings. I always run out before the end of the week.” She rubbed the backs of her hands vigorously and showered the table with small grey flakes.

“What is that?” Roz asked.

“Clay.” Olive left the cigarette in her mouth and set to work, plucking the smears from her bosom.

“Why do you think they call me the Sculptress?”

Roz was about to say something tactless, but thought better of it.

“What do you make?”

“People.”

“What sort of people? Imaginary people or people you know?”

There was a brief hesitation.

“Both.” She held Roz’s gaze.

“I made one of you.”

Roz watched her for a moment.

“Well, I just hope you don’t decide to stick pins into it,” she said with a faint smile.

“Judging by the way I feel today, somebody else is at that already.”

A flicker of amusement crossed Olive’s face. She abandoned the smears and fixed Roz with her penetrating stare.

“So what’s wrong with you.”

Roz had spent a weekend in limbo, analysing and re analysing until her brain was on fire.

“Nothing. Just a head ache, that’s all.” And that was true as far as it went.

Her situation hadn’t altered. She was still a prisoner.

Olive screwed her eyes against the smoke.

“Changed your mind about the book?”

“No.”

“OK. Fire away.”

Roz switched on the tape-recorder.

“Second conversation with Olive Martin. Date: Monday, April nineteen.

Tell me about Sergeant Hawksley, Olive, the policeman who arrested you.

Did you get to know him well? How did he treat you?”

If the big woman was surprised by the question, she didn’t show it, but then she didn’t show anything very much. She thought for some moments.

“Was he the dark-haired one? Hal, I think they called him.”

Roz nodded.

“He was all right.”

“Did he bully you?”

“He was all right.” She drew on her cigarette and stared stolidly across the table.

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you he threw up when he saw the bodies?” There was an edge to her voice. Of amusement? Roz wondered. Somehow, amusement didn’t quite square.

“No,” she said.

“He didn’t mention that.”

“He wasn’t the only one.” A short silence.

“I offered to make them a pot of tea but the kettle was in the kitchen.”

She transferred her gaze to the ceiling, aware, perhaps, of having said something tasteless.

“Matter of fact, I liked him. He was the only one who talked to me. I might have been deaf and dumb for all the interest the others showed.

He gave me a sandwich at the police station. He was all right.”

Roz nodded.

“Tell me what happened.”

Olive took another cigarette and lit it from the old one.

“They arrested me.”

“No. I mean before that.”

“I called the police station, gave my address, and said the bodies were in the kitchen.”

“And before that?”

Olive didn’t answer.

Roz tried a different tack.

“The ninth of September, eighty seven was a Wednesday. According to your statement you killed and dismembered Amber and your mother in the morning and early afternoon.” She watched the woman closely.

“Did none of the neighbours hear anything, come and investigate?”

There was a tiny movement at the corner of one eye, a tic, hardly noticeable amidst the fat.

“It’s a man, isn’t it?” said Olive gently.

Roz was puzzled.

“What’s a man?”

Sympathy peeped out from between the puffy, bald lids.

“It’s one of the few advantages of being in a place like this. No men to make your life a misery. You get the odd bit of bother, of course, husbands and boyfriends playing up on the outside, but you don’t get the anguish of a daily relationship.” She pursed her lips in recollection.

“I always envied the nuns, you know.

It’s so much easier when you don’t have to compete.”

Roz played with her pencil. Olive was too canny to discuss a man in her own life, she thought, assuming there had ever been one. Had she told the truth about her abortion?

“But less rewarding,” she said.

A rumble issued from the other side of the table.

“Some reward you’re getting. You know what my father’s favourite expression was? The game is not worth the candle. He used to drive my mother mad with it. But it’s true in your case.

Whoever it is you’re after, he’s not doing you any good.”

Roz drew a doodle on her pad, a fat cherub inside a balloon.

Was the abortion a fantasy, a perverted link in Olive’s mind with Amber’s unwanted son? There was a long silence. She pencilled in the cherub’s smile and spoke without thinking.

“Not whoever,” she said, ‘whatever. It’s what I want, not who I want.”

She regretted it as soon as she’d said it.

“It’s not important.”

Again there was no response and she began to find Olive’s silences oppressive. It was a waiting game, a trap to make her speak. And then what? The toe-curling embarrassment of stammered apologies.

She bent her head.

“Let’s go back to the day of the murders,” she suggested.

A meaty hand suddenly covered hers and stroked the fingers affectionately.

“I know about despair.

I’ve felt it often. If you keep it bottled up, it feeds on itself like a cancer.”

There was no insistence in Olive’s touch. It was a display of friendship, supportive, undemanding.

Roz squeezed the fat, warm fingers in acknowledgement then withdrew her hand. It’s not despair, she was going to say, just overwork and tiredness.

“I’d like to do what you did,” she said in a monotone, ‘and kill someone.” There was a long silence. Her own statement had shocked her.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“I doubt it. I haven’t the guts to kill anyone.”

