The Sculptress

by Minette Walters

  There was a lengthy silence at the other end.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I was just mourning my five pounds. I know you’re excited, darling, but you’ll have to sober up and give it a little more thought. If this Edward chopped up Gwen and Amber before Robert went to work, wouldn’t Robert have stumbled across the bits in the kitchen?’

  ‘Perhaps they did it together?’

  ‘Then why didn’t they kill Olive as well? Not to mention the small matter of why on earth Olive would want to shield her father’s homosexual lover. It would make much more sense if Mrs Clarke lied to give Robert an alibi.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were having a raging affair,’ declared Iris. ‘Mrs C. guessed Robert had done his wife in to give himself a free hand with her and lied through her teeth to protect him. You don’t know for sure he was a homosexual. The schoolfriend’s mother didn’t think he was. Is Mrs C. attractive?’

  ‘Not now. She was once.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘Why did Robert kill Amber?’

  ‘Because she was there,’ said Iris simply. ‘I expect she woke up when she heard the fight and came downstairs. Robert would have had no option but to kill her as well. Then he skedaddled and left poor old Olive, who slept through it all, to face the music.’

  Somewhat reluctantly, Roz went to see Olive.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you, not after—’ Olive left the rest of the sentence unsaid. ‘Well, you know.’ She smiled shyly.

  They were back in their old room, unsupervised. The Governor’s qualms, it seemed, had been laid to rest along with Olive’s hostility. Really, thought Roz, the prison system never ceased to surprise her. She had foreseen enormous problems, particularly as it was a Wednesday and not her normal day, but there had been none. Access to Olive was once more unrestricted. She pushed forward the cigarette packet. ‘You seem to be persona grata again,’ she said.

  Olive accepted a cigarette. ‘With you, too?’

  Roz arched an eyebrow. ‘I felt better after my headache had gone.’ She saw distress on the fat face. ‘I’m teasing,’ she said gently. ‘And it was my fault anyway. I should have phoned. Have you had all your privileges restored?’

  ‘Yes. They’re pretty decent really, once you calm down.’

  ‘Good.’ Roz switched on her tape-recorder. ‘I’ve been to see your next-door neighbours, the Clarkes.’

  Olive studied her through the flame of the match, then tipped it thoughtfully towards her cigarette. ‘And?’

  ‘Mrs Clarke lied about seeing your mother and sister on the morning of the murders.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She told me.’

  Olive wedged the cigarette firmly between her lips and drew in a lungful of smoke. ‘Mrs Clarke’s been senile for years,’ she said bluntly. ‘She had a thing about germs, used to rush about every morning scrubbing the furniture with Domestos and hoovering like mad. People who didn’t know them thought she was the char. She always called me Mary which was her mother’s name. I should imagine she’s completely loopy by now.’

  Roz shook her head in frustration. ‘She is, but I’ll swear she was lucid when she admitted lying. She’s frightened of her husband, though.’

  Olive looked surprised. ‘She was never frightened of him before. If anything, he was more frightened of her. What did he say when she told you she’d lied?’

  ‘He was furious. Ordered me out of the house.’ She made a wry face. ‘We got off to a bad start. He thought I was from the Social Services, spying on him.’

  A wheeze of amusement eddied up through Olive’s throat. ‘Poor Mr Clarke.’

  ‘You said your father liked him. Did you?’

  She shrugged indifference. ‘I didn’t know him well enough to like him or dislike him. I suppose I felt sorry for him because of his wife. He had to retire early to look after her.’

  Roz mulled this over. ‘But he was still working at the time of the murders?’

  ‘He carried on a small accountancy business from home. Other people’s tax returns mostly.’ She tapped ash on to the floor. ‘Mrs Clarke set fire to their living room once. He was afraid to leave her alone after that. She was very demanding but my mother said most of it was an act to keep him tied to her apron strings.’

  ‘Was that true, do you think?’

