Authors: Minette Walters
There was no insistence in Olive’s touch. It was a
display of friendship, supportive, undemanding. Roz
squeezed the fat, warm fingers in acknowledgement
then withdrew her hand.
It’s not despair
, she was
going to say,
just overwork and tiredness
. ‘I’d like to
do what you did,’ she said in a monotone, ‘and kill
someone.’ There was a long silence. Her own statement
had shocked her. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’
‘I doubt it. I haven’t the guts to kill anyone.’
Olive stared at her. ‘That doesn’t stop you wanting
to,’ she said reasonably.
‘No. But if you can’t summon the guts then I don’t
think the will is really there.’ She smiled distantly. ‘I
can’t even find the guts to kill myself and sometimes
I see that as the only sensible option.’
‘Why?’
Roz’s eyes were over bright. ‘I hurt,’ she said
simply. ‘I’ve been hurting for months.’
But why was
she telling Olive all this instead of the nice safe psychiatrist
Iris had recommended?
Because Olive would
understand.
‘Who do you want dead?’ The question vibrated in
the air between them like a tolled bell.
Roz thought about the wisdom of answering. ‘My
ex-husband,’ she said.
‘Because he left you?’
‘No.’
‘What did he do?’
But Roz shook her head. ‘If I tell you, you’ll try
to persuade me I’m wrong to hate him.’ She gave a
strange laugh. ‘And I need to hate him. Sometimes I
think it’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive.’
‘Yes,’ said Olive evenly. ‘I can understand that.’ She
breathed on the window and drew a gallows in the
mist with her finger. ‘You loved him once.’ It was a
statement, expecting no reply, but Roz felt compelled
to answer.
‘I can’t remember now.’
‘You must have done.’ The fat woman’s voice
became a croon. ‘You can’t hate what you never loved,
you can only dislike it and avoid it. Real hate, like real
love, consumes you.’ With a sweep of her large palm
she wiped the gallows from the window. ‘I suppose,’
she went on, matter of factly, ‘you came to see me to
find out whether murder is worth it.’
‘I don’t know,’ Roz said honestly. ‘Half the time
I’m in limbo, the other half I’m obsessed by anger.
The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m slowly falling
apart.’
Olive shrugged. ‘Because it’s inside your head. Like
I said, it’s bad to keep things bottled up. It’s a pity
you’re not a Catholic. You could go to confession and
feel better immediately.’
Such a simple solution had never occurred to Roz.
‘I was a Catholic, once. I suppose I still am.’
Olive took another cigarette and placed it reverently
between her lips like a consecrated wafer.
‘Obsessions,’ she murmured, reaching for a match,
‘are invariably destructive. That, at least, I have
learnt.’ She spoke sympathetically. ‘You need more
time before you can talk about it. I understand. You
think I’ll pick at the scab and make you bleed again.’
Roz nodded.
‘You don’t trust people. You’re right. Trust has a
way of rebounding. I know about these things.’
Roz watched her light the cigarette. ‘What was
your obsession?’
She flicked Roz a strangely intimate look but didn’t
answer.
‘I needn’t write this book, you know, not if you
don’t want me to.’
Olive smoothed her thin blonde hair with the back
of her thumb. ‘It’ll upset Sister Bridget if we give up
now. I know you’ve seen her.’
‘Does that matter?’
Olive shrugged. ‘It might upset
you
if we give up
now. Does
that
matter?’
She smiled suddenly and her whole face brightened.
How very
nice
she looked, thought Roz. ‘Maybe,
maybe not,’ she said. ‘I’m not convinced myself that
I want to write it.’
‘Why not?’
Roz pulled a face. ‘I should hate to turn you into
a freak side-show.’
‘Aren’t I that already?’
‘In here perhaps. Not outside. They’ve forgotten
all about you outside. It may be better to leave it that
way.’
‘What would persuade you to write it?’
‘If you tell me why.’
The silence grew between them. Ominous. ‘Have
they found my nephew?’ Olive asked at last.
‘I don’t think so.’ Roz frowned. ‘How did you
know they were looking for him?’
Olive gave a hearty chuckle. ‘Cell telegraph. Everyone
knows everything in here. There’s bugger-all else
to do except mind other people’s business, and we all
have solicitors and we all read the newspapers and
everyone talks. I could have guessed anyway. My
father left a lot of money. He would always leave it to
family if he could.’