Olive stared at her.

“That doesn’t stop you wanting to,” she said reasonably.

“No. But if you can’t summon the guts then I don’t think the will is really there.” She smiled distantly.

“I can’t even find the guts to kill myself and sometimes I see that as the only sensible option.”

“Why?”

Roz’s eyes were over bright.

“I hurt,” she said simply.

“I’ve been hurting for months.” But why was she telling Olive all this instead of the nice safe psychiatrist Iris had recommended? Because Olive would understand.

“Who do you want dead?” The question vibrated in the air between them like a tolled bell.

Roz thought about the wisdom of answering.

“My ex husband she said.

“Because he left you?”

“No.”

“What did he do?”

But Roz shook her head.

“If I tell you, you’ll try to persuade me I’m wrong to hate him.” She gave a strange laugh.

“And I need to hate him. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive.”

“Yes,” said Olive evenly.

“I can understand that.” She breathed on the window and drew a gallows in the mist with her finger.

“You loved him once.” It was a statement, expecting no reply, but Roz felt compelled to answer.

“I can’t remember now.”

“You must have done.” The fat woman’s voice became a croon.

“You can’t hate what you never loved, you can only dislike it and avoid it. Real hate, like real love, consumes you.”

With a sweep of her large palm she wiped the gallows from the window.

“I suppose,” she went on, matter of factly, ‘you came to see me to find out whether murder is worth it.”

“I don’t know,” Roz said honestly.

“Hall the time I’m in limbo, the other hail I’m obsessed by anger. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m slowly falling apart.”

Olive shrugged.

“Because it’s inside your head. Like I said, it’s bad to keep things bottled up. It’s a pity you’re not a Catholic. You could go to confession and feel better immediately.”

Such a simple solution had never occurred to Roz.

“I was a Catholic, once. I suppose I still am.”

Olive took another cigarette and placed it reverently between her lips like a consecrated wafer.

“Obsessions,” she murmured, reaching for a match, ‘are invariably destructive. That, at least, I have learnt.” She spoke sympathetically.

“You need more time before you can talk about it. I understand. You think I’ll pick at the scab and make you bleed again.”

Roz nodded.

You don’t trust people. You’re right. Trust has a way of rebounding.

I know about these things.”

Roz watched her light the cigarette.

“What was your obsession?”

She ificked Roz a strangely intimate look but didn’t answer.

“I needn’t write this book, you know, not if you don’t want me to.”

Olive smoothed her thin blonde hair with the back of her thumb.

“It’ll upset Sister Bridget if we give up now. I know you’ve seen her.”

“Does that matter?”

Olive shrugged.

“It might upset you if we give up now. Does that matter?”

She smiled suddenly and her whole face brightened. How very nice she looked, thought Roz.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said.

“I’m not convinced myself that I want to write it.”

“Why not?”

Roz pulled a face.

“I should hate to turn you into a freak side-show.”

“Aren’t I that already?”

“In here perhaps. Not outside. They’ve forgotten all about you outside. It may be better to leave it that way.”

“What would persuade you to write it?”

“If you tell me why.”

The silence grew between them. Ominous.

“Have they found my nephew?” Olive asked at last.

“I don’t think so.” Roz frowned.

“How did you know they were looking for him?”

Olive gave a hearty chuckle.

“Cell telegraph.

Everyone knows everything in here. There’s bugger all else to do except mind other people’s business, and we all have solicitors and we all read the newspapers and everyone talks. I could have guessed anyway. My father left a lot of money. He would always leave it to family if he could.”

“I spoke to one of your neighbours, a Mr. Hayes. Do you remember him?” Olive nodded.

“If I understood him right, Amber’s child was adopted by some people called Brown who’ve since emigrated to Australia. I assume that’s why Mr. Crew’s firm is having so much difficulty in tracing him. Big place, cone on name.”

She waited for a moment but Olive didn’t say anything.

“Why do you want to know? Does it make a difference to you whether he’s found or not?”

“Maybe,” she said heavily.

“Why?”

Olive shook her head.

“Do you want him found?”

The door crashed open, startling them both.

“Time’s up, Sculptress. Come on, let’s be having you.” The officer’s voice boomed about the peaceful room, tearing the fabric of their precarious intimacy. Roz saw her own irritation reflected in Olive’s eyes. But the moment was lost.

She gave an involuntary wink.

“It’s true what they say, you know. Time does fly when you’re enjoying yourself. I’ll see you next week.” The huge woman lumbered awkwardly to her feet.

“My father was a very lazy man, which is why he let my mother rule the roost.” She rested a hand against the door jamb to balance herself.

“His other favourite saying, because it annoyed her so much, was: never do today what can always be done tomorrow.” She smiled faintly.

“As a result, of course, he was completely contemptible. The only allegiance he recognised was his allegiance to himself, but it was allegiance without responsibility. He should have studied existentialism.”

Her tongue lingered on the word.

