Authors: Minette Walters
Tears rolled down her fat cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean it
to happen. We had a row. My mother got so angry
with me. Should I give my statement now?’
He shook his head. ‘There’s no hurry.’
She stared at him without blinking, her tears drying
in dirty streaks down her face. ‘Will you be able to
take them away before my father comes home?’ she
asked him after a minute or two. ‘I think it would be
better.’
Bile rose in his throat. ‘When do you expect him
back?’
‘He leaves work at three o’clock. He’s part-time.’
Hal glanced at his watch, an automatic gesture. His
mind was numb. ‘It’s twenty to now.’
She was very composed. ‘Then perhaps a policeman
could go there and explain what’s happened. It would
be better,’ she said again. They heard the wail of
approaching sirens. ‘Please,’ she said urgently.
He nodded. ‘I’ll arrange it. Where does he work?’
‘Carters Haulage. It’s in the Docks.’
He was passing the message on as two cars, sirens
shrieking, swept round the corner and bore down on
number 22. Doors flew open all along the road and
curious faces peered out. Hal switched off the radio
and looked at her. ‘All done,’ he said. ‘You can stop
worrying about your father.’
A large tear slipped down her blotchy face. ‘Should
I make a pot of tea?’
Hal thought of the kitchen. ‘Better not.’
The sirens stilled as policemen erupted from the
cars. ‘I’m sorry to cause so much bother,’ she said
into the silence.
She spoke very little after that, but only, thought
Hal on reflection, because nobody spoke to her. She
was packed into the living room, under the eye of a
shocked W.P.C., and sat in bovine immobility
watching the comings and goings through the open
door. If she was aware of the mounting horror that
was gathering about her, she didn’t show it. Nor, as
time passed and the signs of emotion faded from her
face, did she display any further grief or remorse for
what she had done. Faced with such complete indifference,
the consensus view was that she was mad.
‘But she wept in front of you,’ interrupted Roz. ‘Did
you
think she was mad?’
‘I spent two hours in that kitchen with the pathologist,
trying to work out the order of events from the
blood splashes over the floor, the table, the kitchen
units. And then, after the photographs had been taken,
we embarked on the grisly jigsaw of deciding which
bit belonged to which woman. Of course I thought
she was mad. No normal person could have done it.’
Roz chewed her pencil. ‘That’s begging the question,
you know. All you’re really saying is that the act
itself was one of madness. I asked you if, from your
experience of her, you thought Olive was mad.’
‘And you’re splitting hairs. As far as I could see,
the two were inextricably linked. Yes, I thought Olive
was mad. That’s why we were so careful to make sure
her solicitor was there when she made her statement.
The idea of her getting off on a technicality and
spending twelve months in hospital before some idiot
psychiatrist decided she was responding well enough
to treatment to be allowed out scared us rigid.’
‘So did it surprise you when she was judged fit to
plead guilty?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘it did.’
*
At around six o’clock attention switched to Olive.
Areas of dried blood were lifted carefully from her
arms and each fingernail was minutely scraped before
she was taken upstairs to bathe herself and change
into clean clothes. Everything she had been wearing
was packed into individual polythene bags and loaded
into a police van. An inspector drew Hal to one side.
‘I gather she’s already admitted she did it.’
Hal nodded. ‘More or less.’
Roz interrupted again. ‘Less is right. If what you said
earlier is correct, she did not admit anything. She
said they’d had a row, that her mother got angry, and
she didn’t mean it to happen. She didn’t say she had
killed them.’
Hal agreed. ‘I accept that. But the implication was
there which is why I told her not to talk about it. I
didn’t want her claiming afterwards that she hadn’t
been properly cautioned.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘By
the same token, she didn’t deny killing them, which
is the first thing an innocent person would have done,
especially as she had their blood all over her.’
‘But the point is, you assumed her guilt before you
knew it for a fact.’
‘She was certainly our prime suspect,’ he said drily.
*
The inspector ordered Hal to take Olive down to the
station. ‘But don’t let her say anything until we can
get hold of a solicitor. We’ll do it by the book. OK?’
