Authors: Minette Walters
‘Can I help you?’
She turned with a smile. ‘I hope so.’
A smart woman in her late fifties had paused in
front of a door marked Secretary. ‘Are you a prospective
parent?’
‘I wish I were. It’s a lovely school. No children,’
she explained at the woman’s look of puzzled enquiry.
‘I see. So how can I help you?’
Roz took out one of her cards. ‘Rosalind Leigh,’
she introduced herself. ‘Would it be possible for me
to talk to the headmistress?’
‘Now?’ said the woman in surprise.
‘Yes, if she’s free. If not, I can make an appointment
and come back later.’
The woman took the card and read it closely. ‘May
I ask what you want to talk about?’
Roz shrugged. ‘Just some general information
about the school and the sort of girls who come here.’
‘Would you be the Rosalind Leigh who wrote
Through the Looking Glass
by any chance?’
Roz nodded.
Through the Looking Glass
, her last
book and her best, had sold well and won some excellent
reviews. A study of the changing perceptions of
female beauty down the ages, she wondered now how
she had ever managed to summon the energy to write
it. A labour of love, she thought, because the subject
had fascinated her.
‘I’ve read it.’ The other smiled. ‘I agreed with very
few of your conclusions but it was extremely thought-provoking
none the less. You write lovely prose, but
I’m sure you know that.’
Roz laughed. She felt an immediate liking for the
woman. ‘At least you’re honest.’
The other looked at her watch. ‘Come into my
office. I have some parents to see in half an hour, but
I’m happy to give you general information until then.
This way.’ She opened the secretary’s door and ushered
Roz through to an adjoining office. ‘Sit down,
do. Coffee?’
‘Please.’ Roz took the chair indicated and watched
her busy herself with a kettle and some cups. ‘Are you
the headmistress?’
‘I am.’
‘They were always nuns in my day.’
‘So you’re a convent girl. I thought you might be.
Milk?’
‘Black and no sugar, please.’
She placed a steaming cup on the desk in front of
Roz and sat down opposite her. ‘In fact I am a nun.
Sister Bridget. My order gave up wearing the habit
quite some time ago. We found it tended to create an
artificial barrier between us and the rest of society.’
She chuckled. ‘I don’t know what it is about religious
uniforms, but people try to avoid you if they can. I
suppose they feel they have to be on their best
behaviour. It’s very frustrating. The conversation is
often so stilted.’
Roz crossed her legs and relaxed into the chair. She
was unaware of it but her eyes betrayed her. They
brimmed with all the warmth and humour that, a
year ago, had been the outward expression of her
personality. Bitterness, it seemed, could only corrode
so far. ‘It’s probably guilt,’ she said. ‘We have to guard
our tongues in case we provoke the sermon we know
we deserve.’ She sipped the coffee. ‘What made you
think I was a convent girl?’
‘Your book. You get very hot under the collar about
established religions. I guessed you were either a
lapsed Jew or a lapsed Catholic. The Protestant yoke
is easier to discard, being far less oppressive in the first
place.’
‘In fact I wasn’t a lapsed anything when I wrote
Through the Looking Glass
,’ said Roz mildly. ‘I was a
good Catholic still.’
Sister Bridget interpreted the cynicism in her voice.
‘But not now.’
‘No. God died on me.’ She smiled slightly at the
look of understanding on the other woman’s face.
‘You read about it, I suppose. I can’t applaud your
taste in newspapers.’
‘I’m an educator, my dear. We take the tabloids
here as well as the broadsheets.’ She didn’t drop her
gaze or show embarrassment, for which Roz was
grateful. ‘Yes, I read about it and I would have punished
God, too. It was very cruel of Him.’
Roz nodded. ‘If I remember right,’ she said, reverting
to her book, ‘religion is confined to only one
chapter of my book. Why did you find my conclusions
so hard to agree with?’
‘Because they are all drawn from a single premiss.
As I can’t accept the premiss, then I can’t agree with
the conclusions.’
Roz wrinkled her brow. ‘Which premiss?’
‘That beauty is only skin deep.’
Roz was surprised. ‘And you don’t think that’s
true?’
‘No, not as a general rule.’
‘I’m speechless. And you a nun!’
