Sculptress

FOUR

Roz found the local convent with the help of a police an “That’ll be St. Angela’s,” he told her.

“Left at the traffic lights and left again. Large red-brick building set back from the road. You can’t miss it. It’s the only decent piece of architecture still standing round there.”

It reared in solid Victorian magnificence above its surrounding clutter of cheap concrete obsolescence, a monument to education in a way that none of the modern prefabricated schools could ever be. Roz entered the front door with a sense of familiarity, for this was a schooling she recognised.

Glimpses through classroom doors of desks, blackboards, shelves of books, attentive girls in neat uniforms. A place of quiet learning, where parents could dictate the sort of education their daughters received simply by threatening to remove the pupils and withhold the fees. And whenever parents had that power the requirements were always the same: discipline, structure, results. She peeped through a window into what was obviously the library. Well, well, no wonder Gwen had insisted on sending the girls here. Roz would put money on Parkway Comprehensive being an unruly bedlam where English, History, Religion and Geography were all taught as the single subject of General Studies, spelling was an anachronism, French an extracurricular activity, Latin unheard of, and Science a series of chats about the greenhouse effect…

“Can I help you?”

She turned with a smile.

“I hope so.”

A smart woman in her late fifties had paused in front of a door marked Secretary.

“Are you a prospective parent?”

“I wish I were. It’s a lovely school. No children,” she explained at the woman’s look of puzzled enquiry.

“I see. So how can I help you?”

Roz took out one of her cards.

“Rosalind Leigh,” she introduced herself.

“Would it be possible for me to talk to the headmistress?”

“Now?” said the woman in surprise.

“Yes, if she’s free. If not, I can make an appointment and come back later.”

The woman took the card and read it closely.

“May I ask what you want to talk about?”

Roz shrugged.

“Just some general information about the school and the sort of girls who come here.”

“Would you be the Rosalind Leigh who wrote Through the Looking Glass by any chance?”

Roz nodded. Through the Looking Glass, her last book and her best, had sold well and won some excellent reviews. A study of the changing perceptions of female beauty down the ages, she wondered now how she had ever managed to summon the energy to write it. A labour of love, she thought, because the subject had fascinated her.

“I’ve read it.” The other smiled.

“I agreed with very few of your conclusions but it was extremely thought-provoking none the less. You write lovely prose, but I’m sure you know that.”

Roz laughed. She felt an immediate liking for the woman.

“At least you’re honest.”

The other looked at her watch.

“Come into my office. I have Some parents to see in half an hour, but I’m happy to give you general information until then.

This way.” She opened the secretary’s door and ushered Roz through to an adjoining office.

“Sit down, do. Coffee?”

“Please.” Roz took the chair indicated and watched her busy herself with a kettle and some cups.

“Are you the headmistress?”

“I am.”

“They were always nuns in my day.”

“So you’re a convent girl. I thought you might be. Milk?”

“Black and no sugar, please.”

She placed a steaming cup on the desk in front of Roz and sat down opposite her.

“In fact I am a nun. Sister Bridget. My order gave up wearing the habit quite some time ago. We found it tended to create an artificial barrier between us and the rest of society.” She chuckled.

“I don’t know what it is about religious uniforms, but people try to avoid you if they can. I suppose they feel they have to be on their best behaviour. It’s very frustrating.

The conversation is often so stilted.”

Roz crossed her legs and relaxed into the chair. She was unaware of it but her eyes betrayed her. They brimmed with all the warmth and humour that, a year ago, had been the outward expression of her personality.

Bitterness, it seemed, could only corrode so far.

“It’s probably guilt,” she said.

“We have to guard our tongues in case we provoke the sermon we know we deserve.” She sipped the coffee.

“What made you think I was a convent girl?”

“Your book. You get very hot under the collar about established religions. I guessed you were either a lapsed Jew or a lapsed Catholic. The Protestant yoke is easier to discard, being far less oppressive in the first place.”