Hal nodded again. ‘There’s a father. He’ll be at the
nick by now. I sent a car to pick him up from work
but I don’t know what he’s been told.’
‘You’d better find out then, and, for Christ’s sake,
Sergeant, if he doesn’t know, then break it to him
gently or you’ll give the poor sod a heart attack. Find
out if he’s got a solicitor and if he’s willing to have
him or her represent his daughter.’
They put a blanket over Olive’s head when they
took her out to the car. A crowd had gathered, lured
by rumours of a hideous crime, and cameramen jostled
for a photograph. Boos greeted her appearance
and a woman laughed. ‘What good’s a blanket, boys?
You’d need a bloody marquee to cover that fat cow.
I’d recognize her legs anywhere. What you done, Olive?’
Roz interrupted again when he jumped the story on
to his meeting with Robert Martin at the police
station.
‘Hang on. Did she say anything in the car?’
He thought for a moment. ‘She asked me if I liked
her dress. I said I did.’
‘Were you being polite?’
‘No. It was a vast improvement on the T-shirt and
trousers.’
‘Because they had blood on them?’
‘Probably. No,’ he contradicted himself, ruffling his
hair, ‘because the dress gave her a bit of shape, I
suppose, made her look more feminine. Does it
matter?’
Roz ignored this. ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘I think she said something like: “That’s good. It’s
my favourite.” ’
‘But in her statement, she said she was going to
London. Why wasn’t she wearing the dress when she
committed the murders?’
He looked puzzled. ‘Because she was going to
London in trousers, presumably.’
‘No,’ said Roz stubbornly. ‘If the dress was her
favourite, then that’s what she would have worn for
her trip to town. London was her birthday treat to
herself. She probably had dreams of bumping into Mr
Right on Waterloo station. It simply wouldn’t occur
to her to wear anything but her best. You need to be
a woman to understand that.’
He was amused. ‘But I see hundreds of girls walking
around in shapeless trousers and baggy T-shirts,
particularly the fat ones. I think they look grotesque
but they seem to like it. Presumably they’re making a
statement about their refusal to pander to conventional
standards of beauty. Why should Olive have
been any different?’
‘Because she wasn’t the rebellious type. She lived
at home under her mother’s thumb, took the job her
mother wanted her to take, and was apparently so
unused to going out alone for the day that she had
to beg her sister to go with her.’ She drummed her
fingers impatiently on the table. ‘I’m right. I know I
am. If she wasn’t lying about the trip to London then
she should have been wearing her dress.’
He was not impressed. ‘She was rebellious enough
to kill her mother and sister,’ he remarked. ‘If she
could do that, she could certainly go to London in
trousers. You’re splitting hairs again. Anyway, she
might have changed to keep the dress clean.’
‘But she definitely intended to go to London? Did
you check that?’
‘She certainly booked the day off work. We
accepted that London was where she was going
because, as far as we could establish, she hadn’t mentioned
her plans to anyone else.’
‘Not even to her father?’
‘If she did, he didn’t remember it.’
Olive waited in an interview room while Hal spoke
to her father. It was a difficult conversation. Whether
he had schooled himself to it, or whether it was a
natural trick of behaviour, Robert Martin reacted little
to anything that was said to him. He was a handsome
man but, in the way that a Greek sculpture is handsome,
he invited admiration but lacked warmth or
attraction. His curiously impassive face had an unlined
and ageless quality, and only his hands, knotted with
arthritis, gave any indication that he had passed his
middle years. Once or twice he smoothed his blond
hair with the flat of his hand or touched his fingers
to his tie, but for all the expression on his plastic
features Hal might have been passing the time of day.
It was impossible to gauge from his expression how
deeply he was shocked or whether, indeed, he was
shocked at all.
‘Did you like him?’ asked Roz.
‘Not much. He reminded me of Olive. I don’t
know where I am with people who hide their feelings.
It makes me uncomfortable.’
Roz could identify with that.
Hal kept detail to a minimum, informing him only
that the bodies of his wife and one of his daughters
had been discovered that afternoon in the kitchen of
his house, and that his other daughter, Olive, had
given the police reason to believe she had killed them.
