Sculptress

TEN

Roz drove past the house three times before she could pluck up enough courage to get out and try the door. n the end it was pride that led her up the path. Hal’s amusement had goaded her. A tarpaulined motorbike was parked neatly on a patch of grass beside the fence.

The door was opened by a bony little woman with a sharp, scowling face, her thin lips drawn down in a permanently dissatisfied bow.

“Yes?” she snapped.

“Mrs. O’Brien?”

“Oo’s asking?”

Roz produced a card.

“My name’s Rosalind Leigh.” The sound of a television blared out from an inner room.

The woman glanced at the card but didn’t take it.

“Well, what do you want? If it’s the rent, I put it in the post yesterday.” She folded her arms across her thin chest and dared Roz to dispute this piece of information.

“I’m not from the council, Mrs. O’Brien.” It occurred to her that the woman couldn’t read. Apart from her telephone number and address, Roz’s card had only her name and her profession on it. Author, it stated clearly. She took a flyer.

“I work for a small independent television company,” she said brightly, her mind searching rapidly for some plausible but tempting bait.

“I’m researching the difficulties faced by single parents with large families. We are particularly interested in talking to a mother who has problems keeping her sons out of trouble.

Society is very quick to point the finger in these situations and we feel it’s time to redress the balance.” She saw the lack of comprehension on the woman’s face.

“We’d like to give the mother a chance to give her side of the story,” she explained.

“There seems to be a common pattern of continual harassment and interference from people in authority -social services, the council, the police. Most mothers we’ve spoken to feel that if they’d been left alone they wouldn’t have had the problems.”

A gleam of interest lit the other’s eyes.

“That’s true enough.”

“Are you willing to take part?”

“Maybe.

“Oo sent you?”

“We’ve been conducting some research in the local courts,” she said glibly.

“The name O’Brien popped up quite frequently.”

“Not surprised. Will I get paid?”

“Certainly. I’d need to talk to you for about an hour now to get a rough idea of your views. For that you will receive an immediate cash payment of fifty pounds.” Ma would turn her nose up at anything less, she thought.

“Then, if we think your contribution is valuable and if you agree to be ifimed, we will pay you at the same hourly rate while the cameras are here.”

Ma O’Brien pursed her meagre lips and proceeded to splatter aitches about the place.

“Han hundred,” she said, ‘hand hI’ll do it.”

Roz shook her head. Fifty pounds would clean her out anyway.

“Sorry. It’s a standard fee. I’m not authorised to pay any more.” She shrugged.

“Never mind. Thank you for your time, Mrs. O’Brien. I’ve three other families on my list. I’m sure one of them will jump at the chance to get their own back at authority and earn some money while they’re doing it.” She turned away.

“Look out for the programme,” she called over her shoulder.

“You’ll probably see some of your neighbours on it.”

“Not so ‘asty, Mrs. Did I say no? Course I didn’t. But I’d be a mug not to try for more hif there was more to be ‘ad. Come in.

Come in. What d’you say your name was?”

“Rosalind Leigh.” She followed Ma into a sitting room and took a chair while the little woman turned off the television and flicked aimlessly at some non-existent dust on the set.

“This is a nice room,” said Roz, careful to keep the surprise from her voice. A three-piece suite of good quality burgundy leather ringed a pale Chinese rug in pinks and greys.

“All bought and paid for,” snapped Ma.

Roz didn’t doubt her for a moment. If the police spent as much time in her house as Hal had implied, then she was hardly likely to furnish it with hot goods. She took out her tape recorder “How do you feel about my recording this conversation? It’ll be a useful gauge for the sound man when he comes to set levels for filming, but if the microphone puts you off then I’m quite happy to make notes instead.”

“Get on with you,” she said, perching on the sofa.

“I’m not afraid of microphones. We’ve got a karaoke next door. You gonna ask questions or what?”

“That’s probably easiest, isn’t it? Let’s start with when you first came to this house.”

