The Sculptress

by Minette Walters

  ‘But if he’s convicted—’ she began.

  ‘You’re being nai¨ve again,’ he cut in gently, smoothing the hair from her face. ‘Even if he is convicted, which I doubt – ex-Army, first offence, hearsay evidence, Crew denying everything – he won’t go to jail for any length of time. The worst that will happen will be twelve months for conspiracy to defraud, of which he’ll serve six. More likely he will be given a suspended sentence. It wasn’t Stewart who broke into the Poacher with a baseball bat, remember, it was his brother, and you will have to stand up in court and say that.’ His eyes were insistent. ‘I’m a realist, Roz. We’ll go for Crew and raise enough doubts to get the Health charges lifted. After that’ – he shrugged – ‘I’ll gamble that Hayes can be trusted to leave the Poacher alone.’

  She was silent for a moment or two. ‘Would you act differently if you’d never met me and I wasn’t involved? And don’t lie to me, Hal, please.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I would act differently. But you are involved, so the question doesn’t arise.’

  ‘OK.’ She relaxed her hands under his and smiled. ‘Thank you. I feel much happier now.’

  ‘You agree.’ Relieved, he lessened his pressure slightly and she seized the opportunity to snatch the Tampax box out of his grasp.

  ‘No,’ she said,‘I don’t.’ She opened the box, removed some truncated cardboard tubes and upended it to disgorge a miniature voice-activated dictaphone. ‘With luck’ – she turned to Geoff Wyatt – ‘this will have enough on it to convict Hayes. It was at full volume, sitting on his desk, so it should have caught him.’

  She rewound the tape for a second or two and then pressed ‘play’. Hal’s voice was muffled by distance: ‘. . . another way of saying we must keep our mouths shut about your involvement with the Poacher?’

  Hayes’s, clear as a bell. ‘Of course. Because next time, the fire won’t be confined to the chip pan, and you and your lady friend won’t be so lucky. My brother’s pride was hurt. He’s itching to have another go at the pair of you.’

  Roz switched it off and pushed it across the table towards Wyatt. ‘Will it do any good?’

  ‘If there’s more like that, it will certainly help with Hal’s prosecution, as long as you’re prepared to give evidence to support it.’

  ‘I am.’

  He cast a glance at his friend, saw the tension on the other’s face and turned back to Roz. ‘But Hal’s right in everything he’s said, assuming I’ve understood the gist correctly. We are talking abstract justice here.’ He picked up the dictaphone. ‘At the end of the day – whatever sentence this man gets – if he still wants to revenge himself on you, he will. And there’s nothing the police will be able to do to protect you. So? Are you sure you want me to take this?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Wyatt looked at Hal again and gave a helpless shrug. ‘Sorry, old man. I did my best, but it looks like you’ve caught a tigress this time.’

  Hal gave his baritone chuckle. ‘Don’t say it, Geoff, because I already know.’

  But Wyatt said it anyway. ‘You lucky, bloody sod.’

  *

  Olive sat hunched over her table, working on a new sculpture. Eve and her faces and her baby had collapsed under the weight of a fist, leaving the pencil pointing heavenward like an accusing finger. The Chaplain regarded the new piece thoughtfully. A bulky shape, roughly human and lying on its back, seemed to be struggling from its clay base. Strange, he thought, how Olive, with so little skill, made these figures work. ‘What are you sculpting now?’

  ‘MAN.’

  He could, he thought, have predicted that. He watched the fingers roll a thick sausage of clay and plant it upright on the base at the figure’s head. ‘Adam?’ he suggested. He had the feeling she was playing a game with him. There had been a surge of sudden activity when he entered her room, as if she had been waiting for him to break hours of stillness.

  ‘Cain.’ She selected another pencil and laid it across the top of the clay sausage, parallel with the recumbent man, pressing it down till it was held firmly. ‘Faustus. Don Giovanni. Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ he said sharply. ‘Not all men sell their souls to the devil, any more than all women are twofaced.’