“In fact I wasn’t a lapsed anything when I wrote Through the Looking Glass,” said Roz mildly.

“I was a good Catholic still.”

Sister Bridget interpreted the cynicism in her voice.

“But not now.”

“No. God died on me.” She smiled slightly at the look of understanding on the other woman’s face.

“You read about it, I suppose. I can’t applaud your taste in newspapers.”

“I’m an educator, my dear. We take the tabloids here as well as the broad sheets She didn’t drop her gaze or show embarrassment, for which Roz was grateful.

“Yes, I read about it and I would have punished God, too. It was very cruel of Him.”

Roz nodded.

“If I remember right,” she said, reverting to her book, ‘religion is confined to only one chapter of my book.

Why did you find my conclusions so hard to agree with?”

“Because they are all drawn from a single pre miss As I can’t accept the pre miss then I can’t agree with the conclusions.”

Roz wrinkled her brow.

“Which pre miss “That beauty is only skin deep.”

Roz was surprised.

“And you don’t think that’s true?”

“No, not as a general rule.”

“I’m speechless. And you a nun!”

“Being a nun has nothing to do with it. I’m streetwise.”

It was an unconscious echo of Olive.

“You really believe that beautiful people are beautiful all the way through? I can’t accept that. By the same token ugly people are ugly all the way through.”

“You’re putting words into my mouth, my dear.” Sister Bridget was amused.

“I am simply questioning the idea that beauty is a surface quality.”

She cradled her coffee cup in her hands.

“It’s a comfortable thought, of course it means we can all feel good abouj ourselves but beauty, like wealth, is a moral asset. The wealthy can afford to be law abiding, generous and kind. The very poor cannot.

Even kindness is a struggle when you don’t know where your next penny is coming from.”

She gave a quirky smile.

“Poverty is only uplifting when you can choose it.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that, but I don’t see the connection between beauty and wealth.”

“Beauty cushions you against the negative emotions that loneliness and rejection inspire. Beautiful people are prized they always have been, you made that point yourself so they have less reason to be spiteful, less reason to be jealous, less reason to covet what they can’t have.

They tend to be the focus of all those emotions, rarely the instigators of them.” She shrugged.

“You will always have exceptions most of them you uncovered in your book but, in my experience, if a person is attractive then that attractiveness runs deep. You can argue which comes first, the inner beauty or the outer, but they do tend to walk together.”

“So if you’re rich and beautiful the pearly gates will swing open for you?” She smiled cynically.

“That’s a somewhat radical philosophy for a Christian, isn’t it? I thought Jesus preached the exact opposite. Something like it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Sister Bridget laughed good-humouredly.

“Yours was obviously an excellent convent.” She stirred her coffee absentmindedly with a biro.

“Yes, He did say that but, if you put it in context, it supports my view, I think, rather than detracts from it.

If you remember, a wealthy young man asked Him how he could have eternal life. Jesus said: keep the commandments. The youth answered: I have kept them, since childhood, but what more can I do. If you want to be perfect, said Jesus and I emphasise the perfect sell all you have and give it to the poor, then follow me. The young man went away sorrowing because he had many possessions and could not bring himself to sell them. It was then Jesus made the reference to the camel and the eye of the needle.

He was, you see, talking about perfection, not goodness.” She sucked the end of her biro.

“In fairness to the young man, I have always assumed that to sell his possessions would have meant selling houses and businesses with tenants and employees in them, so the moral dilemma would have been a difficult one.

But what I think Jesus was saying was this: so far you have been a goodman, but to test how good you really are, reduce yourself to abject poverty. Perfection is to follow me and keep the commandments when you are so poor that stealing and lying are a way of life if you want to be sure of waking up the next morning. An impossible goal.” She sipped her coffee.

“I could be wrong, of course.” There was a twinkle in her eye.

“Well, I’m not going to argue the toss with you on that,” said Roz bluntly.

