The Sculptress (32 page)

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.

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.’

Marnie 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.’

Marnie 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 Marnie 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 attention.’ 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
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.’