“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.
SIXTEEN
On Monday morning, with the black dog of depression on her shoulder again, Roz went to the Belvedere Hotel and placed the photograph on the desk.
“Is this Mr. Lewis?” she asked the proprietress.
The amiable woman popped on her glasses and took a good look. She shook her head apologetically.
“No, dear, I’m sorry.
He doesn’t ring a bell at all.”
“Try now.” She smoothed the cellophane across the photograph.
“Good heavens. How extraordinary. Yes, that’s Mr. Lewis all right.”
Marie agreed.
“That’s him. Dirty bugger.” She screwed up her eyes.
“It doesn’t flatter him, does it? What would a young girl see in that?”
“I don’t know. Uncritical affection perhaps.”
“Who is he?”
“A psychopath,” said Roz.
The other whistled.
“You want to be careful then.”
“Yes.”
Marie tapped her carmined nails on the desk.
“Sure you don’t want to tell me who he is in case you end up in bits on your kitchen floor?” She flicked Roz a speculative glance. There might, she thought, be some money in this somewhere.
Roz caught the glint in the other’s eye.
“No thanks,” she said shortly.
“This is one piece of information I intend to keep to myself. I don’t fancy my chances if he learns I’m close.”
“I won’t blab,” said Mamie with a pout of injured innocence.
“You can’t if I don’t put temptation your way.” Roz tucked the photograph into her handbag.
“It would be irresponsible, anyway. You’re a prime witness. He could just as easily come after you and chop you into little pieces.” She smiled coldly.
“I should hate to have that on my conscience.”
Roz returned to her car and sat for some minutes staring out of the window. If ever she had needed a tame ex-policeman to guide her through the maze of legal procedure, she thought, it was now. She was an amateur who could all too easily make mistakes and muck up the chances of a future prosecution.
And where would that leave Olive? Languishing in prison, presumably.
The verdict against her could only be overturned rapidly if someone else was convicted. On its own the seed of reasonable doubt would take years of germination before the Home Office would feel pressured enough to take notice.
How long had the Birmingham Six had to wait for justice? The responsibility to get it right was frightening.
But, loath though she was to admit it, what weighed rather more heavily with her was the knowledge that she hadn’t the courage to write the book while Olive’s psychopathic lover remained at liberty. Try as she might, she could not get the pictures of Gwen and Amber out of her mind.
She slammed her fists against the steering-wheel.
Where are you, Hawksley? You bastard! I was always there for you.
Graham Deedes, Olive’s one-time barrister, walked into his chambers after a long day in court and frowned in irritation to find Roz parked on a seat outside his door. He looked pointedly at his watch.
“I’m in a hurry, Miss Leigh.”
She sighed, unfolding herself from the hard chair.
“Five minutes,” she begged.
“I’ve been waiting two hours.”
“No, I’m sorry. We have people coming to dinner and I promised my wife I wouldn’t be late.” He opened his door and went inside.
“Ring and make an appointment. I’m in court for the next three days but I may be able to fit you in towards the end of the week.” He prepared to shut her out.
She stood up and leaned her shoulder on the door jamb, holding the door open with one hand.
“Olive did have a lover,” she told him.
“I know who he is and I’ve had his photograph identified by two witnesses, one of whom is the owner of the hotel that he and Olive used throughout the summer before the murders. I have a witness who bears out Olive’s claim to have had an abortion. The date she gave me implies that Olive’s baby, had it lived, would have been born around the time of the murders. I have learned that two people, Robert Martin and the father of a friend of Olive’s, quite independently of each other, told the police that Olive was incapable of murdering her sister.
The scenario they both offered was that Gwen killed Amber she didn’t like Amber, apparently and Olive killed Gwen. I admit the forensic evidence doesn’t support that case but it proves that serious doubts existed even at the time which I don’t think were brought to your attent
ion.”
She saw the impatience in his face and hurried on.
