The Sculptress (12 page)

‘It was she, I think, who was the instigator of it all.
I’ve always assumed he must have had an affair which
she found out about, though I must stress I don’t
know that. He was a nice looking man, very easy to
talk to, and, of course, he got out and about with his
job. Whereas she, as far as I could see, had no friends
at all, a few acquaintances perhaps, but one never
came across her socially. She was a very controlled
woman, cold and unemotional. Really rather
unpleasant. Certainly not the type one could ever
grow fond of.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Olive
was very much her daughter, of course, both in looks
and personality, and Amber his. Poor Olive,’ she said
with genuine compassion. ‘She did have very little
going for her.’

Mrs Hopwood looked at Roz and sighed heavily.
‘You asked me earlier where I was while all this was
going on. I was bringing up my own children, my
dear, and if you have any yourself you will know it’s
hard enough to cope with them, let alone interfere
with someone else’s. I do regret now that I didn’t say
anything at the time, but, really, what could I have
done? In any case, I felt it was the school’s responsibility.’ She spread her hands. ‘But there you are, it’s
so easy with hindsight, and who could possibly have
guessed that Olive would do what she did? I don’t
suppose anyone realized just how disturbed she was.’
She dropped her hands to her lap and looked helplessly
at her husband.

Mr Hopwood pondered for a moment. ‘Still,’ he
said slowly, ‘there’s no point pretending we’ve ever
believed she killed Amber. I went to the police about
that, you know, told them I thought it was very
unlikely. They said my disquiet was based on out-of-date information.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘Which of
course was true. It was five years or so since we’d had
any dealings with the family, and in five years the
sisters could well have learned to dislike each other.’
He fell silent.

‘But if Olive didn’t kill Amber,’ Roz prompted,
‘then who did?’

‘Gwen,’ he said with surprise, as if it went without
saying. He smoothed his white hair. ‘We think Olive
walked in on her mother battering Amber. That would
have been quite enough to send her berserk, assuming
she had retained her fondness for the girl.’

‘Was Gwen capable of doing such a thing?’

They looked at each other. ‘We’ve always thought
so,’ said Mr Hopwood. ‘She was very hostile towards
Amber, probably because Amber was so like her father.’

‘What did the police say?’ asked Roz.

‘I gather Robert Martin had already suggested the
same thing. They put it to Olive and she denied it.’

Roz stared at him. ‘You’re saying Olive’s father
told the police that he thought his wife had battered
his younger daughter to death and that Olive then
killed her mother?’

He nodded.

‘God!’ she breathed. ‘His solicitor never said a
word about that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘It
implies, you know, that Gwen had battered the child
before. No man would make an accusation like that
unless he had grounds for it, would he?’

‘Perhaps he just shared our disbelief that Olive
could kill her sister.’

Roz chewed her thumbnail and stared at the carpet.
‘She claimed in her statement that her relationship
with her sister had never been close. Now, I might go
along with that if I accept that in the years after school
they drifted apart, but I can’t go along with it if her
own father thought they were still so close that Olive
would kill to revenge her.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m
damn sure Olive’s barrister never got to hear about
this. The poor man was trying to conjure a defence
out of thin air.’ She looked up. ‘Why did Robert
Martin give up on it? Why did he let her plead guilty?
According to her she did it to spare him the anguish
of a trial.’

Mr Hopwood shook his head. ‘I really couldn’t
say. We never saw him again. Presumably, he somehow
became convinced of her guilt.’ He massaged arthritic
fingers. ‘The problem for all of us is trying to accept
that a person we know is capable of doing something
so horrible, perhaps because it shows up the fallibility
of our judgement. We knew her before it happened.
You, I imagine, have met her since. In both cases, we
have failed to see the flaw in her character that led
her to murder her mother and sister, and we look for
excuses. In the end, though, I don’t think there are
any. It’s not as if the police had to beat her confession
out of her. As far as I understand it, it was they who
insisted she wait till her solicitor was present.’

Roz frowned. ‘And yet you’re still troubled by it.’

He smiled slightly. ‘Only when someone pops up
to stir the dregs again. By and large we rarely think
about it. There’s no getting away from the fact that
she signed a confession saying she did it.’

