The Sculptress

by Minette Walters

  ‘What’s it called?’

  Marnie giggled again. ‘The White Cock.’

  The landlord recognized the photograph immediately. ‘Mark Agnew,’ he told her. ‘Used to come here a lot. But I haven’t seen him in the last twelve months. What happened to him?’

  ‘He died.’

  The landlord pulled a long face. ‘I shall have to go straight,’ he said with weary gallows humour. ‘What with AIDS and the recession I’ve hardly any customers left.’

  Roz smiled sympathetically. ‘If it’s any consolation I don’t think he died of AIDS.’

  ‘Well, it is some consolation, lovey. He put himself about a bit, did Mark.’

  Mrs O’Brien regarded her with deep displeasure. Time and her naturally suspicious nature had persuaded her that Roz was nothing to do with television but had come to worm information out of her about her sons. ‘You’ve got a flaming cheek, I must say.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Roz with obvious disappointment, ‘have you changed your mind about the programme?’ Lies, she thought, worked if you kept repeating them.

  ‘Programme, my arse. You’re a bloody snooper. What you after? That’s what I want to know.’

  Roz took Mr Crew’s letter out of her briefcase and handed it to the woman. ‘I explained it as well as I could last time, but these are the terms of my contract with the television company. If you read it, you’ll see that it sets out quite clearly the aims and objectives of the programme they want to make.’ She pointed to Crew’s signature. ‘That’s the director. He listened to the tape we made and liked what he heard. He’ll be disappointed if you back out now.’

  Ma O’Brien, presented with written evidence, was impressed. She frowned intelligently at the unintelligible words. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘a contract makes a difference. You should of shown me this last time.’ She folded it, preparatory to putting it in her pocket.

  Roz smiled. ‘Unfortunately,’ she said, whisking it from Ma’s fingers, ‘this is the only copy I have and I need it for tax and legal purposes. If it’s lost, none of us will get paid. May I come in?’

  Ma compressed her lips. ‘No reason not to, I suppose.’ But suspicion died hard. ‘I’m not hanswering hanything fishy, mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’ She walked into the sitting room. ‘Is any of your family at home? I’d like to include them if possible. The more rounded the picture the better.’

  Ma gave it some thought. ‘Mike!’ she yelled suddenly. ‘Get yourself down. There’s a lady wants to talk to you. Nipper! In ’ere.’

  Roz, who was only interested in talking to Gary, saw fifty-pound notes flying out the window by the bucket-load. She smiled with resignation as two skinny young men joined their mother on the sofa. ‘Hi,’ she said brightly, ‘my name’s Rosalind Leigh and I represent a television company which is putting together a programme on social deprivation . . .’

  ‘I told them,’ said Ma, cutting her short. ‘No need for the sales pitch. Fifty quid per ’ead. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘As long as I get my money’s worth. I’ll need another good hour of chat and I’m only really prepared to pay fifty apiece if I can talk to your eldest son, Peter, and your youngest son, Gary. That way I get the broadest viewpoint possible. I want to know what difference it made to your older children being fostered out.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got Gary,’ said Ma, prodding the unprepossessing figure on her left, ‘young Nipper ’ere. Pete’s in the nick so you’ll ’ave to make do with Mike. ‘E’s number three and spent as much time being fostered as Pete did.’

  ‘Right, let’s get on then.’ She unfolded her list of carefully prepared questions and switched on her tape-recorder. The two ‘boys’, she noticed, had perfectly proportioned ears.

  She spent the first half-hour talking to Mike, encouraging him to reminisce about his childhood in foster homes, his education (or, more accurately, lack of it through persistent truanting) and his early troubles with the police. He was a taciturn man, lacking even elementary social skills, who found it hard to articulate his thoughts. He made a poor impression and Roz, containing her impatience behind a forced smile, wondered if he could possibly have turned out any worse if Social Services had left him in the care of his mother. Somehow she doubted it. Ma, for all her sins and his, loved him, and to be loved was the cornerstone of confidence.

  She turned with some relief to Gary, who had been listening to the conversation with a lively interest. ‘I gather you didn’t leave home till you were twelve,’ she said, consulting her notes, ‘when you were sent to a boarding school. Why was that?’

