Authors: Minette Walters
‘No. I told her it was someone at work. We were
very careful. Edward was my father’s best friend. It
would have devastated everyone if they’d known what
we were doing.’ She fell silent. ‘Well, of course, it did
devastate them in the end.’
‘They found out.’
The sad head nodded. ‘Amber guessed the minute
she found the bracelet. I should have known she would. Silver chair, Narnia. The bracelet had to be
from Puddleglum.’ She sucked in a lungful of smoke.
Roz watched her for a moment. ‘What did she do?’
she asked when Olive didn’t go on.
‘What she always did when she was angry. Started
a fight. She kept pulling my hair, I remember that.
And screaming. Mum and Dad had to tear us apart.
I ended up in a tug of war with my father gripping
my wrists and tugging one way while Amber tugged
my hair the other. All hell broke loose then. She kept
yelling that I was having an affair with Mr Clarke.’
She stared wretchedly at the table. ‘My mother looked
as if she was going to be sick – nobody likes the idea
of old men getting excited about young girls – I used
to see it in the eyes of the woman at the Belvedere.’
She turned the cigarette in her fingers. ‘But now, you
know, I think it was because Mum knew that Edward
and my father were doing it as well. That’s what really
made her sick. Makes
me
sick now.’
‘Why didn’t you deny it?’
Olive puffed unhappily on her cigarette. ‘There was
no point. She knew Amber was telling the truth. I
suppose it’s a kind of instinctive thing. You learn a
fact and lots of other little bits and pieces, which
didn’t make sense at the time, suddenly slot into place.
Anyway, all three of them started screeching at me
then, my mother in shock, my father in fury.’ She
shrugged. ‘I’d never seen Dad so angry. Mum let out
about the abortion and he kept slapping my face and calling me a slut. And Amber kept screaming that he
was jealous because he loved Edward, too, and it was
so awful’ – her eyes welled – ‘that I left.’ There was a
rather comical expression on her face. ‘And when I
came back the next day there was blood everywhere
and Mum and Amber were dead.’
‘You stayed out all night?’
Olive nodded. ‘And most of the morning.’
‘But that’s good,’ said Roz leaning forward. ‘We
can prove that. Where did you go?’
‘I walked to the beach.’ She stared at her hands. ‘I
was going to kill myself. I wish I had now. I just sat
there all night and thought about it instead.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘No. I didn’t want to be seen. When it got light I
hid behind a dinghy every time I heard someone
coming.’
‘What time did you get back?’
‘About noon. I hadn’t had anything to eat and I
was hungry.’
‘Did you speak to anyone?’
Olive sighed wearily. ‘Nobody saw me. If they had
I wouldn’t be here.’
‘How did you get into the house? Did you have a
key?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ demanded Roz sharply. ‘You said you left.
I assumed you just walked out as you were.’
Olive’s eyes widened. ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me,’ she howled. ‘No one believes me when I tell the
truth.’ She started to cry again.
‘I do believe you,’ said Roz firmly. ‘I just want to
get it straight.’
‘I went to my room first and got my things. I only
went out because they were all making so much
noise.’ She screwed her face in distress. ‘My father
was weeping. It was horrible.’
‘OK. Go on. You’re back at the house.’
‘I let myself in and went down to the kitchen to
get some food. I stepped in all the blood before I
even knew it was there.’ She looked at the photograph
of her mother and the ready tears sprang into her eyes
afresh. ‘I really don’t like to think about it too much.
It makes me sick when I think about it.’ Her lower
lip wobbled violently.
‘OK,’ said Roz easily, ‘let’s concentrate on something
else. What made you stay? Why didn’t you run
out into the road and call for help?’
Olive mopped at her eyes. ‘I couldn’t move,’ she
said simply. ‘I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I just stood
there thinking how ashamed my mother would be
when people saw her without her clothes on.’ Her lip
kept wobbling like some grotesque toddler’s. ‘I felt
so ill. I wanted to sit down but there wasn’t a chair.’
She held her hand to her mouth and swallowed convulsively.
‘And then Mrs Clarke started banging on
the kitchen window. She kept screaming that God
would never forgive my wickedness, and there was dribble coming out of her mouth.’ A shudder ran
through the big shoulders. ‘I knew I had to shut her
up because she was making it all so much worse. So
I picked up the rolling pin and ran across to the back
door.’ She sighed. ‘But I fell over and she wasn’t there
any more anyway.’