“I suspect I’d be on a hiding to nothing. But I reckon you’re on very bumpy ground with your beauty is a moral asset argument. What about the pitfalls of vanity and arrogance? And how do you explain that some of the nicest people I know are, by no stretch of the imagination, beautiful?”

Sister Bridget laughed again, a happy sound.

“You keep twisting my words. I have never said that to be nice you have to be beautiful. I merely dispute your assertion that beautiful people are not nice. My observation is that very often they are. At the risk of labouring the point, they can afford to be.”

“Then we’re back to my previous question. Does that mean ugly people are very often not nice?”

“It doesn’t follow, you know, any more than saying poor people are invariably wicked. It just means the tests are harder.” She cocked her head on one side.

“Take Olive and Amber as a case in point. After all, that’s why you’ve really come to see me. Amber led a charmed life. She was quite the loveliest child I’ve ever seen and with a nature to match. Everyone adored her. Olive, on the other hand, was universally unpopular. She had few redeeming features. She was greedy, deceitful, and often cruel. I found her very hard to like.”

Roz made no attempt to deny her interest. The conversation had, in any case, been about them from the beginning.

“Then you were being tested as much as she was. Did you fail? Was it impossible to like her?”

“It was very difficult until Amber joined the school.

Olive’s best quality was that she loved her sister, without reserve and quite unselfishly. It was really rather touching. She fussed over Amber like a mother hen, often ignoring her own interests to promote Amber’s. I’ve never seen such affection between sisters.”

“So why did she kill her?”

“Why indeed? It’s time that question was asked.”

The older woman drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk.

“I visit her when I can. She won’t tell me, and the only explanation I can offer is that her love, which was obsession ai turned to a hate that was equally obsessional. Have you met Olive?”

Roz nodded.

“What did you make of her?”

“She’s bright.”

“Yes, she is. She could have gone to university if only the then headmistress had managed to persuade her mother of the advantages. I was a lowly teacher in those days.” She sighed.

“But Mrs. Martin was a decided woman, and Olive very much under her thumb. There was nothing we, as a school, could do to make her change her mind. The two girls left together, Olive with three good A-levels and Amber with four rather indifferent 0-levels.” She sighed again.

“Poor Olive. She went to work as a cashier in a supermarket while Amber, I believe, tried her hand at hairdressing.”

“Which supermarket was it?”

“Pettit’s in the High Street. But the place went out of business years ago. It’s an off-licence now.”

“She was working at the local DHSS, wasn’t she, at the time of the murders?”

“Yes and doing very well, I believe. Her mother pushed her into it, of course.” Sister Bridget reflected for a moment.

“Funnily enough, I bumped into Olive quite by chance just a week or so before the murders. I was pleased to see her. She looked’ she paused ‘happy. Yes, I think happy is exactly the word for it.”

Roz let the silence drift while she busied herself with her own thoughts. There was so much about this story that didn’t make sense.

“Did she get on with her mother?” she asked at last. “I don’t know. I always had the impression she preferred her father. It was Mrs. Martin who wore the trousers, of course. If there were choices to be made, it was invariably she who made them. She was very domineenng, but I don’t recall Olive voicing any antagonism towards her. She was a difficult woman to talk to. Very correct, always. She appeared to watch every word she said in case she gave herself away.” She shook her head.

“But I never did find out what it was that needed hiding.”

There was a knock on the connecting door and a woman popped her head inside.

“Mr. and Mrs. Barker are waiting, Sister. Are you ready for them?”

“Two minutes, Betty.” She smiled at Roz.

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’ve been very helpful. Olive had one friend while she was here, not a friend as you or I would know it, but a girl with whom she talked rather more than she did with any of the others.

Her married name is Wright Geraldine Wright and she lives in a village called Wooling about ten miles north of here. If she’s willing to talk to you then I’m sure she can tell you more than I have. The name of her house is Oaktrees.

Roz jotted down the details in her diary.

“Why do I have the feeling you were expecting me?”

“Olive showed me your letter the last time I saw her.”