‘Being a nun has nothing to do with it. I’m
streetwise.’
It was an unconscious echo of Olive. ‘You really
believe that beautiful people are beautiful all the way
through? I can’t accept that. By the same token ugly
people are ugly all the way through.’
‘You’re putting words into my mouth, my dear.’
Sister Bridget was amused. ‘I am simply questioning
the idea that beauty is a surface quality.’ She cradled
her coffee cup in her hands. ‘It’s a comfortable
thought, of course – it means we can all feel good
about ourselves – but beauty, like wealth, is a moral
asset. The wealthy can afford to be law abiding, generous
and kind. The very poor cannot. Even kindness
is a struggle when you don’t know where your next
penny is coming from.’ She gave a quirky smile. ‘Poverty
is only uplifting when you can choose it.’
‘I wouldn’t disagree with that, but I don’t see the
connection between beauty and wealth.’
‘Beauty cushions you against the negative emotions
that loneliness and rejection inspire. Beautiful people
are prized – they always have been, you made that
point yourself – so they have less reason to be spiteful,
less reason to be jealous, less reason to covet what
they can’t have. They tend to be the focus of all
those emotions, rarely the instigators of them.’ She
shrugged. ‘You will always have exceptions – most
of them you uncovered in your book – but, in my
experience, if a person is attractive then that attractiveness
runs deep. You can argue which comes first, the
inner beauty or the outer, but they do tend to walk
together.’
‘So if you’re rich and beautiful the pearly gates will
swing open for you?’ She smiled cynically. ‘That’s a
somewhat radical philosophy for a Christian, isn’t it? I
thought Jesus preached the exact opposite. Something
like it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of
a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven.’
Sister Bridget laughed good-humouredly. ‘Yours
was obviously an excellent convent.’ She stirred her
coffee absent-mindedly with a biro. ‘Yes, He did say
that but, if you put it in context, it supports my view,
I think, rather than detracts from it. If you remember,
a wealthy young man asked Him how he could have
eternal life. Jesus said: keep the commandments. The
youth answered: I have kept them, since childhood,
but what more can I do. If you want to be perfect,
said Jesus – and I emphasize the
perfect
– sell all you
have and give it to the poor,
then
follow me. The
young man went away sorrowing because he had
many possessions and could not bring himself to sell
them. It was then Jesus made the reference to the
camel and the eye of the needle. He was, you see,
talking about perfection, not goodness.’ She sucked
the end of her biro. ‘In fairness to the young man, I
have always assumed that to sell his possessions
would have meant selling houses and businesses with
tenants and employees in them, so the moral dilemma
would have been a difficult one. But what I think
Jesus was saying was this: so far you have been a good
man, but to test how good you really are, reduce
yourself to abject poverty. Perfection is to follow me
and keep the commandments when you are so poor
that stealing and lying are a way of life if you want to
be sure of waking up the next morning. An impossible
goal.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘I could be wrong, of
course.’ There was a twinkle in her eye.
‘Well, I’m not going to argue the toss with you on
that,’ said Roz bluntly. ‘I suspect I’d be on a hiding
to nothing. But I reckon you’re on very bumpy
ground with your beauty is a moral asset argument.
What about the pitfalls of vanity and arrogance? And
how do you explain that some of the nicest people I
know are, by no stretch of the imagination, beautiful?’
Sister Bridget laughed again, a happy sound. ‘You
keep twisting my words. I have never said that to be
nice you have to be beautiful. I merely dispute your
assertion that beautiful people are
not
nice. My observation
is that very often they are. At the risk of labouring
the point, they can afford to be.’
‘Then we’re back to my previous question. Does
that mean ugly people are very often not nice?’
‘It doesn’t follow, you know, any more than saying
poor people are invariably wicked. It just means the
tests are harder.’ She cocked her head on one side.
‘Take Olive and Amber as a case in point. After all,
that’s why you’ve really come to see me. Amber led
a charmed life. She was quite the loveliest child I’ve
ever seen and with a nature to match. Everyone
adored her. Olive, on the other hand, was universally
unpopular. She had few redeeming features. She was
greedy, deceitful, and often cruel. I found her very
hard to like.’