  Olive smiled to herself and cut a piece of string from a ball on the table. She made a loop in one end and fastened the other round the tip of the pencil so that the string hung down over the figure’s head. With infinite care, she tightened the loop about a matchstick. ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  The Chaplain frowned. ‘I don’t know. The gallows?’

  She set the matchstick swinging. ‘Or the sword of Damocles. It amounts to the same thing when Lucifer owns your soul.’

  He perched on the edge of the table and offered her a cigarette. ‘It’s not Man in general, is it?’ he said, flicking his lighter. ‘It’s someone specific. Am I right?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Who?’

  She fished a letter from her pocket and handed it to him. He spread the single page on the table and read it. It was a standard letter, personalized on a word processor, and very brief.

  Dear Miss Martin,

  Please be advised that unforeseen circumstances have obliged Mr Peter Crew to take extended leave from this practice. During his absence his clients’ affairs will be covered by his partners. Please be assured of our continued assistance.

  Yours etc.

  The Chaplain looked up. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Olive inhaled deeply then blew a stream of smoke towards the matchstick. It spiralled wildly before slipping from the noose and striking the clay forehead. ‘My solicitor’s been arrested.’

  Startled, he looked at the clay figure. He didn’t bother to ask if she was sure. He knew the efficiency of the cell telegraph as well as she did. ‘What for?’

  ‘Wickedness.’ She stubbed her cigarette into the clay. ‘MAN was born to it. Even you, Chaplain.’ She peeped at him to watch his reaction.

  He chuckled. ‘You’re probably right. But I do my best to fight it, you know.’

  She took another of his cigarettes. ‘I shall miss you,’ she said unexpectedly.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When they let me out.’

  He looked at her with a puzzled smile. ‘That’s a long way off. We’ve years yet.’

  But she shook her head and mashed the clay into a ball with the dog end in the middle. ‘You never asked me who Eve was.’

  The game again, he thought. ‘I didn’t need to, Olive. I knew.’

  She smiled scornfully to herself. ‘Yes, you would.’ She examined him out of the corner of her eye. ‘Did you work it out for yourself?’ she asked. ‘Or did God tell you? Look, my son, Olive strikes her reflection in the clay. Now help her to come to terms with her own duplicity. Well, don’t worry, either way I shall remember what you did for me when I get out.’

  What did she want from him? Encouragement that she would get out, or rescuing from her lies? He sighed inwardly. Really, it would all be so much easier if he liked her, but he didn’t. And that was his wickedness.

  Nineteen

  OLIVE REGARDED ROZ with deep suspicion. Contentment had brought a glow to the other woman’s usually pale cheeks. ‘You look different,’ she said in an accusing tone as if what she saw displeased her.

  Roz shook her head. ‘No. Everything’s the same.’ Lies were safer sometimes. She was afraid Olive would regard her moving in with the police officer who arrested her as a betrayal. ‘Did you get my message last Monday night?’

  Olive was at her most unattractive, unwashed hair hanging limply about her colourless face, a smear of tomato ketchup ground into the front of her shift, the smell of her sweat almost unbearable in the small room. She vibrated with irritation, her forehead set in a permanent scowl, ready, it seemed to Roz, to reject anything that was said to her. She didn’t answer.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Roz asked evenly.

  ‘I don’t want to see yo
u any more.’

  Roz turned her pencil in her fingers. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t have to give a reason.’

  ‘It would be polite,’ said Roz in the same even tone. ‘I’ve invested a great deal of time, energy, and affection in you. I thought we were friends.’

  Olive’s lip curled. ‘Friends,’ she hissed scathingly. ‘We’re not friends. You’re Miss Wonderful making money out of doing her Lady Muck bit and I’m the poor sap who’s being exploited.’ She splayed her hands across the table top and tried to get up. ‘I don’t want you to write your book.’

  ‘Because you’d rather be treated with awe in here than laughed at outside.’ Roz shook her head. ‘You’re a fool, Olive. And a coward as well. I thought you had more guts.’

  Olive pursed her fat lips as she struggled to rise. ‘I’m not listening,’ she said childishly. ‘You’re trying to make me change my mind.’