Roz stood up, gathering her briefcase and handbag together. She regarded the other woman thoughtfully.

“It may be that the only book I can write is a cruel one.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t think so either.” She paused by the door.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you.”

“Come and see me again,” said Sister Bridget.

“I’d like to know how you get on.”

Roz nodded.

“I suppose there’s no doubt that she did it?”

“I really don’t know,” said the other woman slowly.

“I’ve wondered, of course. The whole thing is so shocking that it is hard to accept.” She seemed to come to a conclusion.

“Be very careful, my dear.

The only certainty about Olive is that she lies about almost everything.”

Roz jotted down the name of the arresting officer from the press clippings and called in at the police station on her way back to London.

“I’m looking for a DS Hawksley,” she told the young constable behind the front desk.

“He was with this division in nineteen eighty-seven. Is he still here?”

He shook his head.

“Jacked it in, twelve eighteen months ago.” He leaned his elbows on the counter and eyed her over with an approving glance.

“Will I do instead?”

Her lips curved involuntarily.

“Perhaps you can tell me where he went?”

“Sure. He opened a restaurant in Wenceslas Street. Lives in the flat above it.”

“And how do I find Wenceslas Street?”

“Well, now’ he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully ‘by far the easiest way is to hang around for half an hour till the end of my shift. I’ll take you.”

She laughed.

“And what would your girlfriend say to that?”

“A ruddy mouthful. She’s got a tongue like a chain-saw.” He winked.

“I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

“Sorry, sunshine. I’m shackled to a husband who hates policemen only marginally less than he hates toy-boys.” Lies were always easier.

He grinned.

“Turn left out of the station and Wenceslas Street is about a mile down on the left. There’s an empty shop on the corner. The Sergeant’s restaurant is bang next door to it. It’s called the Poacher.” He tapped his pencil on the desk.

“Are you planning to eat there?”

“No,” she said, ‘it’s purely business. I don’t intend to hang around.”

He nodded approval.

“Wise woman. The Sergeant’s not much of a cook. He’d have done better to stick with policing.”

She had to pass the restaurant to reach the London road. Rather reluctantly she pulled into its abandoned car park and climbed out of the car. She was tired, she hadn’t planned on talking to Hawksley that day, and the young constable’s lighthearted flirtation depressed her because it had left her cold.

The Poacher was an attractive red-brick building, set back from the road with the car park in front. Leaded bay windows curved out on either side of a solid oak door and wist aria heavy with buds, grew in profusion across the whole facade. Like St. Angela’s Convent it was at odds with its surroundings.

The shops on either side, both apparently empty, their windows a repository for advertising stickers, complemented each other in cheap post-war pragmatism but did nothing for the old faded beauty in their midst. Worse, a thoughtless council had allowed a previous owner to erect a two-storey extension behind the red-brick frontage, and it gboomed above the restaurant’s tiled roof in dirty pebble-dashed concrete. An attempt had been made to divert the wist aria across the roof but, starved of sunlight by the jutting property to the right, the probing tendrils showed little enthusiasm for reaching up to veil the dreary elevation.

Roz pushed open the door and went inside. The place was dark and deserted. Empty tables in an empty room, she thought despondently.

Like her.

Like her life. She was on the point of calling out, but thought better of it. It was all so peaceful and she was in no hurry. She tiptoed across the floor and took a stool at a bar in the corner. A smell of cooking lingered on the air, garlicky, tempting, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She waited a long time, unseen and unheard, a trespasser upon another’s silence. She thought about leaving, unobtrusively, as she had come, but it was strangely restful and her head drooped against her hand. Depression, an all too constant companion, folded its arms around her again, and turned her mind, as it often did, to death. She would do it one day. Sleeping pills or the car. The car, always the car. Alone, at night, in the rain. So easy just to turn the wheel and find a peaceful oblivion. It would be justice of a sort. Her head hurt where the hate swelled and throbbed inside it. God, what a mess she had become. If only someone could lance her destructive anger and let the poison go. Was Iris right?