  He grinned. ‘Truanting, nicking, same as my brothers, only Parkway said I was worse and got me sent off to Chapman ’Ouse. It was OK. I learnt a bit. Got two CSEs before I jacked it in.’

  She thought the truth was probably the exact opposite, and that Parkway had said he was a cut above his brothers and worth putting some extra effort into. ‘That’s good. Did the CSEs make it easier to find a job?’

  She might have been talking about a trip to the moon for all the relevance a job seemed to have in his life. ‘I never tried. We were doing all right.’

  She remembered something Hal had said. ‘They simply don’t subscribe to the same values that the rest of us hold.’ ‘You didn’t want a job?’ she asked curiously.

  He shook his head. ‘Did you, when you left school?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, surprised by the question. ‘I couldn’t wait to leave home.’

  He shrugged, as perplexed by her ambition as she was perplexed by his lack of it. ‘We’ve always stuck together,’ he said. ‘The dole goes a lot further if it’s pooled. You didn’t get on with your parents then?’

  ‘Not enough to want to live with them.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ he said sympathetically, ‘that would explain it then.’

  Absurdly, Roz found herself envying him. ‘Your mother told me you worked as a motorbike courier at one point. Did you enjoy that?’

  ‘So-so. It was all right at the beginning but there’s no fun driving a bike in town and it was all town work. It wouldn’t ’ave been so bad if the bastard who ran it ’ad paid us enough to cover the cost of the bikes.’ He shook his head. ‘’E was a mean sod. We ’ad ’em took off us after six months and that was it. No bikes, no work.’

  Roz had now heard three different versions of how the O’Brien boys had lost their jobs at Wells-Fargo. Were any of them true, she wondered, or was it that they were all true, but seen from different perspectives? Truth, she thought, was not the absolute she had once believed it to be. ‘Your mother told me,’ she said with a look of innocent amusement, ‘that you had a brush with a murderess while you were doing that job.’

  ‘You mean Olive Martin?’ Whatever qualms he had had on the matter at the time of the murders had obviously disappeared. ‘Funny business, that. I used to deliver letters to her on a Friday evening from some bloke she was keen on, then – wham! – she did her folks in. Bloody shocked me to tell you the truth. ’Ad no idea she was a nutter.’

  ‘But she must have been to hack her mother and sister to pieces.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Never did understand it. She was all right. I knew ’er as a kid. She was all right then, as well. It was the bloody mother who was the cow and the stuck-up sister. Christ, she was a ’orrible little swine.’

  Roz hid her surprise. Everyone loved Amber. How often had she heard that said? ‘Maybe Olive had had enough and just snapped one day. It happens.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said with a dismissive shrug, ‘that’s not the bit I don’t understand. It’s why she didn’t just go off with ’er fancy man instead. I mean, even if ’e was married, ’e could’ve set her up in a flat somewhere. ’E wasn’t short of a bob or two judging by what ’e paid to have the letters delivered. Twenty quid a throw. ’E must have been bloody rolling in it.’

  She chewed her pencil. ‘Maybe she didn’t do it,’ she mused. ‘Maybe the police got the wrong person. Let’s face it, it
wouldn’t be the first time.’

  Ma compressed her lips. ‘They’re all corrupt,’ she said. ‘Nick anyone for anythink these days. You don’t want to be Irish in this country. You’ve no ’ope if you’re Irish.’

  ‘Still,’ said Roz, looking at Gary, ‘if Olive didn’t do it, who did?’

  ‘I’m not saying it wasn’t ’er,’ he said sharply. ‘She went guilty so she must of done it. All I’m saying is she didn’t need to do it.’

  Roz gave a careless shrug. ‘Just lost her temper and didn’t think. You’ll probably find the sister provoked her. You said she was horrible.’

  Surprisingly, it was Mike who spoke. ‘Street angel, ’ouse devil,’ he said. ‘Like our Tracey.’

  Roz smiled at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  Ma elucidated. ‘A bitch to your family, a perfect darling to everybody else. But our Tracey’s nothing like Amber Martin. I always said that child would come a cropper and I was right. You can’t face two ways all your life and expect to get away with it.’

