The Sculptress Part 52

"No," he said again.

"We're not playing intellectual games here. What Hayes said was real.

And he's not threatening to kill you, Roz. He's threatening to maim you." He lifted one hand to her face.

"Men like him don't kill because they don't need to. They cripple or they disfigure, because a live, broken victim is a more potent encouragement to others than a dead one."

"But if he's convicted-* she began.

"You're being naive again," he cut in gently, smoothing the hair from her face.

"Even if he is convicted, which I doubt ex-Army, first offence, hearsay evidence, Crew denying everything he won't go to jail for any length of time. The worst that will happen will be twelve months for conspiracy to defraud, of which he'll serve six. More likely he will be given a suspended sentence. It wasn't Stewart who broke into the Poacher with a baseball bat, remember, it was his brother, and you will have to stand up in court and say that." His eyes were insistent.

"I'm a realist, Roz. We'll go for Crew and raise enough doubts to get the Health charges lifted. After that' he shrugged "I'll gamble that Hayes can be trusted to leave the Poacher alone."

She was silent for a moment or two.

"Would you act differently if you'd never met me and I wasn't involved?

And don't lie to me, Hal, please."

He nodded.

"Yes," he admitted.

"I would act differently. But you are involved, so the question doesn't arise."

"OK." She relaxed her hands under his and smiled.

"Thank you. I feel much happier now."

"You agree." Relieved, he lessened his pressure slightly and she seized the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h the Tampax box out of his grasp.

"No," she said,"I don't." She opened the box, removed some truncated cardboard tubes and upended it to disgorge a miniature voice-activated dictaphone.

"With luck' she turned to Geon Wyatt *this will have enough on it to convict Hayes. It was at full volume, sitting on his desk, so it should have caught him' She rewound the tape for a second or two and then pressed *play'. Hal's voice was m.u.f.fled by distance:'a another way of saying we must keep our mouths shut about your involvement with the Poacher?"

Hayes's, clear as a bell. Of course. Because next time, the fire won't be confined to the chip pan, and you and your lady friend won't be so lucky. My brother's pride was hurt. He's itching to have another go at the pair of you."

Roz switched it off and pushed it across the table towards Wyatt. *win it do any good?"

"If there's more like that, it will certainly help with Hal's prosecution, as long as you're prepared to give evidence to support it."

"I am."

He cast a glance at his friend, saw the tension on the other's face and turned back to Roz.

"But Hal's right in everything he's said, a.s.suming I've understood the gist correctly. We are talking abstract justice here." He picked up the dictaphone.

"At the end of the day whatever sentence this man gets if he still wants to revenge himself on you, he will. And there's nothing the police will be able to do to protect you. So? Are you sure you want me to take this?"

"I'm sure."

Wyatt looked at Hal again and gave a helpless shrug.

"Sorry, old man. I did my best, but it looks like you've caught a tigress this time."

Hal gave his baritone chuckle.

"Don't say it, Geon, because I already know."

But Wyatt said it anyway.

"You lucky, b.l.o.o.d.y sod."

Olive sat hunched over her table, working on a new sculpture.

Eve and her faces and her baby had collapsed under the weight of a fist, leaving the pencil pointing heavenward like an accusing finger.

The Chaplain regarded the new piece thoughtfully. A bulky shape, roughly human and lying on its back, seemed to be struggling from its clay base. Strange, he thought, how Olive, with so little skill, made these figures work.

"What are you sculpting now?"

"MAN."

He could, he thought, have predicted that. He watched the fingers roll a thick sausage of clay and plant it upright on the base at the figure's head.

"Adam?" he suggested. He had the feeling she was playing a game with him. There had been a surge of sudden activity when he entered her room, as if she had been waiting for him to break hours of stillness.

"Cain." She selected another pencil and laid it across the top of the clay sausage, parallel with the rec.u.mbent man, pressing it down till it was held firmly.

"Faustus. Don Giovanni. Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does," he said sharply.

"Not all men sell their souls to the devil, any more than all women are two-faced."

Olive smiled to herself and cut a piece of string from a ball on the table. She made a loop in one end and fastened the other round the tip of the pencil so that the string hung down over the figure's head. With infinite care, she tightened the loop about a matchstick.

"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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sured of our continued a.s.sistance.

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 G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ft, 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."