The Sculptress (19 page)

‘Upset her mum, that’s what. Took up with one of
the O’Brien boys, didn’t she?’

‘Which one?’

‘Ah, well, that I’m not too sure about. I’ve always
thought it was the baby, young Gary – mind, I only
saw them together once and those boys are very alike.
Could have been any of them.’

‘How many are there?’

‘Now you’re asking.’ Lily pursed her mouth into a
wrinkled rosebud. ‘It’s a big family. Can’t keep track
of them. Their mum must be a grandmother twenty
times over and I doubt she’s reached sixty yet. Gyppos, dear. Bad apples the lot of them. In and out
of prison that regular you’d think they owned the
place. The mum included. Taught them to steal soon
as they could walk. The kids kept being taken off her,
of course, but never for very long. Always found their
way home. Young Gary was sent to a boarding school
– approved schools, they was called in my day – did
quite well by all accounts.’ She crumbled a scone on
her plate. ‘Till he went home, that is. She had him
back on the thieving quicker than you can say knife.’

Roz thought for a moment. ‘Did Olive tell you she
was going out with one of them?’

‘Not in so many words.’ She tapped her forehead.
‘Put two and two together, didn’t I? She was that
pleased with herself, lost some weight, bought some
pretty dresses from that boutique her sister went to
work in, dabbed some colour on her face. Made herself
look quite bonny, didn’t she? Stood to reason
there was a man behind it somewhere. Asked her once
who it was and she just smiled and said, “No names
no pack drill, Flower, because Mummy would have a
fit if she ever found out.” And then, two or three
days later, I came across her with one of the O’Brien
boys. Her face gave her away, as sunny as the day is
long it was. That was him all right – the one she was
soppy over – but he turned away as I passed, and I
never did know exactly which O’Brien he was.’

‘But what made you think it was an O’Brien
anyway?’

‘The uniform,’ said Lily. ‘They all wore the same
uniform.’

‘They were in the Army?’ asked Roz in surprise.

‘Leathers, they call them.’

‘Oh, I see. You mean they’re bikers, they ride
motorbikes.’

‘That’s it. Hell’s Angels.’

Roz drew her brows together in a perplexed frown.
She had told Hal with absolute conviction that Olive
was not the rebellious type. But Hell’s Angels, for
God’s sake! Could a convent girl get more rebellious
than that? ‘Are you sure about this, Lily?’

‘Well, as to being sure, I don’t know as I’m sure
about anything any more. There was a time when I
was sure that governments knew better how to run
things than I did. Can’t say as I do these days. There
was a time when I was sure that if God was in his
heaven all would be right with the world. Can’t say
as I think that now. If God’s there, dear, He’s blind,
deaf, and dumb, far as I’m concerned. But, yes, I am
sure my poor Dumpling had fallen for one of the
O’Briens. You’d only to look at her to see she was
head over heels in love with the lad.’ She compressed
her lips. ‘Bad business. Bad business.’

Roz sipped the bitter tea. ‘And you think it was
the O’Brien lad who murdered Olive’s mother and
sister?’

‘Must have been, mustn’t it? As I said, dear, bad
apples.’

‘Did you tell the police any of this?’ asked Roz
curiously.

‘I might have done if they’d asked, but I didn’t see
no point in volunteering the information. If Dumpling
wanted them kept out, then that was her affair.
And, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t that keen to run
up against them. Stick together, they do, and my
Frank had passed on not many months before.
Wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d come looking,
would I?’

‘Where do they live?’

‘The Barrow Estate, back of the High Street.
Council likes to keep ’em together, under their eye
so to speak. It’s a shocking place. Not an honest
family there, and they’re not all O’Briens neither. Den
of thieves, that’s what it is.’

Roz took another thoughtful sip from her cup. ‘Are
you prepared to let me use this information, Lily? You
do realize that if there’s anything in it it could help
Olive.’

‘Course I do, dear. Why would I tell you
otherwise?’

‘The police would become involved. They’d want
to talk to you.’

‘I know that.’

‘In which case your name would be out, and the
O’Briens could still come looking for you.’

