The Sculptress (24 page)

“If it did you wouldn’t have driven all these miles to talk to me. You could have sought out your friendly policeman. He would have approved your change of heart.” Her eyes danced.

“I, on the other hand, am the one person you know who could be relied on to fight Olive’s corner.”

Roz smiled.

“Does that mean you now think she didn’t do it?”

Sister Bridget stared out of the window.

“No,” she said frankly.

“I’m still in two minds.”

“Thanks,” said Roz with heavy irony, ‘and you expect me to have faith.

That’s a bit two-faced, isn’t it?”

“Very. But you were chosen, Roz, and I wasn’t.”

Roz arrived back at her flat around midnight. The telephone was ringing as she let herself in but after three or four bells the answer phone took over. Iris, she thought. No one else would call at such an unearthly hour, not even Rupert. She had no intention of speaking to her but, out of curiosity, she flicked the switch on the machine to hear Iris leave her message.

“I wonder where you are,” slurred Hal’s voice, slack with drink and tiredness.

“I’ve been calling for hours. I’m drunk as a skunk, woman, and it’s your fault. You’re too bloody thin, but what the hell!” He gave a baritone chuckle.

“I’m drowning in shit here, Roz. Me and Olive both. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.” He sighed.

“From East to western md, no jewel is like Rosalind. Who are you, anyway? Nemesis? You lied, you know.

You said you’d leave me in peace.” There was the sound of a crash.

“Jesus” he roared into the telephone.

“I’ve dropped the bloody bottle.” The line was cut abruptly.

Roz wondered if her grin looked as idiotic as it felt. She switched the answer phone back to automatic and went to bed.

She fell asleep almost immediately.

The phone rang again at nine o’clock the next morning.

“Roz?” asked his sober, guarded voice.

“Speaking.”

“It’s Hal Hawksley.”

“Hi,” she said cheerfully.

“I didn’t know you knew my number.”

“You gave me your card, remember.”

“Oh, yes. What can I do for you?”

“I tried you yesterday, left a message on your answer phone She smiled into the receiver.

“Sorry,” she told him, ‘the tape’s on the blink. All I got was my ear-drums pierced by high pitched crackling. Has something happened?”

His relief was audible.

“No.” There was a brief pause.

“I just wondered how you got on with the O’Briens.”

“I saw Ma. It cost me fifty quid but it was worth it. Are you busy today or can I come and chew your ear off again? I need a couple of favours: a photograph of Olive’s father and access to her medical records.”

He was happy talking details.

“No chance on the latter,” he told her.

“Olive can demand to see them but you’d have more chance breaking into Parkhurst than breaking into NHS files. I might be able to get hold of a photograph of him, though, if I can persuade Geof Wyatt to take a photocopy of the one on file.”

“What about pictures of Gwen and Amber? Could he get photocopies of them too?”

“Depends how strong your stomach is. The only ones I remember are the post-mortem shots. You’ll have to get on to Martin’s executors if you want pictures of them alive.”

“OK, but I’d still like to see the post-mortem ones if that’s possible.

I won’t try to publish them without the proper authority,” she promised.

“You’d have a job. Police photocopies are usually the worst you’ll ever see. If your publisher can make a decent negative out of them, he probably deserves a medal. I’ll see what I can do. What time will you get here?”

“Early afternoon? There’s someone I need to see first. Could you get me a copy of Olive as well?”

“Probably.” He was silent for a moment.

“High-pitched crackling. Are you sure that’s all you heard?”

Peterson’s Estate Agency in Dawlington High Street maintained a brave front, with glossy photographs turning enticingly in the window and bright lights inviting the punters in. But, like the estate agents in Southampton centre, the recession had taken its toll here, too, and one neat young man presided over four desks in the despondent knowledge that another day would pass without a single house sale. He jerked to his feet with robotic cheerfulness as the door opened, his teeth glittering in a salesman’s smile.

Roz shook her head to avoid raising false hopes.

“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically.

“I haven’t come to buy anything.”

He gave an easy laugh.

“Ah. well. Selling perhaps?”

“Not that either.”

“Very wise.” He pulled out a chair for her.

