The Sculptress

by Minette Walters

  He took some papers out of his desk and tucked them into his briefcase. He heard so many imaginative defences 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 next-door 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 everybody’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 recognized 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, so it 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 arm. ‘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 clamped 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 hatpin. 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?’

  ‘Half an hour. I’ve telephoned. There’s a fuse gone in a box somewhere. Three hours they said. I told them I wouldn’t pay my bill if it was any longer. We should take a stand. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Roz, wondering who she was talking to. Mrs Barrett, perhaps. She knew their names from their mail but she rarely saw anyone. ‘’Bye now.’ She closed her door. ‘I’ll try and find the candle,’ she whispered.

  ‘Why are we whispering?’ Hal whispered back.

  She giggled. ‘Because one always does in the dark.’

  He stumbled into something. ‘This is ridiculous. The street lights aren’t out, are they? Your curtains must be closed.’

  ‘Probably.’ She pulled open the kitchen drawer. ‘I left early this morning.’ She felt around the clutter of cotton reels and screwdrivers. ‘I think I’ve found it. Have you any matches?’

  ‘No,’ he said patiently, ‘otherwise I’d have lit one by now. Do you keep snakes by any chance?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I have a cat.’ But where was Mrs Antrobus? Her cries should have risen in joyful greeting when the key scraped in the lock. Roz made her way back to the door and groped for her briefcase where she kept the matches that she took in to the prison. She snapped the locks and poked amongst her papers. ‘If you can find the sofa,’ she told him, ‘the curtains are behind it. There’s a cord on the left-hand side.’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ he said, ‘but it certainly isn’t a sofa.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said cautiously, ‘but whatever it is it’s rather unpleasant. It’s wet and slimy and it’s wound itself round my neck. Are you sure you don’t keep snakes?’

  She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Her fingers knocked against the matchbox and she snatched at it with relief. She struck a match and held it up. Hal was standing in the middle of the room, his head and shoulders swathed in the damp shirt she had washed that morning and hung on a coathanger from the lampshade. She shook with laughter. ‘You knew it wasn’t a snake,’ she said, holding the candle to the spluttering match flame.

  He found the cord and swished the curtains back to let in the orange glow from the street lamps outside. With that and the candlelight, the room sprang alive out of the pitch darkness. He gazed about him. Towels, clothes, carrier bags, and photographs lay in clutters on chairs and tables, a duvet sprawled half on and half off the sofa, dirty cups, and empty bags of crisps jostled happily about the floor. ‘Well, this is nice,’ he said, lifting his foot and prising off the remains of a half-eaten pork pie. ‘I can’t remember when I felt so much at home.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, taking the pork pie with dignity and dropping it into a waste-paper basket. ‘Or at least I thought you’d have the decency to warn me of your arrival with a phone-call first.’

  He reached down to stroke the soft ball of white fur that was stretching luxuriously in its warm nest on the duvet. Mrs Antrobus licked his hand in approval before embarking on a comprehensive grooming. ‘Do you always sleep on the sofa?’ he asked Roz.

  ‘There’s no telephone in the bedroom.’

  He nodded gravely but didn’t say anything.

  She moved over to him, the candle tilted to stop the hot wax burning her fingers. ‘Oh, God, I’m so pleased to see you. You wouldn’t believe. Where did you go? I’ve been worried sick.’

  He lowered his weary forehead and pressed it against her sweet-smelling hair. ‘Round and about,’ he said, resting his wrists on her shoulders and running the softest of fingers down the lines of her neck.

  ‘There’s a warrant out for your arrest,’ she said weakly.

  ‘I know.’ His lips brushed against her cheek, but so gently that their touch was almost unbearable.

  ‘I’m going to set fire to something,’ she groaned.

  He reached down to pinch out the candle. ‘You already have.’ He cupped his strong hands about her bottom and drew her against his erection. ‘The question is,’ he murmured into the arch of her neck, ‘should I have a cold shower before it spreads out of control?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’ Could he stop now? She couldn’t.

  ‘No, a polite one.’

  ‘I’m in agony.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be,’ he said, his eyes glinting in the orange light. ‘Damn it, woman, I’ve been in agony for weeks.’

  Mrs Antrobus, ejected from the duvet, stalked indignantly into the kitchen.

  Later, the lights came on, drowning the tiny flame of the candle which, rekindled, had started to splutter in its saucer on the table.

  He stroked the hair from Roz’s face. ‘You are quite the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ he said.

  She smiled wickedly. ‘And I thought I was too thin?’

  His dark eyes softened ‘I knew you were lying about that blasted answerphone.’ He ran his hands over her silky arms, gripping them suddenly with urgent fingers. She was completely addictive. He plucked her up and sat her astride his lap. ‘I’ve been dreaming about this.’

  ‘Were they nice dreams?’

  ‘Not a patch on the real thing.’

  ‘Enough,’ she said even later, sliding away from him and pulling on her clothes. ‘What are you planning to do about this arrest warrant?’

  He ignored the question and stirred the photographs on her coffee table. ‘Is this your husband?’

  ‘Ex-husband.’ She threw him his trousers.

  He pulled them on with a sigh, then isolated a close-up of Alice. ‘And this must be your daughter,’ he said evenly. ‘She looks just like you.’

  ‘Looked,’ Roz corrected him. ‘She’s dead.’

  She waited for the apology and the change of subject, but Hal smiled and touched a finger to the laughing face. ‘She’s beautiful.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Alice.’

  He examined the picture closely. ‘I remember falling in love with a little girl just like her when I was six. I was very insecure and I used to ask her every day how much she loved me. She always answered in the same way. She would hold her hands out, like this’ – he spread his palms apart, like a fisherman demonstrating the length of a fish – ‘and say: this much.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roz, remembering, ‘Alice always measured love with her hands. I’d forgotten.’

  She tried to take the photograph away, but he moved it out of her reach and tilted it to the light. ‘There’s a very determined glint in her eyes.’

  ‘She liked her own way.’

  ‘Sensible woman. Did she always get it?’

  ‘Most times. She had very decided views. I remember once . . .’ But she fell silent and didn’t go on.

  Hal shrugged into his shirt and started to button it. ‘Like mother, like daughter. I bet she had you wound round her little finger before she could walk. I’d have enjoyed seeing someone get the better of you.’
>
  Roz held a handkerchief to her streaming eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Being embarrassing.’

  He pulled her against his shoulder and rested his cheek against her hair. What a terrible indictment of Western society it was, that a mother should be afraid to shed tears for her dead daughter in case she embarrassed someone.

  ‘Thank you.’ She saw the question in his eyes. ‘For listening,’ she explained.

  ‘It was no hardship, Roz.’ He could sense how insecure she was. ‘Are you going to agonize over this all night and wake up tomorrow morning wishing you hadn’t told me about Alice?’

  He was far too perceptive. She looked away. ‘I hate feeling vulnerable.’

  ‘Yes.’ He understood that. ‘Come here.’ He patted his lap. ‘Let me tell you about my vulnerabilities. You’ve been trying to prise them out of me for weeks. Now it’s your turn to have a good laugh at my expense.’

  ‘I won’t laugh.’

  ‘Ah!’ he murmured. ‘So that’s what this is all about. You’re a cut above me. I’ll laugh at yours, but you won’t laugh at mine.’