“Ah, well, now, they was built twenty year ago, near enough, and we was the first family him. There was six of us, including my old man, but ‘e got nicked shortly after and we never seen ‘im again. The old bastard buggered off when they let ‘im out.”

“So you had four children?”

“Four in the ‘ouse, five in care. Bloody hinterference, like you said.

Kept taking the poor little nippers off me, they did.

Makes you sick, it really does. They wanted their ma, not some do-good foster mother who was only in it for the money.” She hugged herself.

“I always got them back, mind. They’d turn up on my doorstep, regular as clockwork no matter ‘ow many times they was taken away. The council’s tried everything to break us up, threatened me with a one-roomed flat even.” She sniffed.

“Arassment, like you said. I remember one time..

She required little prompting to tell her story but rambled on with remarkable fluency for nearly three-quarters of an hour.

Roz was fascinated. Privately she dismissed at least fifty per cent of what she was hearing, principally because Ma blithely maintained that her boys were and always had been innocent victims of police frames.

Even the most gullible of listeners would have found that difficult to swallow. Nevertheless, there was a dogged affection in her voice whenever she referred to her family and Roz wondered if she was really as callous as Lily had painted her. She certainly portrayed herself as a hapless victim of circumstances beyond her control, though whether this was something she genuinely believed or whether she was saying what she thought Roz wanted to hear, Roz couldn’t tell. Ma, she decided, was a great deal smarter than she let on.

“Right, Mrs. O’Brien, let me see if I’ve got it right,” she said at last, interrupting the flow.

“You’ve got two daughters, both of whom are single parents like you, and both of whom have been housed by the council. You have seven sons.

Three are currently in prison, one is living with his girlfriend, and the remaining three live here. Your oldest child is Peter, who’s thirty-six, and your youngest is Gary, who’s twenty-five.” She whistled.

“That was some going. Nine babies in eleven years.”

“Two sets of twins in the middle. Boy and a girl each time.

Mind, it was ‘ard work.”

Unmitigated drudgery, thought Roz.

“Did you want them?” she asked curiously.

“I can’t think of anything worse than having nine children.”

“Never ‘ad much say in it, dear. There weren’t no abortion inmyday.”

“Didn’t you use contraceptives?”

To her surprise, the old woman blushed.

“Couldn’t get the ang of them,” she snapped.

“The old man tried a rubber once but didn’t like it and wouldn’t do it again. Old bugger. No skin off ‘is nose if I kept falling.”

It was on the tip of Roz’s tongue to ask why Ma couldn’t get the hang of contraceptives when the penny dropped. If she couldn’t read and she was too embarrassed to ask how to use them, they’d have been useless to her. Good God, she thought, a little education would have saved the country a fortune where this family was concerned.

“That’s men for you,” she said lightly.

“I noticed a motorbike outside. Does that belong to one of the boys?”

“Bought and paid for,” came the belligerent refrain.

“It’s Gary’s. Motorbike mad, ‘e is. There was a time when three of the boys ‘ad bikes, now it’s just Gary. They was all working for one of them messenger companies till the bloody coppers went round and got them sacked. Victimisation, pure and simple.

“Ow’s a man to work hif the police keep waving ‘is record under the boss’s noses. Course, they lost the bikes. They was buying them on the never-never and they couldn’t keep up the payments.”

Roz made sympathetic noises.

“When was that? Recently?”

“Year of the gales. I remember the electricity was off when the boys came ‘ome to say they’d been given the push. We’d got one blooming candle.” She firmed her lips.

“Bloody awful night, that was. Depressing.”

Roz kept her expression as neutral as she could. Was Lily right, after all, and Hal wrong?

“The nineteen eight-seven gales,” she said.

“The first ones.”

“That’s it. Mind, it ‘appened again two years later. No electricity for a week the second time, hand you get no compensation for the ‘ardship neither. I tried and the buggers told me hif I didn’t pay what I owed they’d cut me off for good and all.”