  ‘Of course I am.’ She rested her cheek against one raised hand. ‘I shall write the book whether you want me to or not. I’m not afraid of you, you see. You can instruct a solicitor to take out an injunction to stop me, but he won’t succeed because I shall argue that you’re innocent, and a court will uphold my right to publish in the interests of natural justice.’

  Olive slumped back on to her chair. ‘I’ll write to a Civil Liberties group. They’ll support me.’

  ‘Not when they find out I’m trying to get you released, they won’t. They’ll support me.’

  ‘The Court of Human Rights, then. I’ll say what you’re doing is an invasion of my privacy.’

  ‘Go ahead. You’ll make me a fortune. Everyone will buy the book to find out what the fuss is all about. And if it’s argued in a court, whichever one it is, I shall make damn sure this time that the evidence is heard.’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘The evidence that proves you didn’t do it.’

  Olive slammed a meaty fist on to the table. ‘I did do it.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘I did!’ roared the fat woman.

  ‘You did not,’ said Roz, her eyes flashing with anger. ‘When will you face up to the fact that your mother is dead, you silly woman.’ She banged the table in her turn. ‘She’s not there for you any more, Olive, and she never will be, however long you hide in here.’

  Two fat tears rolled down Olive’s cheeks. ‘I don’t like you.’

  Roz continued brutally. ‘You came home, saw what your precious lover had done, and went into shock. And God knows, I don’t blame you.’ She took the mortuary photographs of Gwen and Amber from her bag and slapped them on the table in front of Olive. ‘You adored your mother, didn’t you? You always adore the people who need you.’

  Olive’s anger was enormous. ‘That’s crap, bloody fucking crap!’

  Roz shook her head. ‘I needed you. That’s how I know.’

  Olive’s lip trembled. ‘You wanted to know how it felt to kill someone, that’s all you needed me for.’

  ‘No.’ Roz reached across and took a large, soft hand in hers. ‘I needed someone to love. You’re very easy to love, Olive.’

  The woman tore the hand away and clamped it across her face. ‘No one loves me,’ she whispered. ‘No one’s ever loved me.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Roz firmly. ‘I love you. Sister Bridget loves you. And we are not going to abandon you the minute you get out. You must trust us.’ She closed her mind on the insidious voice that murmured warnings against a long-term commitment she could never keep and against well-meant lies that could so easily rebound on her. ‘Tell me about Amber,’ she went on gently. ‘Tell me why your mother needed you.’

  A sigh of surrender shuddered through the huge frame. ‘She wanted her own way all the time, and if she didn’t get it she made life hell for everyone. She told lies about things people did to her, spread awful stories, even hurt people sometimes. She poured boiling water down my mother’s arm once to punish her, so we used to give in just to make life easy. She was as nice as pie as long as everyone did what she wanted.’ She licked the tears from her lips. ‘She never took responsibility, you see, but it got worse after the baby was born. Mum said she stopped maturing.’

  ‘To compensate herself?’

  ‘No, to excuse herself.’ She twined her fingers in the front of her dress. ‘Children get away with behaving badly so Amber went on behaving like a child. She was never told off for getting pregnant. We were too afraid of how she would react.’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Mum had made up her mind to take her to a psychiatrist. She thought Amber had schizophrenia.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Then they were killed and it didn’t matter any more.’

  Roz passed her a Kleenex and waited while she blew her nose. ‘Why did she never behave badly at school?’

  ‘She did,’ said Olive flatly, ‘if people teased her or took her things without asking. I used to have to get quite angry to stop them doing it, but most of the time I made sure no one got on her bad side. She was a lovely person as long as she wasn’t crossed. Really,’ she insisted, ‘a lovely person.’

  ‘The two faces of Eve.’

  ‘Mum certainly thought so.’ She took the cigarette packet out of Roz’s open briefcase and stripped away the cellophane. ‘I used to keep her with me when she wasn’t in class. She didn’t mind that. The older girls treated her like a pet and that made her feel special. She had no friends of her own age.’ She pulled some cigarettes on to the table and selected one.

  ‘How did she hold down a job? You weren’t there to protect her then.’

  ‘She didn’t. She never lasted anywhere longer than a month. Most of the time she stayed at home with Mum. She made Mum’s life a misery.’