Should she see a psychiatrist? Without warning, the terrible unhappiness burst like a flood inside her, threatening to spill out in tears.

“Oh, shit” she muttered furiously, dashing at her eyes with the palms of her hands. She scrabbled in her bag for her car keys.

“Shit! Shit! And more bloody shit! Where the hell are you?”

A slight movement caught her attention and she lifted her head abruptly. A shadowy stranger leant against the back counter, quietly polishing a glass and watching her.

She blushed furiously and looked away.

“How long have you been there?” she demanded angrily.

“Long enough.”

She retrieved her keys from the inside of her diary and glared at him briefly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged.

“Long enough.”

“Yes, well, you’re obviously not open yet, so I’ll be on my way.” She pushed herself off the stool.

“Suit yourself,” he said with supreme indifference.

“I was just about to have a glass of wine. You can go or you can join me.

I’m easy either way.” He turned his back on her and uncorked a bottle.

The colour receded from her cheeks.

“Are you Sergeant Hawksley?”

He lifted the cork to his nose and sniffed it appreciatively.

“I was, once. Now I’m just plain Hal.” He turned round and poured the wine into two glasses.

“Who’s asking?”

She opened her bag again.

“I’ve got a card somewhere.”

“A voice would do just as well.” He pushed one of the glasses towards her.

“Rosalind Leigh,” she said shortly, propping the card against the telephone on the bar.

She stared at him in the semi-darkness, her embarrassment temporarily forgotten. He was hardly a run of the mill restaurateur. If she had any sense, she thought, she would take to her heels now. He hadn’t shaved and his dark suit hung in rumpled folds as if he’d slept in it.

He had no tie and half the buttons on his shirt were missing, revealing a mass of tight black curls on his chest. A swelling contusion on his upper left cheek was rapidly closing the eye above it, and thick dried blood encrusted both nostrils. He raised his glass with an ironic smile.

“To your good health, Rosalind. Welcome to the Poacher.” There was a lilt to his voice, a touch of Geordie, tempered by long association with the South.

“It might be more sensible to drink to your good health,” she said bluntly.

“You look as though you need it.”

“To us then. May we both get the better of whatever ails us.

“Which, in your case, would appear to be a steamroller.”

He fingered the spreading bruise.

“Not far off,” he agreed.

“And you? What ails you?”

“Nothing,” she said lightly.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” His dark eyes rested kindly on her for a moment.

“You’re half alive and I’m hail dead.”

He drained his glass and filled it again.

“What did you want with Sergeant Hawksley?”

She glanced about the room.

“Shouldn’t you be opening up?”

“What for?”

She shrugged.

“Customers.”

“Customers,” he echoed thoughtfully.

“Now there’s beautiful word.” He gave a ghost of a chuckle.

“They’re an endangered species, or haven’t you heard? The last time I saw a customer was three days ago, a skinny little runt with a rucksack on his back who was scratching about in search of a vegetarian omelette and decaffeinated coffee.” He fell silent.

“Depressing.”

“Yes.”

She eased herself on to the stool again.

“It’s not your fault,” she said sympathetically.

“It’s the recession. Everyone’s going under. Your neighbours already have, by the look of it.” She gestured towards the door.

He reached up and flicked a switch at the side of the bar. Muted lamplight glowed around the walls, bringing a sparkle to the glasses on the tables. She looked at him with alarm. The contusion on his cheek was the least of his problems. Bright red blood was seeping from a scab above his ear and running down his neck. He seemed unaware of it.

“Who did you say you were?” His dark eyes searched hers for a moment then moved past her to search the room.

“Rosalind Leigh. I think I should call an ambulance,” she said helplessly.

“You’re bleeding.”

She had a strange feeling of being outside herself, quite remote from this extraordinary situation. Who was this man?

Not her responsibility, certainly. She was a simple bystander who had stumbled upon him by accident.