‘Is that when you called the police?’
‘No.’ The wet face worked horribly. ‘I can’t
remember it all now. I went mad for a bit because I
had their blood all over me and I kept scraping my
hands to clean them. But everything I touched was
bloody.’ Her eyes widened at the memory. ‘I’ve always
been so clumsy and the floor was slippery. I kept
stumbling over them and disturbing them and then I
had to touch them to put them back again and there
was more blood on me.’ The sorrowful eyes flooded
again. ‘And I thought, this is all my fault. If I’d never
been born this would never have happened. I sat
down for a long time because I felt sick.’
Roz looked at the bowed head in bewilderment.
‘But why didn’t you tell the police all this?’
She raised drowned blue eyes to Roz’s. ‘I was going
to, but nobody would talk to me. They all thought
I’d done it, you see. And all the time I was thinking
how it was all going to come out, about Edward and
me, and Edward and my father, and the abortion,
and Amber, and her baby, and I thought how much
less embarrassing it would be for everyone if I said I
did it.’
Roz kept her voice deliberately steady. ‘Who did
you think had done it?’
Olive looked miserable. ‘I didn’t think about that
for ages.’ She hunched her shoulders as if defending
herself. ‘And then I knew my father had done it and
they’d find me guilty whatever happened because he
was the only one who could save me.’ She plucked at
her lips. ‘And after that, it was quite a relief just to
say what everyone wanted me to say. I didn’t want
to go home, you see, not with Mum dead, and
Edward next door and everyone knowing. I couldn’t
possibly have gone home.’
‘How did you know your father had done it?’
A whimper of pure pain, like a wounded animal’s,
crooned from Olive’s mouth. ‘Because Mr Crew was
so beastly to me.’ Sorrow poured in floods down her
cheeks. ‘He used to come to our house sometimes
and he’d pat me on the shoulder and say: “How’s
Olive?” But in the police station’ – she buried her
face in her hands – ‘he held a handkerchief to his
mouth to stop himself being sick and stood on the
other side of the room and said: “Don’t say anything
to me or the police, or I won’t be able to help you.”
I knew then.’
Roz frowned. ‘How? I don’t understand.’
‘Because Dad was the only person who knew I
wasn’t there, but he never said a word to Mr Crew
before, or to the police afterwards. Dad must have
done it or he’d have tried to save me. He let me go to prison because he was a coward.’ She sobbed
loudly. ‘And then he died and left his money to
Amber’s child when he could have left a letter, saying
I was innocent.’ She beat her hands against her knees.
‘What did it matter once he was dead?’
Roz took the cigarette from Olive’s fingers and
stood it on the table. ‘Why didn’t you tell the police
you thought it was your father who had done it?
Sergeant Hawksley would have listened to you. He
already suspected your father.’
The fat woman stared at the table. ‘I don’t want
to tell you.’
‘You must, Olive.’
‘You’ll laugh.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I was hungry.’
Roz shook her head in perplexity. ‘I don’t
understand.’
‘The sergeant brought me a sandwich and said I
could have a proper dinner when we’d finished the
statement.’ Her eyes welled again. ‘I hadn’t eaten all
day and I was so hungry,’ she wailed. ‘It was quicker
when I said what they wanted me to say and then I
got my dinner.’ She wrung her hands. ‘People will
laugh, won’t they?’
Roz wondered why it had never occurred to her
that Olive’s insatiable craving for food might have
been a contributory factor in her confession. Mrs
Hopwood had described her as a compulsive eater and stress would have piled on the agonies of the
wretched girl’s hunger. ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘no one
will laugh. But why did you insist on pleading guilty
at your trial? You could have made a fight of it then.
You’d had time to think and get over the shock.’
Olive wiped her eyes. ‘It was too late. I’d confessed.
I had nothing to fight with except diminished responsibility
and I wasn’t going to let Mr Crew call me a
psychopath. I hate Mr Crew.’
‘But if you’d told someone the truth they might
have believed you. You’ve told me and I’ve believed
you.’
