Crew. I can see myself out.”
He held up a hand to hold her back.
“Have you read her statement, Miss Leigh?”
“Not yet. Your office promised to send it tome.”
He sorted through the file and took out some stapled sheets of paper.
“This is a copy you may keep,” he told her, passing the pages across the desk.
“I urge you to read it before you go any further. It will persuade you, I think, as it persuaded me, of Olive’s guilt.”
Roz picked up the papers.
“You really don’t like her, do you?”
His eyes hardened.
“I have no feelings for her, one way or the other. I merely question society’s rationale in keeping her alive. She kills people. Don’t forget that, Miss Leigh. Good day to you.”
It took Roz an hour and a half to drive back to her flat in London and for most of that time Crew’s words She kills people obscured all other thoughts. She took them out of context and wrote them large across the screen of her mind, dwelling on them with a kind of grim satisfaction.
It was later, curled up in an armchair, that she realised the journey home was a complete blank. She had no recollection, even, of leaving Southampton, a city she wasn’t familiar with.
She could have killed someone, crushing them under the wheels of her car, and she wouldn’t have been able to remember when or how it happened. She stared out of her sitting-room window at the dismal grey facades opposite, and she wondered quite seriously about the nature of diminished responsibility.
STATEMENT MADE BY OLIVE MARTIN 9.9.87 9.30 P.M.
PRESENT: VS HAWK5LEY, VS WYATT, E.P. CREW (SOLICITOR)
My name is Olive Martin. I was born on 8th September, 1964.1 live at 22 Leven Road, Dawlington, Southampton.
I am employed as a clerk in the Department of Health and Social Security in Dawlington High Street. Yesterday was my birthday. I am twenty-three years old. I have always lived at home. My relation ship with my mother and sister has never been close. I get on well with my father. I weigh eighteen and a half stone and my mother and sister have always teased me about it.
Their nickname for me was FattieHattie, after Hattie Jacques, the actress. I am sensitive to being laughed at for my size.
Nothing was planned for my birthday and that upset me. My mother said I wasn’t a child any more and that I must organise my own treats. I decided to show her I was capable of doing something on my own. I arranged to have today off work with the idea of taking the train to London and spending the day sight-seeing. I did not organise the treat for yesterday, my birthday, in case she had planned a surprise for the evening which is what she did for my sister’s twenty-first birthday in July. She did not. We all spent the evening quietly watching television. I went to bed feeling very upset. My parents gave me a pale pink jumper for my birthday present. It was very unflattering and I didn’t like it. My sister gave me some new slippers which I did like.
I woke up feeling nervous about going to London on my own. I asked Amber, my sister, to phone in sick and come with me. She has been working in Glitzy, a fashion boutique in Dawlington, for about a month.
My mother got very angry about this and stopped her. We had an argument over breakfast and my father left for work in the middle of it. He is fifty-five and works three days a week, as a book-keeper for a private haulage company. For many years he owned his own garage. He sold it in 1985 because he had no son to take it over.
The argument became very heated after he left, with my mother blaming me for leading Amber astray. She kept calling me Fattie and laughing at me for being too wet to go to London alone. She said I had been a disappointment to her from the day I was born. Her shouting gave me a headache. I was still very upset that she had done nothing for my birthday and I was jealous because she had given Amber a birthday party.
I went to the drawer and took out the rolling pin. I hit her with it to make her be quiet, then I hit her again when she started screaming.
I might have stopped then but Amber started screaming because of what I had done. I had to hit her too. I have never liked noise.
I made myself a cup of tea and waited. I thought I had knocked them out. They were both lying on the floor. After an hour I wondered if they were dead.
They were very pale and hadn’t moved. I know that if you hold a mirror to someone’s mouth and there is no mist on it afterwards it means they are dead. I used the mirror from my handbag. I held it to their mouths for a long time but there was no mist. Nothing.
I became frightened and wondered how to hide the bodies. At first, I thought of putting them in the attic, but they were too heavy to carry upstairs. Then I decided the sea would be the best place as it’s only two miles from our house, but I can’t drive and, anyway, my father had taken the car. It seemed to me that if I could make them smaller I could fit them into suitcases and carry them that way. I have cut chickens into portions many times. I thought it would be easy to do the same thing with Amber and my mother. I used an axe that we kept in the garage and a carving knife from the kitchen drawer.
It wasn’t at all like cutting up chickens. I was tired by two o’clock and I had only managed to take off the heads and the legs and three of the arms. There was a lot of blood and my hands kept slipping. I knew my father would be home soon and that I could never finish by then as I still had to carry the pieces to the sea. I realised it would be better to ring the police and admit what I had done. I felt much happier once I had made this decision.
It never occurred to me to leave the house and pretend that someone else had done it. I don’t know why except that my mind was set on hiding the bodies. That’s all I thought about. I did not enjoy cutting them up. I had to undress them so I could see where the joints were. I did not know I’d mixed the pieces up. I rearranged them out of decency, but there was so much blood that I couldn’t tell which body was which. I must have put my mother’s head on Amber’s body by mistake. I acted alone.
I am sorry for what I have done. I lost my temper and behaved stupidly. I confirm that everything written here is true.
Signed-OLIVE MARTIN
The statement was a photocopy, covering three typed sheets of A4. On the reverse of the last sheet was a photocopied extract from what was presumably the pathologist’s report. It was brief, just a concluding paragraph, and there was no indication to show who had written it.
The injuries to the heads are entirely consistent with a blow or blows from a heavy solid object. These were inflicted before death and were not fatal. While there is no forensic evidence to suggest that the rolling pin was the weapon used, there is none to prove it wasn’t.
Death in both cases was caused by severance of the carotid artery during the decapitation process. Examination of the axe revealed considerable rusting beneath the blood stains. It is highly probable that it was blunt before it was used to dismember the bodies. The extensive bruising around the cuts on Amber Martin’s neck and trunk indicate three or four strikes with an axe before the cawing knife was used to cut the throat. It is unlikely that she ever regained consciousness In Mrs. Gwen Martin’s case, however, the lacerations to her hands and forearms, inflicted before death, are consistent with her regaining consciousness and trying to defend herself. Two stabbing incisions below the jawline imply two failed attempts before her throat was successfully cut with the knife. These attacks were carried out with savage ferocity.
Roz read the pages through then put them on the table beside her and stared into the middle distance. She felt very cold.