The Sculptress (33 page)

‘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.’

She put her arms about him. ‘You’re so like Olive.’

‘I wish you’d stop comparing me with the madwoman
of Dawlington.’

‘It’s a compliment. She’s a very nice person. Like
you.’

‘I’m not nice, Roz.’ He held her face between his
hands. ‘I’m being prosecuted under the Health and
Hygiene regulations. The Environmental Health
Inspector’s report describes my kitchen as the worst
he’s ever seen. Ninety-five per cent of the raw meat
in the fridge was so rotten it was crawling with maggots.
The dry foods should have been in sealed containers,
but weren’t, and rat droppings were found in
all of them. There were open bags of rubbish in the
larder. The vegetables had deteriorated so far they had
to be discarded, and a live rat was discovered under
the cooker.’ He arched a weary eyebrow. ‘I’ve lost all
my customers because of it, my case comes up in six
weeks, and I haven’t a leg to stand on.’

ROZ DIDN’T SPEAK
for some moments. She had
invented a number of scenarios to account for what
was happening at the Poacher, but never this. It would
certainly explain his lack of customers. Who, in their
right mind, would eat in a restaurant where the meat
had been found crawling with maggots? She had.
Twice. But she hadn’t known about the maggots. It
would have been more honest of Hal to tell her at
the outset, she thought, her stomach protesting mildly
over what might have gone into it. She felt his gaze
upon her and quelled the treacherous stirrings firmly.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said carefully. ‘Is this a
genuine prosecution? I mean, you appear to have been
tried and judged already. How did your customers
know what the Inspector found if the case hasn’t been
to court? And who are the men in ski-masks?’ She
gave a puzzled frown. ‘I can’t believe you’d be such
a bloody fool, anyway, as to flout the hygiene regulations.
Not to the extent of having an entire fridgeful of rotten meat and live rats running around the floor.’
She laughed suddenly with relief and smacked a slender
palm against his chest. ‘You creep, Hawksley! It’s
a load of old flannel. You’re trying to wind me up.’

He shook his head. ‘I wish I were.’

She studied him thoughtfully for a moment then
pushed herself off his lap and walked through to the
kitchen. He heard the sound of a cork being drawn
from a bottle and the clink of glasses. She took longer
than she should have, and he recalled how his wife
had always done the same thing – disappeared into
the kitchen whenever she was hurt or disappointed.
He had thought Roz different.

She reappeared finally with a tray. ‘OK,’ she said
firmly, ‘I’ve had a think.’

He didn’t say anything.

‘I do not believe you’d keep a dirty kitchen,’ she
told him. ‘You’re too much of an enthusiast. The
Poacher is the fulfilment of a dream, not a financial
investment to be milked for all its worth.’ She poured
him a glass of wine. ‘And you accused me a week ago
of setting you up again, which would imply you’d
been set up before.’ She filled the second glass for
herself. ‘Ergo, the rat and the rotten meat were
planted. Am I right?’