“It’s still a buyer’s market. You only sell at the moment if you’re desperate to move.” He resumed his chair on the other side of the desk.

“How can I help?”

Roz gave him a card.

“I’m trying to trace some people called Clarke who sold their house through this agency three or four years ago and moved out of the area.

None of their neighbours knows where they went. I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”

He pulled a face.

“Before my time, I’m afraid. What was the address of the house?”

“Number twenty, Leven Road.”

“I could look it up, I suppose. The file will be out the back if it hasn’t been binned.” He looked at the empty desks.

“Unfortunately there’s no one to cover for me at the moment so I won’t be able to do it until this evening. Unless-‘ He glanced at Roz’s card again.

“I see you live in London. Have you ever thought about buying a second property on the south coast, Mrs. Leigh? We have a lot of authors down here. They like to escape to the peace and quiet of the country.”

Her mouth twitched.

“Miss Leigh. And I don’t even own a first property. I live in rented accommodation.”

He spun his chair and pulled out a drawer in the filing cabinet behind him.

“Then let me suggest a mutually beneficial arrangement.” His fingers ran nimbly through the files, selecting a succession of printed pages.

“You read these while I search out that information for you. If a customer comes into the shop, offer them a seat and call for me. Ditto, if the phone rings.” He nodded to a back door.

“I’ll leave that open. Just call “Matt” and I’ll hear you. Fair?”

“I’m happy if you are,” she said, ‘but I’m not planning on buying anything.”

“That’s fine.” He walked across to the door.

“Mind you, there’s one property there that would fit you like a glove.

It’s called Bayview, but don’t be put off by the name. I shan’t be long.”

Roz fingered through the pages reluctantly as if just touching them might induce her to part with her money. He had the soft insidiousness of an insurance salesman. Anyway, she told herself with some amusement, she couldn’t possibly live in a house called Bayview. It conjured up too many images of net curtained guest-houses with beak-nosed landladies in nylon overalls and lacklustre signs saying VACANCIES propped against the downstairs windows.

She came to it finally at the bottom of the pile and the reality, of course, was very different. A small whitewashed coast guard cottage, the last of a group of four, perched on a diff near Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck. Two up, two down.

Unpretentious. Charming. Beside the sea. She looked at the price.

“Well?” asked Matt, returning a few minutes later with a folder under one arm.

“What do you think?”

“Assuming I could afford it, which I can’t, I think I’d freeze to death in the winter from winds lashing in off the sea and be driven mad in the summer by streams of tourists wandering along the coastal path.

According to your blurb it passes only a matter of yards from the fence. And that’s ignoring the fact that I’d be rubbing shoulders with the inhabitants of the other three cottages, day in, day out, plus the frightening prospect of knowing that sooner or later the cliff will slip and take my very expensive cottage with it.”

He chuckled good-humouredly.

“I knew you’d like it. I’d have bought it myself if it wasn’t too far to travel each day. The cottage at the other end has a retired couple in it in their seventies and the two in the middle are weekend cottages. They are situated in the middle of a small headland, well away from the cliff edges, and, frankly, the bricks will crumble long before the foundations do. As for the wind and the tourists, well, it’s to the east of Swanage so it’s sheltered from the prevailing winds, and the sort of tourists who walk that coastal path are not the sort to disturb your peace, simply because there is no public access beside these cottages. The nearest one is four miles away and you don’t get noisy children or drunken lager louts tackling that sort of hike for the fun of it. Which leaves’ his boyish face split into a carefree smile ‘the problem of cost.”

Roz giggled.

“Don’t tell me. The owners are so desperate to get rid of it they’re prepared to give it away.”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Liquidity problems with their business and this is only a weekend retreat. They’ll take a twenty-thousand reduction if someone can come up with cash.

Can you?”

Roz closed her eyes and thought of her fifty per cent share of the proceeds of divorce, sitting on deposit. Yes, she thought, I can.

“This is absurd,” she said impatiently.

“I didn’t come in to buy anything. I’ll hate it. It’ll be far too small. And why on earth have you got it on your books? It’s miles away.”