  ‘I expect so.’ She stood the cigarette on its end, as was her habit, and took another. ‘My mother was usually right.’

  ‘Did they have children?’

  Olive shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I never saw any.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He was the child. It was quite funny sometimes watching him scurrying about, doing what he was told, saying sorry when he got it wrong. Amber called him Puddleglum because he was wet and miserable.’ She chuckled. ‘I’d forgotten that until this minute. It suited him at the time. Does it still?’

  Roz thought of his grip on her arms. ‘He didn’t strike me as being particularly wet,’ she said. ‘Miserable, yes.’

  Olive studied her with her curiously penetrating gaze. ‘Why have you come back?’ she asked gently. ‘You didn’t intend to on Monday.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I saw it in your face. You thought I was guilty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Olive nodded. ‘It upset me. I hadn’t realized what a difference it made to have someone believe I didn’t do it. Politicians call it the feel-good factor.’ Roz saw dampness on the pale lashes. ‘You get used to being viewed as a monster. Sometimes I believe it myself.’ She placed one of her disproportionate hands between her huge breasts. ‘I thought my heart would burst when you left. Silly, isn’t it?’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I can’t remember being so upset about anything before.’

  Roz waited a moment but Olive didn’t go on. ‘Sister Bridget knocked some sense into me,’ she said.

  A glow, like a rising candle flame, lit the fat woman’s face. ‘Sister Bridget?’ she echoed in amazement. ‘Does she think I didn’t do it? I never guessed. I thought she came out of Christian duty.’

  Oh hell, thought Roz, what does a lie matter? ‘Of course she thinks you didn’t do it. Why else would she keep pushing me so hard?’ She watched the tremulous pleasure bring a sort of beauty to the awful ugliness that was Olive, and she thought, I’ve burnt my boats. I can never again ask her if she’s guilty or if she’s telling me the truth because, if I do, her poor heart will burst.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ said Olive, reading her expression.

  Roz leaned forward. ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I don’t know now. I thought I did at the time.’ She stood her second cigarette beside the first and watched it die. ‘At the time it all made sense,’ she murmured, her mind groping into the past.

  ‘Who did you think it was?’ asked Roz after a while. ‘Someone you loved?’

  But Olive shook her head. ‘I couldn’t bear to be laughed at. In so many ways it’s easier to be feared. At least it means people respect you.’ She looked at Roz. ‘I’m really quite happy here. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roz slowly, remembering what the Governor had said. ‘Oddly enough, I can.’

  ‘If you hadn’t sought me out, I could have survived. I’m institutionalized. Existence without effort. I really don’t know that I could cope on the outside.’ She smoothed her hands down her massive thighs. ‘People will laugh, Roz.’

  It was a question more than a statement and Roz didn’t have an answer, or not the reassuring answer that Olive wanted. People would laugh, she thought. There was an intrinsic absurdity about this grotesque woman loving so deeply that she would brand herself a murderess to protect her lover.

  ‘I’m not giving up now,’ she said firmly. ‘A battery hen is born to exist. You were born to live.’ She levelled her pen at Olive. ‘And if you don’t know the difference between existence and living then read the Declaration of Independence. Living means Liberty and the Pursuit of Happ
iness. You deny yourself both by staying here.’

  ‘Where would I go? What would I do?’ She wrung her hands. ‘In all my life I’ve never lived on my own. I couldn’t bear it, not now, not with everyone knowing.’

  ‘Knowing what?’

  Olive shook her head.

  ‘Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because,’ said Olive heavily, ‘you wouldn’t believe me. No one ever does when I tell the truth.’ She rapped on the glass to attract a prison officer’s attention. ‘You must find out for yourself. It’s the only way you’ll ever really know.’

  ‘And if I can’t?’

  ‘I’m no worse off than I was before. I can live with myself, and that’s all that really matters.’