Olive shook her head. ‘I’ve told you nothing,’ she
said simply. ‘Everything you know you’ve found out
for yourself. That’s why you believe it.’ Her eyes
flooded again. ‘I did try at the beginning, when I first
came to prison. I told the Chaplain but he doesn’t
like me and thought I was telling lies. I’d confessed,
you see, and only the guilty confess. The psychiatrists
were the most frightening. I thought if I denied the
crime and didn’t show any remorse, they’d say I was
sociopathic and send me to Broadmoor.’
Roz looked at the bent head with compassion.
Olive had never really stood a chance. And who was
to blame at the end of the day? Mr Crew? Robert
Martin? The police? Poor Gwen even, whose dependence
on her daughter had mapped Olive’s life.
Michael Jackson had said it all: ‘She was one of those
people you only think about when you want something done and then you remember them with relief
because you know they’ll do it.’ It had never been
Amber who set out to please, she thought, only Olive,
and as a result she had grown completely dependent
herself. With no one to tell her what to do she had
taken the line of least resistance.
‘You’ll be hearing this officially in the next few days
but I’m damned if you should have to wait for it.
Mr Crew is on bail at the moment, charged with
embezzlement of your father’s money and conspiracy
to defraud. He may also be charged with conspiracy to
murder.’ There was a long pause before Olive looked
up.
The strange awareness was back in her eyes, a look
of triumphant confirmation that made the hair prickle
on the back of Roz’s neck. She thought of Sister
Bridget’s simple assertion of
her
truth:
You were
chosen, Roz, and I wasn’t.
And Olive’s truth? What
was Olive’s truth?
‘I know already.’ Idly Olive removed a pin from
the front of her dress. ‘Prison grapevine,’ she
explained. ‘Mr Crew hired the Hayes brothers to do
over Sergeant Hawksley’s restaurant. You were there,
and you and the Sergeant got beaten up. I’m sorry
about that but I’m not sorry about anything else. I
never liked Mr Hayes much. He always ignored me
and talked to Amber.’ She stuck the pin into the
tabletop. Bits of dried clay and wax still clung to
the head.
Roz arched an eyebrow at the pin. ‘It’s superstitious
rubbish, Olive.’
‘You said it works if you believe in it.’
Roz shrugged. ‘I was joking.’
‘
The Encyclopaedia Britannica
doesn’t joke.’ Olive
chanted in a sing-song voice: ‘Page 96, volume 25,
general heading: Occultism.’ She clapped her hands
excitedly like an over-boisterous child and raised her
voice to a shout. ‘ “
Witchcraft worked in Salem because
the persons involved believed in it.
” ’ She saw the frown
of alarm on Roz’s face. ‘It’s all nonsense,’ she said
calmly. ‘Will Mr Crew be convicted?’
‘I don’t know. He’s claiming that your father gave
him the go-ahead, as executor, to invest the money
while the searches were made for your nephew, and
the bugger is’ – she smiled grimly – ‘if the property
market takes off again, which it probably will, his
investments look very healthy.’ Of the other charges,
only the conspiracy to defraud Hal of the Poacher
had any chance of sticking, purely because Stewart
Hayes’s brother, a far weaker character than Stewart,
had collapsed under police questioning. ‘He’s denying
everything, but the police seem fairly optimistic they
can pin assault charges on both him and the Hayes
boys. I’d give anything to get him for negligence
where your case was concerned. Was he one of the
people you tried to tell the truth to?’
‘No,’ said Olive regretfully. ‘There was no point. He’d been Dad’s solicitor for years. He’d never have
believed Dad had done it.’
Roz started to gather her bits and pieces together.
‘Your father didn’t kill your mother and sister, Olive.
He thought
you
did. Gwen and Amber were alive
when he went to work the next morning. As far as he
was concerned, your statement was completely true.’
‘But he knew I wasn’t there.’
Roz shook her head. ‘I’ll never be able to prove it
but I don’t suppose he even realized you’d gone. He
slept downstairs, remember, and I’ll bet a pound to
a penny you slipped out quietly to avoid attracting
attention to yourself. If you’d only agreed to see him,
you’d have sorted it out.’ She stood up. ‘It’s water
under the bridge, but you shouldn’t have punished
him, Olive. He was no more guilty than you are. He
loved you. He just wasn’t very good at showing it. I
suspect his only fault was to take too little notice of
the clothes women wore.’
Olive shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He told the police your mother owned a nylon
overall.’