“He would have learnt something about man’s imperative to choose and act wisely. We are all masters of our fate, Roz, including you.” She nodded briefly then turned away, drawing the prison officer and the metal chair into her laborious, shuffling wake.

Now what, Roz wondered, watching them, was that supposed to mean?

“Mrs. Wright?”

“Yes?” The young woman held the front door half open, a restraining hand hooked into her growling dog’s collar. She was pretty in a colourless sort of way, pale and fine drawn with large grey eyes and a swinging bob of straw-gold hair.

Roz offered her card.

“I’m writing a book about Olive Martin. Sister Bridget at your old convent school suggested you might be prepared to talk to me. She said you were the dos est friend Olive had there.”

Geraldine Wright made a pretence of reading the card then offered it back again.

“I don’t think so, thank you.” She said it in the sort of tone she might have used to a Jehovah’s Witness. She prepared to close the door.

Roz held it open with her hand.

“May I ask why not?”

“I’d rather not be involved.”

“I don’t need to mention you by name.” She smiled encouragingly.

“Please, Mrs. Wright. I won’t embarrass you. That’s not the way I work. It’s information I’m after, not exposure. No one will ever know you were connected with her, not through me or my book at least.” She saw a slight hesitancy in the other woman’s eyes.

“Ring Sister Bridget,” she urged.

“I know she’ll vouch for me.”

“Oh, I suppose it’s all right. But only for half an hour. I have to collect the children at three thirty.” She opened the door wide and pulled the dog away from it.

“Come in. The sitting room’s on the left. I’ll have to shut Boomer in the kitchen or he won’t leave us alone.”

Roz walked through into the sitting room, a pleasant, sunny space with wide patio doors opening out on to a small terrace. Beyond, a neat garden, carefully tended, merged effortlessly into a green field with distant cows.

“It’s a lovely view,” she said as Mrs. Wright joined her.

“We were lucky to get it,” said the other woman with some pride.

“The house was rather out of our price range, but the previous owner took a bridging loan on another property just before the interest rates went through the roof. He was so keen to be shot of this one we got it for twenty-five thousand less than he was asking. We’re very happy here.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Roz warmly.

“It’s a beautiful part of the world.”

“Let’s sit down.” She lowered herself gracefully into an armchair.

“I’m not ashamed of my friendship with Olive,” she excused herself.

“I just don’t like talking about it. People are SO persistent. They simply won’t accept that I knew nothing about the murders.” She examined her painted fingernails.

“I hadn’t seen her, you know, for at least three years before it happened and I certainly haven’t seen her since. I really can’t think what I can tell you that will be of any use.”

Roz made no attempt to record the conversation. She was afraid of scaring the woman.

“Tell me what she was like at school,” she said, taking out a pencil and notepad.

“Were you in the same form?”

“Yes, we both stayed on to do A-levels.”

“Did you like her?”

“Not much.” Geraldine sighed.

“That does sound unkind, doesn’t it? Look, you really won’t use my name, will you? I mean, if there’s a chance you will, I just won’t say any more. I should hate Olive to know how I really felt about her. It would be so hurtful.”

Of course it would, thought Roz, but why would you care?

She took some headed notepaper from her briefcase, wrote two sentences on it and signed it. “I, Rosalind Leigh, of the above address, agree to treat all information given to me by Mrs. Geraldine Wright of Oaktrees, Wooing, Hants, as confidential. I shall not reveal her as the source of any information, either verbally or in writing, now or at any time in the future.” There.

Will that do?” She forced a smile.

“You can sue me for a fortune if I break my word.”

“Oh dear, she’ll guess it’s me. I’m the only one she talked to.

At school, anyway.” She took the piece of paper.

“I don’t know.”

God, what a ditherer! It occurred to Roz then that Olive may well have found the friendship as unrewarding as Geraldine appeared to have done.

“Let me give you an idea of how I’ll use what you tell me, then you’ll see there’s nothing to worry about.

You’ve just said you didn’t like her much. That will end up in the book as something like: “Olive was never popular at school.” Can you go along with that?”

The woman brightened.

“Oh, yes. That’s absolutely true anyway.”

“OK. Why wasn’t she popular?”

“She never really fitted in, I suppose.”

“Why not?”

“Oh dear.” Geraldine shrugged irritatingly.

“Because she was fat, perhaps.”

This was going to be like drawing teeth, slow and extremely painful.

“Did she try to make friends or didn’t she bother?”

“She didn’t really bother. She hardly ever said anything, you know, just used to sit and stare at everyone else while they talked. People didn’t like that very much. To tell you the truth, I think we were all rather frightened of her. She was very much taller than the rest of us.”

“Was that the only reason she scared you? Her size?”

Geraldine thought back.

“It was a sort of overall thing. I don’t know how to describe it. She was very quiet. You could be talking to someone and you’d turn round to find her standing right behind you, staring at you.”

“Did she bully people?”

“Only if they were nasty to Amber.”

