Roz shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll go and talk to Mr. Wheelan about Olive Martin. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.”
Mamie tapped her foot impatiently.
“You’ll get me sacked.”
“You talk to me then.”
There was a long pause while the other woman considered her options.
“I’ll tell you what I know, as long as you keep it to yourself,” she said at last.
“Is that a deal? It’s not going to help you one little bit, so you won’t need to use it.”
“Suits me,” said Roz.
“We’ll talk as we walk. The station’s this way. If we hurry I might be able to catch the six thirty.”
Roz caught her arm to hold her back.
“My car’s over there,” she said.
“I’ll drive you instead.” She took Mamie across the road and unlocked the passenger door.
“OK,” she said, getting in the other side and starting the engine.
“Fire away.”
“I did know of her, or at least I knew of an Olive Martin. I can’t swear it’s the same one because I never saw her, but the description sounded right when I read about her in the newspaper. I’ve always assumed it was the same person.”
“Who gave you her description?” asked Roz, turning into the main road.
“There’s no point asking questions,” snapped Marie.
“It’ll just take longer. Let me tell the story my way.” She collected her thoughts.
“I said back there that we hardly ever see customers. Sometimes office managers come in to suss out what sort of operation we run, but normally it’s all done by telephone. Somebody wants something delivered, they phone us and we dispatch a rider, simple as that. Well, one lunchtime, when Wheelan was out getting his sandwiches, this man came into the office. He had a letter that he wanted delivered that afternoon to a Miss Olive Martin. He was prepared to pay over the odds if the dispatch rider would hang around outside where she worked and give it to her quietly as she was leaving.
He was absolutely adamant that it wasn’t to be taken inside and said he was sure I understood why.”
Roz forgot herself.
“And did you?”
“I assumed they were having an affair and that neither of them wanted people asking questions. Anyway, he gave me a twenty quid note for the one letter, and we’re talking six years ago, remember, plus a very good description of Olive Martin, right down to the clothes she was wearing that day. Well, I thought it was a one-off and as that old bastard Wheelan pays peanuts at the best of times, I pocketed the cash and didn’t bother to record the transaction. Instead, I got one of our riders who lived in Dawlington to do it freelance, as it were, on his way home. He got ten for doing virtually nothing and I kept the other ten.” She motioned with her hand.
“You take the next right at the traffic lights and then right at the roundabout.”
Roz put on her indicator.
“Was that Gary O’Brien?”
Marie nodded.
“I suppose the little sod’s been talking.”
“Something like that,” said Roz, avoiding a direct answer.
“Did Gary ever meet this man?”
“No, only Olive. It turned out he’d known her before she used to look after him when he was a child or something so he had no trouble recognising her and didn’t bungle the job by trying to give the letter to the wrong woman. Which, considering what an oaf he was, I thought he might do. Pull in here.” She glanced at her watch as Roz drew to a halt.
“That’s grand. OK, well, the upshot of the whole thing going so smoothly was that Olive’s bloke started to use us quite regularly. All in all we must have delivered about ten letters in the six months before the murders. I think he realised we were doing it on the side because he always came in at lunchtime after Wheelan had gone out. I reckon he used to wait until he saw the old fool leave.”
She shrugged.
“It stopped with the murders and I’ve never seen him since. And that’s all I can tell you except that Gary got really nervous after Olive was arrested and said we should keep our mouths shut about what we knew or the police would be down on us like a ton of bricks. Well, I wasn’t keen to say anything anyway, not because of the police but because of Wheelan. He’d have burst a blood vessel if he’d found out we’d been running a bit of private enterprise behind his back.”
“But didn’t the police turn up anyway about a month later to warn Wheelan against the O’Brien brothers?”
Mamie looked surprised.
“Who told you that?”
“Gary’s mother.”
“First I’ve heard of it. As far as I know they just got bored.
Gary wasn’t so bad because he loved his motorbike but the other two were the most work-shy creeps I’ve ever come across. In the end they were skiving off so often that Wheelan sacked the lot. It’s about the only decision he’s ever made that I agreed with. God, they were unreliable.” She checked her watch again.
“To tell you the truth it amazed me that Gary delivered Olive’s letters so conscientiously. I did wonder if he had a bit of a yen for her himself.” She opened the car door.
“I’ll have togo.”
“Hang on,” said Roz sharply.
“Who was this man?”
“No idea. We dealt in cash and he never gave his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“I’ll miss my train.”
Roz leant across and pulled the door to.
“You’ve got ten minutes and if you don’t give me a decent description I’ll go straight back to your office and spill the beans to Wheelan.”
Mamie shrugged petulantly.
“He was fifty-odd, old enough to be her father if the age they gave for her in the paper was right.
Quite good-looking in a smarmy sort of way, very clean cut and conservative. He had a posh accent. He smoked. He always wore a suit and tie. He was about six foot and he had blond hair. He never said very much, just sort of waited for me to speak, never smiled, never got excited. I remember his eyes because they didn’t go with his hair.
They were very dark brown. And that’s it,” she said firmly.
“I don’t know any more about him and I don’t know anything at all about her.”
“Would you recognise him from a photograph?”
“Probably. Do you know him then?”
Roz drummed her fingers on the steering-wheel.
“It doesn’t make any sense but it sounds exactly like her father.”
ELEVEN
The officer on the gate checked Roz’s name against his list the following Monday, then picked up the telephone.
“The Governor wants to see you,” he said, dialling a number.
“What for?”
“I wouldn’t know, miss.” He spoke into the telephone.
“Miss Leigh’s here for Martin. There’s a note that she’s to see the Governor first. Yes. Will do.” He pointed with his pencil.
“Straight through the first set of gates and you’ll be met the other side.”
It was horribly reminiscent of being hauled before the headmistress at school, thought Roz, waiting nervously in the secretary’s office. She was trying to remember if she’d broken any rule. Bring nothing in and take nothing out. Don’t pass messages. But she had done that, of course, when she spoke to Crew about the will. The slimy little toad must have ratted on her!
“You can go in now,” the secretary told her.
The Governor gestured towards a chair.
“Sit down, Miss Leigh.”
Roz lowered herself into the easy chair, hoping she looked less guilty than she felt.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“No.” She studied Roz for a moment or two, then seemed to reach a decision.
“There’s no point beating about the bush.
Olive has had her privileges suspended and we think you may be the indirect cause of the suspension. According to the logbook you didn’t come in last week, and I’m told Olive was very upset about it. Three days later she destroyed her cell and had to be sedated.” She saw Roz’s surprise.