Robert Martin crossed his legs and folded his hands
calmly in his lap. ‘Have you charged her with
anything?’
‘No. We haven’t questioned her either.’ He
watched the other man closely. ‘Frankly, sir, in view
of the serious nature of the possible charges we think
she should have a solicitor with her.’
‘Of course. I’m sure my man, Peter Crew, will
come.’ Mild enquiry twitched his brows. ‘What’s the
procedure? Should I telephone him?’
Hal was puzzled by the man’s composure. He
wiped a hand across his face. ‘Are you sure you understand
what’s happened, sir?’
‘I believe so. Gwen and Amber are dead and you
think Olive murdered them.’
‘That’s not quite accurate. Olive has implied that
she was responsible for their deaths but, until we take
a statement from her, I can’t say what the charges will
be.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I want you to be
quite clear on this, Mr Martin. The Home Office
pathologist who examined the scene had no doubts
that considerable ferocity was used both before and
after death. In due course, I’m afraid to say, we will
have to ask you to identify the bodies and you may,
when you see them, feel less charitably inclined
towards any possible suspect. On that basis, do you
have any reservations about your solicitor representing
Olive?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I would be happier dealing
with someone I know.’
‘There may be a conflict of interests. Have you
considered that?’
‘In what way?’
‘At the risk of labouring the point, sir,’ said Hal
coldly, ‘your wife and daughter have been brutally
murdered. I imagine you will want the perpetrator
prosecuted?’ He lifted an eyebrow in enquiry and
Martin nodded. ‘Then you may well want a solicitor
yourself to ensure that the prosecution proceeds to
your satisfaction, but if your own solicitor is already
representing your daughter, he will be unable to assist
you because your interests will conflict with your
daughter’s.’
‘Not if she’s innocent.’ Martin pinched the crease
in his trousers, aligning it with the centre of his knee.
‘I am really not concerned with what Olive may have
implied, Sergeant Hawksley. There is no conflict of
interest in my mind. Establishing her innocence and
representing me in pressing for a prosecution can be
done by the same solicitor. Now, if you could lend
me the use of a telephone, I will ring Peter Crew, and
afterwards, perhaps you will allow me to talk to my
daughter.’
Hal shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but that won’t
be possible, not until we’ve taken a statement from
her. You will also be required to make a statement.
You may be allowed to speak to her afterwards, but
at the moment I can’t guarantee it.’
‘And that,’ he said, recalling the incident, ‘was the
one and only time he showed any emotion. He looked
quite upset, but whether because I’d denied him
access to Olive or because I’d told him he’d have to
make a statement, I don’t know.’ He considered for
a moment. ‘It must have been the denial of access.
We went through every minute of that man’s day and
he came out whiter than white. He worked in an
open-plan office with five other people and, apart
from the odd trip to the lavatory, he was under someone’s
eye the whole day. There just wasn’t time for
him to go home.’
‘But you did suspect him?’
‘Yes.’
Roz looked interested. ‘In spite of Olive’s confession?’
He nodded. ‘He was so damn cold blooded about
it all. Even identifying the bodies didn’t faze him.’
Roz thought for a moment. ‘There was another
conflict of interest which you don’t seem to have
considered.’ She chewed her pencil. ‘If Robert Martin
was the murderer, he could have used his solicitor to
manipulate Olive into confessing. Peter Crew makes
no secret of his dislike of her, you know. I think he
regrets the abolition of capital punishment.’
Hal folded his arms, then smiled in amusement.
‘You’ll have to be very careful if you intend to make
statements like that in your book, Miss Leigh. Solicitors
are not required to like their clients, they merely
have to represent them. In any case, Robert Martin
dropped out of the frame very rapidly. We toyed with
the idea that he killed Gwen and Amber before he
went to work and Olive then set about disposing the
bodies to protect him, but the numbers didn’t add
up. He had an alibi even for that. There was a neighbour
who saw her husband off to work a few minutes
before Martin himself left. Amber and Gwen were
alive then because she spoke to them on their doorstep.
She remembered asking Amber how she was
getting on at Glitzy. They waved as Martin drove
away.’