“And did that happen often?”

“No. Everyone liked Amber.”

“OK.” Roz tapped her pencil against her teeth.

“You say you were the only one Olive spoke to. What sort of things did you talk about?”

Geraldine plucked at her skirt.

“Just things,” she said unhelpfully.

“I can’t remember now.”

“The sort of things all girls talk about at school.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

Roz gritted her teeth.

“So you discussed sex, and boys, and clothes, and make-up?”

“Well, yes,” she said again.

“I find that hard to believe, Mrs. Wright. Not unless she’s changed a great deal in ten years. I’ve met her, you know. She’s not remotely interested in trivia and she doesn’t like talking about herself. She wants to know about me and what Ido.”

“That’s probably because she’s in prison and you’re her only visitor.”

“I’m not, in actual fact. Also, I am told that most prisoners do the exact opposite when someone visits them. They talk about themselves nineteen to the dozen because it’s the only time they get a sympathetic hearing.” She raised a speculative eyebrow.

“I think it’s Olive’s nature to quiz the person she’s talking to. I suspect she’s always done it, and that’s why none of you liked her very much. You probably thought she was nosy.”

Pray God, I’m right, she thought, because this one, who’s about as manipulable as putty, will say I am regardless.

“How funny,” said Geraldine.

“Now you mention it, she did ask a lot of questions. She was always wanting to know about my parents, whether they held hands and kissed, and whether I’d ever heard them making love.” She turned her mouth down.

“Yes, I remember now, that’s why I didn’t like her. She was forever trying to find out how often my parents had sex, and she used to push her face up close when she asked, and stare.” She gave a small shudder.

“I used to hate that. She had such greedy eyes.”

“Did you tell her?”

“About my parents?” Geraldine sniggered.

“Not the truth, certainly. I didn’t know myself. Whenever she asked, I always said, yes, they’d had sex the night before, just to get away from her. Everyone did. It became a silly sort of game in the end.”

“Why did she want to know?”

The woman shrugged.

“I always thought it was because she had a dirty mind. There’s a woman in the village who’s just the same. The first thing she says to anyone is, “Tell me all the gossip,” and her eyes light up. I hate that sort of thing. She’s the last person to hear what’s going on, of course.

She puts people’s backs up.”

Roz thought for a moment.

“Did Olive’s parents kiss and cuddle?”

“Lord, no!”

“You’re very certain.”

“Well, of course. They loathed each other. My mother said they only stayed together because he was too lazy to move out and she was too mercenary to let him.”

“So Olive was looking for reassurance?”

“I’m sorry?”

“When she asked you about your parents,” said Roz coolly, ‘she was looking for reassurance. The poor kid was trying to find out if hers were the only ones who didn’t get on.”

“Oh,” said Geraldine in surprise.

“Do you think so?” She made a pretty little moue with her lips.

“No,” she said, “I’m sure you’re wrong. It was the sex bits she wanted to know about. I told you, her eyes had a greedy look.”

Roz let this pass.

“Did she tell lies?”

“Yes, that was another thing.” Memories chased themselves across her face.

“She was always lying.

How odd, I’d forgotten that. In the end, you know, nobody ever believed anything she said.”

“What did she lie about?”

“Everything.”

“What in particular? Herself? Other people? Her parents?”

“Everything.” She saw the impatience in Roz’s face.

“Oh dear, it’s so hard to explain. She told stories. I mean, she couldn’t open her mouth without telling stories. Oh dear, let me see now. All right, she used to talk about boyfriends that didn’t exist, and she said the family had been on holiday to France one summer but it turned out they’d stayed at home, and she kept talking about her dog, but everyone knew she didn’t have a dog.” She pulled a face.

“And she used to cheat, of course, all the time. It was really annoying that. She’d steal your homework out of your satchel when you weren’t looking and crib your ideas.”

“She was bright, though, wasn’t she? She got three A-levels.”

“She passed them all but I don’t think her grades were anything to shout home about.” It was said with a touch of malice.

“Anyway, if she was so bright, why couldn’t she get herself a decent job? My mother said it was embarrassing going to Pettit’s and being served by Olive.”

Roz looked away from the colourless face to gaze out over the view from the window. She let some moments pass while COmmon sense battled with the angry reproaches that were clamouring inside her head. After all, she thought, she could be wrong. And yet… And yet it seemed so clear to her that Olive must have been a deeply unhappy child. She forced herself to smile.

“Olive was obviously closer to you than anyone else, except, perhaps, her sister. Why do you think that was?”

“Oh, goodness, I haven’t a clue. My mother says it’s because I reminded her of Amber. I couldn’t see it myself, but it’s true that people who saw the three of us together always assumed Amber was my sister and not Olive’s.” She thought back.

“Mother’s probably right. Olive stopped following me around quite so much when Amber joined the school.”

“That must have been a relief.” There was a certain acidity in her tone, mercifully lost on Geraldine.