“I’ll call your wife,” she said.

He gave a lopsided grin.

“Why not? She always enjoyed a good laugh. Presumably she still does.” He reached for a tea towel and held it to his head.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you. Head wounds always look worse than they are. You’re very beautiful.

“From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind.”

“It’s Roz and I’d rather you didn’t quote that,” she said sharply.

“It annoys me.”

He shrugged.

“As You Like It.”

She sucked in an angry breath.

“I suppose you think that’s original.”

“A tender nerve, I see. Who are we talking about?” He looked at her ring finger.

“Husband? Ex-husband? Boyfriend?”

She ignored him.

“Is there anyone else here? Someone in the kitchen? You should have that cut cleaned.” She wrinkled her nose.

“In fact you should have this place cleaned. It stinks of fish.” The smell, once noticed, was appalling.

“Are you always this rude?” he asked curiously. He rinsed the tea-towel under a tap and watched the blood run out of it.

“It’s me,” he said matter of factly.

“I went for a ride on a ton of mackerel. Not a pleasant experience.”

He gripped the edge of the small sink and stood staring into it, head lowered in exhaustion, like a bull before the coup de grace of the matador.

“Are you all right?” Roz watched him with a perplexed frown creasing her forehead. She didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t her problem, she kept telling herself, but she couldn’t just walk away from it.

Supposing he passed out?

“Surely there’s someone I can call,” she insisted.

“A friend. A neighbour.

Where do you live?” But she knew that. In the flat above, the young policeman had said.

“Jesus, woman,” he growled, ‘give it a rest, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Is that what you call it? It sounded more like nagging to me.” He was alert suddenly, listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed by his expression.

“Did you lock the door after you?”

She stared at him.

“No. Of course I didn’t.”

He dowsed the lights and padded across to the entrance door, almost invisible in the sudden darkness. She heard the sound of bolts being thrust home.

“Look-‘ she began, getting off her stool.

He loomed up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder and a finger to her lips.

“Quiet, woman.” He held her motionless.

“But-‘ “Quiet!”

A car’s headlamps swept across the windows, slicing the darkness with white light. The engine throbbed in neutral for a moment or two, then the gears engaged and the vehicle drove away. Roz tried to draw away but Hawksley’s arm only gripped her more firmly.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

They stood in silent immobility among the tables, statues at a spectral feast. Roz shook herself free angrily.

“This is absolutely absurd,” she hissed.

“I don’t know what on earth is going on but I’m not staying like this for the rest of the night. Who was in that car?”

“Customers,” he said regretfully.

“You’re mad.”

He took her hand.

“Come on,” he whispered, ‘we’ll go upstairs.”

“We will not,” she said, snatching her hand away.

“My God, doesn’t anyone think about anything except screwing these days.”

Amused laughter fanned her face.

“Who said anything about screwing?”

“I’m going.”

“I’ll see you out.”

She took a deep breath.

“Why do you want to go upstairs?”

“My flat’s up there and I need a bath.”

“So what do you want me for?”

He sighed.

“If you remember, Rosalind, it was you who came in here asking for me.

I’ve never met a woman who was so damn prickly.”

“Prickly!” she stuttered.

“My God, that’s rich. You stink to high heaven, you’ve obviously been in a fight, you plunge us into total darkness, moan about not having any customers and then turn them away when they do come, make me sit for five minutes without moving, try to manhandle me upstairs….” She paused for breath.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she blurted out.

“Oh, great! That’s all I need.” He took her hand again.

“Come on. I’m not going to rape you. To tell you the truth I haven’t the strength at the moment. What’s wrong?”

She stumbled after him.

“I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Join the club.” He led her through the darkened kitchen and unlocked a side door, reaching past her to switch on some lights.

“Up the stairs,” he told her, ‘and the bathroom’s on the right.”

She could hear him double-locking the door behind her as she collapsed on the lavatory seat and pressed her head between her knees, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass.