‘I spoke to one of your neighbours, a Mr Hayes.
Do you remember him?’ Olive nodded. ‘If I understood
him right, Amber’s child was adopted by some
people called Brown who’ve since emigrated to Australia.
I assume that’s why Mr Crew’s firm is having
so much difficulty in tracing him. Big place, common
name.’ She waited for a moment but Olive didn’t say
anything. ‘Why do you want to know? Does it make
a difference to you whether he’s found or not?’
‘Maybe,’ she said heavily.
‘Why?’
Olive shook her head.
‘Do you want him found?’
The door crashed open, startling them both.
‘Time’s up, Sculptress. Come on, let’s be having you.’
The officer’s voice boomed about the peaceful room,
tearing the fabric of their precarious intimacy. Roz
saw her own irritation reflected in Olive’s eyes. But
the moment was lost.
She gave an involuntary wink. ‘It’s true what they
say, you know. Time does fly when you’re enjoying
yourself. I’ll see you next week.’ The huge woman
lumbered awkwardly to her feet.
‘My father was a very lazy man, which is why he
let my mother rule the roost.’ She rested a hand
against the door jamb to balance herself. ‘His other
favourite saying, because it annoyed her so much, was:
never do today what can always be done tomorrow.’
She smiled faintly. ‘As a result, of course, he was
completely contemptible. The only allegiance he
recognized was his allegiance to himself, but it was
allegiance without responsibility. He should have
studied existentialism.’ Her tongue lingered on the
word. ‘He would have learnt something about man’s
imperative to choose and act wisely. We are all masters
of our fate, Roz, including you.’ She nodded briefly
then turned away, drawing the prison officer and the
metal chair into her laborious, shuffling wake.
Now what, Roz wondered, watching them, was
that supposed to mean?
‘Mrs Wright?’
‘Yes?’ The young woman held the front door half
open, a restraining hand hooked into her growling
dog’s collar. She was pretty in a colourless sort of way,
pale and fine drawn with large grey eyes and a swinging
bob of straw-gold hair.
Roz offered her card. ‘I’m writing a book about
Olive Martin. Sister Bridget at your old convent
school suggested you might be prepared to talk to
me. She said you were the closest friend Olive had
there.’
Geraldine Wright made a pretence of reading the
card then offered it back again. ‘I don’t think so,
thank you.’ She said it in the sort of tone she might
have used to a Jehovah’s Witness. She prepared to
close the door.
Roz held it open with her hand. ‘May I ask why
not?’
‘I’d rather not be involved.’
‘I don’t need to mention you by name.’ She smiled
encouragingly. ‘Please, Mrs Wright. I won’t embarrass
you. That’s not the way I work. It’s information I’m
after, not exposure. No one will ever know you were
connected with her, not through me or my book at
least.’ She saw a slight hesitancy in the other woman’s
eyes. ‘Ring Sister Bridget,’ she urged. ‘I know she’ll
vouch for me.’
‘Oh, I suppose it’s all right. But only for half an
hour. I have to collect the children at three thirty.’
She opened the door wide and pulled the dog away
from it. ‘Come in. The sitting room’s on the left. I’ll
have to shut Boomer in the kitchen or he won’t leave
us alone.’
Roz walked through into the sitting room, a
pleasant, sunny space with wide patio doors opening
out on to a small terrace. Beyond, a neat garden,
carefully tended, merged effortlessly into a green field
with distant cows. ‘It’s a lovely view,’ she said as Mrs
Wright joined her.
‘We were lucky to get it,’ said the other woman
with some pride. ‘The house was rather out of our
price range, but the previous owner took a bridging
loan on another property just before the interest rates
went through the roof. He was so keen to be shot of
this one we got it for twenty-five thousand less than
he was asking. We’re very happy here.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Roz warmly. ‘It’s a beautiful
part of the world.’
‘Let’s sit down.’ She lowered herself gracefully into
an armchair. ‘I’m not ashamed of my friendship with
Olive,’ she excused herself. ‘I just don’t like talking
about it. People are so persistent. They simply won’t
accept that I knew nothing about the murders.’ She
examined her painted fingernails. ‘I hadn’t seen her,
you know, for at least three years before it happened
and I certainly haven’t seen her since. I really can’t
think what I can tell you that will be of any use.’