  ‘What about Glitzy?’

  Olive struck a match and lit the cigarette. ‘The same. She’d only done three weeks and she was already talking about leaving. There was some trouble with the other girls. Amber got one of them sacked or something. I can’t remember now. Anyway, that’s when Mum said enough was enough, and she’d have to see a psychiatrist.’

  Roz sat in thoughtful silence for some moments. ‘I know who your lover was,’ she said abruptly. ‘I know that you spent Sundays at the Belvedere in Farraday Street and that you signed in as Mr and Mrs Lewis. I’ve had his photograph identified by the owner of the Belvedere and by the receptionist at Wells-Fargo. I think he abandoned you in a hotel the night of your birthday when you told him you had aborted his baby, and that he went straight to Leven Road to have it out with Amber and your mother whom he regarded as jointly responsible for the murder of the son or daughter he had always wanted. I think your father was out of the house that night and that the whole thing got out of hand. I think you came home a long time afterwards, discovered the bodies, and went to pieces because you thought it was all your fault.’ She took one of Olive’s hands in hers again and squeezed it tightly.

  Olive closed her eyes and wept quietly, her soft skin caressing Roz’s fingers. ‘No,’ she said at last, releasing the hand. ‘It didn’t happen like that. I wish it had. At least I’d know then why I did what I did.’ Her eyes were curiously unfocused as if they were turned inwards upon herself. ‘We didn’t plan anything for my birthday,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t. It wasn’t a Sunday and Sundays were the only days we could ever be together. That was when his sister-in-law came over to give him some time away from his wife. They both thought he spent the day at the British Legion.’ She smiled but there was no humour in it. ‘Poor Edward. He was so afraid they’d find out and turn him off without a penny. It was her house and her money and it made him miserable. Puddleglum was such a good name for him, especially when he wore his silly wig. He looked just like a marshwiggle out of Narnia, tall and skinny and hairy.’ She sighed. ‘It was supposed to be a disguise, you know, in case anyone saw him. To me, it just looked funny. I liked him much better bald.’ She sighed again. ‘The Silver Chair was Amber’s and my favourite book when we were children.’

  Roz had
guessed. ‘And you signed in as Mr and Mrs Lewis because it was C. S. Lewis who wrote it. Were you afraid of Mrs Clarke finding out, or your parents?’

  ‘We were afraid of everyone but mostly of Amber. Jealousy was a disease with her.’

  ‘Did she know about your abortion?’

  Olive shook her head. ‘Only my mother knew. I never told Edward and I certainly didn’t tell Amber. She was the only one who was allowed to have sex in our house. She did, too. All the time. Mum had to force her to take the pill every night so she didn’t get pregnant again.’ She pulled a long face. ‘Mum was furious when I fell. We both knew Amber would go mad.’

  ‘Is that why you had the abortion?’

  ‘Probably. It seemed the only sensible solution at the time. I regret it now.’

  ‘You’ll have other chances.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘So what did happen that night?’ asked Roz after a moment or two.

  Olive stared at her unblinkingly through the smoke from her cigarette. ‘Amber found the birthday present Edward had given me. It was well hidden but she used to pry into everything.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘I was always having to put things back that she’d taken. People thought I was the snooper.’ She encircled her wrist with finger and thumb. ‘It was an identity bracelet with a tiny silver-chair charm on it. He’d had the tag inscribed: u.r.n.a.r.n.i.a. Do you get it? You are Narnia, Narnia being heaven.’ She smiled self-consciously. ‘I thought it was wonderful.’

  ‘He was very fond of you.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘I made him feel young again.’ Tears squeezed from between the bald lids. ‘We really didn’t harm anyone, just conducted a quiet little affair now and then on Sundays which gave us both something to look forward to.’ The tears flowed down her cheeks. ‘I wish I hadn’t done it now but it was nice to feel special. I never had before and I was so jealous of Amber. She had a lot of boyfriends. She used to take them upstairs. Mum was too frightened of her to say anything.’ She sobbed loudly. ‘They always laughed at me. I hate being laughed at.’