“I suppose so. Except’ she added this as a wistful afterthought ‘nobody dared tease when Olive was with me.”

Roz watched her for a moment.

“Sister Bridget said Olive was devoted to Amber.”

“She was. But then everyone liked Amber.”

“Why?”

Geraldine shrugged.

“She was nice.”

Roz laughed suddenly.

“To be frank, Amber’s beginning to get up my nose. She sounds too damn good to be true. What was so special about her?”

“Oh dear.” She frowned in recollection.

“Mother said it was because she was willing. People put on her, but she never seemed to mind. She smiled a lot, of course.”

Roz drew her cherub doodle on the notepad and thought about the unwanted pregnancy.

“How was she put upon?”

“I suppose she just wanted to please. It was only little things, like lending out her pencils and running errands for the nuns. I needed a clean sports shirt once for a net ball match, so I borrowed Amber’s.

That sort of thing.”

“Without asking?”

Surprisingly, Geraldine blushed.

“You didn’t need to, not with Amber. She never minded. It was only Olive who got angry. She was perfectly beastly about that sports shirt.” She looked at the clock.

“I shall have to go. It’s getting late.” She stood up.

“I haven’t been very helpful, I’m afraid.”

“On the contrary,” said Roz, pushing herself out of her chair, ‘you’ve been extremely helpful. Thank you very much.”

They walked into the hall together.

“Did it never seem odd to you,” Roz asked as Geraldine opened the front door, ‘that Olive should kill her sister?”

“Well, yes, of course it did. I was terribly shocked.”

“Shocked enough to wonder if she actually did it?

In view of all you’ve said about their relationship it seems a very unlikely thing for her to do.”

The wide grey eyes clouded with uncertainty.

“How strange. That’s just what my mother always said. But if she didn’t do it, then why did she say she did?”

‘1 don’t know. Perhaps because she makes a habit of protecting people.” She smiled in a friendly way.

“Would your mother be prepared to talk to me, do you think?”

“Oh Lord, I shouldn’t think so. She hates anyone even knowing I was at school with Olive.”

“Will you ask her anyway? And if she agrees, phone me at that number on the card.”

Geraldine shook her head.

“It would be a waste of time. She won’t agree.”

“Fair enough.” Roz stepped through the door and on to the gravel.

“What a lovely house this is,” she said with enthusiasm, looking up at the clematis over the porch.

“Where were you living before?”

The other woman grimaced theatrically.

“A nasty modern box on the outskirts of Dawlington.”

Roz laughed.

“So coming here was by way of a culture shock.” She opened the car door.

“Do you ever go back to Dawlington?”

“Oh, yes,” said the other.

“My parents still live there. I see them once a week.”

Roz tossed her bag and briefcase on to the back seat.

“They must be very proud of you.” She held out a hand.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Wright, and please don’t worry, I shall be very careful how I use the information you’ve given me.” She lowered herself on to the driver’s seat and pulled the door to.

“There’s just one last thing,” she said through the open window, her dark eyes guileless.

“Can I have your maiden name so I can cross you off the school list Sister Bridget gave me? I don’t want to go troubling you again by mistake.”

“Hopwood,” said Geraldine helpfully.

It wasn’t difficult to locate Mrs. Hopwood. Roz drove to the library in Dawlington and consulted the local telephone directory. There were three Hopwoods with Dawlington addresses. She made a note of these with their numbers, found a telephone box and rang each in turn, claiming to be an old friend of Geraldine’s and asking to speak to her.

The first two denied any knowledge of such a person, the last, a man’s voice, told her that Geraldine had married and was now living in Wooling.

He gave her Geraldine’s telephone number and told her, rather sweetly, how nice it had been to talk to her again. Roz smiled as she put down the receiver. Geraldine, she thought, took after her father.

This impression was forcibly confirmed when Mrs. Hopwooci rattled her safety chain into place and opened the front door.

She eyed Roz with deep suspicion.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“Mrs. Hopwood?”

“Yes.”

Roz had planned a simple cover story but, seeing the hard glint in the woman’s eyes, decided to abandon it. Mrs. Hopwood was not the type to take kindly to flannel.

“I’m afraid I bamboozled your daughter and your husband into giving away this address,” she said with a slight smile.

“My name’s-‘ “Rosalind Leigh and you’re writing a book about Olive. I know. I’ve just had Geraldine on the phone. It didn’t take her long to put two and two together. I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I hardly knew the girl.” But she didn’t close the door. Something curiosity? kept her there.

“You know her better than I do, Mrs. Hopwood.”

“But I haven’t chosen to write a book about her, young woman. Nor would I.”

“Not even if you thought she was innocent?”

Mrs. Hopwood didn’t answer.

“Supposing she didn’t do it? You’ve considered that, haven’t you?”

“It’s not my affair.” She started to close the door.

“Then whose affair is it, for God’s sake?” demanded Roz, suddenly angry.

