Sculptress

FIFTEEN

Roz swam up to a strange twilight world between oblivion and consciousness. She knew she was there in the oom but she felt apart from it as if she were watching what was going on from behind thickened glass. Sound was muted. She had a vague memory of fingers clamping round her throat. And afterwards? She wasn’t sure. It had, she thought, been very peaceful.

Hal’s face loomed over her.

“Are you all right?” he asked from a great distance.

“Fine,” she murmured happily.

He smacked her on the cheek with the flat of his hand.

“That’s my girl,” he told her, his voice muffled by cotton wool.

“Come on, now. Snap out of it. I need some help.”

She glared at him.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” she said with dignity.

He hauled her to her feet.

“Now,” he said firmly, ‘or we’ll be back where we started.” He thrust a baseball bat into her hand.

“I am going to tie them up but you’ve got to protect my back while I’m doing it. I don’t want one of these bastards surprising me.” He looked into her dazed eyes.

“Come on, Roz,” he said savagely, shaking her.

“Pull yourself together and show a bit of character.”

She took a deep breath.

“Has anyone ever told you what a complete and utter turd you are? I nearly died.”

“You fainted,” he said unemotionally, but his eyes were twinkling.

“Hit anything that moves,” he instructed her, except the one with his head under the tap. He’s in enough agony already.”

Reality came rushing in on wings of sound. Moans and groans and running water. There was a man with his head under the tap. She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and swung the baseball bat in terrified reaction, ramming home the hat ping that its unfortunate recipient was gingerly plucking from his bottom. His screams of reawakened agony were pitiful.

? “Oh God!” she cried.

“I’ve done something awful.” Tears sprang into her eyes.

Hal finished trussing her putative killer, who had been knocked cold by his frenzied charge, and moved on to the other unconscious figure, winding twine expertly about the wrists and ankles.

“What’s he yelling for anyway?” he demanded, tethering his victim to the table for good measure.

“He’s got a pin in his bottom,” said Roz, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Hal approached the man warily.

“What sort of pin?”

“My mother’s hat ping She gagged.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

He saw the green ornamental head protruding from the man’s Levis and felt a tiny twinge of sympathy. It didn’t last. He left it there while he bound the man’s wrists and ankles and tethered him, like his friend, to the table. It was almost as an afterthought that he gripped the jade and yanked the hat ping grinning, from the quivering buttock.

“You arse hole he murmured cheerfully, tucking the pin into the front of his jumper.

“I feel ill,” said Roz.

“Sit down, then.” He took a chair and pressed her into it before moving to the back door and flinging it open.

“Out,” he ordered the man at the sink.

“Get yourself to hospital as fast as you can. If your friends have an ounce of decency they’ll keep your name to themselves. If they haven’t’ he shrugged - ‘you’ve got about half an hour to get yourself admitted before the police come looking for you.”

The man needed no persuading. He launched himself into the fresh air of the alleyway and took to his heels.

With a groan of exhaustion, Hal shut the door and slithered to the floor.

“I need a rest. Do me a favour, sweetheart, and take off their masks.

Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Roz’s head was aching intolerably where the roots of her hair had been loosened. She looked at him with burning eyes in a pasty white face.

“For your information, Hawksley,” she said icily, “I’m just about out on my feet. It may have escaped your notice, but if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t have got anything.”

He gave a mighty yawn and winced as pain seared around his chest and back. Fractured ribs, he thought tiredly.

“I’ll tell you this for free, Roz. As far as I’m concerned you are the most wonderful woman God ever made and I’ll marry you if you’ll have me.” He smiled sweetly.

“But at the moment I’m bushed.

Be kind. Get off your high horse and take their ski-masks off.”

‘“Words, words, mere words”,” she murmured, but she did as he asked.

The side of his face was already thickening where a baseball bat had split the skin. What the hell sort of state must his back be in?

Covered in weals, probably, like the last time.