“We have a reciprocal arrangement with our other branches.”

He had hooked his fish. Now he let her swim a little.

“Let’s see what this file can tell us.” He drew it forward and opened it.

“Twenty, Leven Road. Owners: Mr. and Mrs. Clarke. Instructions: quick sale wanted; carpets and curtains included in asking price.

Bought by Mr. and Mrs. Blair.

Completion date: twenty-fifth Feb.” eighty-nine.” He looked surprised “They didn’t pay very much for it.”

“It was vacant for a year,” said Roz, ‘which would probably explain the low price. Does it give a forwarding address for the Clarkes?”

He read on: “It says here: “Vendors have asked Peterson’s not to divulge any information about their new whereabouts.” I wonder why.”

“They fell out with their neighbours,” said Roz, economical as ever with the truth.

“But they must have given a forwarding address,” she remarked reasonably, ‘or they wouldn’t have asked for it to be withheld.”

He turned over several pages then carefully closed the file, leaving his finger to mark a place.

“We’re talking professional ethics here, Miss Leigh. I am employed by Peterson’s, and Peterson’s were asked to respect the Clarkes’ confidence. It would be very wrong to abuse a client’s trust.”

Roz thought for a moment.

“Is there anything from Peterson’s in writing saying they agreed to honour the Clarkes’ request?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see that you’re bound by anything. Confidences cannot be inherited. If they could, they would no longer be confidences.”

He smiled.

“That’s a very fine distinction.”

“Yes.” She picked up the details of Bayview.

“Supposing I said I wanted to view this cottage at three o’clock this afternoon? Could you arrange it for me, using that telephone over there’ she nodded to the furthest desk ‘while I stay here looking through these other house details?”

“I could, but I’d take it very badly if you failed to keep the appointment.”

“My word’s my bond,” she assured him.

“If I say I’m going to do something I always do it.”

He stood up, letting the file fall open on the desk.

“Then I’ll phone our Swanage branch,” he told her.

“You will have to collect the key from them.”

“Thank you.” She waited until his back was turned, then swung the file round and jotted down the Clarkes’ address on her pad. Salisbury, she noted.

A few minutes later Matt resumed his seat and gave her a map of Swanage with Peterson’s estate agency marked with a cross.

“Mr. Richards is expecting you at three o’clock.” With a lazy flick of his hand he closed the Clarkes’ file.

“I trust you will find your dealings with him as mutually satisfactory as you have found your dealings with me.”

Roz laughed.

“And I hope I don’t, or I shall be considerably poorer by this evening.”

Roz approached the Poacher by the alleyway at the back and knocked on the kitchen door.

“You’re early,” said Hal, opening it.

“I know, but I have to be in Swanage by three and if I don’t leave fairly soon I won’t make it. Have you any customers?”

He gave her a withering smile.

“I haven’t even bothered to open up.”

She chose to ignore the sarcasm.

“Then come with me,” she said.

“Forget this place for a few hours.”

He didn’t exactly jump at the invitation.

“What’s in Swanage?”

She handed him the details of Bayview.

“A “des. res.” overlooking the sea. I’ve committed myself to looking at it and I could do with some moral support or I might end up buying the wretched thing.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I have to. It’s by way of a quid pro quo,” she said obliquely.

“Come with me,” she urged, ‘and say no whenever I look like saying yes.

I’m a sucker for a soft sell and I’ve always wanted to live on a cliff by the sea and own a dog and go beach combing He looked at the price.

“Can you afford it?” he asked curiously.

“Just about.”

“Rich lady,” he said.

“Writing is obviously very profitable.”

“Hardly. That was by way of a pay-off.”

“Pay-off for what?” he asked, his eyes veiled.

“It’s not important.”

“Nothing ever is in your life.”

She shrugged.

“So you don’t want to come? Ah, well, it was only a thought. I’ll go on my own.” She looked lonely suddenly.

He glanced behind him towards the restaurant, then abruptly reached his jacket off the back of the door.

“I’il come,” he told her, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll say no. It sounds like paradise, and the second best piece of advice my mother ever gave me was never get between a woman and what she wants.” He pulled the door to and locked it.