“Did the police give a reason for getting your boys the sack?” asked Roz.

“Hah!” Ma sniffed.

“They never give reasons for nothing. It was victimisation, like I said.”

“Did they work for the messenger company long?”

Old eyes regarded her suspiciously.

“You’re mighty interested all of a sudden.”

Roz smiled ingenuously.

“Only because this was an occasion when three of your family were trying to go straight and build careers for themselves. It would make good television if we could show that they were denied that opportunity because of police harassment. Presumably it was a local firm they were working for?”

“Southampton.” Ma’s mouth became an inverted horseshoe.

“Bloody silly name it ‘ad too. Called their selves Wells Fargo Still, the boss was a ruddy cowboy so maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.”

Roz suppressed a smile.

“Is it still in business?”

“Last I ‘card, it was. That’s it. You’ve ‘ad your ‘our.”

“Thank you, Mrs. O’Brien.” She patted the tape-recorder.

“If the producers like what they hear I might need to come back and talk to your sons. Would that be acceptable, do you think?”

“Don’t see why not. Can’t see them sneezing at fifty quid apiece.” Ma held out her hand.

Dutifully, Roz took two twenty-pound notes and a ten from her wallet and laid them on the wrinkled palm. Then she started to gather her things together.

“I hear Dawlington’s quite famous,” she remarked chattily.

“Oh yeah?”

“I was told Olive Martin murdered her mother and sister about half a mile down the road.”

“Oh, ‘er,” said Ma dismissively, standing up.

“Strange girl.

Knew ‘er quite well at one time. Used to clean for the mother when she and ‘er sister were nippers. She took a real fancy to Gary. Used to pretend ‘e was ‘er doll whenever I took ‘im ha long with me. There was only three years between them but she was nearly twice as big as my skinny little runt. Strange girl.”

Roz busied herself with sorting out her briefcase.

“It must have been a shock hearing about the murders then. If you knew the family, that is.”

“Can’t say I gave it much thought. I was only there six month.

Never liked ‘er. She only took me on for a bit of snobbery, then got rid of me the minute she found out my old man was in the nick.”

“What was Olive like as a child. Was she violent to your Gary?”

Ma cackled.

“Used to dress ‘im up in ‘er sister’s frocks.

God, ‘e looked a sight. Like I said, she treated ‘im like a doll.”

Roz snapped the locks on her briefcase and stood up.

“Were you surprised she became a murderess?”

“No more surprised by that than by anything else. There’s nowt so queer as folk.” She escorted Roz to the front door and stood, arms akimbo, waiting for her to leave.

“It might make an interesting introduction to the programme,” Roz mused, ‘the fact that Gary was a doll-substitute for a notorious murderess. Does he remember her?”

Ma cackled again.

“Course ‘e remembers ‘er. Carried messages between ‘er and ‘er fancy man, didn’t ‘e, when she was workin’ for the Social.”

Roz made a beeline for the nearest telephone. Ma O’Brien either wouldn’t or couldn’t elaborate on her tantalising statement and had closed the door abruptly when pressed for information on Gary’s whereabouts. Roz dialled Directory Enquiries and asked for Wells-Fargo in Southampton, then used her last fifty pence to call the number she was given. A bored female voice on the other end gave her the company’s address and some directions on how to find it.

“We close in forty minutes,” was the woman’s parting shot.

By dint of parking on a double yellow line and shrugging off the prospect of a parking ticket Roz made it to the WelisFargo office with ten minutes to spare. It was a dingy place, approached through a doorway between two shops and up a ifight of uncarpeted stairs. Two anaemic Busy Lizzies and an ancient Pirelli calendar were the only spots of colour against the yellowed walls. The bored female voice resolved itself into a bored-looking middle-aged woman who was counting the seconds to the start of her weekend.

“We don’t often see customers,” she remarked, filing her nails.

“I mean if they can bring their package here they might just as well deliver it themselves.” It was an accusation, as if she felt Roz were wasting company time. She abandoned her nails and held out a hand.