  Roz showed her curiosity. ‘You really did know the family quite well then. I thought you only worked there a short while.’

  ‘So I did, but Amber took a fancy to one of the boys later’ – she paused – ‘though I’m blowed if I can remember at the moment which one. Was it you, Nipper?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Chris,’ said Mike.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Ma, ‘took a real shine to ’im and ’im to ’er. She’d sit in this room, pleased as punch with herself, making sheep’s eyes at ’im and she can’t ’ave been more than twelve or thirteen. ’E was – what? – fifteen, sixteen but, of course, any attention at that age is flattering and she was a pretty girl, I’ll say that for ’er, and looked older than she was. Anyway, we saw the real Amber then. She treated Chris like a king and the rest of us like something the cat’d brought in. She had a tongue on ’er like I’ve never heard. Bitch, bitch, bitch, all the time.’ She looked thoroughly indignant. ‘Can’t think ’ow I kept my ’ands off ’er but I did, for Chris’s sake. Besotted, ’e was, poor lad. ’Er mother didn’t know, of course. Put a stop to it straight away the minute she found out.’

  Roz hoped her expression was less revealing than it felt. Did that make Chris O’Brien the father of Amber’s illegitimate child? It made sense. Mr Hayes had referred to a lad from Parkway Comprehensive being responsible, and if Gwen had put a stop to the relationship then she would have known who to blame when a baby appeared. It would also explain the secrecy surrounding Robert Martin’s efforts to trace his grandchild. Presumably the O’Briens had no idea that Chris had fathered a son nor that the son, if he could be found, was worth half a million pounds.

  ‘It’s fascinating,’ she murmured, searching desperately for something to say. ‘I’ve never met anyone so closely associated with a murder. Was Chris upset when Amber was killed?’

  ‘No,’ said Ma with an unfeeling chuckle. ‘’E ’adn’t seen ’er in years. Gary was more upset for Olive, weren’t you, love?’

  He was watching Roz closely. ‘Not really,’ he said bluntly. ‘I was jumpy about being roped in on it. I mean, I’d seen quite a bit of ’er one way and another. Reckoned the cops’d be rounding up everyone she knew and grilling them.’ He shook his head. ‘’Er bloke got off lightly. ’E’d’ve been ’auled in and no mistake if she’d named a few names to try and get off.’

  ‘Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘No.’ His face became suddenly sly and he stared at Roz with an expression that said he saw right through her. ‘I know where he took her for sex, though.’ He gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘What’s it worth to you?’

  She stared back. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The silly sod used self-sticking envelopes. They’re a doddle to open. I read one of the letters.’

  ‘Did he sign it? Do you know his name?’

  Gary shook his head. ‘Something beginning with P. “All my love, P”, was how it finished.’

  Roz didn’t bother with further pretence. ‘Another fifty pounds,’ she said, ‘on top of the hundred and fifty I’ve already agreed to. But that’s it. I’ll be cleaned out.’

  ‘OK.’ He held out his hand in unconscious mimicry of his mother. ‘Money up front.’

  She took out her wallet and emptied it. ‘Two hundred pounds.’ She counted it on to his palm.

  ‘I knew you wasn’t from the television,’ said Ma in disgust. ‘I bloody knew it.’

  ‘Well?’ Roz demanded of Gary.

  ‘It was on for Sunday at the Belvedere Hotel in Farraday Street. “All my love, P.” That’s the Farraday Street in Southampton, in case you didn’t know.’

  The route to Southampton took Roz along Dawlington High Street. She had passed Glitzy boutique before the name registered, and nearly caused a pile-up by standing on her brakes in the middle of the road. With a cheerful wave to the furious man behind her, who was mouthing imprecations against women drivers, she drew into a side street and found a parking space.

  Glitzy was something of a misnomer, she thought, as she pushed open the door. She had expected designer wear or, at the very least, clothes from the more expensive end of the market. But then, she was used to London boutiques. Glitzy catered very definitely for the cheaper end of the market, wisely recognizing that their customers would be predominantly teenage girls without the wherewithal or the transport to go shopping in the more stylish parts of Southampton.