“For all sorts of reasons, principally because it was her birthday, I do not believe that Olive was in the house on the night before the murders and I do believe that Gwen and Amber were killed much earlier than the time Olive claims to have done it. I think Olive returned home some time during the morning or afternoon of the ninth, found the carnage in the kitchen, knew her lover was responsible, and was so overcome with shock and remorse that she confessed to the crime herself. I think she was very unsure of herself, very distressed, and didn’t know how to cope when the main prop in her life, her mother, was so suddenly taken from her.”
He took some papers out of his desk and tucked them into his briefcase.
He heard so many imaginative de fences that he was more polite than interested.
“I assume you’re suggesting that Olive and her lover spent her birthday night together in a hotel somewhere.” Roz nodded.
“Have you any proof of that?”
“No. They weren’t registered at the hotel they usually used but that’s not surprising. It was a special occasion. They may even have come up to London.”
“In that case why should she assume her lover was responsible? They would have gone back together. Even if he’d dropped her at a distance from her house he wouldn’t have had time to do what was done.”
“He would if he’d walked out,” said Roz, ‘and left her alone in the hotel.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because she told him that but for her sister’s earlier illegitimate baby and her mother’s horror of it happening again he would by now be a proud father.”
Deedes looked at his watch.
“What illegitimate baby?”
“The one Amber had when she was thirteen.
There’s no dispute about that. The child is mentioned in Robert Martin’s will. Gwen managed to hush it up but, as she couldn’t hope to do the same thing with Olive, she persuaded her to abort.”
He clicked his tongue impatiently.
“This is all highly fanciful, Miss Leigh. As far as I can see, you’ve absolutely nothing to support these allegations and you can’t go into print accusing somebody else of the murders without either some very strong evidence or enough capital behind you to pay a fortune in libel damages.” He looked at his watch again, torn between going and staying.
“Let’s suppose for a moment your hypothesis is right. So, where was Olive’s father while Gwen and Amber were being butchered in his kitchen? If I remember correctly he was in the house that night and left for work as usual the following morning. Are you suggesting he didn’t know what had happened?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
Deedes’s pleasant face scowled in perplexity.
“That’s absurd.”
“Not if he was never there. The only people who said he was were Olive, Robert himself, and the nextdoor neighbour, and she only mentioned him in the context of claiming that Gwen and Amber were still alive at eight thirty He shook his head in complete bewilderment.
“So every body’s lying? That’s too ridiculous. Why should the neighbour lie?”
Roz sighed.
“I know it’s hard to swallow. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, so it’s easier for me. Robert Martin was a closet homosexual. I’ve found the gay pub that he used for his pick-ups. He was well known there as Mark Agnew. The landlord recognised his picture immediately.
If he was with a lover the night of the murders and went straight to work from there, he wouldn’t have known anything about what had happened in the kitchen until he was told by the police.” She raised a cynical eyebrow.
“And he never had to reveal where he really was because Olive, who assumed he must have been in the house, claimed in her statement that she didn’t attack her mother until after her father had left.”
“Hang on, hang on,” barked Deedes, as if he were haranguing a difficult witness, ‘you can’t have it both ways. A minute ago you were suggesting that Olive’s lover dashed off in the middle of the night to have it out with Gwen.” He ran a smooth hand over his hair, collecting his thoughts.
“But, as Robert’s body wasn’t lying in the kitchen when Olive got back, she must have known he hadn’t been there. Why claim in her statement he was?”
“Because he should have been. Look, it really doesn’t matter what time her lover left her the middle of the night, early morning it’s irrelevant as far as she was concerned. She didn’t have a car, she was probably quite upset about being abandoned, plus she’d taken the day off work, presumably to spend it with her man, so the chances were she didn’t get home till after lunch. She must have assumed her lover waited until Robert left for work before going in to tackle Gwen and Amber, soit was quite natural for her to include her father in her statement. He lived and slept downstairs in a back room but it doesn’t appear to have occurred to any of them, except possibly Gwen, that he was slipping out at night for casual gay sex.”
He glanced at his watch for a third time.
“It’s no good. I shall have to go.” He reached for his coat and folded it over his ann.