The light came on.

“Here. Drink this. It’s water.” Hawksley squatted on the floor in front of her and looked into her white face. She had skin like creamy alabaster and eyes as dark as sloes. A very cold beauty, he thought.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?”

“Whatever’s making you so unhappy.”

She sipped the water.

“I’m not unhappy. I’m hungry.”

He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself upright.

“OK. Let’s eat. How does sirloin steak sound?”

She smiled weakly.

“Wonderful.”

“Thank God for that! I’ve got a freezer full of the flaming stuff. How do you like it?”

“Rare but-‘ “But what?”

She pulled a face.

“I think it’s the smell that’s making me sick.” She put her hands to her mouth.

“I’m sorry but I really think it would be better if you got cleaned up first. Mackerel-flavoured sirloin doesn’t appeal over much.”

He sniffed at his sleeve.

“You don’t notice it after a while.” He turned the taps on full and emptied bath foam into the running water.

“There’s only the one loo, I’m afraid, so if you’re going to puke you’d better stay there.” He started to undress.

She stood up hurriedly.

“I’ll wait outside.”

He dropped his jacket on to the floor and unbuttoned his shirt.

“Just don’t be sick all over my carpets,” he called after her.

“There’s a sink in the kitchen. Use that.” He was easing the shirt carefully off his shoulders, unaware that she was still behind him, and she stared in horror at the blackened scabs all over his back.

“What happened to you?”

He pulled the shirt back on.

“Nothing. Scoot.

Make yourself a sandwich. There’s bread on the side and cheese in the fridge.” He saw her expression.

“It looks worse than it is,” he said prosaically.

“Bruising always does.”

“What happened?”

He held her gaze.

“Let’s just say I fell off my bike.”

With a contemptuous smile, Olive extracted the candle from its hiding place. They had given up body searches after a woman haemorrhaged in front of one of the Board of Visitors following a particularly aggressive probing of her vagina for illicit drugs. The Visitor had been a MAN. (Olive always thought of men in capital letters.) No woman would have fallen for it. But MEN, of course, were different.

Menstruation disturbed them, particularly if the blood flowed freely enough to stain the woman’s clothes.

The candle was soft from the warmth of her body and she pulled off the end and began to mould it. Her memory was good.

She had no doubt of her ability to imbue the tiny figure with a distinct individuality. This one would be a MAN.

Roz, preparing sandwiches in the kitchen, looked towards the bathroom door. The prospect of questioning Hawksley about the Olive Martin case unnerved her suddenly. Crew had become very annoyed when she questioned him; and Crew was a civilised man in so far as he did not look as if he’d spent half an hour in a dark alley having the shit beaten out of him by Arnold Schwarzenegger. She wondered about Hawksley.

Would he be annoyed when he learnt that she was delving into a case he had been involved with? The idea was an uncomfortable one.

There was a bottle of champagne in the fridge. On the rather naive assumption that another injection of alcohol might make Hawksley more amenable, Roz put it on a tray with the sandwiches and a couple of glasses.

“Were you saving the champagne?” she asked brightly too brightly? placing the tray on the lavatory seat lid and turning round.

He was lying in a welter of foam, black hair slicked back, face cleaned and relaxed, eyes closed.

“Fraid so,” he said.

“Oh.” She was apologetic.

“I’ll put it back then.”

He opened one eye.

“I was saving it for my birthday.”

“And when’s that?”

“Tonight.”

She gave an involuntary laugh.

“I don’t believe you. What’s the date?”

“The sixteenth.”

Her eyes danced wickedly.

“I still don’t believe you. How old are you?” She was unprepared for his look of amused recognition and couldn’t stop the adolescent flush that tinged her pale cheeks. He thought she was flirting with him.

Well dammit! maybe she was. She had grown weary of suffocating under the weight of her own misery.

“Forty. The big four-o.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and beckoned for the bottle.

“Well, well, this is jolly.” His lips twitched humorously.