  Roz sought out the manager, a woman in her thirties with a splendid hairdo backcombed into a blonde beehive on top of her head. Roz handed her one of her cards and ran through her spiel about her book on Olive Martin. ‘I’m trying to find someone who knew the sister, Amber,’ she said, ‘and I’m told she worked here during the month before she was murdered. Were you here then? Or do you know anyone who was?’

  ‘No, love, sorry. Staff turns over very quickly in a place like this, young girls normally, doing a short stint till something better comes up. I don’t even know who was manager then. You’ll have to get on to the owners. I can give you their address,’ she finished helpfully.

  ‘Thank you. It’s worth a shot, I suppose.’

  The woman took her over to the cash desk and sorted through a card index. ‘Funny, I remember those murders, but I never put two and two together. You know, that the sister had worked here.’

  ‘She wasn’t here very long and I’m not sure it was even reported. The press was more interested in Olive than in Amber.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She took out a card. ‘Amber. It’s not that common a name, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not. It was a nickname, anyway. Her real name was Alison.’

  The woman nodded. ‘I’ve been here three years and for three years I’ve been pressing to have the staff toilet redecorated. The recession’s their excuse for not doing it, same as it’s their excuse for any wretched thing, from cuts in wages to cheap imported stock that’s not even stitched properly. Anyway, the toilet’s tiled and that’s an expensive job, apparently, chipping off the old ones to put up new.’ Roz smiled politely. ‘Don’t worry, love, it’s to the point and I’m gettin there. The reason I want new tiles is that someone took a chisel or something similar to the old ones. They scratched graffiti into the surface and then filled in the scratches with some sort of indelible ink. I’ve tried everything to get it out, bleach, oven cleaner, paint remover, you name it, love, I’ve tried it.’ She shook her head. ‘It can’t be shifted. And why? Because whoever did it gouged so deep they cut right through the ceramic, and the china clay underneath just goes on absorbing dirt and stains. Every time I look at it, it gives me the shivers. Pure hate, that’s what it was done with.’

  ‘What does the graffiti say?’

  ‘I’ll show you. It’s at the back.’ She negotiated a couple of doors, then pushed open another and stood aside to let Roz pass. ‘There. It sucks, doesn’t it? And, you know, I’ve always wondered who Amber was. But it must be the sister, mustn’t it? Like I say, Amber’s
not that common a name.’

  It was the same two words, repeated ten or eleven times across the tiles, a violent inversion of the hearts and arrows that more usually adorned lavatory walls. HATES AMBER . . . HATES AMBER . . . HATES AMBER.

  ‘I wonder who did it?’ murmured Roz.

  ‘Someone very sick, I should think. They certainly didn’t want her to know, seeing how they’ve left their name off the front.’

  ‘It depends how you read it,’ said Roz thoughtfully. ‘If it were set out neatly for you in a circle it would say Amber hates Amber hates Amber ad infinitum.’

  The Belvedere was a typical back-street hotel, two substantial semis knocked together and entered via a flight of steps and a pillared front door. The place had an air of neglect as if its customers – sales reps for the main part – had deserted it. Roz rang the bell at the reception desk and waited.

  A woman in her fifties emerged from a room at the back, all smiles. ‘Good afternoon, madam. Welcome to the Belvedere.’ She pulled the registration book towards her. ‘Is it a room you’re after?’

  What terrible things recessions were, thought Roz. How long could people maintain this sad veneer of confident optimism when the reality was empty order books? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t.’ She handed over one of her cards. ‘I’m a freelance journalist and I think someone I’m writing about may have stayed here. I was hoping you could identify her photograph for me.’

  The woman tapped a finger on the book then pushed it away. ‘Will what you write be published?’

  Roz nodded.

  ‘And will the Belvedere be mentioned if whoever it is did stay here?’

  ‘Not if you’d rather it wasn’t.’

  ‘My dear, how little you know about the hotel trade. Any publicity would be welcome at the moment.’

  Roz laughed as she placed the photograph of Olive on the desk. ‘If she came it would have been during the summer of eighty-seven. Were you here then?’