“Your daughter paints a picture of two sisters, both of whom were so insecure that one told lies and cheated to give herself some status and the other was afraid to say no in case people didn’t like her. What the hell was happening to them at home to make them like that? And where were you then? Where was anybody? The only real friend either of them had was the other.” She saw the thin compression of the woman’s lips through the gap in the door and she shook her head contemptuously.

“Your daughter misled me, I’m afraid. From something she said I thought you might be a Samaritan.” She smiled coldly.

“I see you’re a Pharisee, after all. Goodbye, Mrs. Hopwood.”

The other clicked her tongue impatiently.

“You’d better come in, but I’m warning you, I shall insist on a transcript of this interview. I will not have words put into my mouth afterwards simply to fit some sentimental view you have of Olive.”

Roz produced her tape-recorder.

“I’ll tape the whole thing. If you have a recorder you can tape it at the same time, or I can send you a copy of mine.”

Mrs. Hopwood nodded approval as she unhooked the chain and opened the door.

“We have our own. My husband can set it up while I make a cup of tea.

Come in, and wipe your feet, please.”

Ten minutes later they were ready. Mrs. Hopwood took natural control.

“The easiest way is for me to tell you everything I remember. When I’ve finished you can ask me questions.

Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“I said I hardly knew Olive. That’s true. She came here perhaps five or six times in all, twice to Geraldine’s birthday parties, and on three or four occasions to tea. I didn’t take to her. She was a clumsy girl, slow, impossible to talk to, lacking in humour, and, frankly, extremely unattractive. This may sound harsh and unkind but there you are you can’t pretend feelings that you don’t have. I wasn’t sorry when her friendship with Geraldine died a natural death.” She paused to collect her thoughts.

“After that, I really had very little to do with her. She never came to this house again. I heard stories, of course, from Geraldine and Geraldine’s friends. The impression I formed was very much along the lines you set out earlier a sad, unloved, and unlovely child, who had resorted to boasting about holidays she hadn’t taken and boyfriends she didn’t have to make up for unhappiness at home. The cheating, I think, was the result of her mother’s constant pressure to do well, as indeed was the compulsive eating. She was always plump but during her adolescence her eating habits became pathological.

According to Geraldine, she used to steal food from the school kitchen and cram it, in its entirety, into her mouth, as if she were afraid someone would take it away from her before she had finished.

“Now, you would interpret this behaviour, I imagine, as a symptom of a troubled home background.” She looked enquiringly at Roz, who nodded.

“Yes, well, I think I’d agree with you. It wasn’t natural, and nor was Amber’s submissiveness, although I must stress I never witnessed either girl in action, so to speak. I am relating only what I was told by Geraldine and her friends. In any event, it did trouble me, mostly because I had met Gwen and Robert Martin when I went to collect Geraldine on the few occasions she was invited to their house. They were a very strange couple. They hardly spoke.

He lived in a downstairs room at the back of the house and she and the two girls lived at the front. As far as I could make out, virtually all contact between them was conducted through Olive and Amber.” Seeing Roz’s expression, she stopped.

“No one’s told you this yet?”

Roz shook her head.

“I never did know how many people were aware of it. She kept up appearances, of course, and, frankly, had Geraldine not told me she had seen a bed in Mr. Martin’s study, I wouldn’t have guessed what was going on.” She wrinkled her brow.

“But it’s always the way, isn’t it? Once you begin to suspect something, then everything you see confirms that suspicion.

They were never together, except at the odd parents’ evening, and then there would always be a third party with them, usually one of the teachers.” She smiled self-consciously.

“I used to watch them, you know, not out of malice my husband will confirm that but just to prove myself wrong.” She shook her head.

“I came to the conclusion that they simply loathed each other. And it wasn’t just that they never spoke, they couldn’t bring themselves to exchange anything touches, glances anything. Does that make sense to you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Roz with feeling.

“Hatred has as strong a body language as love.”

“It was she, I think, who was the instigator of it all. I’ve always assumed he must have had an affair which she found out about, though I must stress I don’t know that. He was a nice looking man, very easy to talk to, and, of course, he got out and about with his job. Whereas she, as far as I could see, had no friends at all, a few acquaintances perhaps, but one never came across her socially. She was a very controlled woman, cold and unemotional. Really rather unpleasant.

Certainly not the type one could ever grow fond of.” She was silent for a moment.

“Olive was very much her daughter, of Course, both in looks and personality, and Amber his. Poor Olive,” she said with genuine compassion.

“She did have very little going for her.”

Mrs. Hopwood looked at Roz and sighed heavily.

“You asked me earlier where I was while all this was going on. I was bringing up my own children, my dear, and if you have any yourself you will know it’s hard enough to cope with them, let alone interfere with someone else’s. I do regret now that I didn’t say anything at the time, but, really, what could I have done? In any case, I felt it was the school’s responsibility.” She spread her hands.

“But there you are, it’s so easy with hindsight, and who could possibly have guessed that Olive would do what she did? I don’t suppose anyone realised just how disturbed she was.” She dropped her hands to her lap and looked helplessly at her husband.