“I wasn’t expecting company or I’d have dressed for the occasion.” He unbound the wire and eased out the cork, losing only a dribble of bubbly into the foam before filling the glasses that she held out to him. He lowered the bottle to the floor and took a glass.

“To life,” he said, clinking hers.

“To life. Happy birthday.”

His eyes watched her briefly, before closing again as he leant his head against the back of the bath.

“Eat a sandwich,” he murmured.

“There’s nothing worse than champagne on an empty stomach.”

“I’ve had three already. Sorry I couldn’t wait for the sirloin. You have one.” She put the tray beside the bottle and left him to help himself.

“Do you have a laundry basket or something?” she asked, stirring the heap of stinking clothes with her toe.

“They’re not worth saving. I’ll chuck ‘em out.”

“I can do that.”

He yawned.

“Bin bags. Second cupboard on the left in the kitchen.”

She carried the bundle at arm’s length and sealed the lot into three layers of clean white plastic. It took only a few minutes but when she went back he was asleep, his glass clasped in loose fingers against his chest.

She removed it carefully and put it on the floor.

What now? she wondered. She might have been his sister, so unaroused was he by her presence. Go or stay? She had an absurd longing to sit quietly and watch him sleep but she was nervous of waking him. He would never understand her need to be at peace, just briefly, with a man.

Her eyes softened. It was a nice face. No amount of battering and bruising could hide the laughter lines, and she knew that if she let it it would grow on her and make her pleased to see it. She turned away abruptly. She had been nurturing her bitterness too long to give it up as easily as this. God had not been punished enough.

She retrieved her handbag from where she’d dropped it beside the lavatory and tiptoed down the stairs. But the door was locked and the key was missing. She felt more foolish than concerned, like the embarrassed eavesdropper trapped inside a room whose only object is to escape without being noticed. He must have put the wretched thing in his pocket. She crept back up to the kitchen to scrabble through the dirty clothes bundle but the pockets were all empty. Perplexed, she stared about the work surfaces, searched the tables in the sitting-room and bedroom. If keys existed, they were well hidden. With a sigh of frustration, she pulled back a curtain to see if there was another way out, a fire escape or a balcony, and found herself gazing on a window full of bars. She tried another window and another.

All were barred.

Predictably, anger took over.

Without pausing to consider the wisdom of what she was doing, she stormed into the bathroom and shook him violently.

“You bastard!” she snapped.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at! What are you? Some kind of Bluebeard. I want to get out of here. Now!”

He was hardly awake before he’d smashed the champagne bottle against the tiled wall, caught her by the hair, and thrust the jagged glass against her neck. His bloodshot eyes blazed into hers before a sort of recognition dawned and he let her go, pushing her away from him.

“You stupid bitch,” he snarled.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” He rubbed his face vigorously to clear it of sleep.

She was very shaken.

“I want to go.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“You’ve hidden the key.”

He looked at her for a moment, then started to soap himself.

“It’s on the architrave above the door. Turn it twice. It’s a double lock.”

“Your windows are all barred.”

“They are indeed.” He splashed water on his face.

“Goodbye, Ms Leigh.”

“Goodbye.” She made a weak gesture of apology.

“I’m sorry.

I thought I was a prisoner.”

He pulled out the plug and tugged a towel off the rail.

“You are.

“But you said the key-‘ “Goodbye, Ms Leigh.” He splayed his hand against the door and pushed it to, forcing her out.

She should not be driving. The thought hammered in her head like a migraine, a despairing reminder that self-preservation was the first of all the human instincts. But he was right. She was a prisoner and the yearning to escape was too strong. So easy, she thought, so very, very easy. Successive headlamps grew from tiny distant pinpoints to huge white suns, sweeping through her windscreen with a beautiful and blinding iridescence, drawing her eyes into the heart of their brilliance. The urge to turn the wheel towards the lights was insistent. How painless the transition would be at the moment of blindness and how bright eternity. So easy… so easy… so easy…