  Yes, thought Roz, at the end of the day it probably was. ‘Just tell me one thing, Olive. Have you lied to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  The door opened and Olive heaved herself upright with the customary shove from behind. ‘Sometimes, it’s safer.’

  The telephone was ringing as she opened the door to the flat. ‘Hi,’ she said, thrusting it under her chin and taking off her jacket. ‘Rosalind Leigh.’ Pray God it wasn’t Rupert.

  ‘It’s Hal. I’ve been ringing all day. Where the hell have you been?’ He sounded worried.

  ‘Chasing clues.’ She leant her back against the wall for support. ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’

  ‘I’m not psychotic, Roz.’

  ‘You damn well behaved like it yesterday.’

  ‘Just because I didn’t call the police?’

  ‘Among other things. It’s what normal people do when their property’s been smashed up. Unless they’ve done it themselves, of course.’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘You were bloody rude. I was only trying to help.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I keep seeing you standing by my door with that table leg. You’re a hell of a gutsy lady. Shit scared, but gutsy. I’ve got those photographs for you. Do you still want them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you brave enough to collect them or do you want me to post them?’

  ‘It’s not bravery that’s required, Hawksley, it’s thick bloody skin. I’m tired of being needled.’ She smiled to herself at the pun. ‘Which reminds me, was it Mrs Clarke who said Gwen and Amber were alive after Robert went to work?’

  There was a slight pause while he tried to see a connection. He couldn’t. ‘Yes, if she was the one in the attached semi.’

  ‘She was lying. She says now that she didn’t see them, which means Robert Martin’s alibi is worthless. He could have done it before he went to work.’

  ‘Why would she give Robert Martin an alibi?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to work it out. I thought at first she was alibiing her own husband, but that doesn’t hold water. Apart from anything else, Olive tells me he was already retired so he wouldn’t have gone to work anyway. Can you remember checking Mrs Clarke’s statement?’

  ‘Was Clarke the accountant? Yes?’ He thought for a moment. ‘OK, he ran most of his business from home but he also looked after the books of several small firms in the area. That week he was doing the accounts of a central heating contractor in Portswood. He was there all day. We checked. He didn’t get home until after we had the place barricaded. I remember the fuss he made about having to park his car at the other end of the road. Elderly man, bald, with glasses. That the one?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but what he and Robert did during the day is irrelevant if Gwen and Amber were dead before either of the men left for work.’

  ‘How reliable is Mrs Clarke?’

  ‘Not very,’ she admitted. ‘What was the earliest estimate of death according to your pathologist?’

  He was unusually evasive. ‘I can’t remember now.’

  ‘Try,’ she pressed him. ‘You suspected Robert enough to check his alibi so he can’t have been ruled out immediately on the forensic evidence.’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he said again. ‘But if Robert did it, then why didn’t he kill Olive as well? And why didn’t she try and stop him? There must have been a hell of a row going on. She couldn’t possibly have avoided hearing something. It’s not that big a house.’

  ‘Perhaps she wasn’t there.’

  *

  The Chaplain made his weekly visit to Olive’s room. ‘That’s good,’ he said, watching her bring curl to the mother’s hair with the point of a matchstick. ‘Is it Mary and Jesus?’

  She looked at him with amusement. ‘The mother is suffocating her baby,’ she said baldly. ‘Is it likely to be Mary and Jesus?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve seen many stranger things that pass for religious art. Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Woman,’ said Olive. ‘Eve with all her faces.’

  He was interested. ‘But you haven’t given her a face.’

  Olive twisted the sculpture on its base and he saw that what he had taken to be curls at the side of the mother’s hair was in fact a crude delineation of eyes, nose and mouth. She twisted it the other way and the same rough representation stared out from that side as well. ‘Two-faced,’ said Olive, ‘and quite unable to look you in the eye.’ She picked up a pencil and shoved it between the mother’s thighs. ‘But it doesn’t matter. Not to MAN.’ She leered unpleasantly. ‘MAN doesn’t look at the mantelpiece when he’s poking the fire.’

