“Well?” she demanded.
The Chaplain frowned.
“I don’t know. The gallows?”
She set the matchstick swinging.
“Or the sword of Damocles.
It amounts to the same thing when Lucifer owns your soul.”
He perched on the edge of the table and offered her a cigarette.
“It’s not Man in general, is it?” he said, flicking his lighter.
“It’s someone specific. Am I right?”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
She fished a letter from her pocket and handed it to him. He spread the single page on the table and read it. It was a standard letter, personalised on a word processor, and very brief.
Dear Miss Martin, Please be advised that unforeseen circumstances have obliged Mr. Peter Crew to take extended leave from this practice.
During his absence his clients’ affairs will be covered by his partners. Please be assured of our continued assistance.
Yours etc.
The Chaplain looked up.
“I don’t understand.”
Olive inhaled deeply then blew a stream of smoke towards the matchstick. It spiralled wildly before slipping from the noose and striking the day forehead.
“My solicitor’s been arrested.”
Startled, he looked at the day figure. He didn’t bother to ask if she was sure. He knew the efficiency of the cell telegraph as well as she did.
“What for?”
“Wickedness.” She stubbed her cigarette into the clay.
“MAN was born to it. Even you, Chaplain.” She peeped at him to watch his reaction.
He chuckled.
“You’re probably right. But I do my best to fight it, you know.”
She took another of his cigarettes.
“I shall miss you,” she said unexpectedly.
“When?”
“When they let me out.”
He looked at her with a puzzled smile.
“That’s a long way off. We’ve years yet.”
But she shook her head and mashed the clay into a ball with the dog end in the middle.
“You never asked me who Eve was.”
The game again, he thought.
“I didn’t need to, Olive. I knew.”
She smiled scornfully to herself.
“Yes, you would.” She examined him out of the corner of her eye.
“Did you work it out for yourself?” she asked.
“Or did God tell you? Look, my son, Olive strikes her reflection in the clay. Now help her to come to terms with her own duplicity. Well, don’t worry, either way I shall remember what you did for me when I get out.”
What did she want from him? Encouragement that she would get out, or rescuing from her lies? He sighed inwardly. Really, it would all be so much easier if he liked her, but he didn’t.
And that was his wickedness.
NINETEEN
Olive regarded Roz with deep suspicion. Contentment had brought a glow to the other woman’s usually pale cheeks.
“You look different,” she said in an accusing tone as if what she saw displeased her.
Roz shook her head.
“No. Everything’s the same.” Lies were safer sometimes. She was afraid Olive would regard her moving in with the police officer who arrested her as a betrayal.
“Did you get my message last Monday night?”
Olive was at her most unattractive, unwashed hair hanging limply about her colourless face, a smear of tomato ketchup ground into the front of her shift, the smell of her sweat almost unbearable in the small room.
She vibrated with irritation, her forehead set in a permanent scowl, ready, it seemed to Roz, to reject anything that was said to her. She didn’t answer.
“Is something wrong?” Roz asked evenly.
“I don’t want to see you any more.”
Roz turned her pencil in her fingers.
“Why not?”
“I don’t have to give a reason.”
“It would be polite,” said Roz in the same even tone.
“I’ve invested a great deal of time, energy, and affection in you. I thought we were friends.”
Olive’s lip curled.
“Friends,” she hissed scathingly.
“We’re not friends. You’re Miss Wonderful making money out of doing her Lady Muck bit and I’m the poor sap who’s being exploited.”
She splayed her hands across the table top and tried to get up.
“I don’t want you to write your book.”
“Because you’d rather be treated with awe in here than laughed at outside.” Roz shook her head.
“You’re a fool, Olive.
And a coward as well. I thought you had more guts.”
Olive pursed her fat lips as she struggled to rise.
“I’m not listening,” she said childishly.
“You’re trying to make me change my mind.”
“Of course I am.” She rested her cheek against one raised hand.
“I shall write the book whether you want me to or not. I’m not afraid of you, you see. You can instruct a solicitor to take out an injunction to stop me, but he won’t succeed because I shall argue that you’re innocent, and a court will uphold my right to publish in the interests of natural justice.”
Olive slumped back on to her chair.
“I’ll write to a Civil Liberties group. They’ll support me.”
“Not when they find out I’m trying to get you released, they won’t.
They’ll support me.”
“The Court of Human Rights, then. I’ll say what you’re doing is an invasion of my privacy.”
“Go ahead. You’ll make me a fortune. Everyone will buy the book to find out what the fuss is all about. And if it’s argued in a court, whichever one it is, I shall make damn sure this time that the evidence is heard.”
“What evidence?”
“The evidence that proves you didn’t do it.”
Olive slammed a meaty fist on to the table.
“I did do it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did!” roared the fat woman.
“You did not,” said Roz, her eyes flashing with anger.
“When will you face up to the fact that your mother is dead, you silly woman.” She banged the table in her turn.
“She’s not there for you any more, Olive, and she never will be, however long you hide inhere.”
Two fat tears rolled down Olive’s cheeks.
“I don’t like you.”
Roz continued brutally.
“You came home, saw what your precious lover had done, and went into shock. And God knows, I don’t blame you.” She took the mortuary photographs of Gwen and Amber from her bag and slapped them on the table in front of Olive.
“You adored your mother, didn’t you? You always adore the people who need you.”
Olive’s anger was enormous.
“That’s crap, bloody fucking crap!”
Roz shook her head.
“I needed you. That’s how I know.”
Olive’s lip trembled.
“You wanted to know how it felt to kill someone, that’s all you needed me for.”
“No.” Roz reached across and took a large, soft hand in hers.
“I needed someone to love. You’re very easy to love, Olive.”
The woman tore the hand away and clamped it across her face.
“No one loves me,” she whispered.
“No one’s ever loved me.”
“You’re wrong,” said Roz firmly.
“I love you. Sister Bridget loves you. And we are not going to abandon you the minute you get out. You must trust us.” She closed her mind on the insidious voice that murmured warnings against a long-term commitment she could never keep and against well-meant lies that could so easily rebound on her.
“Tell me about Amber,” she went on gently.
“Tell me why your mother needed you.”
A sigh of surrender shuddered through the huge frame.
“She wanted her own way all the time, and if she didn’t get it she made life hell for everyone. She told lies about things people did to her, spread awful stories, even hurt people sometimes.
She poured boiling water down my mother’s arm once to punish her, so we used to give in just to make life easy. She was as nice as pie as long as everyone did what she wanted.” She licked the tears from her lips.