Mr. Hopwood pondered for a moment.

“Still,” he said slowly, ‘there’s no point pretending we’ve ever believed she killed Amber. I went to the police about that, you know, told them I thought it was very unlikely. They said my disquiet was based on out-of-date information.” He sucked his teeth.

“Which of course waA true. It was five years or so since we’d had any dealings with the family, and in five years the sisters could well have learned to dislike each other.” He fell silent.

“But if Olive didn’t kill Amber,” Roz prompted, ‘then who did?”

“Gwen,” he said with surprise, as if it went without saying.

He smoothed his white hair.

“We think Olive walked in on her mother battering Amber. That would have been quite enough to send her berserk, assuming she had retained her fondness for the girl.”

“Was Gwen capable of doing such a thing?”

They looked at each other.

“We’ve always thought so,” said Mr. Hopwood.

“She was very hostile towards Amber, probably because Amber was so like her father.”

“What did the police say?” asked Roz.

“I gather Robert Martin had already suggested the same thing.

They put it to Olive and she denied it.”

Roz stared at him.

“You’re saying Olive’s father told the police that he thought his wife had battered his younger daughter to death and that Olive then killed her mother?”

He nodded.

“God!” she breathed.

“His solicitor never said a word about that.” She thought for a moment.

“It implies, you know, that Gwen had battered the child before. No man would make an accusation like that unless he had grounds for it, would he?”

“Perhaps he just shared our disbelief that Olive could kill her sister.”

Roz chewed her thumbnail and stared at the carpet.

“She claimed in her statement that her relationship with her sister had never been close. Now, I might go along with that if I accept that in the years after school they drifted apart, but I can’t go along with it if her own father thought they were still so close that Olive would kill to revenge her.” She shook her head.

“I’m damn sure Olive’s barrister never got to hear about this. The poor man was trying to conjure a defence out of thin air.” She looked up.

“Why did Robert Martin give up on it? Why did he let her plead guilty?

According to her she did it to spare him the anguish of a trial.”

Mr. Hopwood shook his head.

“I really couldn’t say. We never saw him again. Presumably, he somehow became convinced of her guilt.” He massaged arthritic fingers.

“The problem for all of us is trying to accept that a person we know is capable of doing something so horrible, perhaps because it shows up the fallibility of our judgement. We knew her before it happened. You, I imagine, have met her since. In both cases, we have failed to see the flaw in her character that led her to murder her mother and sister, and we look for excuses. In the end, though, I don’t think there are any.

It’s not as if the police had to beat her confession out of her. As far as I understand it, it was they who insisted she wait till her solicitor was present.”

Roz frowned.

“And yet you’re still troubled by it.”

He smiled slightly.

“Only when someone pops up to stir the dregs again. By and large we rarely think about it. There’s no getting away from the fact that she signed a confession saying she did it.”

“People are always confessing to crimes they didn’t commit,” countered Roz bluntly.

“Timothy Evans was hanged for his confession, while downstairs Christie went on burying his victims under the floorboards. Sister Bridget said Olive lied about everything, you and your daughter have both cited lies she told. What makes you think she was telling the truth in this one instance?”

They didn’t say anything.

“I’m so sorry,” said Roz with an apologetic smile.

“I don’t mean to harangue you. I just wish I understood what it was all about. There are so many inconsistencies. I mean why, for example, did Robert Martin stay in the house after the deaths?

You’d expect him to move heaven and earth to get out of it.”

“You must talk to the police,” said Mr. Hopwood.

“They know more about it than anyone.”

“Yes,” Roz said quietly, “I must.” She picked up her cup and saucer from the floor and put them on the table.

“Can I ask you three more things? Then I’ll leave you in peace. First, is there anyone else you can think of who might be able to help me?”

Mrs. Hopwood shook her head.

“I really know very little about her after she left school. You’ll have to trace the people she worked with.”

“Fair enough. Second, did you know that Amber had a baby when she was thirteen years old?” She read the astonishment in their faces.

“Good Heavens!” said Mrs. Hopwood.

“Quite. Third…” She paused for a moment, remembering Graham Deedes’ amused reaction. Was it fair to make Olive a figure of fun?

“Third,” she repeated firmly, “Gwen persuaded Olive to have an abortion. Do you know anything about that?”

Mrs. Hopwood looked thoughtful.

“Would that have been at the beginning of eighty-seven?”

Roz, unsure how to answer, nodded.

“I was having problems of my own with a prolonged menopause,” said Mrs.

Hopwood, matter of factly.

“I bumped into her and Gwen quite by chance at the hospital. It was the last time I saw them. Gwen was very jumpy. She tried to pretend they were there for a gynaecological reason of her own but I couldn’t help noticing that it was clearly Olive who had the problem. The poor girl was in tears.” She tut-tutted crossly.