Roz made no attempt to deny her interest. The
conversation had, in any case, been about them from
the beginning. ‘Then you were being tested as much
as she was. Did you fail? Was it impossible to like her?’
‘It was very difficult until Amber joined the school.
Olive’s best quality was that she loved her sister, without
reserve and quite unselfishly. It was really rather
touching. She fussed over Amber like a mother hen,
often ignoring her own interests to promote Amber’s.
I’ve never seen such affection between sisters.’
‘So why did she kill her?’
‘Why indeed? It’s time that question was asked.’
The older woman drummed her fingers impatiently
on the desk. ‘I visit her when I can. She won’t tell
me, and the only explanation I can offer is that her
love, which was obsessional, turned to a hate that was
equally obsessional. Have you met Olive?’
Roz nodded.
‘What did you make of her?’
‘She’s bright.’
‘Yes, she is. She could have gone to university if
only the then headmistress had managed to persuade
her mother of the advantages. I was a lowly teacher
in those days.’ She sighed. ‘But Mrs Martin was a
decided woman, and Olive very much under her
thumb. There was nothing we, as a school, could do
to make her change her mind. The two girls left
together, Olive with three good A-levels and Amber
with four rather indifferent O-levels.’ She sighed
again. ‘Poor Olive. She went to work as a cashier in
a supermarket while Amber, I believe, tried her hand
at hairdressing.’
‘Which supermarket was it?’
‘Pettit’s in the High Street. But the place went out
of business years ago. It’s an off-licence now.’
‘She was working at the local DHSS, wasn’t she,
at the time of the murders?’
‘Yes and doing very well, I believe. Her mother
pushed her into it, of course.’ Sister Bridget reflected
for a moment. ‘Funnily enough, I bumped into Olive
quite by chance just a week or so before the murders.
I was pleased to see her. She looked’ – she paused –
‘happy. Yes, I think happy is exactly the word for it.’
Roz let the silence drift while she busied herself
with her own thoughts. There was so much about
this story that didn’t make sense. ‘Did she get on with
her mother?’ she asked at last.
‘I don’t know. I always had the impression she
preferred her father. It was Mrs Martin who wore the
trousers, of course. If there were choices to be made,
it was invariably she who made them. She was very
domineering, but I don’t recall Olive voicing any
antagonism towards her. She was a difficult woman to
talk to. Very correct, always. She appeared to watch
every word she said in case she gave herself away.’ She
shook her head. ‘But I never did find out what it was
that needed hiding.’
There was a knock on the connecting door and a
woman popped her head inside. ‘Mr and Mrs Barker
are waiting, Sister. Are you ready for them?’
‘Two minutes, Betty.’ She smiled at Roz. ‘I’m
sorry. I’m not sure I’ve been very helpful. Olive had
one friend while she was here, not a friend as you or
I would know it, but a girl with whom she talked
rather more than she did with any of the others. Her
married name is Wright – Geraldine Wright – and she
lives in a village called Wooling about ten miles north
of here. If she’s willing to talk to you then I’m sure
she can tell you more than I have. The name of her
house is Oaktrees.’
Roz jotted down the details in her diary. ‘Why do
I have the feeling you were expecting me?’
‘Olive showed me your letter the last time I saw
her.’
Roz stood up, gathering her briefcase and handbag
together. She regarded the other woman thoughtfully.
‘It may be that the only book I can write is a cruel
one.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No, I don’t think so either.’ She paused by the
door. ‘I’ve enjoyed meeting you.’
‘Come and see me again,’ said Sister Bridget. ‘I’d
like to know how you get on.’
Roz nodded. ‘I suppose there’s no doubt that she
did it?’
‘I really don’t know,’ said the other woman slowly.
‘I’ve wondered, of course. The whole thing is so
shocking that it
is
hard to accept.’ She seemed to
come to a conclusion. ‘Be very careful, my dear. The
only certainty about Olive is that she lies about almost
everything.’
Roz jotted down the name of the arresting officer
from the press clippings and called in at the police
station on her way back to London. ‘I’m looking for
a DS Hawksley,’ she told the young constable behind
the front desk. ‘He was with this division in nineteen
eighty-seven. Is he still here?’