The old eyes appraised her shrewdly. ‘You’re only
a slip of a thing, dear, but you’ve survived a beating by the look of it. Reckon I can too. In any case,’ she
went on stoutly, ‘I’ve spent six years feeling bad about
not speaking up, and I was that glad when young
Mick phoned and said you was coming, you wouldn’t
believe. You go ahead, dear, and don’t mind about
me. It’s safer here, anyway, than my old place. They
could have set the whole thing alight and I’d have
been dead long before anyone’d have thought of
phoning for help.’

If Roz had expected to see a chapter of Hell’s Angels
rampaging about the Barrow Estate she was disappointed.
At lunchtime on a Friday it was an unexceptional
place, where only the odd dog barked and
young women, in ones and twos, pushed babies in
prams piled high with shopping for the weekend. Like
too many council estates there was a naked and
uncared for look about it, a recognition that what it
offered was not what its tenants wanted. If individuality
was present in these dull uniform walls then it
was inside, away from view. But Roz doubted its existence.
She had a sense of empty spaces marking time
where people waited for somebody else to offer them
something better. Like her, she thought. Like her flat.

As she drove away she passed a large school, advertising
itself with a tired sign beside the gate. Parkway
Comprehensive. Children milled about the tarmac,
the sound of their voices loud in the warm air. Roz slowed the car to watch them for a moment. Groups
of children played the same games whichever school
they went to, but she could see why Gwen had turned
her nose up at Parkway and had sent her girls to
the convent. Its close proximity to the Barrow Estate
would worry even the most liberal of parents, and
Gwen certainly wasn’t that. But it was ironic, if what
Lily and Mr Hayes had said was true, that both
Gwen’s daughters had succumbed to the attractions
of this other world. Was that in spite of or because of
their mother? she wondered.

She told herself she needed a tame policeman to
give her the low-down on the O’Briens, and her road
led inevitably to the Poacher. Being lunchtime the
door to the restaurant was unlocked, but the tables
were as empty as ever. She selected one well away
from the window and sat down, her dark glasses firmly
in place.

‘You won’t need those,’ said Hawksley’s amused
voice from the kitchen doorway. ‘I don’t intend to
put the lights on.’

She smiled, but did not remove the glasses. ‘I’d
like to order some lunch.’

‘OK.’ He held the door wide. ‘Come into the
kitchen. It’s more comfortable in there.’

‘No, I’ll have it in here.’ She stood up. ‘At the
table in the window. I’d like the door open and’ –
she looked for amplifiers and found them – ‘some
loud music, preferably jazz. Let’s liven the place up a bit. Nobody wants to eat in a morgue, for God’s
sake.’ She seated herself in the window.

‘No,’ he said, an odd inflection in his voice. ‘If you
want lunch, you eat it in here with me. Otherwise,
you go somewhere else.’

She studied him thoughtfully. ‘This has nothing to
do with the recession, has it?’

‘What hasn’t?’

‘Your non-existent customers.’

He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Are you going
or staying?’

‘Staying,’ she said, standing up. What was this all
about? she wondered.

‘It’s really none of your concern, Miss Leigh,’ he
murmured, reading her mind. ‘I suggest you stick to
what you know and leave me to deal with my affairs
in my own way.’ Geoff had phoned through the results
of his check the previous Monday. ‘She’s kosher,’ he
had said. ‘A London-based author. Divorced. Had a
daughter who died in a car accident. No previous
connections with anyone in the area. Sorry, Hal.’

‘OK,’ Roz said mildly, ‘but you must admit it’s
very intriguing. I was effectively warned off eating
here by a policeman when I went to the station to
find out where you were. I’ve been wondering why
ever since. With friends like that you don’t really need
enemies, do you?’

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Then you’re very brave to accept my hospitality a second time.’ He held
the door wide.

She walked past him into the kitchen. ‘Just greedy,’
she said. ‘You’re a better cook than I am. In any case,
I intend to pay for what I eat unless, of course’ – her
smile didn’t reach her eyes either – ‘this isn’t a restaurant
at all, but a front for something else.’

That amused him. ‘You’ve an overactive imagination.’
He pulled out a chair for her.

‘Maybe,’ she said, sitting down. ‘But I’ve never
met a restaurateur before who barricades himself
behind bars, presides over empty tables, has no staff,
and looms up in the dark looking like something that’s
been fed through a mincing machine.’ She arched her
eyebrows. ‘If you didn’t cook so well, I’d be even
more inclined to think this wasn’t a restaurant.’