“Do you know any of them?” She studied the slack features of the unconscious man by the door. She had a fleeting impression she knew him, but his head moved and the impression vanished.

“No.” He’d seen her frown of brief recognition.

“Do you?”

“I thought I did,” she said slowly.

“Just for a moment.” She shook her head.

“No. He probably reminded me of someone on the telly.”

Hal pushed himself to his feet and padded over to the sink, his stiffening body protesting at every step. He filled a bowl with water and sloshed it into the gaping mouth, watching the eyes flicker open.

They were instantly alert, wary, guarded, all of which told Hal he wasn’t likely to get anywhere by asking questions.

With a shrug of resignation, he looked at Roz.

“I need a favour.”

She nodded.

“There’s a phone box about two hundred yards down the main road. Take your car to it, dial 999, tell them the Poacher’s been broken into, and then go home. Don’t give your name. I’ll call you the minute I can.”

“I’d rather stay.”

“I know.” His face softened. She was wearing her lonely look again.

He reached out and ran the back of a finger down the line of her cheek.

“Trust me. I will call.”

She took a deep breath.

“How long do you want?”

He’d make it up to her one day, he thought.

“Fifteen minutes before you phone.”

She retrieved her handbag from the floor, cramming the contents inside and zippering it closed.

“Fifteen minutes,” she echoed, pulling the door open and stepping outside. She stared at him for a long moment then shut the door and walked away.

Hal waited until her footsteps faded.

“This,” he said gently, reaching for the hat ping ‘is going to be extremely painful.” He grasped the man’s hair and forced him down until his face was flat against the floor.

“And I haven’t got time for games.” He placed the weight of one knee across the man’s shoulders then prised a finger straight in one of the bound fists and pushed the point of the hat ping between the flesh and the nail. He felt the finger flinch.

“You’ve got five seconds to tell me what the hell is going on before I push it home. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

He breathed deeply through his nose, closed his eyes and shoved.

The man screamed.

Hal caught “Foreclosures. You’re costing money on the foreclosures’ before a ton weight descended on the back of his head.

Sister Bridget, as imperturbable as ever, ushered Roz into her sitting room and sat her in a chair with a glass of brandy.

Clearly Roz had been in another fight. Her clothes were ifithy and dishevelled, her hair was a mess, and splotchy red marks on her neck and face looked very like the imprint of fingers.

Someone, it seemed, was using her as a target for his spleen, though why she chose to put up with it Sister Bridget couldn’t begin to imagine. Roz was as far removed from Dickens’ Nancy as anyone could be and had quite enough independence of spirit to reject the degrading life that a Bill Sykes offered.

She waited placidly while wave after wave of giggles spluttered from Roz’s mouth.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked at last, when Roz had composed herself enough to dab at her eyes.

Roz blew her nose.

“I don’t think I can,” she said.

“It wasn’t at all funny.” Laughter welled in her eyes again and she held the handkerchief to her mouth.

“I’m sorry to be a nuisance but I was afraid I’d have an accident if I tried to drive home. I think it’s what’s known as an adrenalin high.”

Privately, Sister Bridget decided it was a product of delayed shock, the natural healing process of mind over traumatised body.

“I’m pleased to have you here. Tell me how you’re progressing on the Olive front. I saw her today but she wasn’t very communicative.”

Grateful for something to take her mind off the Poacher, Roz told her.

“She did have a lover. I’ve found the hotel they used.”

She peered at the brandy glass.

“It was the Belvedere in Farraday Street. They went there on Sundays during the summer of eighty-seven.” She took a sip from the glass then placed it hurriedly on the table beside her and slumped back into the chair, pressing shaking fingers to her temples.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, ‘but I don’t feel at all well. I’ve got the mother and father of headaches.”

“I should imagine you have,” said Sister Bridget, rather more tartly than she had intended.

Roz massaged her aching temples.

“This ape tried to pull my hair out,” she murmured.