“What is it and where’s it for?”

“I’m not a customer,” said Roz.

“I’m an author and I’m hoping you can give me some information for a book I’m writing.”

Stirrings of interest animated the other’s face so Roz pulled forward a chair and sat down.

“How long have you been working here?”

“Too long. What sort of book?”

Roz watched her closely.

“Do you remember Olive Martin?

She murdered her mother and sister in Dawlington six years ago.” She saw immediate recognition in the woman’s eyes.

“I’m writing a book about her.”

The woman returned to her nails but didn’t say anything.

“Did you know her?”

“God, no.”

“Did you know of her? Before the murders, that is. I’ve been told one of your messengers delivered letters to her.” It was true enough. The only trouble was that she didn’t know if Gary was working for Wells-Fargo when he did it.

A door to an inner office opened and a man fussed out. He looked at Roz.

“Did this lady want to see me, Mamie?” His fingers ran involuntarily up and down his tie, playing it like a clarinet.

The nail file vanished from sight.

“No, Mr. Wheelan. She’s an old friend of mine. Popped in to see if I’ve time for a drink before I go home.” She stared hard at Roz, her eyes demanding support. There was a curious intimacy in her expression as if she and Roz already shared a secret.

Roz smiled amiably and glanced at her watch.

“It’s nearly six now,” she said.

“Half an hour won’t delay you too much, will it?”

The man made shooing motions with his hands.

“You two get on then. I’ll lock up tonight.” He paused in the doorway, his forehead wrinkling anxiously.

“You didn’t forget to send someone to Hasler’s, did you?”

“No, Mr. Wheelan. Eddy went two hours ago.”

“Good, good. Have a nice weekend. What about Prestwick’s?”

“All done, Mr. Wheelan. There’s nothing outstanding.” Mamie raised her eyes to heaven as he closed the door behind him.

“He drives me mad,” she muttered.

“Fuss, fuss, fuss, all the time.

Come on, quick, before he changes his mind. Friday evenings are always the worst.” She scurried across to the door and started down the stairs.

“He hates weekends, that’s his trouble, thinks the business is going to fold because we have two consecutive days without orders. He’s paranoid. Had me working Saturday mornings last year till he realised we were simply sitting around twiddling our thumbs because none of the offices we deal with open on a Saturday.” She pushed through the bottom door and stepped out on to the pavement.

“Look, we can forget about that drink. I’d like to get home in reasonable time for once.” She looked at Roz, measuring the other’s reaction.

Roz shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll go and talk to Mr. Wheelan about Olive Martin. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.”

Mamie tapped her foot impatiently.

“You’ll get me sacked.”

“You talk to me then.”

There was a long pause while the other woman considered her options.

“I’ll tell you what I know, as long as you keep it to yourself,” she said at last.

“Is that a deal? It’s not going to help you one little bit, so you won’t need to use it.”

“Suits me,” said Roz.

“We’ll talk as we walk. The station’s this way. If we hurry I might be able to catch the six thirty.”

Roz caught her arm to hold her back.

“My car’s over there,” she said.

“I’ll drive you instead.” She took Mamie across the road and unlocked the passenger door.

“OK,” she said, getting in the other side and starting the engine.

“Fire away.”

“I did know of her, or at least I knew of an Olive Martin. I can’t swear it’s the same one because I never saw her, but the description sounded right when I read about her in the newspaper. I’ve always assumed it was the same person.”

“Who gave you her description?” asked Roz, turning into the main road.

“There’s no point asking questions,” snapped Marie.

“It’ll just take longer. Let me tell the story my way.” She collected her thoughts.

“I said back there that we hardly ever see customers. Sometimes office managers come in to suss out what sort of operation we run, but normally it’s all done by telephone. Somebody wants something delivered, they phone us and we dispatch a rider, simple as that. Well, one lunchtime, when Wheelan was out getting his sandwiches, this man came into the office. He had a letter that he wanted delivered that afternoon to a Miss Olive Martin. He was prepared to pay over the odds if the dispatch rider would hang around outside where she worked and give it to her quietly as she was leaving.