“You haven’t explained why the neighbour lied.” He ushered her through the door and closed it behind them.
She spoke over her shoulder as she started down the stairs.
“Because I suspect that when the police told her Gwen and Amber had been murdered she jumped to the immediate conclusion that Robert had done it after a row over her husband.” She shrugged at his snort of disbelief.
“She knew all about the strained relationships in that house, knew that her husband spent hours shut up with Robert in the back room, knew jolly well, I should think, that Robert was a homosexual and by inference that her husband was one as well. She must have been beside herself until she heard that Olive had confessed to the murders. The scandal, if Robert had done it for love of Edward, would have been devastating, so, in a rather pathetic attempt to keep him out of it, she said that Gwen and Amber were alive after Edward left for work.”
She led him across the hallway.
“Luckily for her the statement was never questioned because it tied in very neatly with what Olive said.”
They pushed through the main doors and walked down the front steps to the pavement.
“Too neatly?” he murmured.
“Olive’s version is so simple. Yours is so complicated.”
“The truth always is,” she said with feeling.
“But in actual fact, all three of them only described what was, in effect, a normal Wednesday morning. Not so much neatness, then, as inevitability.”
“I go this way,” he said, pointing up towards Holborn Tube station.
“That’s all right. I’ll come with you.” She had to walk briskly to keep up with him.
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this, Miss Leigh. The person you should have gone to is Olive’s solicitor, Mr Crew She avoided a direct answer.
“You think I’ve got a case, then?”
He smiled good-humouredly, his teeth very white in his dark face.
“No, you’re a long way off that.
You may have the beginnings of a case. Take it to Mr. Crew.”
“You’re the barrister,” she persisted doggedly.
“If you were fighting Olive’s corner, what would you need to convince a court she’s innocent?”
“Proof that she could not have been in the house during the period of time that the murders happened.”
“Or the real murderer?”
“Or the real murderer,” he agreed, ‘but I can’t see you producing him very easily.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no evidence against him. Your argument, presumably, is that Olive obscured all the evidence in order to take the blame on herself. She did it very successfully.
Everything confirmed her as the guilty party.” He slowed down as they
approached the Underground.
“So, unless your hypothetical murderer confesses voluntarily and persuades the police that he knew things that only the murderer could know, there’s no way you can overturn Olive’s conviction.” He smiled apologetically.
“And I can’t see him doing that now, for the simple reason that he didn’t do it at the time.”
She telephoned the prison from Holborn Tube station and asked them to tell Olive she wouldn’t be in that evening. She had a feeling that things were about to blow up in her face, and the feeling centred on Olive.
It was late by the time she let herself in through the main door of her block. Unusually, the hall was in total darkness. She pressed the time switch to light the stairs and first-floor landing, and sighed when nothing happened. Another power cut, she thought.
She could have predicted it. Black was in tune with her mood.
She sorted out the key to her flat, by touch, and groped her way up the stairs, trying to remember if she had any candles left over from the last time. With luck there was one in her kitchen drawer, otherwise this was going to be a long and tedious night.
She was fumbling blindly across her door with both hands, searching for the lock, when something rose up from the floor at her feet and brushed against her.
“Aa-agh!” she screamed, beating at it furiously.
Next second she was lifted bodily off the floor while a great palm damped itself across her mouth.
“Ssh,” hissed Hal in her ear, shaking with laughter.
“It’s me.” He kissed her on the nose.
“Ow!” he roared, letting her go and bending over to clutch himself.
“Serves you right,” she said, scrabbling on the floor for her keys.
“You’re lucky I didn’t have my hat pin. Ah, got them.” She renewed her search for the lock and found it.
“There.” She tried the lights inside the door but the blackness remained impenetrable.
“Come on,” she said, catching his jacket and pulling him inside.
“I think there’s a candle in the kitchen.”
“Everything all right?” called a quavering female voice from the floor upstairs.
“Yes, thank you,” Roz called back.
“I trod on something. How long has the power been off?”
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