“I think that’s what’s done it.” She pressed an experimental hand to the back of her head and winced.

“There’s some codeine in my handbag. You couldn’t find them for me, could you? I think my head is about to explode.” She giggled hysterkally.

“Olive must be Sticking pins into me again.”

Tut-tut ting with motherly concern, Sister Bridget administered three with a glass of water.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” she said severely, ‘but I’m really very shocked.

I can’t forgive any man who treats a woman like a chattel and, harsh though it may sound, I find it almost as difficult to forgive the woman. Better to live without a man at all than to live with one who is only interested in the degradation of the spirit.”

Roz squinted through one half-closed eyelid, unable to take the glare of light from the window. How indignant the other woman looked, puffing her chest like a pouter pigeon. Hysteria nudged about her diaphragm again.

“You’re very harsh all of a sudden. I doubt Olive saw it as degradation. Rather the reverse, I should think.”

“I’m not talking about Olive, my dear, I’m talking about you.

This ape you referred to. He isn’t worth it. Surely you can see that?”

Roz shook with helpless laughter.

“I’m so sorry,” she said at last.

“You must think me incredibly rude. The trouble is I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster for months.” She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.

“You must blame Olive for this.

She’s been a godsend. She’s made me feel useful again.”

She saw the polite bewilderment on the other’s face and sighed inwardly. Really, she thought, it was so much easier to tell lies.

They were one dimensional and uncomplicated.

“I’m fine… Everything’s fine… I like waiting here… Rupert’s been very supportive over All… We went our separate ways amicably…” It was the tangled web of truth, woven deep into the fragile stuff of character, that made life difficult. She wasn’t even sure now what was true and what wasn’t. Had she really hated Rupert that much? She couldn’t imagine where she had found the energy. All she could really remember was how stifling the last twelve months had been.

“I’m completely infatuated,” she went on wildly as if that explained anything, ‘but I’ve no idea if what I feel is genuine or just pie in the sky hoping.” She shook her head.

“I suppose one never really knows.”

“Oh, my dear,” said Sister Bridget, ‘do be careful. Infatuation is a very poor substitute for love. It withers as easily as it flourishes.

Love real love takes time to grow, and how can it do that in an atmosphere of brutality?”

“That’s hardly his fault. I could have run away, I suppose, but I’m glad I didn’t. I’m sure they’d have killed him if he’d been alone.”

Sister Bridget sighed.

“We seem to be talking at cross purposes. Do I gather the ape is not the man you’re infatuated with?”

With streaming eyes, Roz wondered if there was any truth in the phrase to die laughing.

“You’re very brave,” said Sister Bridget.

“I’d have assumed he was up to no good and run a mile.”

“Perhaps he is. I’m a very poor judge of character, you know.”

Sister Bridget laughed to herself.

“Well, it all sounds very exciting,” she said with a twinge of envy, taking Roz’s dress from the tumble-drier and laying it on the ironing board.

“The only man who ever showed any interest in me was a bank clerk who lived three doors away from my parents. He was skin and bone, poor chap, with an enormous Adam’s apple that crawled about his throat like a large pink beetle. I simply couldn’t bear him. The Church was far more attractive.” She wet her finger and tapped it against the iron.

Roz, wrapped in an old flannelette nightie, smiled.

“And is it still?”

“Not always. But I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have regrets.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Good Heavens, yes. More often than you have, I expect.

Purely platonically, of course. I meet some very attractive fathers in my job.”

Roz chuckled.

“What sort of fathers? The cassocked variety or the ones in trousers?”

Sister Bridget’s eyes danced wickedly.

“All I will say, as long as you promise not to quote me, is that I’ve always found cassocks a little off-putting and, with all the divorces there are these days, I spend more time talking to single men than, frankly, is good for a nun.”

“If things ever work out,” said Roz wistfully, ‘and I have another daughter, I’ll put her in your school so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“I shall look forward to it.”