  Hal had mended the back door and the kitchen table, which stood in its customary place once more in the middle of the room. The floor was scrubbed clean, wall units repaired, fridge upright, even some chairs had been imported from the restaurant and placed neatly about the table. Hal himself looked completely exhausted.

  ‘Have you had any sleep at all?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not much. I’ve been working round the clock.’

  ‘Well, you’ve performed miracles.’ She gazed about her. ‘So who’s coming to dinner? The Queen? She could eat it off the floor.’

  To her surprise he caught her hand and lifted it to his lips, turning it to kiss the palm. It was an unexpectedly delicate gesture from such a hard man. ‘Thank you.’

  She was at a loss. ‘What for?’ she asked helplessly.

  He released her hand with a smile. ‘Saying the right things.’ For a moment she thought he was going to elaborate, but all he said was: ‘The photographs are on the table.’

  Olive’s was a mug-shot, stark and brutally unflattering. Gwen and Amber’s shocked her as he had said they would. They were the stuff of nightmares and she understood for the first time why everyone had said Olive was a psychopath. She turned them over and concentrated on the head and shoulders’ shot of Robert Martin. Olive was there in the eyes and mouth, and she had a fleeting impression of what might lie beneath the layers of lard if Olive could ever summon the will-power to shed it. Her father was a very handsome man.

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’

  She told him about the man who sent letters to Olive. ‘The description fits her father,’ she said. ‘The woman at Wells-Fargo said she’d recognize him from a photograph.’

  ‘Why on earth should her father have sent her secret letters?’

  ‘To set her up as a scapegoat for the murders.’

  He was sceptical. ‘You’re plucking at straws. What about the ones of Gwen and Amber?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’m tempted to show them to Olive to shock her out of her apathy.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d think twice about that if I were you. She’s an unknown quantity, and you may not know her as well as you think you do. She could very easily turn nasty if you present her with her own handiwork.’

  She smiled briefly. ‘I know her better than I know you.’ She tucked the photographs into her handbag and stepped out into the alleyway. ‘The odd thing is you’re very alike, you and Olive. You demand trust but you don’t give it.’

  He wiped a weary hand around his two-day growth of stubble. ‘Trust is a two-edged sword, Roz. It
can make you extremely vulnerable. I wish you’d remember that from time to time.’

  Fourteen

  MARNIE STUDIED THE photograph of Robert Martin for several seconds then shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘that wasn’t him. He wasn’t so good looking and he had different hair, thicker, not swept back, more to the side. Anyway, I told you, he had dark brown eyes, almost black. These eyes are light. Is this her father?’

  Roz nodded.

  Marnie handed the photograph back. ‘My mother always said, never trust a man whose earlobes are lower than his mouth. It’s the sign of a criminal. Look at his.’

  Roz looked. She hadn’t noticed it before because of the way his hair swept over them, but Martin’s ears were almost unnaturally out of symmetry with the rest of his face. ‘Did your mother know any criminals?’

  Marnie snorted. ‘Of course she didn’t. It’s just an old wives’ tale.’ She cocked her head to look at the picture again. ‘Anyway, if there was something in it he’d be a Category A by now.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Perhaps he passed the gene on to his daughter. She’s Category A all right.’ She got busy with her nail file. ‘Where did you get it, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘The photograph? Why do you ask?’

  Marnie tapped the top right-hand corner with her file. ‘I know where it was taken.’

  Roz looked where she was pointing. In the background beyond Martin’s head was part of a lampshade with a pattern of inverted ys round its base. ‘In his house, presumably.’

  ‘Doubt it. Look at the sign round the shade. There’s only one place anywhere near here has shades like that.’

  The ys were lambdas, Roz realized, the international symbol of homosexuality. ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a pub near the waterfront. Goes in for drag acts.’ Marnie giggled. ‘It’s a gay knocking-shop.’