“What a mistake not to let her have it. It explains the murders, of course. They must have happened around the time the baby would have been due. No wonder she was disturbed.”

Roz drove back to Leven Road. This time the door to number 22 stood ajar and a young woman was clipping the low hedge that bordered the front garden. Roz drew her car into the kerb and stepped out.

“Hi,” she said, holding out her hand and shaking the other’s firmly.

Immediate, friendly contact, she hoped, would stop this woman barring the door to her as her neighbour had done.

“I’m Rosalind Leigh. I came the other day but you were out. I can see your time’s precious so I won’t stop you working, but can we talk while you’re doing it?”

The young woman shrugged as she resumed her clipping.

“If you’re selling anything, and that includes religion, then you’re wasting your time.”

“I want to talk about your house.”

“Oh, Christ!” said the other in disgust.

“Sometimes I wish we’d never bought the flaming thing. What are you?

Psychical bloody research? They’re all nutters. They seem to think the kitchen is oozing with ectoplasm or something equally disgusting.”

“No. Far more earthbound. I’m writing a follow-up report on the Olive Martin case.”

“Why?”

“There are some unanswered questions. Like, for example, why did Robert Martin remain here after the murders?”

“And you’re expecting me to answer that?” She snorted.

“I never even met him. He was long dead before we moved in.

You should talk to old Hayes’ she jerked her head towards the adjoining garages ‘he’s the only one who knew the family.”

“I have talked to him. He doesn’t know either.” She glanced towards the open front door but all she could see was an expanse of peach wall and a triangle of russet carpet.

“I gather the house has been gutted and redecorated. Did you do that yourselves or did you buy it after it was done?”

“We did it ourselves. My old man’s in the building trade. Or was,” she corrected herself.

“He was made redundant ten, twelve months ago. We were lucky, managed to sell our other house without losing too much, and bought this for a song. Did it without a mortgage, too, so we’re not struggling the way some other poor sods are.”

“Has he found another job?” Roz asked sympathetically.

The young woman shook her head.

“Hardly. Building’s all he knows and there’s precious little of that at the moment. Still, he’s trying his best. Can’t do more than that, can he?” She lowered the shears.

“I suppose you’re wondering if we found anything when we gutted the house.”

Roz nodded.

“Something like that.”

“If we had, we’d have told someone.”

“Of course, but I wouldn’t have expected you to find anything incriminating. I was thinking more in terms of impressions. Did the place look loved, for example? Is that why he stayed?

Because he loved it?”

The woman shook her head.

“I reckon it was more of a prison. I can’t swear to it because I don’t know for sure, but my guess is he only used one room and that was the room downstairs at the back, the one that was attached to the kitchen and the cloakroom with its own door into the garden. Maybe he went through to the kitchen to cook, but I doubt it. The connecting door was locked and we never found the key. Plus, there was an ancient Baby Being still plugged into one of the sockets in that room, which the house clearers couldn’t be bothered to take, and my bet is he did all his cooking on that.

The garden was nice. I think he lived in the one room and the garden, and never went into the rest of the house at all.”

“Because the door was locked?”

“No, because of the nicotine. The windows were so thick with it that the glass looked yellow. And the ceiling’ she pulled a face ‘was dark brown. The smell of old tobacco was overpowering. He must have smoked non-stop in there. It was disgusting. But there were no nicotine stains anywhere else in the house. If he ever went beyond the connecting door, then it can’t have been for very long.”

Roz nodded.

“He died of a heart attack.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Would you object to my taking a look inside?”

“There’s no point. It’s completely different. We knocked out any walls that weren’t structural and changed the whole layout downstairs.

If you want to know what it looked like when he was here, then I’ll draw you a plan. But you don’t come in. If I say yes to you, then there’s no end to it, is there? Any Tom, Dick, or Harry can demand to put his foot through our door.”

“Point taken. A plan would be more helpful, anyway.” She reached into the car for a notepad and pencil and passed it across.

“It’s much nicer now,” said the self-possessed young woman, drawing with swift strokes.

“We’ve opened up the rooms and put some colour into them. Poor Mrs.

Martin had no idea at all. I think, you know, she was probably rather boring. There.” She passed the notepad back.

“That’s the best I can do.”

“Thank you,” said Roz studying the plan.

“Why do you think Mrs. Martin was boring?”

“Because everything walls, doors, ceilings, everything was painted white. It was like an operating theatre, cold and antiseptic, without a spot of colour. And she didn’t have pictures either, because there were no marks on the walls.” She shuddered.

“I don’t like houses like that. They never look lived in.”

Roz smiled as she glanced up at the red-brick facade.

“I’m glad it’s you who bought it. I should think it feels lived in flow. I don’t believe in ghosts myself.”

“Put it this way, if you want to see ghosts, you’ll see them.

If you don’t, you won’t.” She tapped the side of her head.

“It’s all in the mind. My old dad used to see pink elephants but no one ever thought his house was haunted.”

Roz was laughing as she drove away.