“No. I don’t believe in miracles. I did once.”

“I’ll pray for you,” said Sister Bridget.

“It’s time I had something to get my teeth into. I prayed for Olive and look what God sent me.”

“Now you’re going to make me cry.”

She woke in the morning with brilliant sunlight bathing her face through a gap in Sister Bridget’s spare-room curtains. It was too bright to look at so she cuddled down into the warmth of the duvet and listened instead. Ripples of birdsong swelled in glorious chorus from tiny feathered throats in the garden, and somewhere a radio murmured the news, but too low for her to make out the words. The smell of grilled bacon drifted tantalisingly from the kitchen downstairs, urging her to get up.

She tingled with half-remembered vitality and wondered why she had allowed herself to stumble for so long through the blind fog of her depression. Life, she thought, was fabulous and the desire to live it too insistent to be ignored.

She waved goodbye to Sister Bridget pointed the car towards the Poacher and switched on her stereo, feeding in Pavarotti. It was a very deliberate laying of a ghost. The rich voice surged in the speakers and she listened to it without regret.

The restaurant was deserted, no answer front or back to her knocking.

She drove to the payphone she had used the night before and dialled the number, letting it ring for a long time in case Hal was asleep. When he didn’t reply, she replaced the receiver and returned to her car. She wasn’t concerned frankly, Hal could look after himself rather better than any other man she had known and she had more urgent fish to fry.

From the dashboard pocket she took an expensive automatic camera with a powerful zoom lens a legacy of the divorce and checked it for him.

Then, switching on the ignition, she drew out into the traffic.

She had to wait two hours, crouched uncomfortably on the back seat of her car, but she was well rewarded for her patience.

When Olive’s Svengali finally emerged from his front door he paused for a second or two and presented her with a perfect shot of his face.

Magnified by the zoom lens, the dark eyes bored straight through her as she took the picture before they turned away to glance down between the avenue of trees to check for oncoming traffic. She felt the hairs pricking on the back of her neck. He couldn’t possibly have seen her the car was facing away from him with the camera lens propped on her handbag in the back window but she shivered none the less. The photographs of Gwen and Amber’s mutilated bodies, lying on the seat beside her, were a terrible reminder that she was stalking a psychopath.

She arrived back at her flat, hot and tired from the sweltering heat of unheralded summer. The wintry feel of three days before had melted into brilliant blue skies with a promise of more heat to come. She opened the windows of the flat and let in the roar of London traffic.

More noticeable than usual, it made her think with a brief wistfulness of the peace and beauty of Bayview.

She checked her answer phone for messages while she poured a glass of water, only to find the tape as she had left it, blank.

She dialled the Poacher and listened, this time with mounting anxiety, to the vain ringing at the other end. Where on earth was he? She chewed the knuckle of her thumb in frustration then phoned Iris.

“How would Gerry react if you asked him nicely to put on his solicitor’s hat’ Gerald Fielding was a partner in a top London legal practice ‘ring Dawlington police station and make some discreet enquiries before everything winds down for the weekend?”

Iris was never one to beat about the bush.

“Why?” she demanded.

“And what’s in it for me?”

“My peace of mind. I’m too twitched at the moment to write anything.”

“Hmm. Why?”

“I’m worried about my shady policeman.”

“Your shady policeman?” asked Iris suspiciously.

“That’s right.”

Iris heard the amusement in her friend’s voice.

“Oh, my God,” she said crossly, ‘you haven’t gone and fallen for him?

He’s supposed to be a source.”

“He is of endless erotic fantasy.”

Iris groaned.

“How can you write objectively about corrupt policemen if you’ve got the hots for one of them?”

“Who says he’s corrupt?”

“He must be, if Olive’s innocent. I thought you said he took her confession.”

“It’s a pity you’re not a Catholic. You could go to confession and feel better immediately..

“Are you still there?” demanded Iris.

“Yes. Will Gerry do it?”