Roz made no attempt to record the conversation.
She was afraid of scaring the woman. ‘Tell me what
she was like at school,’ she said, taking out a pencil
and notepad. ‘Were you in the same form?’
‘Yes, we both stayed on to do A-levels.’
‘Did you like her?’
‘Not much.’ Geraldine sighed. ‘That does sound
unkind, doesn’t it? Look, you really won’t use my
name, will you? I mean, if there’s a chance you will,
I just won’t say any more. I should hate Olive to
know how I really felt about her. It would be so
hurtful.’
Of course it would, thought Roz, but why would
you care? She took some headed notepaper from her
briefcase, wrote two sentences on it and signed it.
‘ “I, Rosalind Leigh, of the above address, agree to
treat all information given to me by Mrs Geraldine
Wright of Oaktrees, Wooling, Hants, as confidential.
I shall not reveal her as the source of any information,
either verbally or in writing, now or at any time in
the future.” There. Will that do?’ She forced a smile.
‘You can sue me for a fortune if I break my word.’
‘Oh dear, she’ll guess it’s me. I’m the only one she
talked to. At school, anyway.’ She took the piece of
paper. ‘I don’t know.’
God, what a ditherer! It occurred to Roz then that
Olive may well have found the friendship as unrewarding
as Geraldine appeared to have done. ‘Let me
give you an idea of how I’ll use what you tell me, then
you’ll see there’s nothing to worry about. You’ve just
said you didn’t like her much. That will end up in the
book as something like: “Olive was never popular at
school.” Can you go along with that?’
The woman brightened. ‘Oh, yes. That’s absolutely
true anyway.’
‘OK. Why wasn’t she popular?’
‘She never really fitted in, I suppose.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh dear.’ Geraldine shrugged irritatingly. ‘Because
she was fat, perhaps.’
This was going to be like drawing teeth, slow and
extremely painful. ‘Did she try to make friends or
didn’t she bother?’
‘She didn’t really bother. She hardly ever said
anything, you know, just used to sit and stare at everyone
else while they talked. People didn’t like that very
much. To tell you the truth, I think we were all rather
frightened of her. She was very much taller than the
rest of us.’
‘Was that the only reason she scared you? Her size?’
Geraldine thought back. ‘It was a sort of over-all
thing. I don’t know how to describe it. She was very
quiet. You could be talking to someone and you’d
turn round to find her standing right behind you,
staring at you.’
‘Did she bully people?’
‘Only if they were nasty to Amber.’
‘And did that happen often?’
‘No. Everyone liked Amber.’
‘OK.’ Roz tapped her pencil against her teeth. ‘You
say you were the only one Olive spoke to. What sort
of things did you talk about?’
Geraldine plucked at her skirt. ‘Just things,’ she
said unhelpfully. ‘I can’t remember now.’
‘The sort of things all girls talk about at school.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’
Roz gritted her teeth. ‘So you discussed sex, and
boys, and clothes, and make-up?’
‘Well, yes,’ she said again.
‘I find that hard to believe, Mrs Wright. Not unless
she’s changed a great deal in ten years. I’ve met her,
you know. She’s not remotely interested in trivia and
she doesn’t like talking about herself. She wants to
know about me and what I do.’
‘That’s probably because she’s in prison and you’re
her only visitor.’
‘I’m not, in actual fact. Also, I am told that most
prisoners do the exact opposite when someone visits
them. They talk about themselves nineteen to the
dozen because it’s the only time they get a sympathetic
hearing.’ She raised a speculative eyebrow. ‘I
think it’s Olive’s nature to quiz the person she’s talking
to. I suspect she’s always done it, and that’s why
none of you liked her very much. You probably
thought she was nosy.’ Pray God, I’m right, she
thought, because this one, who’s about as manipulable
as putty, will say I am regardless.
‘How funny,’ said Geraldine. ‘Now you mention
it, she did ask a lot of questions. She was always
wanting to know about my parents, whether they held
hands and kissed, and whether I’d ever heard them
making love.’ She turned her mouth down. ‘Yes, I
remember now, that’s why I didn’t like her. She was
forever trying to find out how often my parents had
sex, and she used to push her face up close when she
asked, and stare.’ She gave a small shudder. ‘I used to
hate that. She had such greedy eyes.’