He leaned forward abruptly and removed her dark
glasses, folding them and laying them on the table.
‘And what should I deduce from this?’ he said, unexpectedly
moved by the damage done to her beautiful
eyes. ‘That you’re not a writer because someone’s
left his handprints all over your face?’ He frowned
suddenly. ‘It wasn’t Olive, was it?’

She looked surprised. ‘Of course not.’

‘Who was it, then?’

She dropped her gaze. ‘No one. It’s not
important.’

He waited for a moment. ‘Is it someone you care
about?’

‘No.’ She clasped her hands loosely on the table
top. ‘Rather the reverse. It’s someone I don’t care
about.’ She looked up with a half smile. ‘Who beat
you up, Sergeant? Someone
you
care about?’

He pulled open a fridge door and examined its
contents. ‘One of these days your passion for poking
your nose into other people’s business is going to get
you into trouble. What do you fancy? Lamb?’

‘I really came to see you for some more information,’
she told him over coffee.

Humour creased his eyes. He really was extraordinarily
attractive, she thought, wistfully aware that the
attraction was all one way. Lunch had been a friendly
but distant meal, with a large sign between them
saying: so far and no further. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Do you know the O’Brien family? They live on
the Barrow Estate.’

‘Everyone knows the O’Briens.’ He frowned at her.
‘But if there’s a connection between them and Olive
I’ll eat my hat.’

‘You’re going to have galloping indigestion then,’
she said acidly. ‘I’ve been told she was going out with
one of the sons at the time of the murders. Probably
Gary, the youngest. What’s he like? Have you met
him?’

He linked his hands behind his head. ‘Someone’s
winding you up,’ he murmured. ‘Gary is marginally brighter than the rest of them, but I’d guess his educational
level is still about fourteen years old. They
are the most useless, inadequate bunch I’ve ever come
across. The only thing they know how to do is petty
thieving and they don’t even do that very well. There’s
Ma O’Brien and about nine children, mostly boys, all
grown up now, and, when they’re not in prison, they
play box and cox in a three-bedroomed house on the
estate.’

‘Aren’t any of them married?’

‘Not for long. Divorce is more prevalent in that
family than marriage. The wives usually make other
arrangements while their men are inside.’ He flexed
his laced fingers. ‘They produce a lot of babies,
though, if the fact that a third generation of O’Briens
has started appearing regularly in the juvenile courts
is anything to go by.’ He shook his head. ‘Someone’s
winding you up,’ he said again. ‘For all her sins Olive
wasn’t stupid and she’d have to have been brain-dead
to fall for a jerk like Gary O’Brien.’

‘Are they really as bad as that?’ she asked him
curiously. ‘Or is this police animosity?’

He smiled. ‘I’m not police, remember? But they’re
that bad,’ he assured her. ‘Every patch has families
like the O’Briens. Sometimes, if you’re really unlucky,
you get an estateful of them, like the Barrow Estate,
when the council decides to lump all its bad apples
into one basket and then expects the wretched police
to throw a cordon round it.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘It’s one of the reasons I left the Force. I got
sick to death of being sent out to sweep up society’s
messes. It’s not the police who create these ghettos,
it’s the councils and the governments, and ultimately
society itself.’

‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ she said. ‘In that case
why do you despise the O’Briens so much? They
sound as if they need help and support rather than
condemnation.’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s because they’ve
already had more help and support than you or I will
ever be offered. They take everything society gives
them and then demand more. There’s no quid pro
quo with people like that. They put nothing in to
compensate for what they’ve had out. Society owes
them a living and, by God, they make sure society
pays, usually in the shape of some poor old woman
who has all her savings stolen.’ His lips thinned. ‘If
you’d arrested those worthless shits as often as I
have, you’d despise them, too. I don’t deny they
represent an underclass of society’s making, but I
resent their unwillingness to try and rise above it.’ He
saw her frown. ‘You look very disapproving. Have I
offended your liberal sensibilities?’

‘No,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I was just
thinking how like Mr Hayes you sound. Remember
him? “What shall I say?” ’ – she mimicked the old
man’s soft burr – ‘ “They should all be strung up from the nearest lamppost and shot.” ’ She smiled
when he laughed.