He was absolutely adamant that it wasn’t to be taken inside and said he was sure I understood why.”

Roz forgot herself.

“And did you?”

“I assumed they were having an affair and that neither of them wanted people asking questions. Anyway, he gave me a twenty quid note for the one letter, and we’re talking six years ago, remember, plus a very good description of Olive Martin, right down to the clothes she was wearing that day. Well, I thought it was a one-off and as that old bastard Wheelan pays peanuts at the best of times, I pocketed the cash and didn’t bother to record the transaction. Instead, I got one of our riders who lived in Dawlington to do it freelance, as it were, on his way home. He got ten for doing virtually nothing and I kept the other ten.” She motioned with her hand.

“You take the next right at the traffic lights and then right at the roundabout.”

Roz put on her indicator.

“Was that Gary O’Brien?”

Marie nodded.

“I suppose the little sod’s been talking.”

“Something like that,” said Roz, avoiding a direct answer.

“Did Gary ever meet this man?”

“No, only Olive. It turned out he’d known her before she used to look after him when he was a child or something so he had no trouble recognising her and didn’t bungle the job by trying to give the letter to the wrong woman. Which, considering what an oaf he was, I thought he might do. Pull in here.” She glanced at her watch as Roz drew to a halt.

“That’s grand. OK, well, the upshot of the whole thing going so smoothly was that Olive’s bloke started to use us quite regularly. All in all we must have delivered about ten letters in the six months before the murders. I think he realised we were doing it on the side because he always came in at lunchtime after Wheelan had gone out. I reckon he used to wait until he saw the old fool leave.”

She shrugged.

“It stopped with the murders and I’ve never seen him since. And that’s all I can tell you except that Gary got really nervous after Olive was arrested and said we should keep our mouths shut about what we knew or the police would be down on us like a ton of bricks. Well, I wasn’t keen to say anything anyway, not because of the police but because of Wheelan. He’d have burst a blood vessel if he’d found out we’d been running a bit of private enterprise behind his back.”

“But didn’t the police turn up anyway about a month later to warn Wheelan against the O’Brien brothers?”

Mamie looked surprised.

“Who told you that?”

“Gary’s mother.”

“First I’ve heard of it. As far as I know they just got bored.

Gary wasn’t so bad because he loved his motorbike but the other two were the most work-shy creeps I’ve ever come across. In the end they were skiving off so often that Wheelan sacked the lot. It’s about the only decision he’s ever made that I agreed with. God, they were unreliable.” She checked her watch again.

“To tell you the truth it amazed me that Gary delivered Olive’s letters so conscientiously. I did wonder if he had a bit of a yen for her himself.” She opened the car door.

“I’ll have togo.”

“Hang on,” said Roz sharply.

“Who was this man?”

“No idea. We dealt in cash and he never gave his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“I’ll miss my train.”

Roz leant across and pulled the door to.

“You’ve got ten minutes and if you don’t give me a decent description I’ll go straight back to your office and spill the beans to Wheelan.”

Mamie shrugged petulantly.

“He was fifty-odd, old enough to be her father if the age they gave for her in the paper was right.

Quite good-looking in a smarmy sort of way, very clean cut and conservative. He had a posh accent. He smoked. He always wore a suit and tie. He was about six foot and he had blond hair. He never said very much, just sort of waited for me to speak, never smiled, never got excited. I remember his eyes because they didn’t go with his hair.

They were very dark brown. And that’s it,” she said firmly.

“I don’t know any more about him and I don’t know anything at all about her.”

“Would you recognise him from a photograph?”

“Probably. Do you know him then?”

Roz drummed her fingers on the steering-wheel.

“It doesn’t make any sense but it sounds exactly like her father.”