“Why can’t you make the call yourself?”

“Because I’m involved and they might recognise my voice. I made them a 999 call.”

Iris groaned again.

“What on earth have you been up to?”

“Nothing crmniinal, at least I don’t think so.” She heard the grunt of horror at the other end.

“Look, all Gerry has to do is ask a few innocent questions.”

“Will he have to lie?”

“A white lie or two.”

“He’ll have a fit. You know Gerry. Breaks out in a muck sweat at the mere mention of falsehoods.” She sighed loudly.

“What a pest you are. You realise I shall have to bribe him with promises of good behaviour. My life won’t be worth living.”

“You’re an angel. Now, these are the only details Gerry needs to know.

He’s trying to contact his client, Hal Hawksley of the Poacher, Wenceslas Street, Dawlington. He has reason to believe the Poacher has been broken into and wonders if the police know where Hal can be contacted. OK?”

“No, it’s not OK, but I’ll see what I can do. Will you be in this evening?”

“Yes, twiddling my thumbs.”

“Well, try twiddling them round your keyboard,” said Iris acidly.

“I’m fed up with being the only one who does any meaningful work in this lopsided relationship of ours.”

She should have had the film developed at a one-hour booth in her local High Street while she did some shopping. Now she spread the prints over her coffee table and studied them. She put the ones of Svengali, the two close-ups of his face and some full-length shots of his back as he walked away, to one side and smiled at the rest. She had forgotten taking them. Deliberately, she thought. They were of Rupert and Alice playing in the garden on Alice’s birthday, a week before the accident.

They had declared a truce that day, she remembered, for Alice’s sake.

And they had kept it, up to a point, although as usual the responsibility for refusing to be drawn had been Roz’s. As long as she could keep her cool and smile while Rupert let slip his poisoned darts about Jessica, Jessica’s flat, and Jessica’s job, everything was hunky-dory. Alice’s joy in having her parents back together again shone from the photographs.

Roz pushed them tenderly to one side and rummaged through her carrier bag of shopping, removing some cellophane, a paintbrush, and three tubes of acrylic paint. Then, munching into a pork pie, she set to work.

Every now and then she paused to smile at her daughter. She should have had the film developed before, she told Mrs. Antrobus, who had curled contentedly into her lap. The rag doll of the newspapers had never been Alice. This was Alice.

“He’s legged it,” said Iris baldly down the wire two hours later, ‘and Gerry has been threatened with all sorts of nasties if he doesn’t reveal his client’s whereabouts the minute he knows them. There’s a warrant out for the wretched man’s arrest.

Where on earth do you find these ghastly creatures? You should take up with a nice one, like Gerry,” she said severely, ‘who wouldn’t dream of beating up women or involving them in criminal activities.”

“I know,” agreed Roz mildly, ‘but the nice ones are already taken. Did they mention what the charge is against Hal?”

“Charges, more like. Arson, resisting arrest, GBH, absconding from the scene of a crime. You name it, he’s done it. If he gets in touch with you, don’t bother to let me know. Gerry’s already behaving like the man who knew the identity of Jack the Ripper but kept it quiet. He’ll have a heart attack if he thinks I know where he is.”

“Mum’s the word,” Roz promised.

There was a moment’s silence.

“You might do better to hang up if he calls. There’s a man in hospital with appalling facial burns, apparently, a policeman with a dislocated jaw, and when they arrived to arrest him he was trying to set fire to his restaurant. He sounds horribly dangerous to me.”

“I think you’re probably right,” said Roz slowly, wondering what on earth had happened after she left.

“He’s got a lovely arse, too. Aren’t I the lucky one?”

“Cow!”

Roz laughed.

“Thank Gerry for me. I appreciate his niceness even if you don’t.”

She went to sleep on the sofa in case she missed the phone when it rang. It occurred to her that he might not want to trust himself to an answer machine.

But the telephone remained stubbornly silent all weekend.