‘People are always confessing to crimes they didn’t
commit,’ countered Roz bluntly. ‘Timothy Evans was
hanged for his confession, while downstairs Christie
went on burying his victims under the floorboards.
Sister Bridget said Olive lied about everything, you
and your daughter have both cited lies she told. What
makes you think she was telling the truth in this one
instance?’

They didn’t say anything.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Roz with an apologetic smile.
‘I don’t mean to harangue you. I just wish I understood
what it was all about. There are so many
inconsistencies. I mean why, for example, did Robert
Martin stay in the house after the deaths? You’d expect
him to move heaven and earth to get out of it.’

‘You must talk to the police,’ said Mr Hopwood.
‘They know more about it than anyone.’

‘Yes,’ Roz said quietly, ‘I must.’ She picked up her
cup and saucer from the floor and put them on the
table. ‘Can I ask you three more things? Then I’ll
leave you in peace. First, is there anyone else you can
think of who might be able to help me?’

Mrs Hopwood shook her head. ‘I really know very
little about her after she left school. You’ll have to
trace the people she worked with.’

‘Fair enough. Second, did you know that Amber
had a baby when she was thirteen years old?’ She read
the astonishment in their faces.

‘Good Heavens!’ said Mrs Hopwood.

‘Quite. Third . . .’ She paused for a moment,
remembering Graham Deedes’ amused reaction. Was
it fair to make Olive a figure of fun? ‘Third,’ she
repeated firmly, ‘Gwen persuaded Olive to have an
abortion. Do you know anything about that?’

Mrs Hopwood looked thoughtful. ‘Would that
have been at the beginning of eighty-seven?’

Roz, unsure how to answer, nodded.

‘I was having problems of my own with a prolonged
menopause,’ said Mrs Hopwood, matter of
factly. ‘I bumped into her and Gwen quite by chance
at the hospital. It was the last time I saw them. Gwen
was very jumpy. She tried to pretend they were there
for a gynaecological reason of her own but I couldn’t
help noticing that it was clearly Olive who had the
problem. The poor girl was in tears.’ She tut-tutted
crossly. ‘What a mistake not to let her have it. It
explains the murders, of course. They must have happened
around the time the baby would have been
due. No wonder she was disturbed.’

Roz drove back to Leven Road. This time the door
to number 22 stood ajar and a young woman was
clipping the low hedge that bordered the front
garden. Roz drew her car into the kerb and stepped
out. ‘Hi,’ she said, holding out her hand and shaking
the other’s firmly. Immediate, friendly contact, she
hoped, would stop this woman barring the door to
her as her neighbour had done. ‘I’m Rosalind Leigh.
I came the other day but you were out. I can see your
time’s precious so I won’t stop you working, but can
we talk while you’re doing it?’

The young woman shrugged as she resumed her
clipping. ‘If you’re selling anything, and that includes
religion, then you’re wasting your time.’

‘I want to talk about your house.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ said the other in disgust. ‘Sometimes
I wish we’d never bought the flaming thing. What are
you? Psychical bloody research? They’re all nutters.
They seem to think the kitchen is oozing with ectoplasm
or something equally disgusting.’

‘No. Far more earthbound. I’m writing a follow-up
report on the Olive Martin case.’

‘Why?’

‘There are some unanswered questions. Like, for
example, why did Robert Martin remain here after
the murders?’

‘And you’re expecting me to answer that?’ She
snorted. ‘I never even met him. He was long dead
before we moved in. You should talk to old Hayes’ –
she jerked her head towards the adjoining garages –
‘he’s the only one who knew the family.’

‘I have talked to him. He doesn’t know either.’ She
glanced towards the open front door but all she could
see was an expanse of peach wall and a triangle of
russet carpet. ‘I gather the house has been gutted and
redecorated. Did you do that yourselves or did you
buy it after it was done?’

‘We did it ourselves. My old man’s in the building
trade. Or was,’ she corrected herself. ‘He was made
redundant ten, twelve months ago. We were lucky,
managed to sell our other house without losing too
much, and bought this for a song. Did it without a
mortgage, too, so we’re not struggling the way some
other poor sods are.’

‘Has he found another job?’ Roz asked sympathetically.

The young woman shook her head. ‘Hardly. Building’s all he knows and there’s precious little of that at
the moment. Still, he’s trying his best. Can’t do more
than that, can he?’ She lowered the shears. ‘I suppose
you’re wondering if we found anything when we
gutted the house.’

Roz nodded. ‘Something like that.’

‘If we had, we’d have told someone.’

‘Of course, but I wouldn’t have expected you to
find anything incriminating. I was thinking more in
terms of impressions. Did the place look loved, for
example? Is that why he stayed? Because he loved it?’

The woman shook her head. ‘I reckon it was more
of a prison. I can’t swear to it because I don’t know
for sure, but my guess is he only used one room and
that was the room downstairs at the back, the one that
was attached to the kitchen and the cloakroom with
its own door into the garden. Maybe he went through
to the kitchen to cook, but I doubt it. The connecting
door was locked and we never found the key. Plus,
there was an ancient Baby Belling still plugged into
one of the sockets in that room, which the house
clearers couldn’t be bothered to take, and my bet is
he did all his cooking on that. The garden was nice.
I think he lived in the one room and the garden, and
never went into the rest of the house at all.’

‘Because the door was locked?’

‘No, because of the nicotine. The windows were
so thick with it that the glass looked yellow. And the
ceiling’ – she pulled a face – ‘was dark brown. The
smell of old tobacco was overpowering. He must have
smoked non-stop in there. It was disgusting. But there
were no nicotine stains anywhere else in the house. If
he ever went beyond the connecting door, then it
can’t have been for very long.’

Roz nodded. ‘He died of a heart attack.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Would you object to my taking a look inside?’

‘There’s no point. It’s completely different. We
knocked out any walls that weren’t structural and
changed the whole layout downstairs. If you want to
know what it looked like when he was here, then I’ll
draw you a plan. But you don’t come in. If I say yes
to you, then there’s no end to it, is there? Any Tom,
Dick, or Harry can demand to put his foot through
our door.’

‘Point taken. A plan would be more helpful,
anyway.’ She reached into the car for a notepad and
pencil and passed it across.

‘It’s much nicer now,’ said the self-possessed young
woman, drawing with swift strokes. ‘We’ve opened up
the rooms and put some colour into them. Poor Mrs
Martin had no idea at all. I think, you know, she
was probably rather boring. There.’ She passed the
notepad back. ‘That’s the best I can do.’

‘Thank you,’ said Roz studying the plan. ‘Why
do you think Mrs Martin was boring?’

‘Because everything – walls, doors, ceilings,
everything
– was painted white. It was like an operating
theatre, cold and antiseptic, without a spot of colour.
And she didn’t have pictures either, because there
were no marks on the walls.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t
like houses like that. They never look lived in.’

Roz smiled as she glanced up at the red-brick
façade. ‘I’m glad it’s you who bought it. I should
think it feels lived in now. I don’t believe in ghosts
myself.’

‘Put it this way, if you want to see ghosts, you’ll
see them. If you don’t, you won’t.’ She tapped the
side of her head. ‘It’s all in the mind. My old dad
used to see pink elephants but no one ever thought
his
house was haunted.’

Roz was laughing as she drove away.

THE CAR PARK
of the Poacher was as deserted as
before but this time it was three o’clock in the afternoon,
lunchtime was over, and the door was bolted.
Roz tapped on the window pane but, getting no
response, made her way round to the alley at the back
where the kitchen door must be. It stood ajar and
from inside came the sound of singing.

‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Sergeant Hawksley?’ She put
her hand on the door to push it wider and almost
lost her balance when it was whipped away from her.
‘You did that on purpose!’ she snapped. ‘I could have
broken my arm.’

‘Good God, woman,’ he said in mock disgust.
‘Can’t you open your mouth without nagging? I’m
beginning to think I did my ex-wife an injustice.’ He
crossed his arms, a fish slice dangling from one hand.
‘What do you want this time?’

He had a peculiar talent for putting her at a disadvantage.
She bit back an angry retort. ‘I’m sorry,’ she
said instead. ‘It’s just that I nearly fell over. Look, are
you busy at the moment or can I come in and talk
to you?’ She examined his face warily for signs of
further damage but there were none that hadn’t been
there before.